I'd like to join in the praise for GM's 48" MLTL – congratulations GM and many thanks. I built mine in pentagonal columns which look good (or will when they're painted) and sound superb. They have a high WAF too. If you have access to a reasonable table saw, the pentagon is a possibility. The panels are narrow and the front of the baffle only 155mm (just over 6”) wide.
However I have added a Fountek JP3 ribbon, carried over from earlier mini-monitors based on Jim Griffin’s design. I know there are disagreements about the JX92’s top end, but I do find that the ribbon makes a big difference to orchestral strings.
Xover is first order at just over 6k, and I use them against a wall. A friend brought round a Behringer and they measured pretty flat on it, with bass into the mid 30s
I find the design great on small group jazz (my main listening). The bass is fast and my ageing REL Strata won’t quite integrate. I miss the sub on orchestral music, which really needs a bit more weight at the bottom end.
I’m interested in the comments about power. Mine are running off a Leak Stereo 20. I have another Leak and am planning to bi-amp, using one channel of each amp to drive the JX92 and the other to drive the ribbon. It will be interesting to see if this improves the bass weight.
However I have added a Fountek JP3 ribbon, carried over from earlier mini-monitors based on Jim Griffin’s design. I know there are disagreements about the JX92’s top end, but I do find that the ribbon makes a big difference to orchestral strings.
Xover is first order at just over 6k, and I use them against a wall. A friend brought round a Behringer and they measured pretty flat on it, with bass into the mid 30s
I find the design great on small group jazz (my main listening). The bass is fast and my ageing REL Strata won’t quite integrate. I miss the sub on orchestral music, which really needs a bit more weight at the bottom end.
I’m interested in the comments about power. Mine are running off a Leak Stereo 20. I have another Leak and am planning to bi-amp, using one channel of each amp to drive the JX92 and the other to drive the ribbon. It will be interesting to see if this improves the bass weight.
Nardis said:
There are some good and some bads about adding a tweeter to full range drivers, that's why we see these disagreements. Having played around with full range drivers and listened to them for over 20 years, we came up with a structure that we refer to as the FleXoNotch so that it was easier to tune the response to individual taste. It is posted in this forum and please feel free to use it for personal use if it helps. You will have the flexibility to adjust the balance among the high, mid, and low to different extents.
Open baffle speakers are good in reproducing the large space of a big orchestra, but for the big drums you need a sub. Drivers without whizzers reproduce voices slightly better than those with. My absolute favorite would be the Supravox 165 with field coil (€€€).
el`Ol said:
Open baffles need to be placed further way from the back wall due to the strong sounds comming out the back.
I believe that Nelson Pass is right but...
Originally posted by Nelson Pass
" That is pretty much my experience - Full range drivers are at their
best with simple material, and when you get into the dynamics
and complexity of a full orchestra, they are not as satisfactory
as multi-driver setups".
I believe that Nelson Pass is right, but I do not understand the reason.
I have FE108 horns and they work very well with pianos, guitars, voices, ensambles...... But during the 7th of Beethoven there are parts that do not sound good.
I believe that the driver is very small...!!!
Now, I am constructing new horns with the FE168EZ.
But, If Nelson Pass is right, this it will not solve the problem.
I have seen the Horning Perikles, using a Lowthers wide range and a supertweeter and bass woofer. What happens in this case? There is confusion also?
Best regards.
Jaime
Originally posted by Nelson Pass
" That is pretty much my experience - Full range drivers are at their
best with simple material, and when you get into the dynamics
and complexity of a full orchestra, they are not as satisfactory
as multi-driver setups".
I believe that Nelson Pass is right, but I do not understand the reason.
I have FE108 horns and they work very well with pianos, guitars, voices, ensambles...... But during the 7th of Beethoven there are parts that do not sound good.
I believe that the driver is very small...!!!
Now, I am constructing new horns with the FE168EZ.
But, If Nelson Pass is right, this it will not solve the problem.
I have seen the Horning Perikles, using a Lowthers wide range and a supertweeter and bass woofer. What happens in this case? There is confusion also?
Best regards.
Jaime
Re: I believe that Nelson Pass is right but...
There are actually a few issues related with this.
First is the the dynamic range. Do not get this mixed up with sensitivity as normally shown in the specs. If the driver does not have good resolution, then you will tend to turn up the volume to hear the details, what this will cause is you quickly hit the power limits of the driver making the music sound loud but compressed. If the driver has good resolution, then you will not need to turn the volume up so much. In a full orchestra, each instrument is at a lower level. So when you start to turn up the volume, you start reaching the dynamic range limit.
Second is the driver characteristics. If you look at the Foxtex curves. Notice that the impedance curve is not so smooth, and the FR also has some peaks and valleys. The things they don't show is phase of the FR or phase of impedance. Non-smoothness in the impedance curves and FR curves concurrently with the impedance curves will reveal cone resonances and phase shifts. In simple musical instruments, phase will make the instrument sound somewhat different, but not so bad. If you have complicated instruments playing together, the ear can no longer distiguish the individual instruments, and the total music will soound a bit noisy and compressed.
Jaime said:
There are actually a few issues related with this.
First is the the dynamic range. Do not get this mixed up with sensitivity as normally shown in the specs. If the driver does not have good resolution, then you will tend to turn up the volume to hear the details, what this will cause is you quickly hit the power limits of the driver making the music sound loud but compressed. If the driver has good resolution, then you will not need to turn the volume up so much. In a full orchestra, each instrument is at a lower level. So when you start to turn up the volume, you start reaching the dynamic range limit.
Second is the driver characteristics. If you look at the Foxtex curves. Notice that the impedance curve is not so smooth, and the FR also has some peaks and valleys. The things they don't show is phase of the FR or phase of impedance. Non-smoothness in the impedance curves and FR curves concurrently with the impedance curves will reveal cone resonances and phase shifts. In simple musical instruments, phase will make the instrument sound somewhat different, but not so bad. If you have complicated instruments playing together, the ear can no longer distiguish the individual instruments, and the total music will soound a bit noisy and compressed.
Attachments
I believe that the larger part of the problem is that high efficiency speakers are mostly driven by very non-linear triode or MOSFET amps. My Ciares don`t lose their detail resolution in complex material on my Panasonic digital receiver.
I once listened to a fullranger at an Antique Sound Lab single-ended amp that could be switched between triode and pentode mode and the difference was immense in complex orchestra material.
I once listened to a fullranger at an Antique Sound Lab single-ended amp that could be switched between triode and pentode mode and the difference was immense in complex orchestra material.
el`Ol said:
That may be true, but it would have the same effects regardless full range or multi-way. Wouldn't it?
soongsc said:
Yes, we would have to test a high efficiency multi-way system, horns also distort, and there are not so many without horns.
But Nelson Pass talks about full range (and not horns) comparing with mutiway systems. A very good driver (Fostex F120A for example), would not work well in a complex situation?
Full range drivers can only do so much. After all, we're asking a single cone to do the same work as multi driver set ups. This is why many are now considering rolling of the bottom end, to keep the cone free of the demanding bass frequencies. It is also the advantage of a back loaded horn, as this pressurizes the cone and limits the excursion needed to create the lower freqencies.
At lower volumes, I think you can have a capable system with a full ranger. But, loud and complex aren't the highlight of a full ranger.
If you look at post 6 of this thread, you'll see Nelson basically says you can't expect too much from a full range driver. While the F120a looks to be an amazing speaker, it can't do everything well, but possibly can do more than many others.
At lower volumes, I think you can have a capable system with a full ranger. But, loud and complex aren't the highlight of a full ranger.
If you look at post 6 of this thread, you'll see Nelson basically says you can't expect too much from a full range driver. While the F120a looks to be an amazing speaker, it can't do everything well, but possibly can do more than many others.
Jaime said:
If you look at the F120A, what do you see regarding effeciency, cone material, power rating, Xmax.
Then look at the impedance plots and post what you think of those.
There are lots of information behind words of recommendations, and lots of assumptions as well. If you find someone with similar tastes as yours, then take their recommendations, otherwise it is best to learn more detail.
All of the CSS FR125S talk is certainly interesting in this whole regard, in my own case especially with regard to the somewhat surprising behavior with low power amplification.
Hi DMD
Apologies for the late reply - I've been away for a while.
The triangular enclosures were glued and screwed. The end results work sonically but weren't quite what I'd anticipated visually. (I put them together on a portable bench in the back porch.) I'll get a pic taken and post it on the thread tomorrow sometime.
Plan B is to either explore a better way of building them (thanks for the Terry Cain reference) or commission a local cabinet builder.
They're worth persisting with as my partner fully approves the shape and has banned me from introducing any more rectangular boxes into the house.
The shape is also good acoustically, of course, as it eleminates reflections and provides the right toe-in. I've built the shape on the Jordan site. I think Bruce went to a wider front design to go some way towards the wide baffle recommended on the Jordan site (e.g. in the VTL design). This supports the lower mid and upper bass quite well. With the triangles operated against a wall, the wall provides the same effect.
Hope this is of use.
Colin
Apologies for the late reply - I've been away for a while.
The triangular enclosures were glued and screwed. The end results work sonically but weren't quite what I'd anticipated visually. (I put them together on a portable bench in the back porch.) I'll get a pic taken and post it on the thread tomorrow sometime.
Plan B is to either explore a better way of building them (thanks for the Terry Cain reference) or commission a local cabinet builder.
They're worth persisting with as my partner fully approves the shape and has banned me from introducing any more rectangular boxes into the house.
The shape is also good acoustically, of course, as it eleminates reflections and provides the right toe-in. I've built the shape on the Jordan site. I think Bruce went to a wider front design to go some way towards the wide baffle recommended on the Jordan site (e.g. in the VTL design). This supports the lower mid and upper bass quite well. With the triangles operated against a wall, the wall provides the same effect.
Hope this is of use.
Colin
DMD said:
It would be nice to get to hear them. When the designs are optimized, paper cones theoretically have less resolution unless there is some treatment to increase the hardness. Metal cones theoretically have better resolution due to less engergy loss during transition of force from the VC to the cone, but many drivers of this kind have high frequency vibration modes unless you can get the material thin enough like the Jordans.
If unsmoothed impedance curves look smooth, generally this means the cone vibration modes are quite tamed. However, signal resolution is not part of standard released test data, so the only way to compare is to listen to two similarly designed systems at the same SPL you normally expect to listen, and compare.
Most people will not provide head on comparisons amond competing products because of conflict in interest. So you will just have to find out for yourself.
I think if you just like a pleasing sound and are budget limited, The FR125S, W3-871S, etc. probably all have good sounds. If you want more detail, the Jordans are probably your best bet.
soongsc said:
The best resulution I`ve heard till now is that of the Mangers. And they are everything else but hard and stiff. And the Ciares, which have almost no cone movement at the surrounding have better resolution than small fostexes, where the cone almost completely moves as a whole.
el`Ol said:
I have listened to the Manger 103 two way speaker before, and was not impressed. I specifically listened to piano, and it sounded somewhat muffled and compressed. They are not hard or stiff, that is correct. They sound relaxing and forgiving as most paper cone drivers. Do you think I should listen to them again? The MANGER CD is certainly well made.
The Ciares I am not familiar with, perhaps they are used on some commercial speakers I might be able to listen to?
The realism presented by the Mangers is dependent very strongly on the used amplifiers. A friend of mine uses them with minimalistic DIY-amps. When I listened to them first they sounded like you describe. But it was like day and night when he speeded up his amps with mica capacitors. My friend believes that with conventional drivers you have undesired cone sound when the rise time of the amp is much shorter than the rise time of the driver, and so most of the commercial amps are designed too slow for the Mangers.
Hi soongsc ,
i like to say it that way , in direct comparisson to the Mangers the other
loudspeakers are bright and boomy !
With the amplifiers of Nelson Pass , there is no other speaker with that
realistic sound .
Greetings from Germany
Jürgen
i like to say it that way , in direct comparisson to the Mangers the other
loudspeakers are bright and boomy !
With the amplifiers of Nelson Pass , there is no other speaker with that
realistic sound .
Greetings from Germany
Jürgen
el`Ol said:
With conventional drivers, such cone characteristic shows up in impedance plots if the data is not smoothed. Also with conventional cones, if the material is not hard enough, there will be loss of resolution. So in technical terms, how fast is fast enough for the Mangers? I think most certainly commercial amps could go way beyond 50K 😕
audiotux said:
Besides the Pass amps, I wonder what other amps will work well with the Mangers? Pass amps do not show up often in Hi Fi stores here. I agree with you that lots of speakers sound boomy, and bright, but I think. Having just come back from the Hi End Hi Fi show here, I kind of wonder why they call many of these things Hi Fi. I would say since each system had its own hotel room, it would quite represent the average home listening condition. But I didn't see any Mangers there. I wonder why? 😕
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