alexcd said:
Only the 140-15D has the foam.
I suppose its possible to take them off but the trick they perform is improving vertical dispertion. Its a very simply idea but the higher the frequency being producted by the ribbon, the more concecentrated towards the center it is. This is done by the crude looking open cell foam. You'll also notice the taper on the foam - the thicker the foam gets the more HF content is blocked and so because of this taper the attenuation of frequencies is progressive towards the extremes of the ribbon.
Its there for a reason and is one of the selling points of the design, I wouldn't remove it despite being an aesthetics *****. 😀
I agree with sentiments elsewhere... why drop 6k for incremental improvements? Go for something that might be a true step-up. Bigger risk but surely more rewarding if it works
Might involve making your own drivers, examples:
- Plasma (I think Nixie has the right idea on the alternative tech forum, MHCD plasma, should be untouchable)
- Spiderless (I have a theory that spiders rob resolution)
eg ribbons, or a line array of Jordan JXR6, all wired in series, driven by an OTL amp (see below)
- A huge planar dipole woofer on air-bearing suspension with motional feedback
- ESL with a membrane with intermittent clamping at the periphery to help break up modes
- Fieldcoils... I heard a very rare vintage german fieldcoilcoax driver last year... it had a magic I've rarely encountered elsewhere
- Horns - loads of info out there. A *hell* of a lot of B/S, but the best system I've heard is a 5 way horn system and it belongs to a certain Cat.
Also... I agree with a lot of what Thy says - have had a project, conceptually a bit like his, in "progress" for years: 16 x Lambda TD15S, 4 x Martin Logan CLS panels and 16 Aurum Cantus ESG-1 tweeters; maybe I should sell the lot at this rate) but we must depart on amps.
Yep - none of this won't count for much if the amps aren't up to it... spend some of the budget on tubes.
Pal of mine built something very, very similar to the Nola Grand Reference (XLS12 subs, Excel midbass and mids, ESG1 ribbons) and drove it with a class T amp. It sounded 100x better when we through on a valve amp. Hell, at one point, we were powering a inifinty car speaks in shoe boxes through that amp and I was enjoying that sound *much* more than the class T/towers.
What else - yeah, got horns and their attendant distractions at the mo as well... analysis paralysis... too many forums and views... aargh
Seriously Shin - you've clearly got the talent, build some of your own drivers and explore the edges of what's possible. How about downloading FEMM and making some omniribbons?
Just some food for thought...
Cheers
cv
Might involve making your own drivers, examples:
- Plasma (I think Nixie has the right idea on the alternative tech forum, MHCD plasma, should be untouchable)
- Spiderless (I have a theory that spiders rob resolution)
eg ribbons, or a line array of Jordan JXR6, all wired in series, driven by an OTL amp (see below)
- A huge planar dipole woofer on air-bearing suspension with motional feedback
- ESL with a membrane with intermittent clamping at the periphery to help break up modes
- Fieldcoils... I heard a very rare vintage german fieldcoilcoax driver last year... it had a magic I've rarely encountered elsewhere
- Horns - loads of info out there. A *hell* of a lot of B/S, but the best system I've heard is a 5 way horn system and it belongs to a certain Cat.
Also... I agree with a lot of what Thy says - have had a project, conceptually a bit like his, in "progress" for years: 16 x Lambda TD15S, 4 x Martin Logan CLS panels and 16 Aurum Cantus ESG-1 tweeters; maybe I should sell the lot at this rate) but we must depart on amps.
Yep - none of this won't count for much if the amps aren't up to it... spend some of the budget on tubes.
Pal of mine built something very, very similar to the Nola Grand Reference (XLS12 subs, Excel midbass and mids, ESG1 ribbons) and drove it with a class T amp. It sounded 100x better when we through on a valve amp. Hell, at one point, we were powering a inifinty car speaks in shoe boxes through that amp and I was enjoying that sound *much* more than the class T/towers.
What else - yeah, got horns and their attendant distractions at the mo as well... analysis paralysis... too many forums and views... aargh
Seriously Shin - you've clearly got the talent, build some of your own drivers and explore the edges of what's possible. How about downloading FEMM and making some omniribbons?
Just some food for thought...
Cheers
cv
I have listend to Marten Logans with Mac amps over 10 years ago. The Marten logans were revealing enough to show some of the not so good aspects. Never saw measurement CSDs though.
One thing to look for on the RAALs, is how tight the ribbons are. The tighter the better decay but less resolution.
One thing to look for on the RAALs, is how tight the ribbons are. The tighter the better decay but less resolution.
Ed Lafontaine said:
Gotta laugh because I just got an email from a Scanspeak trademark infrngement lawyer. 😀
soongsc said:
You seem awefully into pseudo-science 🙂 First the CSD absolution with the -12dB <0.12ms != resolution and now this.
I presume you just do what the rest of us do and make half of it up as you go along?
ShinOBIWAN said:
Not really. Most is measurement and listening. There was a time I'd be measuring every day. One driver was an aluminum laminated driver that some calls a ribbon. We had it crossed over at around 3KHz and it kept ringing at a specific frequequency when the piano was played. the manufacturer tightened the diapham and the ringing was reduced significantly, but lost some resolution. Frequency response looked slighly different, and the CSD was slighly better.
The significance of CSD was discovered when trying to figure out why a 3" cone driver sounded resonant. Cone resonance was above 15K, so we tried to tweak the driver to figure out how to flatten the resonance. In the process we discovered that when the CSD was below certain critera, the sound was much cleaner regardless whether the resonance above 15K was reduced or not. There were other things that we did that helps also, but still haven't found how to determine the effects though measured data yet.
There are also physical explanations for the tightness of ribbons, but maybe youall will be bored reading about it.
ShinOBIWAN said:
Yippeeeeeeeeeee! 😀
Now we won't have to describe "special" anymore. 😉
(note: remember what I said about amplifier output impeadance though - a low output impeadance will generally give you less 3D sound for a ribbon. .."think" 16 ohms.)
You'll also have the oportunity to try making your own waveguides with the driver. 🙂
Even better that you got them at a lower price - I'm always up for that! 😀
alexcd said:
As a matter of fact, it's 4:30 am in the morning right now. I do need to get a few hours of sleep. My Lullabys sing me to sleep.😀
alexcd said:
Its true.. (unfortunetly though it does not help me sleep better at night.)
The first few hundereds of micro-seconds of decay for about 9db down largely determines the amount of detail a driver will reproduce. The only driver's I've heard that "buck" this trend are from Accuton. (..of course the time for the decay is also dependent on the freq..)
You can dampen the driver mechanically and increase the "cleanleness" of the CSD for greater time periods (i.e. down even further than 9 db), but what typically happens is a loss in ambiant detail (and often it just barely *increases* the time decay of the of the initial "drop"). This *sometimes* appears more detailed - but usually what is really happening is that it is "scrubbing-out" the ambiant detail and just highlighting everything else. (i.e. more defined "imaging" (if less 3D), but less defined "space".)
MANGER "sounded" a bit desperate to me
But it indicates that you have lowered your need for high SPL
If you can do with a 90db driver.... I wonder how it would sound with the 8" Fostex F200A ALNICO driver .... it could work fine with a ribbon .....personally I would want one, but too expencive
Of the more "ordinary" 90db drivers, I think a ScSp 15M would do fine ....and it will play with very "simple" filters ....
I use a 15W and apart from sensitivity being a bit on the low side, it always presents the music in a very emotional way ....
.....it may not be so, but I would exspect 15M to do even better
But it indicates that you have lowered your need for high SPL
If you can do with a 90db driver.... I wonder how it would sound with the 8" Fostex F200A ALNICO driver .... it could work fine with a ribbon .....personally I would want one, but too expencive
Of the more "ordinary" 90db drivers, I think a ScSp 15M would do fine ....and it will play with very "simple" filters ....
I use a 15W and apart from sensitivity being a bit on the low side, it always presents the music in a very emotional way ....
.....it may not be so, but I would exspect 15M to do even better
ScottG said:
I think that there's a definite balance to be struck though.
Low mass might often mean that bit more detail but the weight of the sound is compromised.
The ATC mid has a weighty sound that imparts a good sense of dynamics, pace and a general but hard to describe 'raw' quality that you don't get from the average cone. What its missing is the smaller details that you'd get from say and estat. On the other hand the estats I've heard can only be described as a little boring. It would be nice to have both.
ShinOBIWAN said:
I agree, all else equal its better to increase mass as you go lower in freq. (..irrespective of fs).
But I'll add again that its also dependent on the amplifier. Amp's with a lower output impeadance seem to just NEED more mass for a given freq.. For instance the classic Revelator tweeter doesn't benefit a great deal when utilizing an amplifier with a high output impeadance - it sounds really good with a traditional solid state amp and about the same with most good tube amps. The same holds true for the rest of the bandwidth, but to a somewhat lesser extent (than high freq.s).
Also note that a waveguide does add mass to an otherwise lower mass driver, and can give a less "boring" character. In fact sometimes its a bit too much and the loss of spl off axis can give a "forward" character (..that can be altered by reducing spl via the filter or crossover.)
BTW, did Troels email you back about the sound of the 215 GMF?
ShinOBIWAN said:
OK, a little misunderstanding. I say, your'e right, as I completely share the opinion of the importance of everything you've said about LF, but I was talking about other kind of realism, and tried to explain what things are important for what I'm talking about( the best I could in my cripled English)!. Of course that nobody wants the speaker where LF isn't doing exactly what you've just said, but I belive that we are well beyond that basic descriptions. I don't know if I can explain it shortly in English, but I'll try: Have the LF working as you've described, but you will still not get that my definition or the word <realism> because of it. All this wil ADD to what I had in mind, but It wouldnt be achieved by it, nor it will be lost without it. You're not a rookie and I'm not a rookie, so when I speak about the things I do, I assumed that everything you've said is understood between us as basic, and tried to lift the discussion about what I appreciate in sound, to a higher level, that disregards things that you already achieved. Huh...I really hope that I was clear now. This English is hard work...
As we agreed, I guess, on this...what are the other things you don't agree with? This other part is important.
How about this for a bit of inspiration?
Kef Maidstone -:
6.5" coaxial mid/tweeter
10" midbass driver
15" bass driver
Sensitivity 91dB
Max SPL 118 dB
http://www.hifiplus.com/t-rev3-6.html
Kef Maidstone -:
6.5" coaxial mid/tweeter
10" midbass driver
15" bass driver
Sensitivity 91dB
Max SPL 118 dB
http://www.hifiplus.com/t-rev3-6.html
David Gatti said:
I haven't heard it, but mids use polypropylene - and every single poly driver I've heard I hated with passion. They just sound too "honky" and nasal to me. Don't know why.
Bratislav said:
To much mechanical dampening.. I wouldn't say "honky" (which to me implies a resonance), but rather "shut-in" with a lack of ambiance.
Note that there are poly drivers that don't do this much (while still retaining less ringing character) - graphite injected in particular.
Bratislav said:
The KEF RDM two's that I had in the mid 90's had exactly that quality. I later AB a single RDM two against a Visaton Topas loudspeaker I built and was absolutely disgusted in the difference between the two.
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