(cross posted from a reddit post, where commenters immediately told me to come over here for your comparitive expertise!)
In summary- I have a homemade PA system mounted on a bicycle trailer and, after 10 years of it working great and living outside, I am looking to replace and upgrade the woofers. I'm looking for recommendations for an efficient 12" woofer to to fit in a 16" x 36" PVC tube ported enclosure. Port is tuned at 35Hz. Enclosure has roughly 110 liter volume).
Longer story... I built THIS 10 years ago (videos from 2 weeks ago). Here it is 8 years ago. Here it is 10 years ago. This was my first speaker build, and the results exceeded my expectations.
Woofers are currently Peavey Pro 12 Low Frequency, and according to math, "should" be in a 56.6 liter vented box. But, here we are, they sound great, and legit hit some magical gut-displacing low end frequencies in city streets and alleys with buildings on either side. But 10 years on, I'm hearing more distortion at high volumes than I had earlier in their life, and even with a new amp, the problem continues to creep.
I should note, they're paired with Peavey Triflex Tweeters with a passive crossover at 2.5khz and up.
I'm writing to ask this illustrious and learned community to weigh in on options / suggestions to replace and hopefully upgrade the woofers, so that
I'll stop here and just ask if any of you all have experience / recommendations / video's re: these options? Or other recommendations / considerations I could be making? Curious if anyone strongly recommends a status quo solution, eg, just replace them with another set of the Peavey Pro 12 LFs?
In summary- I have a homemade PA system mounted on a bicycle trailer and, after 10 years of it working great and living outside, I am looking to replace and upgrade the woofers. I'm looking for recommendations for an efficient 12" woofer to to fit in a 16" x 36" PVC tube ported enclosure. Port is tuned at 35Hz. Enclosure has roughly 110 liter volume).
Longer story... I built THIS 10 years ago (videos from 2 weeks ago). Here it is 8 years ago. Here it is 10 years ago. This was my first speaker build, and the results exceeded my expectations.
Woofers are currently Peavey Pro 12 Low Frequency, and according to math, "should" be in a 56.6 liter vented box. But, here we are, they sound great, and legit hit some magical gut-displacing low end frequencies in city streets and alleys with buildings on either side. But 10 years on, I'm hearing more distortion at high volumes than I had earlier in their life, and even with a new amp, the problem continues to creep.
I should note, they're paired with Peavey Triflex Tweeters with a passive crossover at 2.5khz and up.
I'm writing to ask this illustrious and learned community to weigh in on options / suggestions to replace and hopefully upgrade the woofers, so that
- "at least as good" as the Peavey 12 LF Pros, (preferably a noticeable improvement!)
- similarly or better weather durability since it's stored outside (covered),
- similarly "over-performs" bass-wise in an oversized enclosure.
- Highly efficient, as powered by a 12v marine amp and battery system.
I'll stop here and just ask if any of you all have experience / recommendations / video's re: these options? Or other recommendations / considerations I could be making? Curious if anyone strongly recommends a status quo solution, eg, just replace them with another set of the Peavey Pro 12 LFs?
I'd look at drivers from Eminence, possibly one of the neodymium magnet models since less weight is a good thing on a bike.
https://www.parts-express.com/speak...ers/brand/Eminence-Speaker/nominaldiameter/12
https://www.parts-express.com/speak...ers/brand/Eminence-Speaker/nominaldiameter/12
I should stress I'm a complete novice so take all of this with a pinch of salt.
My view is that you're deciding between a driver with relatively more bass, lower SPL in the midrange, and slightly poorer transition to meet your tweeter at 2.5k OR less sub, more efficiency in the midrange and better transition to the tweeter. I'd favour the latter personally for this particular scenario but I reckon it's a matter of taste.
Re. the B&C 12CL64 - in my view these seem special due to the weight, or lack of. I haven't used them yet but I plan to.
Here are some simulations in Hornresp. Some are meant to show 110L with 35ish Hz tuning. The others are meant to show 50L at 64Hz tuning, for the sake of comparison. Charts with red lines are meant to show maximum power / xmax limited SPL, assuming 500W and 4.5mm xmax. I have no idea whether the input parameters are correct!
My view is that you're deciding between a driver with relatively more bass, lower SPL in the midrange, and slightly poorer transition to meet your tweeter at 2.5k OR less sub, more efficiency in the midrange and better transition to the tweeter. I'd favour the latter personally for this particular scenario but I reckon it's a matter of taste.
Re. the B&C 12CL64 - in my view these seem special due to the weight, or lack of. I haven't used them yet but I plan to.
Here are some simulations in Hornresp. Some are meant to show 110L with 35ish Hz tuning. The others are meant to show 50L at 64Hz tuning, for the sake of comparison. Charts with red lines are meant to show maximum power / xmax limited SPL, assuming 500W and 4.5mm xmax. I have no idea whether the input parameters are correct!
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Considering that this is a bicycle system where size and weight are real concerns, and given that your drivers don't need enclosures this big has it occurred to you that you could cut them in half? That opens up two possibilities, you could reduce the size of the system and make it easier to transport... or you could double up on low frequency drivers.😉
Did you add more power with the new amp? How much output does it produce? In any event these 12's are not subwoofers in any way... not even by PA standards, they are mid/bass drivers at best. Yes you can and did makes them produce lows but they are not happy about it and that should not be a surprise. There are definitely more suitable drivers available these days, in fact I bet you could see an increase in overall SPL along with much more controlled low frequency reproduction and a drop in weight with a driver update.
Those things look like supertweeters but it's hard to tell from an online picture, I looked but I couldn't find a response graph or TS specs which would be more telling than the basic numbers I did find. For the moment lets just pin that up on the wall and come back to it, if they are supertweeters than at least some of the distortion you are hearing could be coming from them, but I don't doubt that the 12's are distorting either. I do have a question though, what are you using for a crossover between the 12 and tweeter?
The Eminence DeltaLite 2512 would be a good option, it is 1/2 the weight, twice the excusrion, roughly the same power handling but higher sensitivity, and it wants an enclosure about the size of the ones you have. The only thing they are missing for your application is a weather treated cone, but neither do the PVs and if those lasted 10yrs outdoors then safe to say whatever you are doing to protect the speakers from weather is working.
Thanks for this framing - without working/deep knowledge of the market, I'm here asking if there are options that reduce the "downside" of either option.
Are there specs I can provide that might improve your confidence? It does seem "overall" the enclosure is providing some extra amplification, with exaggeration at the low end. I'm curious what that looks like if you plug in stats from the current Peavey Pro LF 12s...
What a thoughtful observation. Another option could be dropping in two larger drivers, right? It's a 16" PVC tube so 15" would fit in there (snuggly) too!
I DID add more power, but the gain is way down on the device, like maybe 40%. THIS is the amp I'm using though.
This tracks... I suspect the intended application would be low end on a guitar stack.
XO2W-2.5K 2-Way Crossover 2,500 Hz
I like the specs!! Thank you for this... since it's out of stock at PE for a couple months, I suppose I have time to consider it! I know Eminence is a highlight regarded manufacturer, I just don't think I've (knowingly) had the opportunity. Feel free to add any more recommendations into the mix too!
Particularly interested to know if any of these are already/ commonly used in electronic dance music stacks, which is where I got the JBL and Precision Devices options from.
Eminence is a large OEM manufacturer that has been supplying drivers to Brand name PA and instrument loudspeaker manufacturers you have heard of for decades. I have used thier drivers in my own DIY speaker projects starting back in the '80s and have never blown a low frequency unit, they are definitely robust. I have a set of the DeltaLite 2512s in 2-way PA boxes I built a few years ago, they are indeed quite loud and very well controlled.
Some of the drivers you listed in your first post are quite expensive, those are very good drivers but the ceramic magnet versions are very heavy which is not exactly what you want, but if you are willing to spend good $$ on better drivers there are some really good options. I suggest you go to the Pro sound driver page at PE, select 12" and Neodymium and then sort them on price from low to high. Down to the $250-300 range you start to get into some really capable drivers like the Faital Pro 12PR300, Eminence KappaLite 3012LF, or B&C 12NDL88.
The amp you have is only capable of 150-200w output into 8ohms but if you could find a 4ohm driver that doubles
Some of the drivers you listed in your first post are quite expensive, those are very good drivers but the ceramic magnet versions are very heavy which is not exactly what you want, but if you are willing to spend good $$ on better drivers there are some really good options. I suggest you go to the Pro sound driver page at PE, select 12" and Neodymium and then sort them on price from low to high. Down to the $250-300 range you start to get into some really capable drivers like the Faital Pro 12PR300, Eminence KappaLite 3012LF, or B&C 12NDL88.
The amp you have is only capable of 150-200w output into 8ohms but if you could find a 4ohm driver that doubles
The power going to the tweeters is adjusted manually with an L-Pad, and stays at around 25-45%.
I see the crossover can be adjusted to 4 ohm. Would changing to 4 on these that mean I should replace the tweeters w/ a 4ohm option as well?
I'm not making $ from the effort but I'd like to find the right driver before thinking about cost. But you're in the right range, up to around $350/each is where I'd max out...
Spec-wise, this FaitalPRO 12PR320 looks like it could be a really nice option...
No that is not necessary, compression drivers often have 7-10dB high sensitivity than the woofer they are paired with so they don't need much power to keep up, and the impedance load presented to the amp is dominated by the big voice coil in the woofer so as long as the crossover is correctly calibrated for the two different load impedances(which is easy enough to do and not uncommon) you are good.
Eminence Deltalite II 2512 looks very efficient at 99.9db and moderately rated at 250w RMS rated (still more than your existing driver)
B&C 12PE32 is similar spec but with greater 101db sensitivity.
B&C 12PE32 is similar spec but with greater 101db sensitivity.
With the Deltalite 2512.. after the crossover and some response contouring is applied you end up with about 96-97dB sensitivity across the usable range.. you really don't want that rising response peak seen in the spec sheet, but that is still probably 3dB higher than the PV.
It appears that the B&C 12NDL88 is available in a 4ohm version but I couldn't find it for sale anywhere.
It appears that the B&C 12NDL88 is available in a 4ohm version but I couldn't find it for sale anywhere.
Yes that is a very good driver.
Apols I won't be able to sim other drivers, I just had parameters for 12CL64 saved already as I'm interested in that driver.
As an aside, 15CL76 seems roughly on spec for that enclosure so it might be worth having a play with simulating that in hornresp, if it'd fit.
As an aside, 15CL76 seems roughly on spec for that enclosure so it might be worth having a play with simulating that in hornresp, if it'd fit.
Just to clarify, my lack of confidence is around my knowledge i.e. ability to create sims that I know will match real world performance. Nothing to do with your scenario specifically 🙂
The B&C is a dedicated mid bass/mid range speaker and does it very well, I use them in my mid/hi cabinets.
They are NOT a bass or low frequency speaker.
Yes, but it matches the response of his existing PV drivers so is a fair like for like replacement but with greater efficiency and power handling.
All told the system needs a complete redesign as a full range two way system.
For the intended use maybe look a 15 inch woofer and a true compression driver on a horn system.
Eminence has a NEO 12 and 15 inch coaxial woofers, you just need a driver to screw on the back of the woofer and a proper crossover.
OK, then to the first approximation we ideally want a 35 Hz Fs, ~110 L Vas, ~0.4 Qts for a max flat alignment, whereas the Peavy specs (if accurate, which historically has been more fiction than fact IME) is a somewhat under-damped alignment tuned < Fs, which will make less peak bass Vs the ideal for a given Xmax.
Now you have a reference to choose by, so which of your driver choices come closest?
Hi all - Just wanted to write back with thanks for the guidance! I went with the FaitalPro 320, which fit in great, and sound fab!