I have done a set of TABAQs with this one:
2 PCs/lot Sounderlink 4 inch full range speaker woofer tweeter midrange driver for Diy HiFi monitor stage audio system-in Bookshelf Speakers from Consumer Electronics on Aliexpress.com | Alibaba Group
They were quite good, but need at least a notch filter, or two.
I actually went around that by using a little tpa3116d2 amp with bass and treble controls, and with some small adjustments of both knobs, I got a very good looking FR and pleasing sound
The best Chinese ones I made so far, although still needed a notch filter, are these... but I just can't find them.
This one looks like the same, actually this driver is very similar to Markaudio drivers, anyway here the link [USD 44.84] British heli birds full frequency speaker 4-inch monitor speaker speaker machine is better than Mark Japan speaker CHP75 - Wholesale from China online shopping | Buy asian products online from the best shoping agent - ChinaHao.com
I do have some list, this is not a personal secret. Some of the drivers I do have on my table, literally. If someone has tried AT LEAST 2 different ones of them in Tabaq and has any objective or subjective opinion/comparison - it would be extremelly beneficial to hear it. Most of those drivers in EU are priced well, manufactured for many years and are available in many retailers and most of them have Qts > 0.5.
All are mostly 3'' to make it simple and because we here in EU have smaller spaces (smaller enclosures and performance on lower SPL are of bigger interrest),VAT tax, custom fees for China prooducts, huge market fragmentation, insane parcel services pricing and so on. The only positive I see, that MDF and plyboard is available pretty much everywhere and is cheap.
The list:
Visaton FRS8-8, FRS8-4, FRS8M-8, B80, B100
Sica 3 L 0,8 SL, 3,5 F 1 CS, 3,5 L 1 SL, 4 E 1 CS
LaVoce FSF030.70, FSN030.71, FSN030.72, FSF041.00
FaitalPro 3FE22, 3FE25, 4FE32, 4FE35 (all versions 4-16 Ohm)
Monacor SPH-75/8-8, SP30-4, SPH-30X/8SW-8, SPH-30X/4SW-4, SPX-30M-8, SPX-31M-8, SPX-32M-8
Fountek FE85-8, FE87-8, FR88-8, FR88EX-8
Dayton PS95-8, RS100-8, PC83-4, PC83-8
OmnesAudio BB3.5, BB3.01
No, there are no Tang Band.
Good find, Kiss.
Yep, that's the one. I'd have to check if I got the 4 Ohms or the 8 Ohms...
I'd say, if you plan to use it with a small Class D board amp, get the 4, if using a regular old school amp, get the 8 Ohms version.
Pretty good driver, sounds ok-ish by itself, but great with a small notch from 3 to 9kHz. Drops pretty fast after 14kHz though, as most of those 4" drivers do.
Funny they say it's better than a MA driver... never got the chance to hear a MA driver yet... Almost got a couple of pairs over here, but the shipment from HK was overturned, saying it was "contraband" material.... funny translation, I guess! The joys of government regulations....
From the first list, the only suitable driver is the FP 3FE22 in 8 Ohms version.
All the others have way too high Qts to give you meaningful bass in the TABAQs. Most of them seem marketed to the automotive industry.
I do love my Visaton B80, but they are not suitable for the TABAQ design. Also, be aware that the specs online and the actual specs of the driver are quite different with Visaton.
From the 2nd list, the Monacors are all midrange, and will lack the higher frequencies.
The Founteks are nice, but have limited Xmax and will run out of steam in the bass department.
You said you can't get Dayton....
The OmnesAudio do look like Chinese made copies of existing drivers, the BB3.01 looked interesting, until I saw the wild ride of the impedance curve.... nope....
From your list, my advice for the TABAQ... get the Faital 3FE22-8.
Perceval:
That is pretty strange, because in some other tiny enclosure I built (~1L, sealed) 3fe25 seem to be superior to 3fe22 especially in the bass (borrowed for brief period 3FE22 and own 3FE25). Overall, they both are too harsh for my ears in upper mid and highs. No, I havent tried any passive filters. For studio-like monitors they imho are very good.
Also - I found fe85 especially good bass performer, not in Tabaq though, with incredible xmax. This is really weird... Yes, I do have them "on the table".
I can get Dayton, because of pure luck - in my suburban country there seem to be reseller (pricing is not that bad, PS95 is 26EUR) and sometimes some of them appear on local amazons'. Actually you can get almost any drivers, but it is 1.5-2.0x price compared to USA in most cases.
Thanx for 3FE22 recomendation - will make enclosure for them. Actually I have a chance to try both: 3FE22, and 3FE25.
Another question: if we are talking only about 3FE22 8Ohm vs PS95 8Ohm - which one of them is better for Tabaq?
Perceval you are a star !!!!! Many thanks for all information coming from your experience, I was ready to procede with the purchase but they impose to use a very expensive shipping because I am in the Philippines, so I think I will go to my second option on my list FaitalPro 4FE32-8 and by the way I am happy with it because I honor the work of my country Italy, not very happy about how they looks but the data are really good especially the 91 dB sensitivity that match my needs, I will design a parallel tube amplifier and I will incorporate a tone stack to it so to compensate any performances problem and I think if I understood well that I need to build the original Tabaq rather than the upgrade, please confirm if you can.,,,,all the best
Just saw your Tabaq and wowwww looks fabulous congrats
, me too interested on the 4FE32-8, so after a good listening time what is your opinion? I am asking because somebody complaining about annoying heights distorsion in the range of 3000 to 7000 Hz , did you insert a resistor and 1 mH coil in series ? thanks in advance,,,,,,all the bestThanx,
Will wait for anything about Faital vs Dayton. Almost any comparable drivers from those manufacturers are of the highest interrest.
I cannot comment on Faital vs Dayton, but I can say that the Faital 3FE25 (16 ohm) drivers sound pretty awesome in mini Karlsonators. If you are looking for sensitive drivers then these should be strongly considered. There is at least one very happy TABAQ owner with these drivers : TABAQ TL for Tang Band There might be more - just search.
Nas,
it's late here, I'm sunburned, but my quick sim shows the 3FE22 looks a lot better in the original Tabaq than the PS95.
Help picking a driver
I have looked through quite a bit of this thread and I'm not sure there is a consensus on the best 3-4 inch drivers so I am looking for opinions from people who have used particular drivers. I haven't smimed anything yet but that will only tell me about the low end anyway. Here are some candidates:
Peerless 830987: Qts .94, Fs 103, Bjorn seems to think it is the best 3 inch. (post 2426)
Dayton RS100P-4: QTS .54, Fs 85, (Dayton refers to it as a woofer). XRK971 says it sounds very good (post 1153). Some others didn't like the RS100 so much but I am not sure if it was the P version. For example Bjorn said he gave up on the RS100 but it may have been the RS100-8. Not sure. (post 2102). On the other hand he simmed the RS100-8 and it looked good (post 2020).
Dayton PS95-8: QTS .72, Fs 120. One person liked it better than the RS100 (post 1952). Someone else didn't like it (post 1130-1131).
Fountek FR88EX: QTS .47, Fs 95. XRK971 liked it (post 1153), Hatemii didn't (post 1145).
Tang Band W4-1320SJ (QTS .35, Fs 75) or W3-1364SA (QTS .59, Fs 105). Don't think I saw much on these. Any opinions?
Faital Pro 3FE25-8 (QTS .7, Fs 110) or 3FE22-8 (QTS .47, Fs 110).
Please give me the benefit of your experience.
I have looked through quite a bit of this thread and I'm not sure there is a consensus on the best 3-4 inch drivers so I am looking for opinions from people who have used particular drivers. I haven't smimed anything yet but that will only tell me about the low end anyway. Here are some candidates:
Peerless 830987: Qts .94, Fs 103, Bjorn seems to think it is the best 3 inch. (post 2426)
Dayton RS100P-4: QTS .54, Fs 85, (Dayton refers to it as a woofer). XRK971 says it sounds very good (post 1153). Some others didn't like the RS100 so much but I am not sure if it was the P version. For example Bjorn said he gave up on the RS100 but it may have been the RS100-8. Not sure. (post 2102). On the other hand he simmed the RS100-8 and it looked good (post 2020).
Dayton PS95-8: QTS .72, Fs 120. One person liked it better than the RS100 (post 1952). Someone else didn't like it (post 1130-1131).
Fountek FR88EX: QTS .47, Fs 95. XRK971 liked it (post 1153), Hatemii didn't (post 1145).
Tang Band W4-1320SJ (QTS .35, Fs 75) or W3-1364SA (QTS .59, Fs 105). Don't think I saw much on these. Any opinions?
Faital Pro 3FE25-8 (QTS .7, Fs 110) or 3FE22-8 (QTS .47, Fs 110).
Please give me the benefit of your experience.
I have now spent some time modeling in the Leonard audio program. That program pretty much duplicates Martin King's program except it does not calculate stuffing correctly, but it is an easy way to start.
All the drivers I have modeled have basically the same issue of a strong peak around 55 hz that dips down around 70-75 hz. In my limited experience that indicates the volume of the cabinet is too large for the driver. I am using a cross sectional area of 19 sq in (122.5 sq cm), a length of 32 inches (81 cm) and a port 2.4 sq in (15.5 sq cm) and 3.5 inches (8.9 cm) long which I think is pretty close to the original Tabaq dimensions.
An example of what I am talking about is attached. The attached graph is for the Peerless 830987. Is the stuffing supposed to take care of the peak?
All the drivers I have modeled have basically the same issue of a strong peak around 55 hz that dips down around 70-75 hz. In my limited experience that indicates the volume of the cabinet is too large for the driver. I am using a cross sectional area of 19 sq in (122.5 sq cm), a length of 32 inches (81 cm) and a port 2.4 sq in (15.5 sq cm) and 3.5 inches (8.9 cm) long which I think is pretty close to the original Tabaq dimensions.
An example of what I am talking about is attached. The attached graph is for the Peerless 830987. Is the stuffing supposed to take care of the peak?
Attachments
Thanks a lot.
Such a shame, as PS95 has really nice WAF apearance. RS100 looks visually nice too.
Tabaq original with Faital Pro 4FE32 8 ohm, what can I say well I am shocked, there is no other word for describe how I feel at the moment, when I received the package from europe I thought dam it they mistake the driver, when open the box the driver look so small and no wait at all so I doubt to get a good performance, but how wrong I was and so happy to be wrong. I immediately test with some song of Buble and Buddy Guy and compare with my other Tabaq with TB W5-2143 and immediate come up the more clarity on mid freq., low freq. very good also, less punching than TB but with more body , high freq. just perfect. I used marine plywood 16mm, then treated and painted in glossy black, that's how my wife want the design, fair enough considering she will be the user. Again I cannot find word for describe my gratitude to Bjorn and Perceval.
All the best !!!!
All the best !!!!
Attachments
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Did you make a wooden bezel for the Faitals?
Glad you like them!
Of course they will have less low end reach than the W5 TB, but the 3" FP will not be beaming as much, so the highs will have a better spread. Plus, they are drivers recognized for their clarity... Sometimes a bit much. Did you add a BSC?
Particularly nice that the wife loves them!. That's a big plus!
PS. I like that base plate!
Glad you like them!
Of course they will have less low end reach than the W5 TB, but the 3" FP will not be beaming as much, so the highs will have a better spread. Plus, they are drivers recognized for their clarity... Sometimes a bit much. Did you add a BSC?
Particularly nice that the wife loves them!
. That's a big plus!PS. I like that base plate!
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