Yeah I was kinda thinking along those lines. I need to do alot more reasearch on line arrays and comb filtering.
You have to build it and live with it for a while to grasp all the drawbacks.
I built a 4 driver (4" bamboo with 5" frame) focused array (open backed box) aimed for 12'. Worked great for anyone on 1 of the couchs. When you stood up it sounded like you had a head cold, very disorienting. Then we went from a corner sectional to 2 couches (longer) then I was out of the sweet spot and it sounded bad. I have a dual 4" tang band bamboo setup that I tweaked using pennies to dial in the highs at 13' away. My wife who usually lays on the other couch, her ears are closer, lower, and more off axis, so the highs are very muted. Very much a speaker for 1 ears only.
The audience a3 also has a rising response to deal with the combing (attenuating of highs when drivers are different distances from you).
Here are some links to get you started
Parts Express DIY Project
Advantages* of the* IDS Technology
ces077
6moons audio reviews: Omega Loudspeaker Systems TS33 FollowUp
[Review] Seventh Veil Speakers - ZeroGain Forum
SEVENTH VEIL LOUDSPEAKERS BEMUTATJA ÚJ HANGFALAIT
Most arrays (think 4-5' long) sound tall to me, unnatural, like the closeup of someone's lips on a movie screen, even 10 times the arrays length in distance away.
Read closely to the comments and the graphs of the kuze array.
Best is to simply build it and listen and then build more different stuff.
The driver looks decent but very small.
I've wanted to try 4 of the bandor 50mm in an vert array, or use 4 of the w3-803sm tang bands. The W2-803sm should sound nice also but the high Fs and low qts makes for F3 near 500hz in a sealed box.
Now my money is on the alpair a12 pencil design or maybe try a low volume alpair a10 on an open baffle.
As you can see in my avatar, I usually listen at volume "11", but I do crave full range lack of crossover phase problems also. The dark side of the force (horns) pulls me back. I just love the feel of bass (not subwoofer bass) such as on "gold-digger" on one of the glee cd's. I like the impact of bass watching the movie Wall-E.
norman
I built a 4 driver (4" bamboo with 5" frame) focused array (open backed box) aimed for 12'. Worked great for anyone on 1 of the couchs. When you stood up it sounded like you had a head cold, very disorienting. Then we went from a corner sectional to 2 couches (longer) then I was out of the sweet spot and it sounded bad. I have a dual 4" tang band bamboo setup that I tweaked using pennies to dial in the highs at 13' away. My wife who usually lays on the other couch, her ears are closer, lower, and more off axis, so the highs are very muted. Very much a speaker for 1 ears only.
The audience a3 also has a rising response to deal with the combing (attenuating of highs when drivers are different distances from you).
Here are some links to get you started
Parts Express DIY Project
Advantages* of the* IDS Technology
ces077
6moons audio reviews: Omega Loudspeaker Systems TS33 FollowUp
[Review] Seventh Veil Speakers - ZeroGain Forum
SEVENTH VEIL LOUDSPEAKERS BEMUTATJA ÚJ HANGFALAIT
Most arrays (think 4-5' long) sound tall to me, unnatural, like the closeup of someone's lips on a movie screen, even 10 times the arrays length in distance away.
Read closely to the comments and the graphs of the kuze array.
Best is to simply build it and listen and then build more different stuff.
The driver looks decent but very small.
I've wanted to try 4 of the bandor 50mm in an vert array, or use 4 of the w3-803sm tang bands. The W2-803sm should sound nice also but the high Fs and low qts makes for F3 near 500hz in a sealed box.
Now my money is on the alpair a12 pencil design or maybe try a low volume alpair a10 on an open baffle.
As you can see in my avatar, I usually listen at volume "11", but I do crave full range lack of crossover phase problems also. The dark side of the force (horns) pulls me back. I just love the feel of bass (not subwoofer bass) such as on "gold-digger" on one of the glee cd's. I like the impact of bass watching the movie Wall-E.
An externally hosted image should be here but it was not working when we last tested it.
norman
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this thread interests me quite alot-incendiary opinions or not
i have been messing with tangband w2-800sl, and also some 'noname' 1" drivers in my pc speakers. these drivers like the TB 1"ers are both alloy inverted dome.
using a celestion horn i bought recently, i have experimanted loading both these drivers. despite the 1" throat the TB 2"er seems to project very well, and cavity resonances and reflection due to having the 2" cone behind a 1" aperture, are actually far less apparent than i thought they would be prior to trying it. the result with the unknown 1" driver was much the same. slightly more gain around 1-3k and a funnellling of the driver directivity.
the only 'bad' thing i noticed was the strange sort of almost 'aliasing' type distortion at the limit of my hearing, which i assume is the HF horn cut off affecting phase or somthing else.
however despite the low xmax and sensitivity, power handling etc. i do believe one could design a very satifactory horn with these 1" drivers, that would operate down to 200hz perhaps, and this could mate very well with a hi eff woofer. maybe in h frame, baffle or more conventionally loaded.
i have been messing with tangband w2-800sl, and also some 'noname' 1" drivers in my pc speakers. these drivers like the TB 1"ers are both alloy inverted dome.
using a celestion horn i bought recently, i have experimanted loading both these drivers. despite the 1" throat the TB 2"er seems to project very well, and cavity resonances and reflection due to having the 2" cone behind a 1" aperture, are actually far less apparent than i thought they would be prior to trying it. the result with the unknown 1" driver was much the same. slightly more gain around 1-3k and a funnellling of the driver directivity.
the only 'bad' thing i noticed was the strange sort of almost 'aliasing' type distortion at the limit of my hearing, which i assume is the HF horn cut off affecting phase or somthing else.
however despite the low xmax and sensitivity, power handling etc. i do believe one could design a very satifactory horn with these 1" drivers, that would operate down to 200hz perhaps, and this could mate very well with a hi eff woofer. maybe in h frame, baffle or more conventionally loaded.
Wow the last two comment were completely off topic. I'm talking about mounting these in a rear loaded or possibly compound horn. Now you're talking about a sealed box and a front horn and cutting the bass off at 200hz. Did anyone read my posts. I have designed horns with these drivers that go down to 20hz my friend actually built some that are very compact and play excellently down to 80hz with one driver!!!! I think everyone is completely missing the point, this is not a tweeter or even a midrange driver it is a full range driver. The fact that it is so small is it's biggest ADVANTAGE!!!! I gives it great stiffness, light wieght (8 of these drivers would have greater stiffness and lighter weight than one driver of equal Sd.), greater dispertion qualities, and the ability to array them in such a manner to absolutely optimise dispertion for an even frequency response throughout a room. Oh well I should have known no one would get it you've all got your heads stuck inside the box and your too stuck on what you think are the rules to go with a simple solution to multiple problems. I'm not trying to insult anyone I just get so frustrating when I try to express an idea and first everyone chimes in about all the negatives that aren't really there, and by the time I finish explaining them all away the other comments have veered off onto tangents so far from my original Idea that no one has any clue what I'm saying I guess I'll just work alone and get excited when I have a perfect product and all the patents and have to settle with sharing my money with my friends insted of my ideas with my fellow enthusiests.
BTW what do you mean low Xmax 2mm is huge for a 1" driver, it's more than many 8" drivers have. I have not found it to be a limitation in my designs. I am quite able to achive greater than 120db in a corner for my targeted range in most of my designs.
BTW what do you mean low Xmax 2mm is huge for a 1" driver, it's more than many 8" drivers have. I have not found it to be a limitation in my designs. I am quite able to achive greater than 120db in a corner for my targeted range in most of my designs.
I always praise the kindness of the Imac speakers . They are mounted in the bottom side of the baffle ...well ,it's a 22" screen ! From the same listening distance (to create a triangle) they sound fantastic ! 
I expect distortion rates and minor differences in production lots are going to be summed if used in array . So levels >100 dB are going to be not very clean .
I expect distortion rates and minor differences in production lots are going to be summed if used in array . So levels >100 dB are going to be not very clean .
Don't get discouraged by comments that are seemingly off tangent. There were some salient points raised about a personal experience with full range curved arrays and comb filtering. The other post suggested the use of front loading a full range driver. This is something that I have done in addition to rear loading the driver at the same time, too. An example of a commercial design is the Lowther TP1 or something like that (don't recall the actual name) and the Beauhorns. Because of baffle step loss the driver output will decrease at about one octave or so before the rear horn kicks in. Front loading does a couple of things. Since horns are by nature bandpass, you can add gain around 500Hz to 250Hz (depending on size) and tame a rising response in the treble. This may or may not be applicable to the 1" driver, but the more things you can consider before building the speaker the better.
firstly, i veered off tangent. apologies. the advantages of the small size of diaphram and low weight are abvious. the difficulty or disadvantage with multiple drivers are that of the array, and mating if to the horn in a manner that suits-much more difficult to do IMHO than with a single driver-which is what has prevented me from doing the same.
I know next to nothing about tapped or re-entrant horns so i wouldnt know if they would be a suitable design for a FR driver.
I have messed about with hornresp and the TB 2"er which is a similar driver. i quite like the idea of a front AND rear loaded horn for these drivers. length and design of rear horn with a large throat, and sufficient length to bolster LF to Fs(and below?) using the path length phase shift; and the front horn to boost the rest. how easy or difficult to achieve this is, is anyones guess. I would guess: difficult as hell. still this is what i envision for these little drivers.
I know next to nothing about tapped or re-entrant horns so i wouldnt know if they would be a suitable design for a FR driver.
I have messed about with hornresp and the TB 2"er which is a similar driver. i quite like the idea of a front AND rear loaded horn for these drivers. length and design of rear horn with a large throat, and sufficient length to bolster LF to Fs(and below?) using the path length phase shift; and the front horn to boost the rest. how easy or difficult to achieve this is, is anyones guess. I would guess: difficult as hell. still this is what i envision for these little drivers.
I had to search to find out what these drivers were with comments like:
"The best part is that the drivers are cheap have very good excusion"
$12 each sure as hell isn't cheap in my book for no cone area..
and I hardly thing that buying 100 of them for a total of $1200 to make a subwoofer with the same cone area as two 12inch drivers (but 1/10th the displacement due to limited cone excursion) is a viable option at all!
"The best part is that the drivers are cheap have very good excusion"
$12 each sure as hell isn't cheap in my book for no cone area..
and I hardly thing that buying 100 of them for a total of $1200 to make a subwoofer with the same cone area as two 12inch drivers (but 1/10th the displacement due to limited cone excursion) is a viable option at all!
Okay sorry if I blew up there, but the last guy had nothing to add and said nothing that resembled an educated opinion. The rest of you have some good things to add and raise some good questions. I just tire of people trying to educate me about issues I am already aware of, have already deal with and for the most part eliminated.
The comments about line arrays and comb filtering are kind of annoying me because I haven't even mentioned any line arrays. The stuff about what effect a front or rear horn will have on what frequencies is all modeled by hornresp which tells you what the combined response will be and what effect each and every change will have. The frustration I have in presenting designs is that everyone seems to assume that I haven't considered any of the elements of design that I haven't specifically mentioned, and of course I have.
I too have built speakers using the 2" Tang Band drivers and actually (for the first time ever) found that they performed fantasically in just a rear loaded horn and required no front horn because the mids and highs matched up perfectly with the bass from the horn. If you look at the pictures I have posted the small pink bookshelf sized speakers shown each have one of the 2" Tang Band drivers and are mated with a tapped horn using the MCM 55-2421 8" subwoofer with fantastic results (exceeding 120db 40hz-20khz) connected to a 20wpc T-amp crossed over at 100hz with the subwoofer bridged across the amp. The 2"ers actually have to be attenuated so as not to drown out the sub and play quite loudly down to 100hz.
Oh and BTW the 1" drivers exceed the 2" in almost every aspect of performance.
The comments about line arrays and comb filtering are kind of annoying me because I haven't even mentioned any line arrays. The stuff about what effect a front or rear horn will have on what frequencies is all modeled by hornresp which tells you what the combined response will be and what effect each and every change will have. The frustration I have in presenting designs is that everyone seems to assume that I haven't considered any of the elements of design that I haven't specifically mentioned, and of course I have.
I too have built speakers using the 2" Tang Band drivers and actually (for the first time ever) found that they performed fantasically in just a rear loaded horn and required no front horn because the mids and highs matched up perfectly with the bass from the horn. If you look at the pictures I have posted the small pink bookshelf sized speakers shown each have one of the 2" Tang Band drivers and are mated with a tapped horn using the MCM 55-2421 8" subwoofer with fantastic results (exceeding 120db 40hz-20khz) connected to a 20wpc T-amp crossed over at 100hz with the subwoofer bridged across the amp. The 2"ers actually have to be attenuated so as not to drown out the sub and play quite loudly down to 100hz.
Oh and BTW the 1" drivers exceed the 2" in almost every aspect of performance.
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OT rants and responses deleted. Yellow card given. Back to the topic, please.
Seems my rather brash response was deleted, probably good.........yellow card noted. Maybe in the future you could provide us with the trade-offs you've considered, so we aren't reduced to using our mystical powers to presume the extent of your design knowledge.
If you're fully aware of the trade-offs of using a 1" driver in an environment other than near feild, build yourself a horn, get some tunage, some spirits of choice, and enjoy. My only suggestion would be crossing higher (130-150) to relieve the driver of as much LFE as possible in the name of power handling, but then the whole point of augmenting this little drivers' low end with a horn is negated. I don't know what levels you typically listen at, and don't know what the horn loading will yield in increased sensitivity, but IMO @ 81db it will run out of steam long before you get to any semblance of jamming. Also, TB only stands by the power rating with @ 250 high-pass in place. BTW, you've got some serious chops with sketchup.
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Mods: Please don't delete this as my goal is not to be condescending, just relevant.
brsanko........build what you have in mind, and post some graphs. If you happen to coax believable midbass (100-180) in some form of horn loading out of this 1incher in a typical listening space at sufficient levels, I sir will be the first to tip my hat.
Food for thought: You started the thread, don't get bent out of shape when others offer their opinions. Posting and having a very strict requirement for responses is not very conducive to our goal.....spreading knowledge for the benefit of all. Also, remember that many false assumptions and/or lack of tact occur outside of actual face-to-face conversation (web forums, e-mail, text, etc.). It will make your interactions on this site far more productive if keeping that in mind.
brsanko........build what you have in mind, and post some graphs. If you happen to coax believable midbass (100-180) in some form of horn loading out of this 1incher in a typical listening space at sufficient levels, I sir will be the first to tip my hat.
Food for thought: You started the thread, don't get bent out of shape when others offer their opinions. Posting and having a very strict requirement for responses is not very conducive to our goal.....spreading knowledge for the benefit of all. Also, remember that many false assumptions and/or lack of tact occur outside of actual face-to-face conversation (web forums, e-mail, text, etc.). It will make your interactions on this site far more productive if keeping that in mind.
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Okay now I will show the importance of reading the whole thread before commenting.
1. I would but there are thousands of them, and I niether have the time or inclination to give away my designs, only to share my enthusiasm and encourage others not to be stiffled by ignorant nay sayers.
2. Done!!
3. Not the case.
4. Very loud at times! (house rattling movie explosion enthusiast)
5. Stated already, corner loaded 1W/M spl >110db.
6. The low frequency power handling is only limited by excurtion which limitations are greatly reduced by horn loading and acounted for by hornresp.
7. Thank you very much I've only been using it for about 10 months, I have been using hornresp for over 5 years and have much greater skill with it.
I realize that at times I probably start to sound arrogant when I get upset with the persistant negativity of people who are burdened by conventional thinking and imaginary limitations but the frustrating thing is that it makes it immpossible to share the knowledge I have gained through reading and listening and experimanting when I have to spend all of my time and post space defending my positon and explaining every minute detail and trying to prove things that I know for a fact to people who aren't listening anyway. The reason that people believe in all the limitations and such is that the specs provided by manufaturers for there speakers are to protect them legally. 99.99999% of people buying drivers don't even know what a rear loaded horn is. The fact is any driver properly loaded in a horn can reproduce any frequency. The limitation are thermal power handling which is completely independant of frequency, and excersion (I probably spelled that wrong but I don't care) which is very acurately modeled and accounted for in all of my designs by hornresp. I never said that my 100 driver subwoofer design was practical I only mentioned it to prove a point about the low frequency capabilities of this driver. Although I have no doubt that this design would outperform my $2000+ subwoofers on the market today because the impulse response of the model is the most perfect I have seen in any subwoofer model. Now I realize that there will be inconsistancies with drivers anytime you have multiples but I don't think the affect of this would be anyworse than that of the cone flex from a larger driver. 100 tiny drivers all being moved independantly by individual voice coils will be far more consistant and clean than one large relatively flexable cone weighing probably 10X what the many tiny cones of the same area do, being moved by one large heavy and very inductive coil. It's a simple number game and this design wins. I will build it, I will post it, I will rave about, and you will all tear it to shreds because of cynical skepticism. Your loss, I (and my neighbors for miles around) will enjoy it's clean deep dynamic life like bass and you will go on thinking I am a fool. I guess I'll get over it, but I won't give up on you I will continue to try to share with you what I know and continue to get frustrated and worked up. Ah well such is life.
many true words from various ppl. cone area obviously is related to stiffness/weight ratio. transiebt repsonse from a driver with these characteristics is highly desirable, esp if the low mids to LF can be accentuated.
none of us would disagree.
i have modelled the 2" w2*800sl in a rear loaded horn also, and whilst im no expert with Hornresp, i can grasp MOST of it. As a tribute to the writer, it is extremely simple to use, so i am confident of my experiments also.
the w2-800 has a Fs of 160hz apparently(prob more like 200), and i CAN model a horn, flat to 120hz, but excursion runs out very early still, even though efficiency is up at 110-115dB thru the passband. this would seem irrelevant if one listens at 90dB, since excursion will still be low. and this is a 2" driver with more than twice the displacement of the smaller 1" driver the OP mentions, even taking into account the extra excursion the 1"er has.
There one big problem
group delay, sub Fs, is ridicuously high! in a silly case when i tried to model horn gain to 100hz, and got a flat FR, the group delay below 150hz was up at more than 300ms!!
id love to see full plots for this 1" driver, performing how you say, and my scepticism will be sated. I will gladly post plots for the TB2" to compare, should anyone want to see them enough 😛
for this reason I, myself, am designing a mid-HF rear horn for these drivers, lf turnover somewhere between 150-300hz, where group delay, excursion and the horn loading appear to be much more optimal, and good results far more likely, especially in the lower midrange. this goes for either driver, and others of this type, IMHO
none of us would disagree.
i have modelled the 2" w2*800sl in a rear loaded horn also, and whilst im no expert with Hornresp, i can grasp MOST of it. As a tribute to the writer, it is extremely simple to use, so i am confident of my experiments also.
the w2-800 has a Fs of 160hz apparently(prob more like 200), and i CAN model a horn, flat to 120hz, but excursion runs out very early still, even though efficiency is up at 110-115dB thru the passband. this would seem irrelevant if one listens at 90dB, since excursion will still be low. and this is a 2" driver with more than twice the displacement of the smaller 1" driver the OP mentions, even taking into account the extra excursion the 1"er has.
There one big problem
group delay, sub Fs, is ridicuously high! in a silly case when i tried to model horn gain to 100hz, and got a flat FR, the group delay below 150hz was up at more than 300ms!!
id love to see full plots for this 1" driver, performing how you say, and my scepticism will be sated. I will gladly post plots for the TB2" to compare, should anyone want to see them enough 😛
for this reason I, myself, am designing a mid-HF rear horn for these drivers, lf turnover somewhere between 150-300hz, where group delay, excursion and the horn loading appear to be much more optimal, and good results far more likely, especially in the lower midrange. this goes for either driver, and others of this type, IMHO
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I wan't refering to your comment in the above I don't have any problem with your comments. If you look back a few posts you will see that I stated that my friend Doug has already built a small pair of bookshelf speakers with these drivers with excellent mid-bass performance. The only problem we encountered was some poping in the low bass at loud volumes (>100db) because in my opinion he tuned them too low for a single driver (80hz) and had no high pass crossover whatsoever. When we put a cap inline with the speaker the poping was gone but we did not have the proper value on hand so they were cut off at about 150-200hz at which setting they sounded great but didn't go low enough to mate well with the subwoofer. I am confident, and hornresp confirms this that with a steep crossover at 80-90hz these speakers would have phenominal midbass response. So I have done all of these things already and know what they can and can't do and that is why I am so excited and why I am so frustrated with the naysayers that continually say that things I have already done are impossible and won't happen. I fell Mr. Tesla's pain and am sick and tired of the Edisons of the world!
I will admit I don't entirely understand the implication of group delay but the horns I made with the 2" drivers that were flat to 100hz sounded fantastic to me. The bass was fast and dynamic and I got none of the poping I mentioned with my friends design with the 1". These little horns played very loudly and blended well with the subwoofer (when attenuated with L-pads) for an unbelievably dynamic clean crisp sound with a 20wpc T-amp. I gave this set of speakers to a singer friend of mine as a graduation present and she uses them as recording monitors and absolutely loves them.
http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=6948107&id=618953972
http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=6948107&id=618953972
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I think Mr. Mcbean, (the writer of hornresp) is one of the great geniuses on this forum. He is probably the biggest reason I come back here. I am young (35) and relatively inexperienced but I'm good at grasping concepts, ignoring misconceptions and percieved limitions, and simplifying unecessarily complex issues, so people like him with vast experience and knowlege yet few words and even less to prove are the best sources of knowlege for me.
Wow, those little pink horns look great.
Can anyone explain group delay? I've read the definitions (link below), but don't understand what the audible implications are. Is it that the bass is "delayed"?
define:group delay - Google Search
Can anyone explain group delay? I've read the definitions (link below), but don't understand what the audible implications are. Is it that the bass is "delayed"?
define:group delay - Google Search
Not sure how you were modeling this because my model with 81 of these drivers down to 20hz (once again no claims as to prcticality) only reached 180ms right at 20 hz and was below 40ms down to 30hz. I don't know id these figures are acceptable once again because I am not clear exactly how group delay works. So please share your knowledge with me.
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