forget about arrays...
.. Try an open baffle. If done right they can have lots of bass. See JE Labs dimensions for a baffle, similar to Quad ESL in size. And just leave the speakers in the recommended locations on the baffle. I did put a full width "top" on them, not the 6" that's recommended...
Any "instrument" or vintage fullranger will do (obviously better drivers are better). I added a pair of tweeters (mounted co-axially) I had laying around and a salvaged crossover---nothing I have had in my house has come close. I did manage to listen to some basszilla's and liked em, but that's a completely different story.
Most of these drivers are intended for open back enclosures, and open baffles aren't far removed..
.. Try an open baffle. If done right they can have lots of bass. See JE Labs dimensions for a baffle, similar to Quad ESL in size. And just leave the speakers in the recommended locations on the baffle. I did put a full width "top" on them, not the 6" that's recommended...
Any "instrument" or vintage fullranger will do (obviously better drivers are better). I added a pair of tweeters (mounted co-axially) I had laying around and a salvaged crossover---nothing I have had in my house has come close. I did manage to listen to some basszilla's and liked em, but that's a completely different story.
Most of these drivers are intended for open back enclosures, and open baffles aren't far removed..
Nanook, I have forgotten about arrays for quite a few days now. I don't know why the subject came back up about them. But anyway...
The PLAN is to go with a pair of Eminence Beta-12LTA drivers and a pair of Aurum Cantus ribbon tweeters in some sort of OB configuration.
I do not and will not go with old vintage drivers, and honestly I can not figure out why anyone would want to mount a single driver in a baffle so close to the floor.
I for one do not want the soundstage at my feet.
Anyway, there are a few little tweaks I might try on the 12LTA drivers, maybe some felt around the tweeters, they will all be mounted up near ear level on the baffles and will have a minimal amount of circuitry involved.
The PLAN is to go with a pair of Eminence Beta-12LTA drivers and a pair of Aurum Cantus ribbon tweeters in some sort of OB configuration.
I do not and will not go with old vintage drivers, and honestly I can not figure out why anyone would want to mount a single driver in a baffle so close to the floor.
I for one do not want the soundstage at my feet.
Anyway, there are a few little tweaks I might try on the 12LTA drivers, maybe some felt around the tweeters, they will all be mounted up near ear level on the baffles and will have a minimal amount of circuitry involved.
chops said:
Very different kind of characteristics...
Efficiency is what you are looking for with a small amp... Sig Ls OBs are certainly not efficient (what amp are you using?)
No. Maybe 2nd order if you get the monster Aurum Cantus ... to use 1st order on the AC you are going to need to be XOing up around 10K... i don't think the Eminence can make it that high -- i'm guessing 5k would be pushing it.
If you want to look at an Eminence have a good look at the Silver Iris mntioned above... Darryl Hawthorne & Eminence worked long & hard to put together a driver that works really well on an OB & has a really well integrated tweeter -- that it is coax has BIG benefits. And it is cheap (even when it goes up after the intro special)
dave
planet10 said:
What do you mean by "different kinds of characteristics"? What characteristics would a woofer and tweeter share that would make one better suited than the other?
Siegfreid's OB's always seem to use drivers not perfectly suited for OB use, hence the lower efficiency of his designs.
For starters I plan on trying my little Sonic Impact amp on the OBs, but if that doesn't cut it, I have a nice old 100W x 2 Pioneer receiver in my bedroom system that I can use. Believe it or not, that receiver sounds pretty darn good. I think it still sounds a little better than my new Pioneer Elite receiver.
Originally, I wrote "1st or 2nd order crossover", but I took out the 2dn order because I thought that it might be too steep, but I can honestly say that I don't know much about designing crossovers anyway.
And I was a little concerned about running those 12LTA's all the way up to their 10kHz limit. Isn't that also known as "cone breakup" at that point if the driver really isn't up to the task?I have been looking at those Silver Iris drivers since I have seen a couple people mention them lately. I definately wouldn't mind going with a pair of those either. I'm assuming that $139 ($157) includes both the 15" driver and tweeter with crossover? If so, that's a really good deal I think. I DO like the idea of the coax mounted tweeter being down at the main driver's VC for time alignment purposes.
Go for the Silver Iris drivers. Best option frankly if you are desperate for dipole, and it sounds like that's your prefered option (and why not?) Properly integrated sound, designed specifically for open baffles, pretty efficient as things go, they look good, they sound good from the reports, and they are actually quite cheap -cheaper than buying the smaller Eminence drivers with the Cantus tweeters. Those will work together, but you'd need to engineer the crossover right (someone else would have to help you there -I'm lousy on crossovers), and that is never easy. Better quality too since they are a custom build by Eminence for Hawthorn.
SL's dipoles are not in my view inefficient because he's using the wrong drivers. He's using the correct drivers but takes a different approach, that's all. There's merits in both ways, but the aim of the game with dipoles is not in my view, efficiency, I'm firmly with SL on that. It's nice if you can get it of course, but it's the dipolar radiation pattern that's the important bit. What he's achieved is a basically flat response from a very compact dipole from 40Hz-20KHz, using excellent-quality drivers, which is astonishing. That makes Orion more usable than a 16 foot-wide baffle.
Agreed about the JE Labs baffle, though not perhaps for quite the same reasons: they are angled up, so the soundstage will be at ear height, but you're throwing away some of the dipole benefits to achieve the greater bass response due to the floor-boundary condition being used. Bit of a cheat. Lots of users say they work well though, and I haven't heard them, so it depends on what you want to achieve.
Those Bandor arrays. I note that Ted Jordan brings out an idea for a compromised array (I love his drivers, but that array idea seems very dodgy to me -I've been meaning to ask Jim about that for a while)... and then his ex-wife (if memory serves) who owns and runs Bandor, whose drivers are basically some older designs of Ted's, also has an equivelant. When it first emerged I don't know, but...
Best
Scott
SL's dipoles are not in my view inefficient because he's using the wrong drivers. He's using the correct drivers but takes a different approach, that's all. There's merits in both ways, but the aim of the game with dipoles is not in my view, efficiency, I'm firmly with SL on that. It's nice if you can get it of course, but it's the dipolar radiation pattern that's the important bit. What he's achieved is a basically flat response from a very compact dipole from 40Hz-20KHz, using excellent-quality drivers, which is astonishing. That makes Orion more usable than a 16 foot-wide baffle.
Agreed about the JE Labs baffle, though not perhaps for quite the same reasons: they are angled up, so the soundstage will be at ear height, but you're throwing away some of the dipole benefits to achieve the greater bass response due to the floor-boundary condition being used. Bit of a cheat. Lots of users say they work well though, and I haven't heard them, so it depends on what you want to achieve.
Those Bandor arrays. I note that Ted Jordan brings out an idea for a compromised array (I love his drivers, but that array idea seems very dodgy to me -I've been meaning to ask Jim about that for a while)... and then his ex-wife (if memory serves) who owns and runs Bandor, whose drivers are basically some older designs of Ted's, also has an equivelant. When it first emerged I don't know, but...
Best
Scott
chops said:
Siegfreid thinks those drivers are perfectly suited to an OB... and who are we to say he is wrong, by all accounts his speakers are excellent.
The SI -- especially if tweaked up -- should be a fine little amp, the Pioneers i'm not so sure about -- i used to sell them and i have one here (SX-1280) that i'm planning on stripping down to the power amp.
Originally, I wrote "1st or 2nd order crossover", but I took out the 2dn order because I thought that it might be too steep, but I can honestly say that I don't know much about designing crossovers anyway.
Crossed low (3K) these are often used with 6th order XOs.
Yep... intro price $280/pr
dave
I wish the shipping to the UK was cheaper... and I was feeling richer. I'd promised myself a pair of Lowthers for the new year. Looks like they're going to have to wait until it's a bit older!
Incidentally those Isophon's look very nice indeed Dave... I'm getting tempted again! Thanks for the link. I've been meaning to look at the Visation's before but never got around to it.
Best
Scott
Incidentally those Isophon's look very nice indeed Dave... I'm getting tempted again! Thanks for the link
Best
Scott
Originally posted by planet10
With a lot of complicatd circuitry, equalization and amplifier power, you can probably get any driver to work perfectly in an OB. Please, don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to argue and I'm definately not saying that SL or anyone else is wrong in any way. I just prefer a loudspeaker that is simple and straight forward in design.
The little SI is bone stock. I'll be the first to admit that I don't know enough to go playing around with the guts of it. The Pioneers aren't bad. The Pioneer Elite that I have for my HT system is way better than any Sony ES, Yamaha or HK that I've ever had in here. And the "old" Pioneer that I have in my bedroom system is from the late 1980's, the VSX-4400, and right now it's powering a pair of Triangle Zephyr's. I've always like this receiver because it has a very warm smooth sound to it.
Looks like I'll be getting a pair of those then!
With a lot of complicatd circuitry, equalization and amplifier power, you can probably get any driver to work perfectly in an OB. Please, don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to argue and I'm definately not saying that SL or anyone else is wrong in any way. I just prefer a loudspeaker that is simple and straight forward in design.
The little SI is bone stock. I'll be the first to admit that I don't know enough to go playing around with the guts of it. The Pioneers aren't bad. The Pioneer Elite that I have for my HT system is way better than any Sony ES, Yamaha or HK that I've ever had in here. And the "old" Pioneer that I have in my bedroom system is from the late 1980's, the VSX-4400, and right now it's powering a pair of Triangle Zephyr's. I've always like this receiver because it has a very warm smooth sound to it.
Looks like I'll be getting a pair of those then!
Simple has its benefits. I'm building a Son of Zen, which probably says it all, though I wouldn't want to try using it for every speaker or application. In answer to your question regarding integration, it depends on the drivers respective efficiencies, roll-off characteristics, optimum crossover points and a host of other factors all of which need to be considered. Hense something like the 15" Hawthorn might be a good bet as it removes that worry. As a bonus, like the legendary Tannoy Dual Concentric drivers, it's a co-ax, so imaging, time-alignment and phase should all be first rate.
That SI amp. It'll need tweaking as they cut out pretty quickly under 100Hz as I recall. I think TNT-Audio have a guide to modifying these things, and Hifi World ran an article a few months back. I'm not a fan of either of these in all honesty, but in this case it might be useful.
Best
Scott
That SI amp. It'll need tweaking as they cut out pretty quickly under 100Hz as I recall. I think TNT-Audio have a guide to modifying these things, and Hifi World ran an article a few months back. I'm not a fan of either of these in all honesty, but in this case it might be useful.
Best
Scott
Also, I would just like to add that the SI amp seems to be quite capable all the way down to at least 20Hz, not 100Hz.
The reason I say this is because I just installed a pair of Aura Pro Bass Shakers on the siedes of my couch and I'm powering them with that SI amp. (not very loud of course, but it doesn't need to be either)
I played a couple pipe organ CD's that I know very well and that have true bass down to 16Hz, and I could definately feel all of it.
Now we're going to watch a movie with them.
The reason I say this is because I just installed a pair of Aura Pro Bass Shakers on the siedes of my couch and I'm powering them with that SI amp. (not very loud of course, but it doesn't need to be either)
I played a couple pipe organ CD's that I know very well and that have true bass down to 16Hz, and I could definately feel all of it.
Now we're going to watch a movie with them.
planet10 said:
Speaking of which, we watched "The Italian Job" last night with the SI amp powering those bass shakers. It actually does quite an impressive job. We really like the part towards the end when they blasted that armored truck through the street.
With the sub pounding away and those shakers "shaking" my hiney, it was pretty neat.
Anyway, I think I'm starting to vear off topic. OOPS!
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