I was not the one you asked it from, but here's a pair I made. Anyone who has DIY'ed a coax is encouraged to post their experience there as well.
https://www.diyaudio.com/community/threads/show-us-your-diy-coaxial-drive-units.397993/
@tktran303 I meant OFF axis, sorry!
@krivium I am working in Paris (near République), in Sweden and Norway😉
Best,
-a
@krivium I am working in Paris (near République), in Sweden and Norway😉
Best,
-a
Because even if it is a short one the cd are horn loaded. And as such there is anomaly if on axis, once you are a bit off axis they usually disapear.
The other thing with Tannoy's is that they are not constant directivity, iow you have much more energy on axis in the high.
They have rising di.
Here is an example of the 6,5" of same serie as mine and you'll see the issue i talked about mine ( it is the passive version, the active doesn't have this 'hole' in them... and why i do not spend too much time at ASR ( measurements and only measurements matter, trying to understand why there is something happening takes too much time...)).
https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/tannoy-system-600-speaker-review.11919/
Last edited:
I don't know if they are still availlable Dave.
Afaik once Tannoy had been acquired by Behringer then the brand only focused on PA/studio gear and kind of forget the legacy about coax for hifi.
If you look at Fyne line of drivers Maximax77 linked in post #79 you'll see they are almost the same as the last one Tannoy produced for their latest hifi range before being acquired.
Tbh, the last products i've seen from them were the small 'gold' nearfield monitors: drivers looked ok box is plastic... they do not sound bad but no Differential Material Technology cabinet for sure...
Afaik once Tannoy had been acquired by Behringer then the brand only focused on PA/studio gear and kind of forget the legacy about coax for hifi.
If you look at Fyne line of drivers Maximax77 linked in post #79 you'll see they are almost the same as the last one Tannoy produced for their latest hifi range before being acquired.
Tbh, the last products i've seen from them were the small 'gold' nearfield monitors: drivers looked ok box is plastic... they do not sound bad but no Differential Material Technology cabinet for sure...
Yes it's actually held in place solely by magnetic attraction. The tweeter obviously need modification to fit too.
Nice thread. I am building a 4W prototype active monitor which combines a small 5.5 inch coax >400Hz (with passive cardioid ‘leaky box’ enclosure) and two bass-mids in M-CX-M configuration operating 80-400Hz (in an active cardioid arrangement with 2 woofers on the back) such that the system behaves as point source FR without the usual lobing issues. I have tested various coaxial from SEAS (18REX,L12/RE) and SiCa CP5.5 and the latter in particularly is very well behaved (and cost-effective) and keeps distortion >400Hz @96dB <1%.
SEAS does offer a range of quality coaxial and I have tested them, refer also to Erin’s test of the 6.5inch ‘King Coax’ - the trade off with these is the diffraction issues around 6-8kHz associated with the tweeter rim to woofer transition where typically I optimize filters to get continuous listening window (+\-20d) rather than flat on-axis….indeed it would be great if Purifi would offer their say 5.25Inch driver with a high grade Be tweeter in Coax alignment.
Tend to disagree with this as a general statement - if implemented optimally (sat >300-400Hz) in 3W+Sub or 4W configuration to keep IMD low as was done for designs such as the Sigberg SBS-1, KEF R3Ref, Kali 8IN-V2, Genelec Ones (just check the measurements of these on Erin’s Audio Corner page, Audioholics, Audio Science Review etc). The real only issue to be managed is optimize for diffraction effects in the 6-8kHz window by optimizing for listening window rather than on-axis linearity. Based on subjective listening reviews this concept of speakers are consistently quoted as amongst best-in-class when it comes to definition and soundstage. No speaker is perfect….
About 15 years ago, I spent some time searching for coaxials/dual concentrics, particularly those of the efficient professional variety, but also the Hi-Fi types. I searched and searched, toying around with ideas. I think this fascination resulted largely from how unhappy I was with a pair of large, terribly inefficient floor standing planar hybrids I'd purchased (kind of one extreme to the other, if you will).
After all, a dual concentric design with something approaching first-order acoustic slopes, say, 20 dB on either side of the crossover point seems nearly ideal. However, the only possible way I saw to approach that was with a 3" Tang Band with a small tweeter that came in at around 10 KHz. Overall, probably not much better than a cheap car speaker. Not my cup of tea, and not what I was after.
So, letting go of my first-order wishes, I kept eyeballing the Radian and P.Audio units in particular, as well as those from Beyma, B&C, BMS, RCF, Ciare, Mccauley, and anything else I could possibly find. I soon learned that I wanted to avoid anything over 3rd order slopes (at least 1.5 to 2 octaves out), and that I was only interested in units with 1" exit compression drivers due to the narrowing dispersion of larger exits that I found undesirable. With this criteria, dual concentrics are basically out of the picture/not an option. It's tough enough just trying to find one without an awfully ragged frequency response.
So, with all that said, I finally ditched the idea(s). Except for ONE scenario, maybe... Nearfield/desktop use. Something like the Tang Band W8-2314 or W6-2313 might possibly work okay. In the end, for nearfield use, I'd probably just go the route of planet10 and countless others, building a nice FAST around a good 3" full-range. Now that I think of it, I actually had this idea back in 2004, before everyone else started doing it and calling it a FAST. Just to try the idea out, I got my hands on a new pair of Tang Band W3-871's, along with a new pair of beefy 6.5's whose appearance matched those full-rangers PERFECTLY! However, I never built anything and ended up selling them a while later.
All these years later, I still find myself checking the PDF's for coaxials every time I see a new one. To this day, I still haven't found much (if anything) that really stands out.
After all, a dual concentric design with something approaching first-order acoustic slopes, say, 20 dB on either side of the crossover point seems nearly ideal. However, the only possible way I saw to approach that was with a 3" Tang Band with a small tweeter that came in at around 10 KHz. Overall, probably not much better than a cheap car speaker. Not my cup of tea, and not what I was after.
So, letting go of my first-order wishes, I kept eyeballing the Radian and P.Audio units in particular, as well as those from Beyma, B&C, BMS, RCF, Ciare, Mccauley, and anything else I could possibly find. I soon learned that I wanted to avoid anything over 3rd order slopes (at least 1.5 to 2 octaves out), and that I was only interested in units with 1" exit compression drivers due to the narrowing dispersion of larger exits that I found undesirable. With this criteria, dual concentrics are basically out of the picture/not an option. It's tough enough just trying to find one without an awfully ragged frequency response.
So, with all that said, I finally ditched the idea(s). Except for ONE scenario, maybe... Nearfield/desktop use. Something like the Tang Band W8-2314 or W6-2313 might possibly work okay. In the end, for nearfield use, I'd probably just go the route of planet10 and countless others, building a nice FAST around a good 3" full-range. Now that I think of it, I actually had this idea back in 2004, before everyone else started doing it and calling it a FAST. Just to try the idea out, I got my hands on a new pair of Tang Band W3-871's, along with a new pair of beefy 6.5's whose appearance matched those full-rangers PERFECTLY! However, I never built anything and ended up selling them a while later.
All these years later, I still find myself checking the PDF's for coaxials every time I see a new one. To this day, I still haven't found much (if anything) that really stands out.
Last edited:
I was on essentially the same search at about the same time. I got a pair of P.Audio 15CXHB because the spec sheet indicated it was relatively smooth, and had an unusual amount of overlap at the crossover.
This turned out to be right - it was very easy to build a passive crossover for. Also: they really are stupidly efficient, as claimed.
The downside is that, I never got them sounding "perfect" and eventually demoted them from being my in use system. Cleanly recorded vocals aren't as real sounding as they could be. The HF is pretty good, but has a little bit of grit / "steely" sound (from HF spikes?) that (to my ears) is present in most compression driver + horn systems.
e.g. in 2012 I ran one channel based on the coaxial (plus dual 15 to help the LF), and the other channel with dual 15s crossed to a B&C DE950 (a fairly upmarket 2" driver), and found either option to sound essentially alike. Both were pretty good but not quite "real", and both had a little bit of HF harshness that stopped them from being my "forever" speakers.
Attachments
The importance of good time aligning for multi way speakers was neglected a long time.
However if you read in professional magazines about coaxial drivers they mentioned the good or better imaging of this type of speakers.
Today a big manufacturer like RCF underlines the benefit of FIR technology with which you can minimize the deficiencies in the time domain of classical multi ways.
Me for my part I only build loudspeakers with dsp corrected fullrange drivers.
However if you read in professional magazines about coaxial drivers they mentioned the good or better imaging of this type of speakers.
Today a big manufacturer like RCF underlines the benefit of FIR technology with which you can minimize the deficiencies in the time domain of classical multi ways.
RCF FiRPHASE DSP Technology Explained
Me for my part I only build loudspeakers with dsp corrected fullrange drivers.
It's not DIY, but how about a Danley GO2-8CX? One of several coaxials they sell, this particular one is intended as a PA or ceiling speaker. If you can get past the plastic/industrial styling, a look at the spec sheet implies, to me at least, they'd give any "hi-fi" speaker of roughly comparable ability a serious run for their money.
Six are on sale on Ebay right now at just over $1,000 each; they've been listed several days, which suggests you could buy them cheaper...
Six are on sale on Ebay right now at just over $1,000 each; they've been listed several days, which suggests you could buy them cheaper...
@peterbrorsson
What would you require?
I have designs for BMS10” & 12”w ‘Generic’ settings in VCad for both and I have Fouradio FIR settings.
They all use a balanced T-pad for the treble, but I’ll be happy to give you that as well. If you use an autoformer it’s a whole other ball of wax..
Plse PM me and we can take it from there.
Best
-a
What would you require?
I have designs for BMS10” & 12”w ‘Generic’ settings in VCad for both and I have Fouradio FIR settings.
They all use a balanced T-pad for the treble, but I’ll be happy to give you that as well. If you use an autoformer it’s a whole other ball of wax..
Plse PM me and we can take it from there.
Best
-a
