LOL. After hearing 60 years old FR speakers the chief editor of the German DIY LS magazine Klang & Ton asked: "What did the LS industry done in the last 50 years?".
The Alpair 10.3 sounds even worse than cheap Finnish 8 inch Gradient fullrangers.
Well, Visaton AL-130 & Alpair 6 are small indeed. Alpair 6 = Best desktop LS I have ever heard, simply fantastic. Gutsy, bold, big gestalt, go really loud, smooth and rhythmic like hell.
The Alpair 10.3 sounds even worse than cheap Finnish 8 inch Gradient fullrangers.
Well, Visaton AL-130 & Alpair 6 are small indeed. Alpair 6 = Best desktop LS I have ever heard, simply fantastic. Gutsy, bold, big gestalt, go really loud, smooth and rhythmic like hell.
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Philips catalogue from the year of the lord 1980:
https://i.pinimg.com/originals/15/fe/35/15fe3532b4e7303249fd6e1c8e86d34f.jpg
https://i.pinimg.com/originals/e5/1c/cd/e51ccd96c5269d7f1f1aa7827a79d9c9.jpg
https://i.pinimg.com/originals/2b/95/16/2b9516e7e517b64ad4db2524308bb2f3.jpg
https://i.pinimg.com/originals/f4/94/71/f494711ab9af9e94baeec3a015584bb5.jpg
https://i.pinimg.com/originals/82/f0/51/82f0510bb211caf8b77798bf2685fd1a.jpg
https://i.pinimg.com/originals/15/fe/35/15fe3532b4e7303249fd6e1c8e86d34f.jpg
https://i.pinimg.com/originals/e5/1c/cd/e51ccd96c5269d7f1f1aa7827a79d9c9.jpg
https://i.pinimg.com/originals/2b/95/16/2b9516e7e517b64ad4db2524308bb2f3.jpg
https://i.pinimg.com/originals/f4/94/71/f494711ab9af9e94baeec3a015584bb5.jpg
https://i.pinimg.com/originals/82/f0/51/82f0510bb211caf8b77798bf2685fd1a.jpg
I dunno, the only metal ones I know sound 'HIFI' are for compression horn drivers; for wide range point sources, even tweeters, prefer paper.
I'll say! long ago now, got a PM 'nasty gram' that among other things accused me of
For a variety of reasons didn't waste my time responding, but if my 'style' of educating folks with info that TTBOMK is correct/proven is perceived as 'pressuring', then even 9+ yrs later it's news to me.
GM
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Well, that is what you an SinGun do, pushing your preference as the truth. But there is no truth, only preference. And i and many like the metal cones when done right.
Not that paper cones sound bad btw, i also have a pair of those great 9710M's waiting for a project (saved from old beaten up speakers) and i heared many paper cone drivers that i like also.
But that oldskool approach that you prefer is not fit for everybody. And shouting that metal cones are the devil is not something constructive i think. Some of the highest rated speakers are metal cones, and your opinion is just an opinion (and so is mine), not the general consensus. It may be that those 10.3M's are not your cup of tea, but for others it is...
Not that paper cones sound bad btw, i also have a pair of those great 9710M's waiting for a project (saved from old beaten up speakers) and i heared many paper cone drivers that i like also.
But that oldskool approach that you prefer is not fit for everybody. And shouting that metal cones are the devil is not something constructive i think. Some of the highest rated speakers are metal cones, and your opinion is just an opinion (and so is mine), not the general consensus. It may be that those 10.3M's are not your cup of tea, but for others it is...
You said your opinion and I mine, so where is the problem? Despite that I have both speakers here playing against each other with different music. Despite of subjective likings it is very clear that AD-9710 is by far more compatible with different kinds of music. Be happy with your 10.3 no problem.
IMO, I don't like female voices sounding like Borg drones...
What you call oldschool approach (AD-9710) is a very successful design still working and still beating the hell out of new-school designs. At least at musicality.
From Philips Fullrange Catalogue 1980
IMO, I don't like female voices sounding like Borg drones...
What you call oldschool approach (AD-9710) is a very successful design still working and still beating the hell out of new-school designs. At least at musicality.
From Philips Fullrange Catalogue 1980
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BTW, 10min before I listened to Patti Austin on 10.3 and now I plugged the AD-9710 in - seriously: For me totally unimaginable how anyone could prefer the 10.3 with female voices.
P.S.: The Alpair 6 sounds very good with this recording. So stop putting words into my mouth (I HATE that!) this is not metal vs paper.
P.S.: The Alpair 6 sounds very good with this recording. So stop putting words into my mouth (I HATE that!) this is not metal vs paper.
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I suspect you did not do the burn in of this driver. This driver needs +100hours before it's right with light music. Fresh out of the box it sounds a bit metallic but not after the break-in. This is typical for metallic cones, and the Mark Audio metallic drivers need a lot of break in as stated in the manual and on the spec sheet of it.
Is 600h + enough? I even have a notch filter to smooth out the mids/upper mids. Sorry but for me Alpair 10.3 looses vs AD-9710 big time.
Philips AD-9710 has much better vocals, warmer mids, much much much more textures, more body, bigger gestalt, far better software compatibility. Rolling, rhythmic, involving, not fatiguing, easier on the ear all the time.
IMHO the AD-9710 is by far the better driver.
Philips AD-9710 has much better vocals, warmer mids, much much much more textures, more body, bigger gestalt, far better software compatibility. Rolling, rhythmic, involving, not fatiguing, easier on the ear all the time.
IMHO the AD-9710 is by far the better driver.
Not true! I do often state my preference, but truth is truth! To wit, by far the world's total quantity of sold/owned drivers are paper [even discounting B0$3 sales] whereas statistically, metal's is so small it's statistically 0 [zero]!
Never said/implied they did.
Rated highest by who? Folks that have some vested interest in saying so? From long experience, that's usually who do the ratings regardless of the product.
Anyway, moving right along, yes, they can be annealed/doped/misc. other treatments to have [mostly] the best of both, though the 'best' variant I've auditioned is a pair of dirt cheap ~5"? paper 'FR' drivers from a Eastern European? DIYer and a second set he modified by adding alum. foil? [have to find them & paperwork for specifics] among other tweaks I've historically done to such type drivers and the transformation with this constrained thin paper/foil layer construction was so 'night n' day' WRT pace, rhythm & timing [PRaT] that if I were to design a wide/'full' range driver this would be it.
GM
I use a different filter on mine, a 0.22mH inductor, a 4.7uF cap and a 10R resistor in series, this makes the topend flat. In parallel this kind of filter does not work i think. And in a 17.9L ported this driver sounds very detailed but warm and musical and with a solid bass for a bookshelf.
In my other system it's used as the top (11.5L sealed) for a waw system like i said before, with a Scanspeak 26W/8534G00 woofer in a 77L sealed cabinet and a first order series crossover at 250hz including a notchfilter that is the same. This gives a similar sound with slightly less harmonic distortion and a lot deeper and more bass which i like as basshead who listen to dub and oldskool hiphop next to a lot of other music. My musical taste goes very wide, from classical (now listening to the Stabat Mater of Pergilosi) to experimental electronic music and from the better mainstream pop to very complicated jazz and back And it works with all. I don't get where you got that metallic sound from, because i don't hear it. But each to his own off course, if you prefer the Philips, enjoy it...
In my other system it's used as the top (11.5L sealed) for a waw system like i said before, with a Scanspeak 26W/8534G00 woofer in a 77L sealed cabinet and a first order series crossover at 250hz including a notchfilter that is the same. This gives a similar sound with slightly less harmonic distortion and a lot deeper and more bass which i like as basshead who listen to dub and oldskool hiphop next to a lot of other music. My musical taste goes very wide, from classical (now listening to the Stabat Mater of Pergilosi) to experimental electronic music and from the better mainstream pop to very complicated jazz and back And it works with all. I don't get where you got that metallic sound from, because i don't hear it. But each to his own off course, if you prefer the Philips, enjoy it...
I did not say paper drivers are bad, i said blunt stating that all metallic drivers are by definition bad is untrue. Paper cones are the traditional and the most easy way to make speaker driver, but a lot of materials are used, ceramic, metallic, kevlar, plastics,... And some metallic drivers are among the best (certainly not all), next to the better paper and other drivers. Some examples are the Scanspeak 23W/4557T00, the SB NACS and NBAC series, many Seas woofers like the L26R series, ...
Assuming we're back on the 9710, I had started a couple for somebody several years ago, but never finished them as they built a Metronome or maybe the one posted earlier.
Anyway, with a little series resistance for wiring [Rs], a T/S max flat is huge @ ~249.58 L/~31 Hz Fb. A 20:1 CR inverse tapered TQWT/~31 Hz Fb = ~110.422 L and flopped upside down to be an ML-horn gives a 'close enough' identical simmed response with a ~ 10.22 cm dia. x 15.8 cm vent.
Due to the nature of its TL modes, the driver is up at ~55.3 cm i.d./ML-horn, 74.1 cm i.d./ML-TQWT.
These numbers can be juggled around to suit what driver height you want, I just quickly finished what I'd started.
Both are rated 2 W/Xmax to ~27 Hz/1pi, though will need 'brick walling' below this point if there's anything lower in frequency, though @ ~100 dB/stereo, probably won't need more.
.GM
OK
I did sim an MLTL for it with the measurements of my 9710's (results are close to those of the Troels) and i came to a 120cm high, 40cm wide and 40cm deep tower (internal measures) with the driver at 50cm from top and a 3cm long taper of 10cm diameter. That gives a good flat response to 45hz. The upper halve needs to be stuffed with something like OC703 or Rockwool Sono off course.
Maybe that is why it's used a lot, for sound proofing, acoustic treatment, and in loudspeakers. Rockwool is not fiberglass, it's made of basalt (volcanic rock) and it's totally safe for use in houses, so why would it not be in speakers? I never heared that it would be bad for your health like fiberglass can be. And it got the same specs as the so praised OC703 fiberglass on acoustics. Most modern EU recording studio's have their treatment with this material.
Sheep wool is also good, but it molds as it's organic. And it attrackt insects who live in it and eat it. And it does not sound different than rockwool or fiberglass. Many test show that...
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Sorry waxx, but if you say no sound difference between rock and sheep's wool than you don't know what you are talking about! Don't believe me. Read Klang & Ton - the real experts will tell you - after they laughed you off. Despite that typical sheep's wool for speakers like from Intertechnik is of course treated and does not get insect problems.
And even worse:
What are the health concerns with mineral wool?
Dr. Marjolein Drent, a lung disease expert Maastricht University, in the Netherlands, summarised the situation: “The effects of the fibres of glass wool and stone wool can be compared to those of asbestos. In the past we did not know asbestos was very dangerous. The results of the effects of fibres in glass wool and mineral wool are only being seen right now, so we must deal with it carefully. The point is that these substances are harmful, but people do not realize it sufficiently, and that is something we have to worry about. It is too easily accepted that ‘we have a replacement for asbestos’. But the replacement may not be as good as we thought it was at the beginning, there is insufficient attention given to this fact.”
And even worse:
What are the health concerns with mineral wool?
Dr. Marjolein Drent, a lung disease expert Maastricht University, in the Netherlands, summarised the situation: “The effects of the fibres of glass wool and stone wool can be compared to those of asbestos. In the past we did not know asbestos was very dangerous. The results of the effects of fibres in glass wool and mineral wool are only being seen right now, so we must deal with it carefully. The point is that these substances are harmful, but people do not realize it sufficiently, and that is something we have to worry about. It is too easily accepted that ‘we have a replacement for asbestos’. But the replacement may not be as good as we thought it was at the beginning, there is insufficient attention given to this fact.”
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While hardly definitive, the wikipedia page on mineral wool quotes the following:
The monograph referred to in the citations 13 & 14 can be found here: IARC Publications Website - Man-made Vitreous Fibres
Most such materials used in loudspeakers are semi-bonded 'board' varieties, preventing much in the way of fibre release.
Damping material does not have a 'sound'. It is not an active component or transducer: it is damping material. All it does is damp pressure waves / vibrations. Different materials used for the purpose have different absorbtion properties / coefficients, and for a given density have different damping behaviour at different frequencies. Augspurger gives an illustration of this in his AES paper http://diyaudioprojects.com/Technical/Papers/Loudspeakers-on-Damped-Pipes.pdf (see Figure 3) which may be rapidly perused for convenience. There is nothing particularly wonderful about [long hair] sheep wool. It's very effective, but there are equally effective materials available.
The monograph referred to in the citations 13 & 14 can be found here: IARC Publications Website - Man-made Vitreous Fibres
Most such materials used in loudspeakers are semi-bonded 'board' varieties, preventing much in the way of fibre release.
Damping material does not have a 'sound'. It is not an active component or transducer: it is damping material. All it does is damp pressure waves / vibrations. Different materials used for the purpose have different absorbtion properties / coefficients, and for a given density have different damping behaviour at different frequencies. Augspurger gives an illustration of this in his AES paper http://diyaudioprojects.com/Technical/Papers/Loudspeakers-on-Damped-Pipes.pdf (see Figure 3) which may be rapidly perused for convenience. There is nothing particularly wonderful about [long hair] sheep wool. It's very effective, but there are equally effective materials available.
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