New Markaudio Drivers

frugal-phile™
Joined 2001
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I did note that too. I expect it to be similar in concept to the Alair 12pw. He said response down to 35 Hz, but we are already seeing response with the A12pw down to the mid 20s in Scott’s ML-TL and low 30s in the Mar-Ken we did for this driver. Hopefully the 35 Hz is Mark being conservative. It will move more air given the large size.

dave
 
I've actually got a question on that (maybe this is better in a separate thread?).

Mark suggested the "Alpair WW" is desirable because most woofers/subwoofers are mere "atmosphere generators." Their cones are so heavy, he says, that they absorb/mask low-level detail. They can produce sine waves, but in music, there are all sorts of sub-frequencies (harmonics) in the signal that they cannot reproduce. Most woofers/subwoofers, he said, cannot accurately reproduce the sub-frequencies/details in a signal that distinguish between a Double Bass playing 40Hz, and a Bass guitar playing 40Hz.

That all sounds valid to me if one designs a system that uses a woofer/subwoofer to produce those sub-frequencies. But if I've got a subwoofer crossed to a FR driver at, say, 60Hz, that FR driver is going to produce all those sub-frequencies, not the subwoofer, correct?

And since that subwoofer is (correct me if I'm wrong) probably operating in its pistonic range up to 60Hz, as long as it has a strong, well designed motor and is in a well matched enclosure, it should be able to accurately reproduce all the frequencies assigned to it (up to 60Hz), no?
 
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frugal-phile™
Joined 2001
Paid Member
I expect the WW to be useful instead of a subwoofer (at least for hifi use). It will be quite extended at the top (A12pw starts petering out about 10k) which is good for matching with a FR and it will have a wide range within which it can be XOed.

Subwoofers only needed for explosions & train wreaks in HT.

dave
 
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Perhaps still only stocked in The Imaginarium of Dr Fenlon ? IOW possibly only presently a thought experiment - but then the two recent MS models came as a bit of a surprise to a lot of us who though we had a finger on the pulse of something throbbing. I guess that’s another website
 
Mark is wrong on the sub woofer theory. He applies his controlled micro resonant concept to their cones to make his argument, but we have to stick to reality and with that we are dealing with harmonics... If a sub reaches even as high as 100Hz the fundamental there is 50Hz... So the third harmonic is irrelevant etc... There is no need for microresonance and light cones here. This is the only part of the spectrum where we desire and can have a true piston.
I've actually got a question on that (maybe this is better in a separate thread?).

Mark suggested the "Alpair WW" is desirable because most woofers/subwoofers are mere "atmosphere generators." Their cones are so heavy, he says, that they absorb/mask low-level detail. They can produce sine waves, but in music, there are all sorts of sub-frequencies (harmonics) in the signal that they cannot reproduce. Most woofers/subwoofers, he said, cannot accurately reproduce the sub-frequencies/details in a signal that distinguish between a Double Bass playing 40Hz, and a Bass guitar playing 40Hz.

That all sounds valid to me if one designs a system that uses a woofer/subwoofer to produce those sub-frequencies. But if I've got a subwoofer crossed to a FR driver at, say, 60Hz, that FR driver is going to produce all those sub-frequencies, not the subwoofer, correct?

And since that subwoofer is (correct me if I'm wrong) probably operating in its pistonic range up to 60Hz, as long as it has a strong, well designed motor and is in a well matched enclosure, it should be able to accurately reproduce all the frequencies assigned to it (up to 60Hz), no?
 
Well that's v interesting. I might try and get back in touch with Patrick and clear up my vague memory of these drivers, I was only a teenager at the time.

Just to clarify: Patrick and Ted produced the J51 driver in the the late 1980s, long before EJJ contracted Mark Audio to work on the JXR6HD. Ted's original 50mm Module, produced in 1976, was also a spiderless model. The J51 improved reliability and power handling.
 
exactly, it's 'marketing speak'. Nobody says "made from recycled trash cans"

They might at diyecohome.org/forum. ;-)

But there's a bridge to this topic, I have read comments by Mark suggesting that an efficient loudspeaker using a single drive unit has benefits when looking at it from a sustainability perspective.

DIY-tinkerers that constantly buy the latest gear and build new enclosures, sometimes not the most energy friendly amps etc. are however not too sustainable. Then again, vintage drivers, scavenged wood, tiny class D/T tiny amps etc.
 
Just to clarify: Patrick and Ted produced the J51 driver in the the late 1980s, long before EJJ contracted Mark Audio to work on the JXR6HD. Ted's original 50mm Module, produced in 1976, was also a spiderless model. The J51 improved reliability and power handling.

From Patrick

"In the thread Colin’s post No 52 is correct.

I had experience with ferrofluids outside loudspeakers. I got the manufacturer to send Ted samples of different viscosities of high stability ferrofluid, and eventually he was persuaded to use it, with excellent results.

The J50 morphed into the J51, the new chassis capless J52 and the J53 with centre cap. I still have some which work perfectly. The resolution of these housed correctly is exemplary.

Spiderless divers in which the cone surround determines the excursion limits typically have no overload capacity, often resulting in permanently deformed cones.

I persuaded Ted to use more generous surrounds. We tried various soft excursion limit stops; eventually, for later drivers like the J92 he sensibly adopted the basket manufacturer’s corrugated spider: designed correctly these work well. It’s the controlled cone flexure that matters."
 
A question on longevity. Any comments on how durable the surrounds are? What would be the life expectancy of these drivers? Seems a lot of the older cloth surrounds just last forever while so many others disintegrate. I don't just mean foam rot either. I've seen rubber surrounds crack and split as well. I assume once the surround goes out you'd need to replace the full driver.