FAST or STAFT (WAW or STAW) Which is Better?

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I've wondered why more people don't use a full range driver with a supertweet.

Using a 24db active, 5khz worked really well on a piezo with a 4.5khz resonance. Didn't do "mug of herbal tea" as good as a non whizzer full range, but better than any 12-24db 2khz crossover. But asking a 6.5" silver flute to go that high didn't work, seemed hashy, and dispersion was tight trying to go that high.

My buddy ghosts in a dome real high, just to give dispersion to the crisp.

A flat z curve can make for a 6db slope high crossover point, and the tweet fs will be 2-3 octaves below crossover point also.

A fast versus wideband / supertweet, tough question......

Being a bass head, I'd choose fast.

But on few days when i want to hear the fly in the background of the recording booth, supertweeter.
 
I am beginning to suspect that the trick to adding a supertweeter is that crossing it up high enough we are no longer sensitive to comb effects etc. so the XO along with time alignment is a a thing not worth going to extremes over - we’d never get the acoustic centres aligned any how unless it was a suitably designed coaxial unit. I don’t know what minimum XO freq. is needed to pull this off but I suspect it’s somewhere north of 3kHz. I think I remember Troels Graveson saying his subjective evaluation of time aligning supertweeters was not very conclusive although he does recommend it where practical.

Other things become interesting questions at that point, such as omni vs forward only, depending on room and positioning. Having a supertweeter you can move around...


(FAST sounds way cooler than WAW :D)
 
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I was playing around with a 1in soft dome mounted in temporary parts bin box so that I could move it around. It’s an ND25FA-4 with 4.7ohm series and 1uF MKP connected to main binding posts of my 10F/RS225 FAST TL. Pointed straight up seems to give spaciousness to the soundstage and definitely more air and sparkle. But it’s not for all music. An on/off switch would be good.

So it’s a STAFAST? :)

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Reminds me of the van schweikert unifield 3.


Von Schweikert Audio UniField Model Three Loudspeaker (TAS 198) | The Absolute Sound

Ribbon above 8k, 7" in quisi transmission line below 100, and a fostex fx120 as the heart. I've found mention of asymmetrical crossover slopes.

I'd prefer a bit more meat having a woofer rolling off 6db higher in freq, maybe matching the baffle step.


I remember djk saying, full range is great, until you want a little more full range.
 
With stereo you also get stereo comb filtering over a large bandwidth, but it's not really an issue, if there isn't smoothing in the room due to reflections the brain tends to smooth it anyway, it's not something we notice unless perhaps if you move your head whilst listening but it's perfectly natural so doesn't feel wrong.
 
Reminds me of the van schweikert unifield 3.

Von Schweikert Audio UniField Model Three Loudspeaker (TAS 198) | The Absolute Sound

Ribbon above 8k, 7" in quisi transmission line below 100, and a fostex fx120 as the heart. I've found mention of asymmetrical crossover slopes.

I'd prefer a bit more meat having a woofer rolling off 6db higher in freq, maybe matching the baffle step.

I remember djk saying, full range is great, until you want a little more full range.

Thanks for posting about the UniField 3 speaker. I'd never heard about it (I have not followed news on commercial speakers for a long while), and it seems very relevant to answering the question asked in this thread.

It is funny that just this morning I was contemplating the combination of FX120 (I have a pair) and the Peerless corudum DA25TX00-08 tweeter (I also have a pair), crossed at 6KHz or higher (I'd try 1st order first). The FX120+DA25TX combo will be in a sealed box, and used with a bass module having two 8" woofers. So, the new DIY 3-way speaker I was thinking about would even look similar to the UniField 3! I guess it is hard to come up brand-new ideas. Just when we get a "new" idea and start to explore it, we soon realize that someone else not only had the same idea but had already commercialized that idea.

I was a bit shocked by the price of a pair of UniField 3s. $15K!? Now I have to build my new DIY 3-way speakers, if for no reason other than that it might sound as good as a $15K pair of speakers. :)

Kurt
 
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The acronyms confuse me, but I welcome discussions on the trade-offs of different crossover points. Everything generally ends up 3 way (or 2.x) if you want 20-20k performance but I've always pondered if 100Hz to 5kHz wouldn't be a good starting point for the core driver in a domestic environment if you could make it work

For many years my main speaker were a pair of infinity modulus (now on kitchen duty). These were designed to be used with a matching sub and used a 3.5" driver from 120Hz to 4kHz. They have their faults, but very enjoyable to listen to and until I went to the dark side of ribbons I considered that to be the right approach in the space limited rooms I have always had at my disposal.
 
. Everything generally ends up 3 way (or 2.x) if you want 20-20k performance but I've always pondered if 100Hz to 5kHz wouldn't be a good starting point for the core driver in a domestic environment if you could make it work.

Smaller drivers generally do better than large drivers at treble but they can’t move enough air to do good bass. My AN Super Ferrite 15” does both by having a whizzer cone but it’s not perfect. If going for a full range to cover the mid frequencies I suspect optimal requires limiting the low end to 300Hz to 500Hz. Cones generate treble through non-pistonic break-up modes and start to narrow their dispersion. I suspect optimal results limits the upper end to 1.5kHz to 3kHz. If you can cover the decade from 300Hz up to 3kHz cleanly with decent sensitivity, strong output, lowish distortion and reasonably well behaved dispersion without using up half of your living room then you are doing Extremely well.
 
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I was playing around with a 1in soft dome mounted in temporary parts bin box so that I could move it around. It’s an ND25FA-4 with 4.7ohm series and 1uF MKP connected to main binding posts of my 10F/RS225 FAST TL. Pointed straight up seems to give spaciousness to the soundstage and definitely more air and sparkle. But it’s not for all music. An on/off switch would be good.



So it’s a STAFAST? :)
For my system which based on 3FE22. I supplemented it with a Beston ribbon and I pointed it 45 degrees to the back.

I think in your situation, you might want to add something to block the front. As you don't want anything to leak to the front. As it will now appear as distortion to the front driver. However maybe it might be okay to leak since the crossover point is do high. If you toe in your speakers you could also get a very stable sound stage and yet spacious sound. The best of both worlds.

The theory is this, the reverb signal from the tweeter if less than 10ms delayed (I think, need to check it up) shows up as distortion. If more than 10ms, the brain processes it as a completely new signal and this signal gives a clue to the size of the space or the surrounding. After all, real musical instruments are omnidirectional. I hooked it up to my minidsp and added in more delay and the space can get deeper. However at about 30ms, you will hear it as a distinct echo and could be annoying.

This is not a new concept (and I didn't invent it), can be found in many 6 figure speakers such as Sonus faber and McIntosh.

Notice the 3 speakers on the rear of Sonus Faber Aida.

Oon 20201004_095434.jpg
 
Maybe dual RS225-8 in TL up to 100Hz, PTT6.5 up to 5kHz, Bliesema in WG300 above 5kHz. Time aligned XO. “Fullrange” from Purifi which has -60dB THD.
That is a really expensive system we are talking about there.

How about something a bit cheaper. 3Fe22/10F from 200Hz to 5K. A ribbon tweeter above 5K. Or even a dipole ribbon. Or a top facing tweeter with a switch.

BTW, how is the sound of the bliesma? I know you have been messing around with Purifi. But I haven't been following that thread. I suppose you suggested it here means you like it.

And there is that Amp part as well, a nice 10 to 20W class A or Tube for the full range and tweeter, and a massive Class D for the woofers.

Oon
 
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Smaller drivers generally do better than large drivers at treble but they can’t move enough air to do good bass. My AN Super Ferrite 15” does both by having a whizzer cone but it’s not perfect. If going for a full range to cover the mid frequencies I suspect optimal requires limiting the low end to 300Hz to 500Hz. Cones generate treble through non-pistonic break-up modes and start to narrow their dispersion. I suspect optimal results limits the upper end to 1.5kHz to 3kHz. If you can cover the decade from 300Hz up to 3kHz cleanly with decent sensitivity, strong output, lowish distortion and reasonably well behaved dispersion without using up half of your living room then you are doing Extremely well.
Hi Bigun,

As a fellow AN15 fan, I could recommend if you wanted something to mess around with, you might want to try the Faitalpro 3FE22, 3inch driver. One amazing driver.
 
Yes, that's why placing open baffle speakers and 'maggies' well out from the wall, at least 5 ft, works so well. Also, if you have an 8ft ceiling and a mid/tweeter is mounted low and shielded by the back of the speaker box as per the James Romeyn/Audio Kinesis "Late Ceiling Splash' system (uses wide range response, not just tweeter) , you can get excellent results with 'delays' in the 10 - 20mSec

Karlson, Sonab, etc, etc, based many of their speakers around this technique (2 way sytems) and there are plenty of others around today.
 
X,

Blast from the past:

Alpair 7P & Alpair 12PW combination.

Alas, Bob doesn't participate in the forums nowadays.

Just thinking... any of you guys have a spare Alpair 12PW that you can send to X? Might be an ideal candidate for a STAW experiment, especially with the XO schemes X has been looking at :)

In fact, I do have a spare 12pw I would be willing to ship DC way. I've been using them in an mltl crossed high to an oswg loaded compression driver for the sparkle. I'd be super interested to see what the community could come up with for loading and xover for this driver. I love it.
 
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