War of the 10" monster midbasses

Round 1 of the war of the monster 10" Midbasses -

On Axis FR and Harmonic Distortion.


Ciare NDH 10-3's
vs
Faital Pro 10FH520's
vs
Faital Pro 10FH530's
vs
Faital Pro 10HP1020's
vs
Eighteen Sound 10NW750's

(plus in the future: vs B&C 10PLB76's vs Beyma 10MC700ND's vs Eighteen Sound 10NDA610's).

The theme here is minimum 3" voice coils, minimum 400W RMS/AES power handling, most with flux demodulating rings, ~4-6mm Xmax. This is Texas, go big or go home (except for pricing, lol, looking to stay under $300 per driver limit). Hoping for good low-distortion performance. Intended frequency range use is about 150-200Hz on the low-end, and 1.0-1.5kHz on the top end.


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Individual Drivers - On-Axis Frequency Response - 2.83V, 1 meter, in-room, including reflections


Ciare NDH 10-3's

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Faital Pro 10FH520's
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Faital Pro 10FH530's
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Faital Pro 10HP1020's
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Eighteen Sound 10NW750's
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All Drivers FR superimposed.

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As expected from the FR graphs, the 10HP1020 is the "dullest" and the NDH10-3 is the "brightest" sounding. The funny thing is, all the Faital's and the 18 Sound drivers have demodulating rings in the motors, and Ciare says that the NDH10-3 does not have any kind of shorting/demodulating rings in the motor!.




Individual driver distortion performances. SPL levels at the specified 105-107 dB are @ 1m on-axis taken at ~500Hz.

Ciare NDH10-3

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Faital Pro 10FH530
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Faital Pro 10FH520
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Faital Pro 10HP1020
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Eighteen Sound 10NW750
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An externally hosted image should be here but it was not working when we last tested it.




This last graph shows the THD of the 5 above midbasses superimposed into one chart, with the very last one being windowed from 80Hz-10kHz, from 0 to 4 % THD.
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Next time I'll do some CSD plots and polar response plots. Maybe with some more midbasses. I had considered the AE TD10M but @ $460 fully loaded it's too much for this hobbyist, lol. I'm trying to get a hold of a pair of PD.103NR1's as well.



Here is a ZIP file containing all data thus far.

Ten Inch Midbass Drivers.zip
 
News break, this just in! More data.

I added a B&C 10PLB76 and an 18 Sound 10NDA610 to this royal rumble.

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Same test conditions as before.

B&C 10PLB76 Frequency Response

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B&C 10PLB76 Distortion Performance

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18 Sound 10NDA610 FR with and without AIC. The addition of AIC results in ~ +5dB hotter output from about 2kHz-upward, with the change starting around 1.5kHz.


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Interestingly, the distortion with AIC decreases on the low-end but not on the high-end, but I guess it makes sense since it is not shorted, but rather in parallel to the voice coil.

Without AIC

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with AIC

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and for the kicker, here it is with the AIC coil shorted to itself...

18 Sound NDA610 FR comparing without AIC, with AIC, and AIC shorted. A little bit hotter than without, but not as hot as with AIC on the top-end.

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18 Sound NDA610 Distortion with AIC shorted

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18 Sound NDA610 Distortion Percentage with AIC, without AIC, and AIC shorted.


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18 Sound 10NDA610 Impedance/phase & T/S parameters via DATS V2

Without AIC.

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With AIC. Top-end impedance and phase shift near resonance definitely flattens out.
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Shorted AIC. Impedance Peak and phase shift remains largely unaffected, but the top-end impedance does decrease.
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The inductance on my DATS V2 has never checked out compared to mfg spec sheets. 18 Sound claims 0.06mH @ 1kHz w/ AIC, DATS V2 shows ~0.8mH. Oh well, no biggie. I'm sure the DATS V2 has limitations.



18 Sound 10NDA610 Impedance/Phase combined.
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Latest ZIP file with all info.

Ten Inch Midbass Drivers.zip

Lots more testing to do!!!
 
fantastic ongoing survey - wonder how the poor - man's Eminence Delta10a might fare (?)

send it to me and I'll test it.

Your DATS measurements are pretty much exactly the same as my WT3 results for the 10NDA610.

Nice to see quality control is tight.

I was definitely impressed with the 10NW750, which is what led me to acquire the 10ND610.

Big thumbs-up :up: to Jay @ Loudspeakers Plus for providing me with great deals on all the 18 Sound speakers thus far!
 
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Great thread!!

In fact I'm working on a 4-way with dual 10" midbasses and considering the 10NDA610 as midrange from 300 to 2000Hz, so fantastic to see your measurements. High efficiency and almost constant impedance when AIC is engaged makes it look like a great candidate to be driven by a dedicated SET.

BTW, I think the Le of 0.06mH is with AIC engaged. Was your measurement of 0.8mH with or without AIC?

The midbasses I'm working with are Beyma 10G40 to go from 80 to 300Hz. They match your criteria. Any plans to include in your shootout? :)
 
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Great thread!!

In fact I'm working on a 4-way with dual 10" midbasses and considering the 10NDA610 as midrange from 300 to 2000Hz, so fantastic to see your measurements. High efficiency and almost constant impedance when AIC is engaged makes it look like a great candidate to be driven by a dedicated SET.

BTW, I think the Le of 0.06mH is with AIC engaged. Was your measurement of 0.8mH with or without AIC?

The midbasses I'm working with are Beyma 10G40 to go from 80 to 300Hz. They match your criteria. Any plans to include in your shootout? :)

I made dfferent measurements with and without AIC using my DATS V2 (see the pictures). Without is even higher, according to my DATS V2. On all of these drivers, it reports inductance higher than what the spec sheets say, so I'm assuming it is a hardware/software limitation perhaps.

I had considerd the 10G40's, but I'm gonna wait for the 10MC700ND's to be available.
 
Between the 10NW750's copper ring+aluminum demodulating ring, and the 10NDA610's AIC system, they should be the cleanest sounding at high power out of this bunch. Maybe some IMD and multi-tone testing would shed light on this. Then again, the Ciare 12NDH-3 subjectively sounds cleaner than a 12MB700 with dual demodulating rings.

Have you had a chance to listen to them?
 
Between the 10NW750's copper ring+aluminum demodulating ring, and the 10NDA610's AIC system, they should be the cleanest sounding at high power out of this bunch. Maybe some IMD and multi-tone testing would shed light on this. Then again, the Ciare 12NDH-3 subjectively sounds cleaner than a 12MB700 with dual demodulating rings.

Have you had a chance to listen to them?

At the moment I'm only considering tens, so no 12's will be making theyre way over here.

Ive been thinking of how to perform IMD tests with the Dayton Omnimic, so if you have any suggestions, I'm all ears.
 
I made dfferent measurements with and without AIC using my DATS V2 (see the pictures). Without is even higher, according to my DATS V2. On all of these drivers, it reports inductance higher than what the spec sheets say, so I'm assuming it is a hardware/software limitation perhaps.

I had considerd the 10G40's, but I'm gonna wait for the 10MC700ND's to be available.

What was it that didn't convince you about the 10G40?

Note 18Sound classifies 10NDA610 as a midrange rather than midbass. How high are you planning to xo these?
 
What was it that didn't convince you about the 10G40?

Note 18Sound classifies 10NDA610 as a midrange rather than midbass. How high are you planning to xo these?

10G40 looks solid, but I think I will simply wait for the 10MC700ND to become available. It looks like a beast!

Crossover points have in no way been decided on. It would be foolish to do so with such limited data.
 
Interesting! Thanks for sharing this.

Regarding the 10HP1020, this is a bit of a strange driver (wonderfully crazy in fact) and I have often wondered where and how one would best use one of these little monsters.

It is a 10" bass driver as I see it, it has the motor system of a decent 15" or even 18" bass driver, it is without comparison in it's segment in this regard as far as I know, and I'd be hard pressed to call it a typical 10" mid/bass, I see it as more of a pure bass driver even though it can reach pretty high, just look at the specs :

Maximum power handling - 1,4kW (700AES).
Voice coil diameter - 100mm (4 inches).
BL - 24,5
Mms - 72,5g
Xmax - 9mm

This also shows in the THD graph, they are far beyond the competition in this line up with regards to THD in the low frequency region, hinting that this is their turf, for mid duty though I'm sure there are more appropriate drivers.

My guess (note the word - guess) is that they are excellent for compact bass horns or other high power designs that loads the driver to a great extent, aimed at low frequency reproduction.

But they are wonderful for sure, crazy yes, but still :)
 
Interesting! Thanks for sharing this.

Regarding the 10HP1020, this is a bit of a strange driver (wonderfully crazy in fact) and I have often wondered where and how one would best use one of these little monsters.

It is a 10" bass driver as I see it, it has the motor system of a decent 15" or even 18" bass driver, it is without comparison in it's segment in this regard as far as I know, and I'd be hard pressed to call it a typical 10" mid/bass, I see it as more of a pure bass driver even though it can reach pretty high, just look at the specs :

Maximum power handling - 1,4kW (700AES).
Voice coil diameter - 100mm (4 inches).
BL - 24,5
Mms - 72,5g
Xmax - 9mm

This also shows in the THD graph, they are far beyond the competition in this line up with regards to THD in the low frequency region, hinting that this is their turf, for mid duty though I'm sure there are more appropriate drivers.

My guess (note the word - guess) is that they are excellent for compact bass horns or other high power designs that loads the driver to a great extent, aimed at low frequency reproduction.

But they are wonderful for sure, crazy yes, but still :)

I totally agree. I had not initially planned on getting them, but I got them 2-for-the-price-of-1, so I could not pass it up. :eek: :D