Have been liking the sound coming out of these 15" bass modules (https://www.diyaudio.com/forums/multi-way/277565-legis-horny-tales-20.html#post6233392) also when used as a 2-way woofers and one idea lead to another.
I already have the "closely TH-4001 clone" horns from Usher D3 and the 15" top and bottom bass modules so I will only have to build separate middle modules that sit between them.
The speaker will likely be 2,5-way and passive single amp system, driven with a flea watt tube amp
.The ready speaker will be 230cm tall and 115cm wide and 40cm deep. Lot's of Sd and even Vd even though they are sensitive pro drivers. They only consume 0,92m2 of floor space per pair and they can be pushed completely against the wall as the terminals are at the front baffle.
The 12" drivers are already ordered and I decided to get Fane FC-123F02 (got the last stock, it's discontinued model) which are pretty much the closest 12" equivalent for the 15" FC-153F01 woofers which the others are.
They seem to have the same kind of motor which has copper faraday sleeve since the impedance is also very low 25ohm at 20khz. The motor has superbly low H3.
We'll see how they sound raw/wo xo and measure when they arrive from the foggy island.
Will post some measurements...
Here are couple of sims.
FC-123F02 in 80l box (qtc 0,495) and FC-153F01 in 110l box (qtc 0,55). The phase should be quite agreeable inside +/- 10deg between them.
Here's a sim imported from the Vituixcad's diffraction tool. the 2x2 12" matrix is full range 0deg and the 15" 0,5-way woofers have 15mH lowpass coil.
Just to get some idea how the matrix will lobe off-axis. Seems to behave quite good "many tens" of degrees, and the power response is quite even at least in sim. I presume they will propably work best in at least slightly treated rooms where the frontal/listening window response dominates the power response (in how you percieve the balance and what the listening spot response is), so I don't have unrealistic hopes for superbly well behaved power response. Low acoustic xo point around 700-800Hz will help.
I already have a 2-way "Colossus lv1" system playing here
Works quite good even with a proto xo with only 1mh coil as a low pass for the 8ohm wired mids so almost everything comes through. The phase is something like 100deg wrong/makes a step at the xo point, so adding another pole to mids (like in Usher D2/D3 it is) should fix that. Big closed Sd is a funny thing in nearfield.Couple of videos:
1: Lv.1 Colossus - Yao Si Ting - YouTube
2: Lv.1 Colossus - Unforgiven - YouTube
Here's the listening spot response of the Usher D3/TH-4001 horn (with TD-4001) with no toe in like in the picture, with the original Usher D2 xo (without the small low pass coil that is there to tame TD-4001's 20kHz peak).
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Oh no, they are quite heavy, full grown Colossus with the horn and drivers will weight around 250-300kg presumably. I have used these 15" woofers as 230cm tall line arrays before (when the contact area to floor is only 65x40cm and weight only ~160kg), even then they sat very, very still at all home levels. Going full Colossus the mass and contact area increases greatly. Plus driver's don't really move that much at all even at very high spl.
With shallow 18" dipole/U-frame woofers I once had, made from 18mm mdf and weightling much less, the rocking modes were very real when the drivers were moving +/-10mm with Tchaikovsky's cannons.
. Going full Colossus the mass and contact area increases greatly. Plus driver's don't really move that much at all even at very high spl.With shallow 18" dipole/U-frame woofers I once had, made from 18mm mdf and weightling much less, the rocking modes were very real when the drivers were moving +/-10mm with Tchaikovsky's cannons
.
NEXO subwoofers SO LOUD they don't stay in place. - YouTube
Yes they do it like this with 10w of tube amp power
Got the Fane FC-123F02 woofers couple of days ago for the Colossus'es.
(FYI I'm fully aware that (because) I like these drivers and it might hinder my objectivity, so take a grain of salt)
- The motor seems to be the same that is used in FC-153F01. Same color magnet (more grayish than normal, higher quality barium/strontium ferrite?). Same depth of the magnet (23mm). Same top plate thickness (9mm). Same "real" physical xmax (5mm) (stated xmax 7,5mm on 15" vs. 8mm on 12"). Both have the same impedance at 20khz (24ohm approx). Very similar H3 distortion performance among them also.
- The cone is said to be paper cone on the spec sheet, but it has been loaded with some long fibres that I think are carbon fibres. The cone sparkles in direct light like a fresh fallen powder snow on a very cold winter night in Finland (see video below).
- Curvilinear carbon fibre loaded cone is light but stiff and has slightly more pronounced break-up peaks than a gradually and softer breaking-up curvilinear paper cones (usually). The sound has some qualities of feeling light-footed, accurate and tonally neutral with quite little energy storage/overhang on notes (also clean impulse/step without xo). The bass might also have more of a tactile quality than with a more lossier cones. This is definitely a member of the "guild of the mythic forgotten god-tier kick bass" driver like the 15" version also. Colossal kick bass is the next 120dB@10hz thing, we have had enough of high mass xmax monsters.
-Regardless the carbon fibres, I think I will like the result even though I first was little sceptical towards the fibrous stiff cone - when I noticed the fibres (I though I had bought paper cone drivers after all). Too stiff cones are usually best to be avoided, like real far, so there my little scepticism, but seems Fane knows also their carbon fibre stuff. The response is very flat until 1-1,5khz, like stiff-cone-flat under the break-up region.
- Fane's style is clearly to tune the driver's raw mechanics (cone and suspension) to sound good as-is, based on the three models I own. The sound emanating from these 12" drivers (after 5 hours of play only, so much to go on) is interesting. It has bite, is accurate and clean and regardless the carbon fibre cone it has been tuned to have the Fane "house sound" qualities (how do they do that...). Crunchy and slightly woody/earthy/delicious/warm-ish tone color which serves music well for me.
First, here are some videos, have fun! Best to be listened with neutral headphones.
Full range test after slight burn-in: Fane FC-123F02 full range - YouTube
Burn-in with 20hz bursts: Fane FC-123F02 burn in - YouTube
Burn in excursion in in slow-motion: Fane FC-123F02 slow-mo - YouTube
The fibres on the cone: Fane FC-123F02 Cone - YouTube
Driver pics:
I'm a fan of air-dried cones "slurry" back side.
The fibrous cone:
And some measurements straight out of box.
Le 0,145mH
Impedance comparison between the 15" and 12" "FC" model:
Measurement distance about 25cm, woofer sitting on the floor vertically without baffle (I don't have boxes yet).
FR from 4 distances (closest 15cm, furthest 100cm). The carbon fibre loaded cone's series of break-up modes can be seen, luckily they are quite well damped/behaved. Also playing the woofers might change them a bit as the fibres get some movement and "relax" a little. This series of smaller peaks seems to be typical response character for a carbon fibre cones.
Both the 15" and 12" have very extended freq response being only approx. -25dB down at 20khz vs. 1kHz.
3ms time window:
10ms time window:
50ms:
H3 distortion comparison between the 12" and 15". Driven with a SE tube amp without feedback, less than 1 watt. With voltage source/0ohm output imp. amp H3 might be little higher.
Without "harmonic frequency as ref.":
(FYI I'm fully aware that (because) I like these drivers and it might hinder my objectivity, so take a grain of salt
)- The motor seems to be the same that is used in FC-153F01. Same color magnet (more grayish than normal, higher quality barium/strontium ferrite?). Same depth of the magnet (23mm). Same top plate thickness (9mm). Same "real" physical xmax (5mm) (stated xmax 7,5mm on 15" vs. 8mm on 12"). Both have the same impedance at 20khz (24ohm approx). Very similar H3 distortion performance among them also.
- The cone is said to be paper cone on the spec sheet, but it has been loaded with some long fibres that I think are carbon fibres
. The cone sparkles in direct light like a fresh fallen powder snow on a very cold winter night in Finland (see video below).- Curvilinear carbon fibre loaded cone is light but stiff and has slightly more pronounced break-up peaks than a gradually and softer breaking-up curvilinear paper cones (usually). The sound has some qualities of feeling light-footed, accurate and tonally neutral with quite little energy storage/overhang on notes (also clean impulse/step without xo). The bass might also have more of a tactile quality than with a more lossier cones. This is definitely a member of the "guild of the mythic forgotten god-tier kick bass" driver like the 15" version also
. Colossal kick bass is the next 120dB@10hz thing, we have had enough of high mass xmax monsters.-Regardless the carbon fibres, I think I will like the result even though I first was little sceptical towards the fibrous stiff cone - when I noticed the fibres (I though I had bought paper cone drivers after all). Too stiff cones are usually best to be avoided, like real far, so there my little scepticism, but seems Fane knows also their carbon fibre stuff. The response is very flat until 1-1,5khz, like stiff-cone-flat under the break-up region.
- Fane's style is clearly to tune the driver's raw mechanics (cone and suspension) to sound good as-is, based on the three models I own. The sound emanating from these 12" drivers (after 5 hours of play only, so much to go on) is interesting. It has bite, is accurate and clean and regardless the carbon fibre cone it has been tuned to have the Fane "house sound" qualities (how do they do that...). Crunchy and slightly woody/earthy/delicious/warm-ish tone color which serves music well for me.
First, here are some videos, have fun! Best to be listened with neutral headphones.
Full range test after slight burn-in: Fane FC-123F02 full range - YouTube
Burn-in with 20hz bursts: Fane FC-123F02 burn in - YouTube
Burn in excursion in in slow-motion: Fane FC-123F02 slow-mo - YouTube
The fibres on the cone: Fane FC-123F02 Cone - YouTube
Driver pics:
I'm a fan of air-dried cones "slurry" back side.
The fibrous cone:
And some measurements straight out of box.
Le 0,145mH
Impedance comparison between the 15" and 12" "FC" model:
Measurement distance about 25cm, woofer sitting on the floor vertically without baffle (I don't have boxes yet).
FR from 4 distances (closest 15cm, furthest 100cm). The carbon fibre loaded cone's series of break-up modes can be seen, luckily they are quite well damped/behaved. Also playing the woofers might change them a bit as the fibres get some movement and "relax" a little. This series of smaller peaks seems to be typical response character for a carbon fibre cones.
Both the 15" and 12" have very extended freq response being only approx. -25dB down at 20khz vs. 1kHz.
3ms time window:
10ms time window:
50ms:
H3 distortion comparison between the 12" and 15". Driven with a SE tube amp without feedback, less than 1 watt. With voltage source/0ohm output imp. amp H3 might be little higher.
Without "harmonic frequency as ref.":
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Super project - subscribed the thread!
I have looked into similar speakers myself. My maine obstacle is discontinuty in the power response at xo btw horn and 12-inch midwoofers. With xo at around 800hz I will presume a quite noticable discontinuity. An alternative I have looked into is using only one 12-inch in the horisontal plane, and increase xo to around 1100-1200 hz.
With dual 12 inch midwoofers I believe 90 degrees dispersion will be achieved around 500hz. That is to low for the horn
I have looked into similar speakers myself. My maine obstacle is discontinuty in the power response at xo btw horn and 12-inch midwoofers. With xo at around 800hz I will presume a quite noticable discontinuity. An alternative I have looked into is using only one 12-inch in the horisontal plane, and increase xo to around 1100-1200 hz.
With dual 12 inch midwoofers I believe 90 degrees dispersion will be achieved around 500hz. That is to low for the horn
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Yes the speaker will quite likely need at least slightly treated room to sound most balanced so the direct radiation dominates the power response. In their current state "little Colossus" (the 15" modules with quite separated drivers and the horn between them) the matrix actually mates good already to the horn, which surprized me and led me to think that the more compact matrix won't be any problem. But most likely in a echoy room with long listening distance the xo point region would not have enough "power", the non-ideal power response would dominate too much. But not a problem, I don't "do audio" in an echo-room if it's up to me
Big Sd, lots of directivity with direct radiators and massive sealed bass array at low freqs (effectively the whole 115x230cm speaker since 2,5-way, maybe 3,5-way if I get crazy) will be something I have not experienced before. Should be fun.
Big Sd, lots of directivity with direct radiators and massive sealed bass array at low freqs (effectively the whole 115x230cm speaker since 2,5-way, maybe 3,5-way if I get crazy) will be something I have not experienced before. Should be fun.
Rey audio says xo is 420hz.
Acoustical ofc, but still seems quite low.The td4001 goes straight to 300-400hz in the usher's yuichi clone horn also but i would not cross it that low, maybe 550-600hz would be ok. Does rey audio use deeper profile horn?
Anyway I would think the slowly decreasing slope of the horn until 300hz will even out the xo region power response (if the horn is not xo'ed steeply on purpose).
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Tried simmin what happens if the 15" woofers would be lowpassed higher to use them also to slightly fill the power of the xo region. I dunno, might work, might not. Horizontal widens a bit, vertical narrows "a little". The Yuichi is 95x40deg horn, but vertical beam cannot be that narrow at the xo region. If it was, the vertical directivity should match like a dream.
Hor:
Ver:
. The Yuichi is 95x40deg horn, but vertical beam cannot be that narrow at the xo region. If it was, the vertical directivity should match like a dream.Hor:
Ver:
Received the binding posts from Germany couple of days ago and finalized "pre burning in" all the drivers. Also slightly "sensitized" their upper suspension with ethanol, made it also look very nice and smooth and made them not so tacky.
Tomorrow I will drive ~600-700km when collecting the enclosures from the capital with a van.
The effect of 1 hour of 20hz bursts near the xmax:
The ready to be mounted Fane FC-123F02 octet:
Tomorrow I will drive ~600-700km when collecting the enclosures from the capital with a van
.
The effect of 1 hour of 20hz bursts near the xmax:
The ready to be mounted Fane FC-123F02 octet:
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^Interesting findings/comparison. Does the same sound character translate to their sound also as direct radiators?
My ultimate driver test is raw connected direct radiator if the basic sound/balance of the soft parts (cone, suspension) is to be evalued. This gives quite good idea of the "basic level" of the sound and problems which one can only attenuate with electrical xo, acoustic xo in horns etc., but not fully remove them.
Drivers for the Guild of The Kick Bass: low mms, high qms, strong motor (high EBP) and low Le does not hurt either. The ability to energize the cone in the kick bass region without mechanical or electrical brake/losses is the right starting point, after that try to hunt the best raw-behaving drivers.
My ultimate driver test is raw connected direct radiator if the basic sound/balance of the soft parts (cone, suspension) is to be evalued. This gives quite good idea of the "basic level" of the sound and problems which one can only attenuate with electrical xo, acoustic xo in horns etc., but not fully remove them.
Drivers for the Guild of The Kick Bass: low mms, high qms, strong motor (high EBP) and low Le does not hurt either. The ability to energize the cone in the kick bass region without mechanical or electrical brake/losses is the right starting point, after that try to hunt the best raw-behaving drivers.