Thinking about Audio Nirvana Super 10/12 Ferrite in Open Baffle...

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I'm having somewhat of a time trying to decide on which size drivers to get. I want them to be as smooth and natural as possible without being hard or edgy sounding in the midrange and treble, and have a full bodied sound down into the lower mid-bass region without sounding lean or stressed.

I need them to do everything well, everything from orchestral to opera to pipe organ to jazz. Even 70's, 80's and 90's pop and rock. Beatles, Pink Floyd, Genesis, Van Halen, White Snake, Toto, Queen, etc, etc. Like I said, pretty much everything... Except country and rap.

I do have a somewhat limited budget, so Alnico drivers are out of the question.


Okay, so a little bit about the future system plans...

H-Frame OB bass will be handled by a total of EIGHT 12" Eminence Acoustinator N2012 guitar speakers with neodymium magnets. They will be crossed over and EQ'ed by a dbx Driverack Venu 360 and will be powered by a Carver M-500t MkII amplifier (MkII means full upgrades and mods performed). It produces a very solid 390 watts per channel into 8 ohms. More than enough for these drivers. The H-Frames will be cloned to those of Danny Richie's design/size H-Frames.

The Audio Nirvana Super 12 Ferrite fullrange drivers will be on narrow OB panels with maybe one or two asymmetrical "wings". They will sit atop one of the two H-Frames per channel as the H-Frames will be sitting side-by-side. The Audio Nirvana drivers will also be crossed over and EQ'ed by the same dbx Driverack Venu 360 and will be powered by yet another modded and updated Carver M-500t MkII amplifier.

Of course, if I can get by without using any crossover or EQ in the signal chain going to the fullrange drivers, that will be even better. And while being rated at 99 dB efficient, I may even end up going with a totally different amplifier to power them later down the road.

If this project turns out performing really well, they may end up totally replacing my current setup which includes a pair of mint AV123 X-Statik OB hybrid speakers that I bought brand new 10 years ago, with fully upgraded crossovers and a pair of mint, nearly new JL Audio e110 powered subwoofers which are some of the best sounding little subs I have had the pleasure of owning. They're very impressive.

Current setup...
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You don't need wings on the fr drivers and unless your room is big you certainly don't need 12" drivers. Our 10" filled a 17x26 room with plenty.

Okay, so I won't need wings.

But the size isn't the important part. The important part is which one has a smoother response and will require the least amount of tuning via EQ. But I also want great efficiency.
 

GM

Member
Joined 2003
On paper and based on your other 'specs', the 12" is the 'no-brainer' choice, but only you can answer these types of questions since we all hear the same, yet not so much as proven by other's suggestions plus we don't have your listening space.

FWIW, based solely on early reviews the new Fane 15" seems a better overall choice, especially OB loaded since 'BIB' rules when it comes to doing any justice to R&R, organ, big band, etc., prominent/'full' mids, lower HF.

GM
 
On paper and based on your other 'specs', the 12" is the 'no-brainer' choice, but only you can answer these types of questions since we all hear the same, yet not so much as proven by other's suggestions plus we don't have your listening space.

FWIW, based solely on early reviews the new Fane 15" seems a better overall choice, especially OB loaded since 'BIB' rules when it comes to doing any justice to R&R, organ, big band, etc., prominent/'full' mids, lower HF.

GM

For some things, going bigger is in fact better, and going with a larger fullrange driver seems to possibly be the better way to go. As I said earlier, I would love to bypass the dbx altogether for the fullrange driver if I can. I listen to a lot of pipe organ music and other bass heavy music. I don't need the fullrange drivers to faithfully reproduce that bass, but I do want them to be able to handle that bass content when it's present without stressing them.

If they are large and super efficient, they can play loud and easily keep up with the bass drivers with only a few watts. And a few watts on one of these large fullrange drivers aren't going to stress them at all, even if seeing a 16 Hz signal on an open baffle.

Also, I've never heard of Fane before, but I'm glad to see they make a 15" fullrange driver. Are there any vendors here in the states? And how much roughly do they run? I'll be reading up on them, but will also seriously consider them.


Well, in most [DIYer's] rooms, directivity control plays a big part in best overall performance, so question whether a single 'FR' driver of any size would be able to meet your needs.

GM

I'm pretty much in the near-field no matter what size drivers I'm using. With my X-Statik's, they are 4' out into the room and I'm only sitting about 6' in front of them.

The OB system I am going to build will be completely modular. There's going to be four separate H-frames, each housing two 12". There will two on either side of the room, and I'll be able to place the fullrange OB on top of them, and be able to adjust those top OB's left and right, forward and backwards, up and down, and even tilt them.

So no matter what, I "should" be able to tune their placement to an extent in this small room, even more so than standard tower speakers and subs.
 
I have a bunch of the Audio Nirvana drivers, and I think they all sound
quite good, particularly compared to cost. I think any of them will probably
keep you happy.

Well hello Mr Pass!

It's been quite some time since we've conversed. Last time was when you and I were buying up all of those 8" Peerless India drivers from Parts Express for SLOB's. Which I never got around to doing and still have all of those drivers boxed up. I think I have 18 or 24 of them!


In your experience with the Audio Nirvana drivers, which would you choose for my particular setup that I'm planning and for any type of music, including the occasional movie or two? 10" or 12"? Classic series or Super series?

Good treble extension is important to me. If they produce usable output up around 17 kHz or so, that would be great.

Also, would you happen to be selling any of your drivers? :D
 
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