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Which speakers are you using with your TSE?

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I'm starting a 300B build but don't have speakers yet.
I have a Frugal-Horn mk3 flat-pak which I originally planned on building with FE126En drivers but that project may take a while.
I like the looks of vintage Klipsch, JBL and Yamaha but never actually heard any.
I am very curious to hear peoples experiences with different speakers and the TSE. Both good and bad impressions welcome!
 
In both of our houses, I use some newish floor standing Klipsch for their 96 dB sensitivity.

In my ham shack, I use a pair of small two way Yamaha, I think the low frequency driver is six or six and one half inch. Maybe 86-87 dB sensitivity, but the room is small enough that even the little 2A3 modified SSE can run me out of it.

I use some smallish indoor\outdoor Yamaha on the deck with a small push pull amp.

I'm not an audiophile, I just like tinkering with stuff ...
 
I will be building some Frugels at some point with Mark Audio drivers but I need to save up first :)

Currently using Loth-X Ion 1 BS which are 94dB and are more than capable of filling a midsize room (UK midsize) when coupled with an REL T-Zero sub.

Before I got the sub I had them hooked up to my Genesis II+ and the TSE didn't struggle to drive them except the bass didn't quite cut it for some music.
 
Would be interesting to hear which output transformers are being used as well, to see if their is a correlation.

I have toroidy OPTs and small canton bookshelf speakers (DC10), and it sounds great! I have only used Bluetooth and YouTube so far, till it goes into its new box, so I am dying to hear how an uncompressed source will sound.
 
My TSE is the first generation PCB and I'm using 45s with Electra Print OTs. My input source has been FLAC sent to a Chromecast Audio device from my phone. I don't consider myself an audiophile either. With that out of the way..

I have a big pair of Klipsch KG 5.5 towers that I purchased new during the 1990s. The sensitivity rating on these are 98 dB and they are known for their tight clean bass output. I've never needed a sub with these speakers using any system. The TSE drives them without any problems at comfortable levels in my family room with my phone's volume almost maxed out. Tons of tight clean bass when called for. I've been very impressed with how these speakers sound with the TSE.

Just last week I came across a vintage pair of Klipsch La Scalas (104 dB) that I've been trying out with the TSE. As expected, no issues whatsoever driving them with the TSE 45. I'm still dialing in their placement in the room but they are sounding phenomenal so far!
 
I've been listening to my TSE with Tang band W8-1772's in a bass reflex box for years......about 95db sensitivity.



Most of the time I've also got a 12" powered sub on with them...but they work quite well without the sub for solo acoustic stuff.......really happy with the setup.


My 300B TSE has James output transformers.
 
The daily driver SSE in the home entertainment system is using the cheap 5 K 15 watt Edcor SSE open frame OPT, and 6AQ5 tubes.

The modified SSE in my ham shack is using some eBay 5/7K OPT and 2A3 tubes.

I ran my TSE with Hammond 125ESE. I keep meaning to swap these into my ham shack SSE, but never seem to get around to it.
 
Every amp I build sees the most time on my Yamaha NS-10M Studio monitors. This primarily because I have owned those speakers for over 30 years and I know their sound.

The best sounding speakers for my 45 based TSE in my small 10 X 10 foot listening room / lab was the FH3's with some Planet 10 Enabled Fostex FE126E drivers. I had them on my workbench riser placed upside down to put the drivers at head level, so they were in a near field situation.

Now that I have moved and my lab is in a 2000 square foot basement with concrete walls, the 2 WPC TSE just doesn't cut it with any small speakers, so it's sitting idle on a shelf.

A TSE-II with some Chinese 2A3's in it, running on 380 volts of B+ was a pleasant surprise with the FH3's. It saw listening duty until I made the first UNSET.

For the last three months I have been abusing the only UNSET in existence, but fear that it's power might hurt the little drivers. I hook up the Yamahas or some thrift store Cerwin Vegas for loud stuff. The UNSET hits 30 WPC at clipping. Again the FH3's sound the best, but don't make the SPL of the other two.

I made a pair of EZ-10 horns with Audio Nirvana 10 inch FR drivers back in Florida. Unfortunately, I sold them because of the cost to move them. They are big. I think they would be a good fit here.
 
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Great replies so far... looks like quite a few happy folks with Yamaha, Klipsch and Fostex based full rangers.
Amp isn't built yet but OPT's are ISO FC-20S (should be similar to Tango XE-20S).

George, you have given me some motivation to follow through on that FH3 flat-pak sitting in my garage....!
Regardless, in the past week I picked up a pair of Klipsch Quartet locally and a planet10-hifi Falcon Woden (full-range bookshelf TL based on Fostex 4" FF105wk).

Both pretty different speaker design so should be an interesting comparison.
 
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Checking in a few months later....
I finished my TSE 300B with ISO iron (PT, Choke, OPT's) and am trying to figure out speaker matching.

Right now they are connected to a pair of Klipsch Quartets. I replaced the caps in the crossover and updated the tweeter to Titanium on these.
The sound is nice, volume definitely sufficient but something seems off. I've never been able to describe "sound" well, but to me it sounds perhaps compressed and "difficult" on the amp. These are supposed to be 8ohm but when I measure the binding post it reads 3.8R (not sure if that has any signficance).
I say "compressed" because I tried the same Quartets with a Sansui AU-9500 (80w/ch) and it was stunning. Very dynamic and "effortless" is the best I can explain it.

Otherwise, I have started building the FH3 flat-pak but was a bit sloppy and made a mistake that prevents me from completing the cabinets properly. I'll have to take it to a wood shop nearby to see if they can rescue the project for me.
I also have a pair of PMC twenty.21 that I'll give a try but these are far from an ideal pairing for a SET amp.

So....trying to figure out my next move...
I've been reading good things about Zu audio but never heard.
The Klipsch RP-600M bookshelf has gotten very favorable reviews, and was even reviewed with the Elekit TU-8600 300B so that is an option as well.
Has anyone else tried new combinations?

I've been listening to my TSE with Tang band W8-1772's in a bass reflex box for years......about 95db sensitivity.
This is super interesting... even if the FH3 fails I'm not sure I've given up entirely on DIY. Which cabinet design did you use?
 
These are supposed to be 8ohm but when I measure the binding post it reads 3.8R (not sure if that has any significance).

Which cabinet design did you use?

3.8R is significant.....Sounds likely that your speakers are less then 8 ohm.....do you have 4 ohm taps on your output transformers? .......if so, try those.

8 ohm taps driving 8 ohm speakers=rated power and distortion

4 ohm taps driving 4 ohm speakers=rated power and distortion

4 ohm tas driving 8 ohm speakers=less than rated power and less than rated distortion......it won't hurt anything.....

Do you have a function generator? If so it's quite straightforward to make an impedance plot in excel or on graph paper with the function generator and a volt meter...and maybe a resistor. I can post this setup if you are interested.

The TB W8-1772s have a few popular cabinets that they work well with .....

TB has a back loaded horn cabinet design which you can find online (kinda complex)

They also are pretty much a drop in for back loaded horns that are designed for the Fostex FE207's, like the Half Chang.

...and Bob Brines BR/MLTL cabinet is quite popular; that was originally designed for the FE207's

I had them in Half Chang cabinets years ago, but sold the half changs and re-purposed some old ESS cabinets as a BR design similar to Bob Brine's cabinet....can't remember the details but maybe around 40L tuned to 48 hz..kinda guessing on that ..it's been awhile.

There are a few big threads on the W8-1772 in the full range forum.
 
I will be building some Frugel's at some point with Mark Audio drivers but I need to save up first :)

Currently using Loth-X Ion 1 BS which are 94dB and are more than capable of filling a midsize room (UK midsize) when coupled with an REL T-Zero sub.

Before I got the sub I had them hooked up to my Genesis II+ and the TSE didn't struggle to drive them except the bass didn't quite cut it for some music.

As you asked, OPT's are James Audio 6123.
 
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3.8R is significant.....Sounds likely that your speakers are less then 8 ohm.....do you have 4 ohm taps on your output transformers? .......if so, try those.

The OPT has 4ohm taps but I didn't wire them.... I have other projects in the queue so it may take me a while to try that.

I'm using 300B and wired the 5K:8 taps. A 4 ohm load would bring the primary closer to the "standard" 3.5K point so could potentially work OK.

Do you have a function generator? If so it's quite straightforward to make an impedance plot in excel or on graph paper with the function generator and a volt meter...and maybe a resistor. I can post this setup if you are interested.

Yes I've got one.... please share, that's something interesting to try.
 
Itzikhefez, did you ever listning to some fullrangers with your'e taste of music?

Reason i ask is that i did for a lot of years experiement with different FR, fe207 halfchang, markaudio in some pencils etc...

The for ME not so high pressure those fullrangers gives is not satisfiying
I also had trouble with the beaming effect that i hear listning to them... But it's mine opinion not neccessary the right.
For female, aka' Nora Jones they sound for me very good through.

Jesper.

Edit ... Donno why it sometimes sounds like Yoda when i write my non native language, sry guy's...
 
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Altec 414A/802D with JMLC horns.
TL Fostex 167E.
 
Since we are all sheltering in place out here in CA....I've been playing with other speakers.


I'm experimenting with a pair of FaitalPro 6FE200 6" and a Fountek NeoCD 3.0.


The FaitalPro's are 95db sens wired in parallel, so about 101db sensitivity neglecting baffle step losses. The Fountek ribbon is 93db, so in this case no tweeter attenuation is required.


I'm using a MiniDSP setup to drive them; the TSE is driving the mid-woofers, and 7 watts or so goes a long way with 100db+ speakers. The tweeters are being driven by a pair of Poindexter Music Machine EL34's (about 14 watts).


One thing to note, and George can add some detail if needed, is that the gain of the TSE is one the low side, so a preamp with some gain helps the volume level, esp with lower sensitivity speakers.


That's why I'm driving the FaitalPro's with the TSE, since I have some sensitivity to burn since the tweeters are 93db.


They sound and image really really well. I'm running them open baffle at the moment, but likely today I will build one of them as a closed box to attempt to get more output in the 100-300hz range as an experiment. I'm finding that these produce a very nice image/soundstage on many more songs compared to the Tang Band W8-1772's. I'm running the same subwoofer with these as with the Tang Bands.



The FaitalPros are readily available from Parts Express and a few other places in the US, but only in 4 and 8 ohm flavors. These are 16 ohm and I bought them from a place in France, but the price was lower than domestic prices even after shipping.


One other thing to note if anyone is thinking about miniDSP (highly recommended!!!)......you can dial in loads of crossover points, slopes, invert polarity, parametric eq and freq response curves (with Free REW software and the miniDSP Umik-1) from your compute via USB. You can do a month's worth of passive crossover tweaking in an hour or less, it's crazy.


I bought the std miniDSP box; they are around $100. One thing I'm finding limiting here is that the max output is .9VRMS according to the specs. The MiniDSP HD (around $200) has a max output of 4V, so that may help getting additional output from a lower voltage gain amp.
 

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Since we are all sheltering in place out here in CA....I've been playing with other speakers.


I'm experimenting with a pair of FaitalPro 6FE200 6" and a Fountek NeoCD 3.0.


The FaitalPro's are 95db sens wired in parallel, so about 101db sensitivity neglecting baffle step losses. The Fountek ribbon is 93db, so in this case no tweeter attenuation is required.


I'm using a MiniDSP setup to drive them; the TSE is driving the mid-woofers, and 7 watts or so goes a long way with 100db+ speakers. The tweeters are being driven by a pair of Poindexter Music Machine EL34's (about 14 watts).


One thing to note, and George can add some detail if needed, is that the gain of the TSE is one the low side, so a preamp with some gain helps the volume level, esp with lower sensitivity speakers.


That's why I'm driving the FaitalPro's with the TSE, since I have some sensitivity to burn since the tweeters are 93db.


They sound and image really really well. I'm running them open baffle at the moment, but likely today I will build one of them as a closed box to attempt to get more output in the 100-300hz range as an experiment. I'm finding that these produce a very nice image/soundstage on many more songs compared to the Tang Band W8-1772's. I'm running the same subwoofer with these as with the Tang Bands.



The FaitalPros are readily available from Parts Express and a few other places in the US, but only in 4 and 8 ohm flavors. These are 16 ohm and I bought them from a place in France, but the price was lower than domestic prices even after shipping.


One other thing to note if anyone is thinking about miniDSP (highly recommended!!!)......you can dial in loads of crossover points, slopes, invert polarity, parametric eq and freq response curves (with Free REW software and the miniDSP Umik-1) from your compute via USB. You can do a month's worth of passive crossover tweaking in an hour or less, it's crazy.


I bought the std miniDSP box; they are around $100. One thing I'm finding limiting here is that the max output is .9VRMS according to the specs. The MiniDSP HD (around $200) has a max output of 4V, so that may help getting additional output from a lower voltage gain amp.


I really dig your setup!
2 questions:
What is your source?
What kinda music are you playing?
 
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