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Going active on Tympani 1Ds

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Posted on January 16, 2017 at 04:11:13
ghost4man
Audiophile

Posts: 85
Joined: February 18, 2016
 Hi Guys,

Just to trying to get some feedback as to what people have done with Tympani 1D speakers if they have gone active.

If you have what XO points have you set including slopes and more importantly have you gone 3 way.

I have added version 2 ribbons to my Tympanis with the view to go 3 way.

Using minidsp 8x8 with REW.

Have done some line levelling and so far the results have been quite underwhelming when its gone to inputting the XO points.

So far have gone for bass panels to kick in at 80hZ,cut off at 1100 with the mid comes in which is cut off at 2200 for the ribbon to then come in.

At this stage I have set for 24dB slopes.

Any feedback greatly appreciated.

 

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RE: Going active on Tympani 1Ds, posted on January 16, 2017 at 07:58:25
Roger Gustavsson
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Location: Huskvarna
Joined: February 12, 2010
 What is "version 2 ribbons"? Magnepan ribbon drivers as used the last years or so? If so, 2200 Hz is far too low for them. What are you using below 80 Hz? Tympani I-D are really not bad below that. What I dislike, is that both bass driver deliver directional information resulting in vague imaging. The Tympani tweeter is also too far away from the mid bass driver. I did cut the width of tweeters from 8 inches to 100 mm and lined up the midbass driver next to it. Center-to-center about 8 inches.

 

RE: Going active on Tympani 1Ds, posted on January 16, 2017 at 11:36:20
neolith
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Contributor
  Since: December 2, 2004
 One problem is that you are using 4th order L-R filters. Even ordered symmetric filters just don't sound good with Magnepans (Yes, Big Al I know you disagree). The T-ID uses 1st order (6 db) filters.
The 2nd issue is the crossover points and filter cutoffs. I believe the woofer LP was at 1100 Hz but I am not sure of the mid HP. I think it was 400 Hz as Magnepan is notorious for using asymmeteric crossovers and may have been doing so even in the early '80s. IMO the bass on the Tympani -ID is the gold standard and I would allow them to run full-range rather than cutting them off at 80 hz. If you are using a sub, then set the sub to kick in below 40 hz so it acts only to extend the range rather than supplementing the mains.

The best thing is to call Magnepan and they can give you the specs. Emulating the OEM is going to give you the best results.



"Our head is round in order to allow our thoughts to change direction." Francis Picabia

 

RE: Going active on Tympani 1Ds, posted on January 16, 2017 at 12:50:56
ghost4man
Audiophile

Posts: 85
Joined: February 18, 2016
 Roger,

You will find that the later maggies had a version 2 ribbon which was just a little bit longer and narrower in width compared to the previous iteration.

For example I have a pair of IIIA's where it is noticeable the width difference - that is wider - than the ones I have now for the Tymanis.

In fact I sourced these latest ribbons from the national distributor here in Australia which were used in a pair of 20.7s

 

RE: Going active on Tympani 1Ds, posted on January 16, 2017 at 13:31:51
ghost4man
Audiophile

Posts: 85
Joined: February 18, 2016
 Neolith,

Thanks for your reply.

Okay I'll answer as best as possible.

Firstly, yes the tympanis sound very good at the bottom end. I've heard a pair of 20.7's and they dont come close to what the 1D's do in that range imo which is to confirm what you have said.

However I have put in a pair of Dayton Audio Reference HO 12 inche subs in mono in the 20-80Hz range and I am sorry but there is no competition there.

So the objective here is to bring in the maggies in from the point onwards.

This is not set in stone as I am going to tinker with cutting the subs off anywhere from 50Hz or even lower to see what the result is.

Dont forget from previous thread that my ID bass panels are like no other in the sense that I did not have them rewired but utilised QR for this. Its the same QR that is used in the 1.7i/20.7i mids. These sound outstanding compared to the intrinsic setup.

You have me absolutely confused about the XO points for the bass panels.

There are 2 bass panels side by side. I believe they start off at 40Hz and are cut off at 1100 at which point the tweeter panel kicks and covers the entire spectrum from 1100 all the way through to 20,000. Is that your understanding as well.

The physical configuration of these panels is that they work as one. There are only 2 leads - one going in and the other one coming out as these panels have been linked in series. Just bear that in mind. When the panels were redone in QR it changed the impedance so EACH bass panel was 4.2 ohms so I had to either link them in series or parallel. Clearly for logistical purposes I went series.

The repairer who did this altered the capacitors and choke on the system to reflect the change in resistance.

So if I read correctly what you are saying how can one bass panel be HP 400Hz? As I said there is a single signal going in at one end feeding the panels which are bridged together to return on the way out. This means that they are working as one unit????

 

RE: Going active on Tympani 1Ds, posted on January 16, 2017 at 13:40:56
josh358
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Posts: 12332
Joined: February 9, 2010
 IIRC correctly, the XO is specified in the 1-D manual? I'd stick with Magenpan's spec and agree with Neolith that you should stick with 6 dB/octave, that will help maintain the seamlessness that is one of the 1-D's signature strengths, and also maintain phase coherency.

Agree too with Roger that you should raise the XO of the ribbon, you could overdrive it otherwise. And the ribbon should be as close to the mid as possible to minimize lobing at the XO point.

Really, what I would do since you have the ribbons now is get some Neo 8's and do Satie's Neo 8 mod. That would solve the problem Roger mentioned, that the 1-D's don't image precisely because of the 1100 Hz. crossover. That would be pretty amazing.

 

RE: Going active on Tympani 1Ds, posted on January 16, 2017 at 14:53:28
Satie
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Joined: July 6, 2002
 I would go with Neo's and Josh's idea of keeping the 6db/octave filters at 1khz. If you have the panels equidistant use a symmetrical 1khz and if the bass panels are slightly farther than the tweeter to the listening seat then compensate for the dissimilar distances with a higher freq low pass filter such as the original at 1100hz.

I would go one step beyond that and suggest you drop the DSP for the T 1D and use passive line level filters for tweeter high pass and bass low pass and add a 6db high pass for the bass panels and use the DSP only on the subwoofer(s) at 3rd order to cmplement the 1st order low pass on the T-1D. You will be able to phase match with the DSP but it won't be time aligned unless you put the subs behind you.

 

RE: Going active on Tympani 1Ds, posted on January 16, 2017 at 15:49:49
ghost4man
Audiophile

Posts: 85
Joined: February 18, 2016



Hi mate,

Please give consideration to the following photo.

As you can see I have put the drivers in wooden frames with metal frames for support.

Now have a look at the smaller panel. This is the what used to be the tweeter - now midrange, and the ribbon. The distance between the two is approximately 45mm. This applies to both sides.

Please remember that prior to this the imaging that I was getting BEFORE going active was simply sublime! I cant stress that enough.

I have simply added in the pair of subs in mono and added the ribbon for the higher end.

I dont quite understand the suggestions particularly about the addition of the neo's. Sorry I should rephrase that I can see that there would be benefit however are we not forgetting that I am simply making these speakers into a 3 way from a 2 way. Is it not the case that the Tympani IVas are a 3 way as opposed to the intrinsic 2 way setup of the 1Ds.

Sorry I am a bit lost at the suggestions.

The whole point was to try and go 3 way active. That is to go from the 2 intrinsic 2 way setup and go active with a minidsp running the show.

The frequency response is listed at +/- 3dB from 40 to 20,000Hz.

The internal XO is at 1100Hz with a 6dB octave.

I read that as the TWO bass panels covering the frequency spectrum FROM 40Hz TO 1100Hz where they are cut off and the remaining tweeter driver then dealing with all frequencies above 1100Hz.

Is that how you read it.

I cant see it any other way because as I said the physical configuration is a single wire going into the bass panels which are bridged and then coming back out. There simply cant be - not as I can see it anyhow one bass panel dealing with signals from 40-400 and the other one from say 400-1100.

So lets go with 40Hz as a start point. Everything else underneath that would be covered by the subs.

Would I cut this pair off at 1100 which is the intrinsic XO as stated in the manual?

How would I know what to cut the mid off at and then introduce the ribbons for the HF? I cant go off any manual because the tympanis never had a ribbon so really I would be relying upon what the maggie ranges do when introducing the ribbons. Does that sound reasonable guys.

 

RE: Going active on Tympani 1Ds, posted on January 16, 2017 at 16:08:52
josh358
Industry Professional

Posts: 12332
Joined: February 9, 2010
 Nice job with the frames!

Yes, I'd use Magnepan's crossove points as a starting point. That would be 1100 Hz single pole for the woofer/midrange crossoer. The ribbon in my IVa's is crossed over at about 3 kHz with a higher-order XO. I wouldn't cross over lower than what Magnepan recommends to avoid excursions that could shorten the life of the ribbon, *however* if you are using a higher order crossoevr than Magnepan's you can likely lower it a bit.

The Neo-8's are high quality push-pull quasi-ribbon drivers and in a line can be crossed over lower than the 1-D tweeter. I'm not sure how much of a difference it would make in the setup since the 1-D tweeter was also push pull but wire, and you've redone your woofers with foil. So just an idea. If you're getting great imaging, then it sounds like you don't have a problem (I used to have 1-D's and had the same imaging problem Roger has).

Finally, Satie has pushed up the ribbon crosssover frequency on his Tympani IV/Neo-8 combination and crossed them over at 6 dB/octave or IIRC without a low pass on the midrange. But what works for him might not work for you since you're using a different tweeter. It might be worth an experment, though.

 

RE: Going active on Tympani 1Ds, posted on January 16, 2017 at 18:21:17
ghost4man
Audiophile

Posts: 85
Joined: February 18, 2016
 Hi mate,

Yes very nice job indeed. Obviously resolves the issue of distance between the midrange and ribbon doesnt it.

Okay did an historical search and found the following:

For 20.7s -

Low-pass (bass): 18dB Butterworth @108Hz
High-pass (midrange/tweeter): 6dB @330Hz
Crossover between midrange and tweeter is
approximately 3000Hz and is non-defeatable.

For 3.6 -

Crossover between bass and midrange is 200Hz
Crossover between midrange and tweeter is 1700Hz

Tympani IVA

Crossover between midrange and tweeter is 3000Hz

Maggie IIIAs

Crossover between midrange and tweeter is 3000Hz

It seems that XO to ribbon at 3000Hz is a fair number to work with.

What do you think based on this history. Highly suggestive that it is.

 

RE: Going active on Tympani 1Ds, posted on January 16, 2017 at 21:20:22
josh358
Industry Professional

Posts: 12332
Joined: February 9, 2010
 I'm not sure f the figure for the 3.6 is correct, given the fact that it's so much lower than the other specs. Did you get it off the historical table on this sie? that has some errors in it.

I do remember reading Jim Winey saying years ago that they'd tried running the ribbon at lower frequencies and had settled on the crossover they currently used for reasons of reliability. So I agree that 3000 Hz is a good starting point.

BTW, I've thought of doing what you did with the mid and tweeter in my IVa's. The closer the better an in my house they don't need the wider separation that Magnepan puts in their commercial models to maintain structural strength. But where would I ever find the time! Another project for the future (sigh).

 

RE: Going active on Tympani 1Ds, posted on January 16, 2017 at 22:26:06
Roger Gustavsson
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Posts: 2054
Location: Huskvarna
Joined: February 12, 2010
 There have been two versions of the ribbon drivers, I have them both. The first version had the 1/4" (6.35 mm) wide ribbons, the one still used has 5/32" (4 mm) wide ribbon in combination with thicker magnets. The ribbon cages of my mine are both the same length, 1524 mm (60"). The ribbons are a bit under stress in some models. The way Magnepan use them in the 3.7/3.7i and the 20-series is better, the crossover frequency is higher, about 5 kHz or so.

Are we talking about this set?

http://usr.audioasylum.com/images/7/71235/20160814_190644.jpg

 

RE: Going active on Tympani 1Ds, posted on January 17, 2017 at 00:05:20
ghost4man
Audiophile

Posts: 85
Joined: February 18, 2016
 Roger,

Correct. They are my speakers. That is the left channel.

Right now I am working on the right channel. I have done the sweep and getting some, well unusual results to say the least.

From the information that I got from the manuals this is what I got -

For 20.1s -

Low-pass (bass): 18dB Butterworth @108Hz
High-pass (midrange/tweeter): 6dB @330Hz
Crossover between midrange and tweeter is
approximately 3000Hz and is non-defeatable.

For 3.6 -

Crossover between bass and midrange is 200Hz
Crossover between midrange and tweeter is 1700Hz

Tympani IVA

Crossover between midrange and tweeter is 3000Hz

Maggie IIIAs

Crossover between midrange and tweeter is 3000Hz

I apologise in that my last post I had the 20.7 with the XO points.

That was not the case. It should have read 20.1 which I have now corrected in this point.

Who is getting the information that the XO for the ribbon is 5000Hz.

Guys I can see no evidence to suggest that the XO for the midrange to tweeter is 5000Hz. All the evidence points to it being 3000. I stand to be corrected.

 

RE: Going active on Tympani 1Ds, posted on January 17, 2017 at 01:25:01
Roger Gustavsson
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Posts: 2054
Location: Huskvarna
Joined: February 12, 2010
 Simulations made by neolith! Magnepan does seldom use textbook filters. I advice to let the ribbons come in at higher frequences, similar to what is used in the 3.7/3.7i and 20.7. The Tympani tweeters are not that bad and can be used higher than any 3-series midrange driver. It is a rather strange set you have. The Tympani tweeter is not filling the gap between the basses and the ribbons very well. You need something that fill in circa 300-5000 Hz inplace of the Tympani tweeters. Like you have it now, I get a feeling that the Tympani tweeters only fill in 1000-3000 Hz.

 

RE: Going active on Tympani 1Ds, posted on January 17, 2017 at 02:07:07
ghost4man
Audiophile

Posts: 85
Joined: February 18, 2016
 Roger,

Hi mate. Thanks for that. Listen I am a bit lost by what you stated.

What do you mean by:

The Tympani tweeter is not filling the gap between
the basses and the ribbons very well.

I will post the latest REW measurement first thing in the morning so you can have a looky at what we are getting.

There is an issue around 2k and going deeper in the HF spectrum with a number of dips from memory. But yeah will post photos which will describe where I am at at the minute.

 

RE: Going active on Tympani 1Ds, posted on January 17, 2017 at 02:53:37
Roger Gustavsson
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Posts: 2054
Location: Huskvarna
Joined: February 12, 2010
 I would have liked a midrange driver filling in the gap between the basses and the ribbon driver. You have a Tympani tweeter do a part of that spectrum. I dislike having to much directional information from the basses, that is not good for a precise imaging. To my experience, best results are from a wideband driver, covering something like 400-8000 Hz (or similar) and have the basses operate below and the ribbon drivers above that spectrum.

 

RE: Going active on Tympani 1Ds, posted on January 17, 2017 at 05:00:55
ghost4man
Audiophile

Posts: 85
Joined: February 18, 2016



Roger,

The previous iteration with the intrinsic setup was a 2 way setup.

That tweeter panel kicked in at 1100Hz and above to the end of the HF spectrum.

I believe it did a very good job.

I could potentially put another amp into the chain and go 4 way. In doing this I could cut of the bass panels off at 400 and then invoke the middle one from 400 to say 1100.

Here is what the latest graph looks like. The slopes are 24dB.

 

RE: Going active on Tympani 1Ds, posted on January 17, 2017 at 11:12:51
Satie
Audiophile

Posts: 5426
Joined: July 6, 2002
 If you are sticking with 24db slopes then I would say you might as well use the protection they provide to lower the crossover point for bass-mid to 500hz and the tweeter can play down to 4khz. Even with LR4 slopes I found the tweeter to be overdriven below 4khz where is got metallic sounding long before you reach really high output. I ended up with 5 khz as my choice for tweeter XO in the LR4 setup.

I found that you can do much better in imaging by using 1st order slopes in context of an equidistant arc arrangement of the speaker drivers using PLLXO. But the tweeter had to be high passed at 8khz in order to stay alive at highish output - with the classic symmetrical 1st order you get a slight head in a vice problem at such a high freq. If I restricted output levels a bit then the tweeter XO could go down to 6khz. Ultimately, the Neo8 just did better than the ribbons on high output up to above 10khz as they did not distort at whatever high volume I threw at them. Ultimately I left the midrange with no low pass so it plays as high as it can and rolls off acoustically, then I kicked in the tweeter so it takes over acoustically at about 14khz. This solved two things - the tweeter distortion at high volumes and the head in a vice problem when using a symmetrical XO above 6khz. Both arrangements give amazing imaging.

I found that imaging is damaged quite a bit by introducing a AD DA cycle - I tried an audiophile 24/48 and a pro audio 24/96 so I am skeptical about how well one can do with a DSP. On the other hand AndyR is very happy with his miniDSP based setup with analog sources.

For the bass - mid I would suggest you stick with the OEM spec at 1khz 1st order with delay compensation for the low pass depending on the differential driver offsets. You can try to lower the XO incrementally but since you already moved to foil on the bass panels I am not sure the gain in speed and PP drive is enough to justify the risk of straining the T 1D tweeter at the 500-1khz range.

 

RE: Going active on Tympani 1Ds, posted on January 17, 2017 at 11:13:48
Satie
Audiophile

Posts: 5426
Joined: July 6, 2002
 BTW sorry I missed what you were doing with the ribbon initially.

 

RE: Going active on Tympani 1Ds, posted on January 17, 2017 at 12:44:46
ghost4man
Audiophile

Posts: 85
Joined: February 18, 2016
 Satie,

The intrinsic setup with a pair of Tympani 1D's is a 2 way driver system.

You have two bass panels which work as one. This is an important point which I think was getting missed in some of the earlier points.

This means that there is no lower bass panel coupled with a mid bass panel at another XO frequency.

When I had these bass panels rewired with QR, with a passive setup the capacitor range was approximately halved and the inductor coil was doubled (approximately) to reflect the fact that the panels were now 4.2 ohms and when linked in series gives you 8.2 ohms.

So the bottom end of the bass panels starts anywhere from 25-35Hz. Remember this is not a conventional Tympani 1D panel and simply listening to these versus a conventional setup most assuredly resulted in multiple listeners claiming how much lower the speakers were getting to at that bottom end.

The stated XO point between the bass panels and EXISTING tweeter panel in the conventional setup is 1100Hz. So that tweeter panel covers the spectrum FROM 1100 TO the end of the HF range ~ 20kHz.

I have gone from that 2 way system to the addition of a pair of version 2 ribbons for the tweeter. The version 2 ribbons is what you will find in the later maggies - 3.6,3.7,20.1,20.7. They are physically different in size compared to the previous true ribbons although it is a very small difference.

So I now have the option of going 3 way AND active.

My feeling at the current minute is to go from 80Hz TO 1100Hz for the bass panels where the previous tweeter panel which is NOW the midrange to kick in. Now are you saying that the midrange panel would cover the spectrum FROM 1100Hz where it crosses over to the ribbons at say 5000Hz? Is that what you are saying.

Can you see now Satie what I am trying to do?

 

RE: Going active on Tympani 1Ds, posted on January 17, 2017 at 13:04:01
neolith
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Posts: 4842
Location: Virginia
Joined: February 21, 2002
Contributor
  Since: December 2, 2004
 Sorry a little slow to get back to you. It looks from the other posts that you are going in the right direction. As far as the crossover @ 1100 Hz, that is between the woofer and mid, not woofer and tweeter. So I believe the crossover points should be 1100hz and ~3000 hz.The mid-bass crossover is 1st order (6 db) and probably symmetric but most of the models with ribbon tweeters use asymmetric 2nd order filters (mid LP and tweeter HP) around 3000 hz.
Certainly a symmetric 6db filter at 3000 would be easiest to implement, but you might want to use the T-IVa values (mid LP 2050, tweeter HP 2650 both 2nd order) which will cross at ~3000 hz.
Just to add to the confusion, the above 2nd order filters have "atypical" Q values of 0.65 (mid LP) and 0.60 (tweeter HP) rather than standard Butterworth (0.71) or Besel (0.58) and this will affect the crossover value. You may be able to dial these in on your mini-DSP but, if not, go with the Bessel.
And finally, watch your polarity. If you go 1st order it really doesn't matter but if you use 2nd order then one of the drivers needs to be inverted.



"Our head is round in order to allow our thoughts to change direction." Francis Picabia

 

RE: Going active on Tympani 1Ds, posted on January 17, 2017 at 14:57:53
Satie
Audiophile

Posts: 5426
Joined: July 6, 2002
 Yes, I understand what you are doing. You are going to make this into a 3way +subs. The original tweeter is going to become the midrange.

I offered 2 approaches to doing this. 1, as you are now using the DSP with LR4 crossover (I would suggest you try Bessel 4th on the DSP at some point). Where I suggest that you can run the T1D "mids" down to appx 500hz and the tweeter down to 5khz and if you are not really playing hard perhaps even 4khz.
2. leave the DSP out of it for the "mid" and tweeter, using it only for bass low pass to subwoofers while the bass panels are kept 1st order high pass and low pass done at stock XO values and to match the subwoofer (which probably would mean that the subs would be run at Butterworth 3rd order for LP) - run the high pass at 1khz 1st order and the ribbon at 6-8khz 1st order.
2a. Alternately.you can let the mids run without a low pass and kick in the ribbons at 12-14 khz 1st order in order to reduce "head in a vice" problems.

 

RE: Going active on Tympani 1Ds, posted on January 17, 2017 at 16:38:06
ghost4man
Audiophile

Posts: 85
Joined: February 18, 2016
 Satie,

Correct. At the minute the original tweeter is NOW the mid range.

So what I was going to do then is basically follow the previous setup whereby the the TWO bass panels deal with frequencies FROM 80Hz to 1100 where it crosses over to the NEW mid(formerly tweeter driver) and then cross that over to the true ribbon at 3000.

From what I can see you are saying then to let the TWO bass panels cover from say 80Hz(this can vary depending upon where I cut the subs off at) and then cut them off at 500Hz where the mid kicks in.

My question here is will the mid(old tweeter driver) be able to deal with going down to 500Hz? Clearly it had no issues from 1100Hz to 20000Hz as that is what it was primarily doing before.

So if I read correctly just thinking about XO points only and disregardind slopes it would read something like this:

2 subs(mono)- 20Hz-80Hz
2 Bass panels - 80Hz-500Hz
Mid range panel(old tweeter) - 500Hz - ~5000Hz
True Ribbon - Any frequency above the cutoff in the midrange so from 3000-5000Hz.

Is that a correct summary Satie just focusing on XO points for now only.

 

RE: Going active on Tympani 1Ds, posted on January 17, 2017 at 22:47:07
Roger Gustavsson
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Posts: 2054
Location: Huskvarna
Joined: February 12, 2010
 500 Hz for tweeters may be a hard task, they have the thinnest wire of any Magneplanar type of driver. My old Tympani IIIA had the slightly thicker AWG 35 wire and came without fuses. As far as I remember they had resonances below 400 Hz or so. You could use the thinnest foil as used in the midrange drivers in the 20-series. That would increase the impedance to 8 Ohm for the tweeters. I use that foil on my Tympani IVa midrange drivers, which are even lower moving mass than the Tympani I-D tweeters. The T-IVa mids are far better to fill in between the basses and the ribbon driver than your I-D tweeters.

I would try to use the Tympani I-D without subs. I-D is really not that bad down to 30-35 Hz.

 

RE: Going active on Tympani 1Ds, posted on January 18, 2017 at 15:47:31
Satie
Audiophile

Posts: 5426
Joined: July 6, 2002
 Yes those are my suggestions for LR4 or B3 crossover slopes. (not for 1st order as the strain on the mid would be too much)

 

RE: Going active on Tympani 1Ds, posted on January 18, 2017 at 17:04:58
ghost4man
Audiophile

Posts: 85
Joined: February 18, 2016
 Roger,

Did some experimenting last night. Will start to plot some more graphs from REW.

I tried 500 for the mid and it just didnt sound good at all so went back to 1100.

I then tried 2200 for the ribbon and found it was a bit bright which was especially noticeable when it came to females singing at a higher pitch. It also sound tinny. It just didnt sound good.

When I bumped it up to 3000 it was a lot lot better. I am still getting a drop off from 10k onwards.

There are a lot of things one can play with on the minidsp plugin especially with the PEQ.

 

RE: Going active on Tympani 1Ds, posted on January 18, 2017 at 20:16:56
Satie
Audiophile

Posts: 5426
Joined: July 6, 2002
 So when you lowered the XO to 500 hz the mid sounded strained and distorted or was it something else?

 

RE: Going active on Tympani 1Ds, posted on January 18, 2017 at 20:25:51
ghost4man
Audiophile

Posts: 85
Joined: February 18, 2016



Satie very much so mate. Did not sound good at all.

I played around a bit and set the XO at 1200 for the mid.

For the ribbon I set it at 4000.

I didnt do any listening at these levels but rather relied upon REW and graph reproduction.

This is by far the most level graph I could get.

XO points are accompanied by 36 L/R.

I tried Bessel, 12db, 24db, 48dB and the "best" graph was with this configuration.

Could I get it smoother? Who knows. But the sound was quite pleasing.

Very clear and very revealing compared to before. Disregard sub 80Hz.

 

RE: Going active on Tympani 1Ds, posted on January 19, 2017 at 07:47:37
Satie
Audiophile

Posts: 5426
Joined: July 6, 2002
 So you ended up with 36db LR as the final choice (for now)? at 1.2 and 4khz?

Results look very good. See if the Bessel sounds better or worse than the LR at the same order. The Bessel should give a less phasey sound - which either does or doesn't matter to you.

Did you run impulse response?

 

RE: Going active on Tympani 1Ds, posted on January 20, 2017 at 13:38:51
ghost4man
Audiophile

Posts: 85
Joined: February 18, 2016



Okay this is the latest graph.

A big big difference from previous testing.

We identified a critical issue which was the ribbon falling down badly.

As a thought we decided to swap out the Quasimodo on the ribbon with the Plinius 8200 which has a lot of muscle.

Surprise surprise it resolved a big issue in that region. Put simply the Quasimodo wasnt dealing with a 3 ohm load
as well as the Plinius.

Whilst its not a perfect representation its certainly far better than where I was at before.

And it sounds damn good as well.

Changed from 36dB to Bessel. Much better outcome. Adjusted the gain in the line levelling and the result got better.

 

RE: Going active on Tympani 1Ds, posted on January 20, 2017 at 14:24:11
Satie
Audiophile

Posts: 5426
Joined: July 6, 2002
 Didn't expect the amp to have that much of a problem driving the tweeter, though the Bryston 4B NRB I used on it for a while ran hot. Calsse DR 9 - closer design to the Plinius - did well and was just a bit warm.

Results look even better now. Did you run the Bessel filter at 6th order as before with the LR filter or did you lower the order?

Anyway, glad you like it.

 

RE: Going active on Tympani 1Ds, posted on January 20, 2017 at 17:47:59
ghost4man
Audiophile

Posts: 85
Joined: February 18, 2016
 Satie,

Look I spent many many hours trying every conceivable option I could muster to resolve that issue with the ribbon BUT the reality is it was falling away. Thats clear and unambiguous as indicated by the graphs I was getting.

When I swapped the amp out it made the difference you can see right now.

I am now convinced that I could do even better and across the board with a bit more grunt which clearly maggies are renowned for wanting.

I'm sorry I cant answer your question about Bessel filtering.

Are you familiar with the mindisp plugin? It gives you the option of what you want and all I sighted was 12,24,36,48 L/R and Bessel. How do I run Bessel at 6th order? Or is that assumed when you click onto it??

Appreciate the suggestions. They have helped.

XO for mid was 1200 and ribbons 4000. That seemed to get the best graph.

And trust me I tried every variant in between.

 

RE: Going active on Tympani 1Ds, posted on January 21, 2017 at 13:07:46
Satie
Audiophile

Posts: 5426
Joined: July 6, 2002
 Bot expressing doubt or criticism on the amp/tweeter match just being surprised by the extent of the mismatch you had.

I am not familiar with the miniDSP interface, so from what you said I understand that their Bessel alignment option is for a single order option, I would guess 4th order but that is just a guess.

If you want more "grunt" what amplification is your baseline from which you want to upgrade? Any particular candidates in mind?

 

RE: Going active on Tympani 1Ds, posted on January 22, 2017 at 15:50:45
ghost4man
Audiophile

Posts: 85
Joined: February 18, 2016
 Satie,

In answer to your question I was using a custom built an amp called the Quasimodo.

Its rated at 40watts into 8 ohms and about 75 into 4.

It works really well but as we all know maggies need a tonne of power.

Bessel appears as a single order position on minidsp plugin.

I think I can get more out of the midrange with an amp with more muscle as well.

Low end is working quite well.

At the moment the system sounds better to my ears than before.

I have just levelled and adjusted the 2 Dayton Audio 12" drivers into mono. It has made a huge difference at the bottom end.

I have them cutoff at 80Hz but obviously I can play around with this.

My advice to anyone who wants to go active with maggies needs to start with a clear page and try everything. I did. Despite all the advice I was getting in the end that didnt translate to positive audible experiences and the graph reproduction was evidenced of that.

I ended up cutting the bass off at 1200 and then cut off the mids at 4000.

I tried every setting from 2000 to 5000. I tried everything from 12dB to 48dB and different variants in between.

 

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