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In Reply to: RE: I am hating the single driver sound. What am I doing wrong? posted by ElWoodrow on December 15, 2014 at 12:43:01
I remember walking out of Terry Cain's room at mid-West Audio Fest, turning to my companion and getting an affirmative nod when I said it sounded like an AM radio.
Every other single driver has just been a variation on that theme. Good to know the 2 of U.S. aren't alone.
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That is the exact words we used at a listening session with a local club when listening to Terry Cain speakers. We literally said it sounds like a bad clock radio. And I am not trying to be combative or crap on someone's sweetheart, but I/we were at a loss how anyone could think that was good and realistic sounding.
I am not crapping on all single drivers mind you. I've heard Lowther's briefly at Dave Slagle's old studio in midtown, but that was very brief and it didn't sound bad, but didn't grab me either.
I heard some Fertin field coil drivers on an OB at Nate's place supported with two 15" woofers on the OB, so not single driver only, but those sounded glorious until very busy or complex music was played.
I have a pair of Planet Hifi's "Mar-Ken10.2 in stained medium stained Cherry over baltic birch with Alpair 10.2eN". I bought them for my dining room when entertaining guests and to have another pair of speakers to test amps and such on. I think they sound quite tonally balanced, which I am more sensitive to likely than most other audiophile virtues. They are missing the first octave and the shimmery highs, but that is the appropriate tradeoff of extremes to get the overall balance right while being coherent with no particular offenses. They aren't high efficiency and can't play super loud, but quite loud enough in my largish apartment.
I still think crossovers bring more to the table than then mess up but they need to be exacted well, not just some simple first order xo slapped on your driver using some online calculator. You actually have to measure and understand what you are doing.
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"When Khruschev said "we will bury you" I don't think he meant with surplus parts." zacster
Hi Josh,
It's too bad we didn't have the OB bass turned on at that time. We were just listening to the Fertin on the OB, not much going on below 80hz or so with that and rather lean below 120hz or so.
After five years of headphones, I finally got the vintage 110hz wideband horns running with proper implementation. Twin 15" sealed subs below, tweeters at 6khz, subs and tweets digitally time-aligned (big improvement).
Most of the advantages of the Fertins plus 110db efficiency and huge headroom. A lot of fun, and like a lot of vintage/wideband things, also very quirky.
Hey Nate,
Actually we listened to it both ways, with and without the OB subs. I am not sure if you were HP'ing the Fertins, but you did turn the bass on for part of the session IIRC.
When I said it got a little overwhelmed, it was when you left to run an errand I through Tool on at a moderately loud level. Nothing terrible, just got a little congested sounding. I bet if you bandpassed the Fertins as you have in your system now, it would be quite different.
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"When Khruschev said "we will bury you" I don't think he meant with surplus parts." zacster
Very nice to see these real truths being spoken. It's about time.
If you believe JoshK is posting the truth than your hearing must be as poor as his appears to be! As I've stated numerous times here:
I'm using fairly inexpensive, $256/pr, Dayton PS220-8 drivers that had Rispoli's $400/pr., 7-step, proprietary cone treatment applied. So that's $656/pr for drivers in Sachiko double-back-loaded horns. These relatively inexpensive Dayton PS220-8 drivers with the cone treatment applied are absolutely amazing. Loaded in the Sachiko cabinets they have the best frequency extension in the bass & treble ---{ I'd say from 40Hz (maybe lower) to at least 13Khz }--- of all the drivers I've tried in my cabinets, which also includes Fostex FE206e, FE206es-r, FE208es-r and Lowther DX4!
These PS220-8 drivers in the Sachiko cabinets allows me to play a song by a small acoustic group such as Guinnevere by Crosby, Stills & Nash at low SPLs with all the inner-detail, delicacy, correct harmonic tone, color & timbre. Yet on the very next cut I'm able to play Perpetual Change by Yes at 100dB+ SPLs with that same inner-detail, delicacy, correct harmonic tone, color & timbre plus with huge, wide dynamics and lightning fast transients, but, without any " Lowther Shout " or sense of driver strain. How many speakers do you know that can do that with only a 40W/ch tube amp and sound great playing both songs? This Sachiko/PS220-8 combo sounds like the best ribbon/planar/ESL speakers, but with a 95dB sensitivity rating & much, much better bass & treble extension! That will give you just a hint of an idea of what I'm talking about. This sound really needs to be heard to be believed. The best part is these speakers are easily duplicated. So anyone who hears them and likes what they hear can build the exact same speakers for themselves.
I'll extend to you the same invitation I've extended to others. If you don't believe me come hear this for yourself! I live in the Orlando, FL area. Just let me know when you're planning to be in the Orlando, FL area and I'll send you my phone number. We can setup a time for you to stop in for a listening session. Just one word of warning. Most people who stop by and plan on staying maybe an hour or two, but once they come over that usually turns into anything from a 3 to 5+ hours stay and that's ok with me. I love making new audio friends! Oh yeah since the photo up above was taken the silver-faced, Goldenote Stibbert CDP was upgraded to the newer, version 5, tubed unit with a black face. The CDP is now used solely as a transport with an Audio-gd Reference 7.1 DAC. The tubes, with the exception of the Bendix 6900s have all changed. I now have Psvane WE845 and Psvane 12AU7-TIII installed. You can see my entire system at the link below called Thetubeguy's Audio Room & System
I'm listening to: Polosur by Marcelo Aedo
Thetubeguy1954 (Tom Scata)
Central Florida Audio Society -- SETriodes Group -- Space Coast Audio Society
Full-range/Wide-range Drivers --- Front & Back-Loaded Horns --- High Sensitivity Speakers
Tom,
No offense at your system was meant by any stretch. Matter of fact, I have recognized your enthusiasm for your system for quite a while now.
I was just telling Mark, who stopped by to listen to my latest, that I would probably visit you sometime in the future as I often visit my former home land aka Florida. There is no direct flight from Knoxville to west palm, so one time before I flew to Orlando and then drove down. Saves me about 10 hours of windshield time.
I suppose his last line rang home for me the most:
"I still think crossovers bring more to the table than then mess up but they need to be exacted well, not just some simple first order xo slapped on your driver using some online calculator. You actually have to measure and understand what you are doing."
p.s. My system is also based on an eight inch wide band, but I don't push it to the frequency extremes. I use it as a mid-range in a cat's meow ultimate 4 way system.
kindly regards, and Merry Christmas :)
Scott I never took your comments as a personal disparage of my system. I just get upset when some of the clowns here (not you) and elsewhere talk in absolutes i.e., " single broadband drivers sound terrible " when most of these people have heard only a couple broadband drivers and often times it's a cheap broadband driver used in an enclosure that isn't even correct for the driver selected! I'll readily grant that using a speaker with a broadband driver isn't like purchasing your typical 2-way or 3-way commercial speaker! It takes time and dedication to get the very best sound from them, but almost all the great sounding speakers require that same dedication to elicit the very best sound from them as well. I've been 100% truthful here from the beginning. A pair of Sachiko DBLHs with the Dayton PS220-8, with the cone treatment applied and installed properly, will easily provide a frequency response of 40Hz to 13Khz.
Now as I stated before although many if not most of my audio friends felt it wasn't needed. I added a pair of Fostex T900a super-tweeters to extend the response to 38Khz. I also have a pair of 15", OB, Hawthorne Audio, Augie speakers that I might play with in the future. But I honestly believe I'll either used tapped horns ---{ this is to keep the same quickness in the low-end of 25Hz to 100Hz that the Sachikos provide }--- or else I'll use the DIY Bucket Sub by Ed Schilling of The Horn Shoppe that's on Transcendent Sound's website at the link below! I could use the Sachiko/PS220-8 combo " as-is " 99% of the time, but every so often I want the bite of a super-tweeter and even less often I'd like to feel some really deep bass! To my way of thinking if you can disconnect the tweeter and woofer and the speaker still provides a performance you can enjoy and live with, then that's about as broadband a speaker as one could ever hope for. I'll end with this; I've never heard a person with a 3-way speaker and a super-tweeter and subwoofer refer to their speakers as 5-ways. So why do they insist when a person who uses a broadband driver adds a super-tweeter and subwoofer their speakers, those are now 3-ways?
I hope you visit sometime Scott we'll have a great time and you can tell people here what you honestly thought about the sound quality you heard here!
Thetubeguy1954 (Tom Scata)
Central Florida Audio Society -- SETriodes Group -- Space Coast Audio Society
Full-range/Wide-range Drivers --- Front & Back-Loaded Horns --- High Sensitivity Speakers
There seems to be so much contradiction in this post.
Tweeters, woofers, special cone treatments, esoteric bass whistles, efforts over long periods of time....
This does not bode well for the "when most of these people have heard only a couple broadband drivers and often times it's a cheap broadba...."
While the limited bandwidth may be acceptable to your personal tastes after a bunch of tweaking, I don't think this is typical or representative of typical "full range" speakers.
They sound best IMO in open baffle, but then that exacerbates the bandwidth situation.
The river of denial is a torrent.
Happy Holidays
If you are happy listening to your system, that's all that matters...
I'm listening to: The Outsiders by Altered Laws
Thetubeguy1954 (Tom Scata)
Central Florida Audio Society -- SETriodes Group -- Space Coast Audio Society
Full-range/Wide-range Drivers --- Front & Back-Loaded Horns --- High Sensitivity Speakers
Sounding like AM radio... That's a very good description! I am fairly certain that the culprit for this type of sound is the whizzer cone. I wonder if the driver in question here is of this type?
Bad glue joints....whizzer, dustcap, bobbin to cone joint, could
even be loose coils on the bobbin. All these can cause a raspy
sound, buzzing, etc.
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