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In Reply to: RE: Inlow Sound's 130 Hz midbass horn posted by hvbias on March 11, 2016 at 05:17:14
hvbias,
If you are going through the trouble of building / have made a mid bass horn then build a proper horn for your desired low end frequency. The larger the horn the better, you should be able to scale up john's 135hz horn but you will have to run the numbers to see if it gets to your goal.
The TAD 4001 is an excellent driver--but do NOT put it in a round tractrix horn (from personal experience) as it will sound bright and forward sounding --it needs a TAD designed (or copy)axial horn to sound best. I much preferred the sound of the JBL 2441 with beryllium diaphragms installed in a round tractrix horn. Cessaro uses the 4001 but in a large, heavy, super solid spherical horn and it sounded excellent.
Goto makes some very impressive and expensive drivers but they are mostly used in 5 way systems where the individual drivers are used in fairly narrow frequency ranges--and you MUST use them with the proper Goto horns for the best sound (according to mfg). I have heard a Goto horn set up at the Capial Audiofest several years ago and found them to be very detailed, dynamic but slightly bright. Another potential problem is you will have to send these drivers back to Japan if you have any driver issues. Just my opinion and 2 cents.
Follow Ups:
Comparison between TAD TD4001 and JBL 2441 BE in 290 Hz (16") Sierra Brook tractrix horn in 500-3k range was not favorable to 2441BE . It (2441BE )sounded like half of the driver , shy, anemic slightly lifeless. It was however much more pleasant , spacious and even if used "full range" Maybe magnet on my 2441 is weak ? Tad sounded , rugged, energetic hate that word but it fits the character -"punchy" , just alive. It sucked used full range. After half an hour I had the desire to take the axe and chop it off the horn.
I'm not sure if I will end up using the TAD long term. When I heard them in large JMLC horn they were first order crossed at 700 hz and sounded fantastic. I've never heard any compression driver sound good down to 500 Hz while still having some "meat" to the sound. It's looking like 400-500 Hz that I may need to hand over to the compression driver if I want to keep good fidelity with a ~ 90 hz midbass horn.
JBL 2490 looks like a good candidate, but that titanium diaphragm (though it may not be an issue in the lower ranges I want to use it at). I asked Radian if they would make me a one off Be, they must have thought who is this joker :D JBL CMCD-61 is looking like another attractive option.
Wojciech,
My Tad 4001 experience on a 13" (Dr. Bruce) salad bowl tractrix horn is similar to yours, very detailed, lively, but OMG, my ears were about to bleed !!! I tried twice to listen to this combo but gave up. I traded the tads a friend who bought a pair of proper Tad wood horns and it now sounds excellent.
The JBL 2441 with Truextent Be diaphragms and re magnetized motor were much better then the Tads on the salad bowl horns. They were clean, clear, nice tone, excellent imaging, nice high frequency extension BUT you had to get the EXACT placement / distance to ear from the horns perfect or you lost the image pronto !!! The head in a vice comes to mind.
I now use a field coil converted JBL 2441 with Be diaphragms on a 25.5" ( 200hz. ?) heavy mahogany Sierra Brooks tractrix horn---my search for a great mid range driver /horn combo is OVER !!! I now have a sweet, clean, clear mid rang with excellent tone from 450hz to 8k. I use a Lambda lp-531fm variable power supply (0-20volt) set to 14 volts and kick back. I have heard lots of drivers including the Cogent field coil drivers (excellent) and want for nothing. There may be better more exotic drivers (GOTO,ALE etc.)out there but I will never know !!!
Wondering who did the field coil conversion and exactly
what is the difference in sound.Also, did you compare the
Be to the Radian diaphragm ? Thanks for any info.
I have no experience with the JBL field coil conversion, but if you haven't seen Joe Roberts' post on field coils I found it interesting. Link attached below.
Thank you for your post. I will send 2441 to good folks at GPA to get them recharged.I was little disappointed that truesound BE diaphragm with mylar suspension compares so miserably to stiff TAD's roll off surround in low midrange performance when crossed at 500hz 6db.
Just a quick comment - almost all your observations on things sounding bright is just an indication that the systems did not have the correct EQ applied in the course of designing the system. I should know - the Goto system you heard was likely the one I designed. I would do the EQ a bit differently if I had it to do over again.
On the Goto drivers on their horns issue, their LF horns are fine but the high frequency ones could be improved by switching to Le Cleac'h horns or something else with a round over at the mouth. Just be aware that none of their drivers have anything close to flat response on their horns and will require tons of crossover work to get them to integrate well. The 1st order crossovers they suggest do not work - they give system response with a bump of ~15dB between 200Hz and 5kHz relative to the bass and highs. But if you can make their drivers work in your design, they can sound amazing.
To the original poster, if you put drivers with more volume displacement on a horn and EQ it up below the horn's cutoff, you'll get output there but it's just a sealed box at that point. As others have said you'd be better off building a bigger horn if you have the space. For your midrange horn, if you want a 500Hz crossover, you'll probably want at least a 250Hz horn. Stored energy increases as you get close to the horn horn's cutoff. For example, in my system I have a 3" JBL driver on a 385Hz horn that I crossover at 800Hz due to stored energy increasing below there (among other reasons). It's usually tough to build a big enough midbass horn to continue following this rule, but in the mids and highs it is possible to do so.
Thanks for the advice John, wish I could have heard the setup you helped build at Capital Audio Fest.
Thanks for the advice hottattoo. I've read TAD are nasty in Tractrix as well, haven't completely decided where I am going to go with it. I won't have a problem selling them if they don't work out. Community M200a are another cheap driver that interests me.As for GOTO I plan to try out older models second hand (I have some friends in Japan that can help out) before springing for their current high end Be. I'm also doing this with digital/DSP correction so I have a bit more headroom in playing with overall system response.
Edits: 03/11/16
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