DrWho Posted December 22, 2005 Share Posted December 22, 2005 I know this topic has been beaten to death, but I'm looking for a 2" compression driver that digs flat down to 300-500Hz. The only difference this time is I'm not concerned about HF extension for a 2-way design []So far, the only thing I've found is the Radian 850, but I have a feeling the response charts are a bit doctored up. I also came across these TAD drivers:http://www.pioneerelectronics.com/pna/product/album/0,,2076_4213,00.htmlBoth of the 2" versions claim 500Hz on the low end and over 22kHz on the top end....At $1k per driver this is a bit costly, but is still within my price range (in fact, I have no budget limitations).And then the BMS4592:http://www.usspeaker.com/bms%204592nd-1.htmI wonder if I'd get good results just using the MF section (which is good to 300Hz). Those that have used them claim the coax doesn't sound right quite rightOr the Beyma CP750:http://www.usspeaker.com/beyma%20CP750Ti-1.htm(rated to 600Hz, but man is that smooth down below 500).P Audio BMD750:http://www.paacoustic.com/pdf/BM-SERIES/BM-D750-740.pdfP Audio SD990http://www.paacoustic.com/pdf/SD-SERIES/SD990-995N.pdfAs of right now the Beyma and TAD drivers seem to be the best sounding? And P.Audio looks promising too - especially for you 2-way design people. For what it's worth, I'm thinking of dropping these drivers on a pair of custom made 2" throat 300Hz tractrix horns. The goal here is complete overkill. [H] Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tigerwoodKhorns Posted December 22, 2005 Share Posted December 22, 2005 "...in fact, I have no budget limitations...The goal here is complete overkill. " This is beautiful, can't wait to see what you get! (I'm glad someone is doing it). What is the complete system? Chris Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Al Klappenberger Posted December 22, 2005 Share Posted December 22, 2005 Doc: I think maybe you should shoot for an even lower alternative. The Trachorn I sell is actually roughly a 300 Hz horn. I only promote it as being useable down to 400 Hz. This is becasue there has to be some extra low end response to load the driver below where the crossover is "supposed" to cut off. What I am saying is that if you really want to get the most out of a Khorn you actually want to cross it over at 300 or 350 you should count on a horn loading down to 250 Hz or so. The other safe way is to use an extreme-slope network that doesn't allow anyhting through to the driver below the cutoff. This means all the woofer filter inductors need to be quite large with high DCR. That louses up the bass horn. One the other hand, the usual 12 dB / octave filter will let too much deep bass through and casue the diaphragm in you driver to have a little face-to-face with the phase plug! I suggest that the thing to do is make your horn a lot biger than the 300 Hz you are thinking about. All you need to do is make the mouth more square and add risers to lift the top section just as I do to get the Trachorn into the Belle. All this don't answer your question about driver though. That's an area that's a big question mark for me too. Going to a 2 inch throat should let you get a driver that will go down below 400 Hz, but I don't know of any! If you do find one that will go that low it will certainly not go as high as you will want for 2-way. You will need to go 3-way. Al K. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sfogg Posted December 22, 2005 Share Posted December 22, 2005 Also consider 1.4" drivers and you can go with the larger format Altec clone drivers from Great Plains Audio. People run them down to 200-250hz or so on the right horns. http://www.machmat.com/mysys/correct.htm On my 500hz horns (805B) the 288s I have look like they are unloading at about 300hz. I'd love to see what they could do on larger horns. If you go with sharp filters I still think the 902s could handle 400hz fine in just about any home setup. They had no problem at 400hz first order (Al's Type A) in my system before I went with the ES networks. Shawn Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Al Klappenberger Posted December 22, 2005 Share Posted December 22, 2005 Doc: As Shawn suggested and on the other hand... The squawker driver is usually attenuated by 6 dB or so compared to the woofer. That means it's only seeing 1/4 the power the woofer would be getting even if the energy content was flat all the way up through the squawkers frequency range. It isn't of course! The woofer catches most of the hell! Al K Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sfogg Posted December 22, 2005 Share Posted December 22, 2005 Al, "The squawker driver is usually attenuated by 6 dB or so compared to the woofer. That means it's only seeing 1/4 the power the woofer would be getting" I think I was using 7dBish attenuation on the 902 and closer to 10dB on the 288s compared to the LaScala woofer. They have it very easy in comparison so in a home setup I doubt there would be any problems with the lower crossover points. Esp. with sharper slopes. Shawn Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Al Klappenberger Posted December 22, 2005 Share Posted December 22, 2005 Shawn, My 6 dB figure was being conservative. I'm running my JBl 2426h on the 0-1 taps. That's -12 dB! even at 0-2 you still have -9 dB!Al K. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Deang Posted December 22, 2005 Share Posted December 22, 2005 I don't think Who is the biggest fan of the Klipschorn bass -- he may be going in a different direction. Why not just a classy looking cabinet with a kick arse 15 incher, Martinelli's 21 inch with the X-flare, and the big TAD. You can do other interesting things too. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DrWho Posted December 22, 2005 Author Share Posted December 22, 2005 These will be going into a custom built speaker...not a khorn. 3-way design: dual 15" woofers, the tractrix squaker, and then one of the baby cheek tweeters (probably the beyma because it has a tighter dispersion than the JBL). It will sorta be a cornwall on steroids, but a design all my own. I might as well tell the whole story... Somehow me and my dad got to talking about audio and I mentioned to him that I've been sitting on a bunch of cool speaker designs, but I just don't have the money to invest in building the first pair. To keep a long story short, I explained to him how the "high-end" market works and how I could confidently build a "$30k" pair of speakers. My dad has been asking me questions all week and apparently I've been giving him the right answers because when he asked me how much I'd need to get started his reply was "that's it?" I was originally planning to take these plans into action after college when I'm financially stable and can afford to do it on my own, but my dad has been hinting very strongly that he will help me get started now. So I've got this entire month of xmas break to finalize my designs and get things rolling. The squaker has been the thorn in my side because there really aren't that many quality commercially available products out there. More than anything I want to cover the midrange with a single speaker, and with dual 15" woofers I need a low crossover point (I'm thinking 500Hz will work just fine with the drivers I'm using). This first pair I'm building are more for me than anything else (even though I plan on selling them) - basically built around everything I've ever wanted in a speaker. I've been toying with the idea of starting my own audio business...custom building HT's which is all the rage in all the expensive homes being put up in my area. In fact, I've been sitting on that business model for quite a while now too (was going to do it with my bro, and then he moved to Texas). The original idea was to just install speakers available on the market (like the Klipsch THX Ultra2 system) [H] but that would put me in direct competition with the guys already doing it....so we were thinking of aiming for the custom built niche (ie, building our own speakers too). I've never intended to do this full time though...just something on the side, more as a hobby (I'd be happy if I sold just one every year). I'd rather have a solid 9-5 job, than dealing with the uncertainties of the audio industry (though if I can get a solid 9-5 job in the audio industry then that would be ideal). So ya, that's my story...I've spent the last week researching horn theory and I think I'm finally confident enough to start building some of my own. Which of course will be followed by a lot of testing and measuring. Ideally I would get to try out a bunch of different drivers (I will be calling some of the distributors to see if they will let me without having to spend $10k), and I'll be sure to share the results with all y'alls on the forum. It's about time somebody sat down and did some comparisons - all the ones I listed look good on paper, but it's the real life sound that matters in the end. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DrWho Posted December 23, 2005 Author Share Posted December 23, 2005 I think maybe you should shoot for an even lower alternative. The Trachorn I sell is actually roughly a 300 Hz horn. I only promote it as being useable down to 400 Hz... Interesting... though I can't get much larger because I still want to be close to a 90x45 dispersion and that means I'm limited by the overall width of the mouth (the speaker still needs to fit through a door). I also need some flexibility in the overall speaker design so that I can experiment with changes in the shape of the horn (fine-tuning and all that). I modelled a 100Hz horn and it gets way too big (22" tall by 65" wide). Besides, I can't find a single driver anywhere that actually digs down to 300Hz. I suppose I could always go for a hornloaded direct radiator...kinda like what mackie builds, but then I'm severely limiting the HF options (and at all costs I want to avoid a crossover below 5kHz). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
3dzapper Posted December 23, 2005 Share Posted December 23, 2005 There is a driver that, when the curve is smoothed to eliminate measurement anomolies, goes 400 to 6,500Hz +/- 2Db. It's a 1" outlet though. (Plot by Al K) Rick Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Deang Posted December 23, 2005 Share Posted December 23, 2005 LOL, yep THAT driver is very hard to beat, and I still think it sounds pretty darn good myself. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
oscarsear Posted December 23, 2005 Share Posted December 23, 2005 Went through a similar search just recently. My choice given the $$$ and your same low end reuirement was the vintage JBL 2482 driver. It's a 2" driver designed to drive the low end to below 400Hz. They seem to be readily available. I've gotten 3 of them and use one on a center channel as well. My 2482 choice was also given the thumbs up by Dr. Edgar. If, however you require new product AND $$$ is NO problem then check out the Ale compression drivers from Japan: http://www.tachyon.co.jp/ale/ale.html They offer a full range of compression drivers all of which are extremely costly. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Duke Spinner Posted December 23, 2005 Share Posted December 23, 2005 Who, I think you will most pleased with your speaker project if you X-over no lower than 500 Hz my experience has been, the two loudest instruments, in that range, trombone, an various drums, toms , are not well produced by a horn w/ a 300 hz point i know you dont like the KH bass bin, i've grown to like mine moreso, tho ..Speed .! it does drop a lot of detail say, 250- 400 hz i guess the speakers i really prefer, have a direct radiator, x'd over to horn, 800 - 1200 hz ... if you like it really loud, the 500 point gets a lot of music away from the modulation produced by bass, of course this is somewhat Xmax dependent for instance, the Altec A-7, or the 1208 variant that I have stunning Mid detail from the horn loaded cone/ 500hz x-over to compression driver i cross my 18" scoops to the 2360 horn at 800, there is a small drop in the 600-800 hz range due to the slow 18" but low driver excursion with the scoop Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Duke Spinner Posted December 23, 2005 Share Posted December 23, 2005 did I mention that I like 2-way systems the best ..???.......[] Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Duke Spinner Posted December 23, 2005 Share Posted December 23, 2005 re: BMS 4592 i belive Dana ......Does like this driver .in his speak's...a lot .. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tigerwoodKhorns Posted December 23, 2005 Share Posted December 23, 2005 Dr. I sent you an email but am not sure if it went through. If not email me. It is very important. Chris Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DrWho Posted December 23, 2005 Author Share Posted December 23, 2005 Got your email chris and replied (I think)...thanks Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DrWho Posted December 23, 2005 Author Share Posted December 23, 2005 I like the concept behind a 2-way design too, but alas that would require a sufficient driver/horn combination. Maybe later on down the road when I've mastered horn design I will go for a CD horn to drive a 2-way system...and maybe there will be a suitable driver around by then []I figure I'll crossover higher too, but it will be room dependant because the 15" woofers start to narrow their response around 500Hz. I came across this site in my searching and thought y'all might find it interesting. If nothing else, it has info on all of the manufacturers out there:http://ldsg.snippets.org/sect-6.php3And I think I will settle on the B&C DE950 for $600:http://www.bcspeakers.com/download/prodotti/PDF/more/140.pdfIt should be able to handle 20W @ 500Hz and has a very smooth on- and off-axis response all the way up to 6kHz where I'll be going over to the tweeter. But I'm still going to try and find a way to do some demo's. Maybe go visit the partsexpress store over in Ohio and see if something can't be arranged...I have a feeling though that it will be one of those cases where they all sound different, but nothing sticks out as being better. (kinda like the difference between the chorus II and the cornwall). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Duke Spinner Posted December 23, 2005 Share Posted December 23, 2005 Who .. you may want to look at the spec for that JBL 2360 horn ..... used, they're not outta budget Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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