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In the Forum: Horn-Loaded Speakers
In the Thread: Open cell foam in horns and MF drivers
Post Subject: 2" driversPosted by horny on: 1/31/2008
 be wrote:

The best driver I have heard is the TAD 4003.

It does not use the secondary resonance of the suspension, as described by Duke LeJeune above for the TAD 4001-4002, to extend the response towards 20 kHz, but has a natural roll off from app. 15 kHz.

Interestingly the sound of the 4003 is much better than the 4001-4002, the density of information and ability to articulate, also in the treble, is on a different level.

The sound of the TAD 4001-4002 might impress for a few notes until you realise that everything they do in the high frequencies have the same monotonous character and is not able to express the "smell" of the instruments very well.

If one looks at the AES paper for the 4001 it can be seen that their response over 8-10 kHz is due to deliberately placed resonances.

The JBL 375 was also made with the same trick, it is generally more coloured than the TAD 4001, but in a pleasing way.

All these drivers where designed by Bart Locanthi, the 4003 was, if I am not mistaken, his last completed driver before he died, apparently he realised his mistake with the others.


Couldn`t agree more. If you look at the cross section view of the 4003 you will notice it has the smoothest transition from the chamber to the throat (curved)
and taking into account the recommendations by various folks to replace the original Be diaphragm with the Radian alu replacement diaphragm, one could get
something interesting ("merely interesting", some will point out). Judging from my experience, compression drivers (or any drivers, for that matter) that have abrupt frequency roll off at the upper range, mostly sound lazy to me (non transparent). It is like with filters; the steeper they are, the more overshot they produce, the nastier they sound. The gradually falling upper range of the 2441 and 4003 simplyfies crossover integration with the tweeter above 8 khz or so.
Of course, this is no guarantee for the end result.

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