I like them and use the quite extensively. As the comparing result between the headphones and the loudspeakers…. they are different. The best speakers sound-wide would do a similar result to what the headphones can do but the loudspeakers but will have own advantages. This is quite complicated question….

Rgs,
The caT

I can’t say that I like the headphones that people call “good.” I have heard a number of high-class phones, including the one that I was told cost over 5 thousands dollars and I was not impressed what I heard. Some people suggest the while I used those ‘expansive” and presumably high quality headphones I should be unit the high quality headphone amplifiers. With the headphone amplifiers I have even less luck them with headphones. None of the headphone-dedicated amplifiers that I heard performed acceptable.

Ironically the best would that I recognize that I heard form the heard-phone is the one that do not annoys me and this sound comes from a very moderate systems… and without any headphone amplifiers. At the sores I use invariably my favorite Panasonic SL-CT470. It is old cheap Walkman that does not have a lot of so-called resolution but for whatever reasons it is superbly musical. I so love it that I own 5 of those units, pleased everywhere; work, home, cars and so on… A far as headphone concern I trued few of them but I always return to not particularly imprecise Audio-Technica ATH-M40FS. For whatever it worth I have heard a lot of music on this “system” and I do feel very comfortable to continue to use it indefinitely.

Some people believe the headphones in a way conflict with “big speakers” listing habits. I do not think so, or at least I do not feel so. If you listen music then what is the difference how we hear it if you know “how” to hear it? If we listen the dissected sounds coming from our playback then… what the reasons to think what we think in this case….?

Rgs,
Romy the Cat

Hi, Ronnie.

I do not know what happen with emails, you probably should not use the world Viagra in there… :-)

Anyhow, the 25w/8565-01 drivers are optimized for ported enclosures. I porously never had them and never used them, so I could not be helpful. There are some people who looking at the T/S can confidently to say how it will work. Although I know the reasoning and the rules they use I can’t say how a driver will sound, I mean really sound, not juts be misapplied…

General rule: despite what the Scan-Speak said those drivers (I mean 00) do not have a lot of handling power and if you have 50m3 and just 4 driver then you will clip them very easily. Also, if you can then go for the rippled version of those drivers….

Regards and sorry that I was not too useful
Romy

PS: BTW, Ronnie, there is no need to search this drivers “for sale at a good price” and “to act this weekend”. You may get then for near half price using the industry “wolf tickets”. Scan-Speak is very liberal about it.

Ronnie wrote:

I don't know any industry wolves unfortunately(?), but more new -01 drivers have appeared at half the price. I think I'll go ahead and make the speakers full range in time for my upcoming 30-years-on-earth-celebration. :-)

Ronnie, you do need to know any wolves. All that you need to do is to get the drivers form Scan-Speak as a resaler. This idiotic industry has imbedded huge mark up for the “bogus resalers”. You need to contacts the Scan Speak directly of any of this distributors in your country and tell them that you are some kind of BS “ABSD Sound Reinforcement Company” and you would like to get a hale dozen of their driver for your customer. They will send you a Scan-Speak dealer request form that should fill up and fax in. in a few days you will receive the drivers at 50%off. Those 50% is the normal price that anyone should pay, and the manufactures very happy to sell it for this price, but we have an army of the blood-sucking dealers, who have a strong aplomb and a good appetite to get paid for nothing. They make you believe that the 00 driver coast fortune, although they buy it from Scan-Speak for under $40. I have a quite number of people who got those “wolf tickets”, ironically the US distributors have nothing against it. You can only imagine how much they pay to the manufacturer…

Ronnie wrote:

The swedish distributor told me that the only -mechanical- difference is the coil: aluminium in the -00 and copper in the -01. WinISD has predicted rather similar (sealed box) response.

Perhaps, though I remember as a few years ago I calculated it and figured out that 01 was more suited for ported box. Also, I remember that they had no only different coils but different Q. It was long time ago… perhaps I am mistaken….

Ronnie wrote:

- Do I remember correctly that you got 16 ohm versions?

Nope, it was only 8R. I was not able to make them to do 16R.

Ronnie wrote:

Could you further explain the difference between "rippled" and not? They all have that irregular, rough surface, right?

I feel that the "rippled" are stronger with the same mass and also the random deviation of density is good.... I have seen the flat version of the same driver and I prefer the "rippled" one.

BTW, post a picture when you finish your LF section….

Rgs,
The Cat

Ronnie,

Very nice, though I do not know where you would like me to move the thread.  (It looks like it’s OK where it is). There are some comments that I might to pass.

You decided to go for a large MF driver. This is fine if you like it but I found that the entire Fostex idea and a large throat at MF horns do not work. Beside the obvious limitation of Fostex driver the large throat demand a large mouth. As the result the MF become oversized that incentive people go for lower cut of. In reality the Fostex should not be crossed as low and the mouth would allow. So we have a MF horn with “heavy mouth” and the sound kind of funny. In addition Fostex sound strange at thier HF. With a simple pop-jazz music it is not visible but with more serious classic they are losing. Not to mention that with no Fostex you would not need any back chamber at MF horn.

I might only advise you to try any simple and cheap compression drive with 1-2 out. It would make the MF horn way smaller and way simpler. Also it would allow you to locate it closer to your upperbass horn and give some space for a prospective tweeter….

One more thing. I detected that the MF horns are ridiculously sensitive to any objects located nearby with thier mouths, though they surprisingly do not really “see” the upper bass horn. So, after you finish your horn you might come up with some kind of harness the hold the horn in this position but do not act like a baffle.

Feel free to share your contraction techniques and the observations you will be experience while you will be teaching your horn to sound correct

PSL I hope you do not drive this with SS gear…..

Hello John,
The woofer is Fane Studio 8M and throat diameter on the 115Hz horn is 5.56".
The initial 4.5" depth of the throat is made up by 6 MDF pieces with rough edges (awaiting bondo smoothing).
I can easily add 3/4" pieces to the throat section to make it longer and the diameter smaller.

Here's how I calculated the proportions, with help by your formulas:

13592.48 inches per second / (2 X 48.865 inches)) = 139Hz (much lower with room boundaries)
length  = 30.125"
eff.length = 18.74 + 30.125 = 48.865"
throat radius = 2.779472"
throat dia = 5.559"

...compared with how I understood that Romys horns are built:
13592.48 inches per second / (2 X 48.865 inches)) = 139Hz
length  = 31.7
eff.length = 17.165 + 31.7 = 48.865 inches
throat radius = 2" (1.98")
throat dia = 4" (3.96")


Interesting to hear about horn size matching. A 7-800Hz horn sure would seem tiny on top of the 115Hz.

I have lots to learn about speaker-room interaction and about everything else about the setup.
Have ordered some "Furniture sliders" to place under the horns, which just might make it possible to move them. Compared to my old Paradigm Atom boxes (hehe), I have noticed how little the sound changes sitting up close or far away from the horns. Only with my head right against the back wall is there any very big difference.


/Ronnie

Ronnie wrote:

Also, some frequencies are very much pronounced (alien sounds), easiest to hear with opera singers.

Rgs,
Romy

I wish I could pin-point the frequencies and explain the effect better. I'll do my best.

I want to cover my ears when a Pavarotti sings certain higher notes or some notes when Caballet sings pretty "comfortably".
It's like bad PA horns or horrible acoustic space. I'm thinking of words like "resonances" and "frequency spikes".
My room does not have very bad acoustics. It's comfortable for conversation.

The big horn alone (and unfiltered) sound very well on piano music, but add violins and it feels very sharply cut-off.
Classical organ on the big horn alone is really painful.
Female voices talking is fatiguing, while male voices are better. I don't know if this is normal for the upper bass horn, but adding the MF horn doesn't seem to solve it completely.

Add the MF horn and simple Jazz and rock sounds superb, but classical organ and vocal music clearly shows problems at these frequencies.

Ronnie wrote:

I wish I could pin-point the frequencies and explain the effect better. I'll do my best. I want to cover my ears when a Pavarotti sings certain higher notes or some notes when Caballet sings pretty "comfortably". It's like bad PA horns or horrible acoustic space. I'm thinking of words like "resonances" and "frequency spikes". My room does not have very bad acoustics. It's comfortable for conversation. The big horn alone (and unfiltered) sound very well on piano music, but add violins and it feels very sharply cut-off. Classical organ on the big horn alone is really painful. Female voices talking is fatiguing, while male voices are better. I don't know if this is normal for the upper bass horn, but adding the MF horn doesn't seem to solve it completely. Add the MF horn and simple Jazz and rock sounds superb, but classical organ and vocal music clearly shows problems at these frequencies.

I have finished both big horns enough to listen in stereo, and the throats are now much smoother.

I'm not using the MF horns, and have been listening all night. It has been a remarkable experience! (well, the inner-me objects and claims there's nothing remarkable about truly hearing, it's quite natural).

The high frequency roll-off meant absolutely nothing. I have been thinking that adding the MF would only be an act of vanity, and not really helpful either for me or visitors!
I have some fear that people may think I'm insane for using 400kg of loudspeakers to produce a good-telephone bandwidth...

(((The Fostex probably reached much too low and gave a midrange response bump. The highest XO point I tried was 2.2KHz, and I now think the big horns without low pass probably go much higher! Anyway, for now the MF is kept out of the picture)))

Anyway, the big "problem" with listening to only the big horns appeared only when Jussi Björling appeared on the radio this morning. There's a distortion like someone is blowing a whistle when he holds high-pitched tones for long. Perhaps it's just the speakers telling me that I don't like to hear people sing very loud when I don't know the lyrics, but I'm not convinced that I shouldn't be able to enjoy opera, so I want to cure the whistling.

I was under the impression that you did not at all electrically roll off the upper bass, and that the small throat would do all the (kinky) low passing.
So I have started out running the big horns without any filter.
Maybe the whistling distortion is in the 4-5-6KHz area and quite natural for the Fane Studio 8M when it tries to sing higher than it can?


Do you think this MF whistling noise is natural for the Fane and must be filtered out with low pass?


/Ronnie

Ronnie wrote:

I was under the impression that you did not at all electrically roll off the upper bass, and that the small throat would do all the (kinky) low passing.

Nope I did roll of the upper bass channel as my driver goes all the way up. The problem is that when it high relatively high regency then it’s cone because to heavy to handle then with a sufficient quality. I would wish that the sampler throat do all necessary low passing but I need to dive 3 octave in the operation region of the driver and certainly no one throat would be able to do it. It might be possible to fish something by tuning the front chamber but I personally do not believe in the front chambers, as with cutting frequencies I would loose sound as well.

Ronnie wrote:

So I have started out running the big horns without any filter. Maybe the whistling distortion is in the 4-5-6KHz area and quite natural for the Fane Studio 8M when it tries to sing higher than it can?

Hm, even without any lowpass filter the Fane Studio 8M should be quite clean atop and defiantly it should not any “whistling distortion”. Did you try to listen juts the upper bass channel without any MF and HF connected? Did the “whistling distortion” persist? Also, the Fane’s cone is very inactive and it talks with you MF channel coil when they are connected…. Still, what amplitude you have at 4-5-6KHz from Fane? How close (in DBs) your MF and Fane channel running after the MF kicks in?

Ronnie wrote:

Do you think this MF whistling noise is natural for the Fane and must be filtered out with low pass?

Hmmm. It defiantly sound be minimized at a few DB lower then you have now by low passing the channel but I would not cure the symptom and would search go for the souse of the problem. The problem you described should not be in this driver; at least the 5-6 pairs that went over my own hands did not have it. Ronnie, could you elaborate what the “whistling distortion” might sound like?

The caT

Hi Ronnie, I'm glad you solved your trouble and it was just a matter of balance in the frequency response range.

The singer's formant is an ability that opera singers learn, in order to stand louder than the orchestra and be heard at the rear rows of the theatre. The "trick" is thought to consist in the lowering of the larynx while singing, this changes the resonant properties of the vocal tract and enhances armonics that while speaking are usually way lower than the fundamental tone. The singer's formant is the result of fusing several armonics into a wide range of frequencies (this is a formant and these formants is what allow us to diferentiate one vowel -/a/ for instance- from another -/e/ or /i/-). Formants are what make your voice different from mine and what make each vocalic sound distinguishable from another. Singers learn to make their throats resonate into a frequency range at which the orchestra has lower energy (above 2 or 2.5 KHz) and place a great amount of acoustic energy into that range. This singer's formant can be above the 105 dB in a frequency area where the orchestra is no louder than 85 or 90 dB. The shape and width of that formant can make a singer's voice more palatable than another's, sound more powerful, warmer or more ear-drilling.

You'll find an explicative graph in here: http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/music/singfor.html

Ronnie wrote:

The room modes I thought I had to battle suddenly disappeared the other day when I decided to try stuffing the boxes a bit. Suddenly everything fell into place :-) I guess I can do better than using little cushions though... Do you have a "chemical name" for that furniture stuffing you lined the walls with? Will I find it in IKEA or the wood/hardware store?

I relay do not know what it is. I bought in a regular local cloth shop. It is very light and has hair from one side. In fact it should not be anything special. The idea is to eliminate the parallel surfaces and to inject a very slight diffusion/adsorption into the tope reflections at HF.

Ronnie wrote:

I have tried a pair of Alted 902 in 400Hz tractrix instead of the Fostex, but haven't been able to make them sing at all. So far they look like little trumpets and sound like little trumpets.

The Altec 902 never was a good driver. No mater what you do by a ferrite magnet can’t serve HF.  However you did used then in their atrocious original Altec “caned” horns… it must be horrible….

Ronnie wrote:

Two more LF boxes are under construction.

You do need to work with LF. Never run then empty-boxed but glue the box with 3-5cm of high-density foam. It will extend the virtual volume of the boxes. Also do consider adding other LF section(s) atop. The driver you used for LF are very soft clipping driver but still do not stress them – you will not damage then but the stressing them will affect sound: a driver per channel is too little for your room.

Ronnie wrote:

The system sounds absolutely lovely to me.

Those type configurations are always winning. Do not forget unload the LF form the upperbass horn and be carefully with Fane’s HF. It might run quite high in this horn but the HF extension (over 700Hz -800Hz) will not be as good as the lower knee of you MF driver. In fact it is not exactly knows which of your driver will handle 700Hz-800Hz better: Upper bass of MF. You have to decide to yourself. At some frequencies the MF will begin to suffocate and at some frequencies the upper-bass driver will have too heavy cone and will sound too dirty.  Still if you have  400Hz tractrix then you must not dive lower then 750-800Hz with this chanal…

Rgs,
Romy the caT

PS: BTW, do not forget drive the horns with a SET....

BOX STUFFING
"It is very light and has hair from one side." and "glue the box with 3-5cm of high-density foam".
- Do you use both a high-density foam and the light and hairy material on top of that, or are they the same?
- Do you mean to glue on 3-5cm thick chunks of dampening material, or to spray on something like polyurethane foam spray (the hard stuff that I believe John used to fill your back chambers with in order to DECREASE internal volume)?
Apparently there are flexible types of foam too.. www.pfa.org

1" HORNS
Are your referring to these as original Altec horns: http://www.webbtjanst.se/lenco/images/loudspeakers/pict4256.jpg ?
I don't know if Altec made similar horns, but these are from a shop called Stereo Lab, or something similar.. Quite a hard resin material, but not metal-like.

CROSSOVER
I changed the crossover point between Fane and Fostex from 1850Hz to 925Hz. I did it mainly to see if it would cure the shouting Altecs. The new XO point stayed when the Fostex were put back in.
I believe it works much better, but there were many adjustments around the same time.
Thanks for reminding me to unload the mid bass horn from LF! I had completely forgotten.


"PS: BTW, do not forget drive the horns with a SET...."
-Oh rub it in why dont ya! ;-)
This may become 6 channels of SET: http://www.webbtjanst.se/lenco/images/loudspeakers/pict4255.jpg

Thanks for your help!!