Santa was early this year! A new 2 way

[Mr. Widget]

It may not be as good as a dedicated tweeter would be but what's there works for me. If you could live with a pair of 4430/35's you can certainly live with these.

That is the best way of describing it I have heard...


Widget

[Zilch]

Heh. You guys are SO second tier:

Only *I*, me, the Zilchster, qualify to be summarily thrashed for pushing 2435HPL out to 20 kHz....

[Robh3606]

Only *I*, me, the Zilchster, qualify to be summarily trashed for pushing 2435HPL out to 20 kHz....

Why should you have all the fun

Rob

[timc]

Very nice work!


-Tim

[Guido]

You don't need to push the 2435 to 20kHz.
They are still damped 4dB at 20 kHz.

[Robh3606]

Mine is a bit more agressive. I have 2db of padding left at 20K. I hit unity at about 22K and have a rise to about +4 at 30K. Anything above unity is out of band.

Rob

[Mr. Widget]

Mine is a bit more agressive. I have 2db of padding left at 20K.

I think there is a fair amount of unit to unit variation above 10-12KHz with these drivers. One pair of drivers may require quite a bit more kick than another pair.


Widget

[Robh3606]

I think there is a fair amount of unit to unit variation above 10-12KHz with these drivers. One pair of drivers may require quite a bit more kick than another pair.

Hello Widget

Yes that's true there is some variation from driver to driver and between pairs in that 10K-20K window.

Rob

[Ian Mackenzie]

Widget I agree.

I confess I was impressed with Rob's Be when I was in N.Y.

We compared titanium and the Be. I liked both but I think Be was more accurate. You get so used to a certain presentation after a long time its hard to let go of somethings.

But I think people get too excited about the extension to 20,000 hertz thing.

In reality most of what hear actually hear goes on below 10-12 k hertz.

I know for example adding a 2405 really adds air and ambiance to an otherwise wanting titamium diaphragm that has really slowed down and is heavily into mass rolloff at 9000 hertz.

As I recall the 045 in the 9800 systems only come into play much higher up.

If you spend a lot of time playing DVD forget about what happens above that region. Perhaps that is a clue as to why Greg is content with running his horns wide open.

What matters is the transient performance or self damping of the diaphragm in the 4-8 Khertz area. That is where Be had the advantage and it holds pistonic action out much farther than titanium.

As mention above when Rob and I compared both Be and Ti the titumium rings and emits a nice warm shine which can sound really good but its not necessarily accurate.

The Be driivers sound like they go up higher because the notes are more easily discerned by the ear. The decay of the titanium with acquaplas is better over the stock titanium but it does not have the life and speed of the Be.

The exit angle of the 1.5 inch drivers is also different and that has a significant effect on how well the mating horn works up high.

[Zilch]

You don't need to push the 2435 to 20kHz.
They are still damped 4dB at 20 kHz.

I believe that's harder than I've ever pushed 2435s, Guido, and if my sims are correct, 6 dB harder at 20 kHz than the Timbers filter:

http://audioheritage.org/vbulletin/s...534#post136534

I've never run the voltage drives on that, but can easily do so. 4313B may have posted them here somewhere, tho.

I certainly agree with the concept of shutting it down rapidly above 20 kHz, as I've discussed here before.

I don't have aquaplas'd 2435s yet, and they may take the boost more gracefully, but....

Also, I don't understand the reference to "Unity," or zero dB at the high end. The amount of boost is relative to where it begins, and, using the notch at 1.8 kHz as benchmark, Timbers has 14 dB to 20 kHz from there, whereas you've got 20 dB, looks like....

[Earl K]

Nice project Guido !

& Hats off to Richard ! for all that fine woodworking that's on display .

Nice voltage drive, on that horn circuit .
( Is there an inline series LCR creating that "bump" at 20K ? )

[Guido]

Nice project Guido !

& Hats off to Richard ! for all that fine woodworking that's on display .

Thanks Earl!

Nice voltage drive, on that horn circuit .
( Is there an inline series LCR creating that "bump" at 20K ? )

Sure there is a LCR inline

Generally I must say that producing curves is important but i always trust my ears in the last round of crossover design.

You guys need also to conider serious impact of your amps when judging speaker sound, especially through the midrange and top end. As long as you don't use a serious Class A design you shouldn't blame speakers for harsh sounding midrange or top end. With horn speakers this is even more important.

I had to learn this and use nothing else than Passlabs designs with my speakers any longer.
OK a pair of SAC 150's from time to time as they are much easier to carry than these 45kg room heater beasts

[Robh3606]

Moved a couple of posts on compression driver compensation to a new thread.

http://audioheritage.org/vbulletin/s...ad.php?t=19493

Rob

[Mr. Widget]

Generally I must say that producing curves is important but i always trust my ears in the last round of crossover design.

Absolutely!

You guys need also to conider serious impact of your amps when judging speaker sound, especially through the midrange and top end. As long as you don't use a serious Class A design you shouldn't blame speakers for harsh sounding midrange or top end. With horn speakers this is even more important.

Yes and no... I absolutely agree that when I used a SET amp or a nice little First Watt from Nelson Pass my mids and highs were much nicer, but the nasty bits and lack of stage depth that I have heard from other designs weren't there when I used some rather pedestrian Mosfets either... I was listening to Bo's 4345s recently and even with his very basic QSC amps they still managed to sound most excellent with the mods to his system that he has made. I'd be tempted to change the high frequency amp and keep the QSC on the bottom, but I don't think the character of his system would change, just one more layer between us and the music might get lifted.

I had to learn this and use nothing else than Passlabs designs with my speakers any longer.

I like Pass Labs a lot... but ARC and a dozen or so others also make some pretty excellent amps.


Widget

[Ian Mackenzie]

With due respect its no secret Bo uses far less active EQ now than he did at the outset with the Ashly crossover and the Onkyo preamp and whatever active EQ he had at the time. No doubt the Tad driver also helps in that regard.

I think that is the point Guido was trying to make.

The whole signal path is just better and the more of it that you clean up the better it gets..and the less likely you are going to fidget around looking for what needs fixing.

We've been over this before. Its not just one fix or upgrade but the whole chain.

Of course with a hi end two way it can be a simple as a CD player with a remote volume and a hot power amp.

In the broader sense Ed and I messed with this a while back and Ed is quite content with his Pass Labs X1, X150.5, X250 and Pass diy active crossover and external hi end passive crossovers.

Widget, as you well know the best systems around have far from a ruler flat response on paper and seldem will you ever see a graphic Eq in the setup.

A great amplification set will really bring out the very best a loudspeaker can deliver. If it changed the character of a system I would say the amp was fairly colored and there are amps that will do that.

There is no question the Pass Labs amps make the big JBL's sing.

If Bo ever gets around to installing a cute class A amp on the highs we would find him permanently perched on the bar stool