L150, L150a

[Guido]

Hello!

Can anybody tell me the difference between L150 and L150A (was there a L150 Millenium?)?
Especially interesting is what speakers are used in them.

Thank you!

[Guido]

Thanks Giskard

Fast and detailed!

[MikeM]

Originally posted by Guido
Hello!

Can anybody tell me the difference between L150 and L150A (was there a L150 Millenium?)?
Especially interesting is what speakers are used in them.

Thank you!

The L150 used a paper dome tweeter. ( That sounded pretty darn nice BUt fragile) The L150 switched to the Titanium tweeter. More rugged but in my eyes not as good sounding. That tweeter in the L150 wasnt paper it was a material type dome that kicked ass like no other.

[MikeM]

Originally posted by Guido
Thanks Giskard

Fast and detailed!

Ive owned both systems.
The L150 has a linen dome tweeter that is a bit fragile but sounds much better.
The L150A changed out the tweeter to the good old aluminm/titainium tweeter. Trust me. look for the L150.

[tmckien]

For an L150 upgrade, if one can't find an 044, would the 035ti / tia give improved performance over the 033? Would crossover changes be necessary? By the way, I added the .01 bypass caps and
swapped out the LE5 with a 104 as had been suggested. ....What a HUGE improvement.

Regards,

[DavidF]

To further on MikeM's reply, the L150A replaced the Dome tweeter and the crossover with the same units used in the L112. With the larger box volume, it is obvious that the L150A is a re-tuned L112 with more bass under 40Hz. The original L150 crossover used 6-dB slopes with conjugate circuits to even out the impedance. The later design mixed the slopes and matched them more to the response of the drivers. Whether the goal was sound improvement or greater power handling, or both, is not clear to me. I have listened to both circuits (albeit not with the 033 soft dome) and prefer the later design for its midrange clarity. The difference is not that remarkable, though.

MikeM prefers the "soft" dome to the metal one. The differences in metal and fabric domes of this era were more distinct but I find the 044 quite listenable. It provides a clear timbre to the upper registers and it handles volume very well. The objection many have is the rising response in the audible range, which on bright recordings the effect is often exagerated. Later designs (of metal domes) manage to push this response peak up out of hearing range. I think the difference is more of personal choice.


DavidF

[johnhb]

As an experiment I took a pair of L-150s made an adapter plate and put the 077, LE-5-2 in top with L-65 crossover. I had 122a reconed with 123a-3 cone kit and changed the passive from PR-300 with foam to PR-12 with cloth edge which matches woofer. I'm thinking L-175? Several friends have pronounced it the best sounding speaker I have when A-B against many others. The original speaker with the 033 sounded great. I just did this for amusement.

[4313B]

Here is a repost of the revisions.

The LE5-10 and LE5-12 differ only in the fact that the frame face of the LE5-10 is black and the frame face of the LE5-12 is silver. Both use round copper voice coils.

The 033 uses a 1" phenolic resin impregnated linen diaphragm driven by a 1" aluminum voice coil suspended in a 1.5 pound magnetic assembly generating 14,000 gauss.

The 044 uses a 1" phenolic resin impregnated linen diaphragm coated with an ultra thin layer of aluminum via vapor deposition driven by a 1" copper voice coil suspended in a 2 pound magnetic assembly generating 14,000 gauss.

[4313B]

Here is a repost of the schematics.