TC Sounds motor primer

[DS-21]

Would someone be so kind as to post a primer on the TC Sounds motor designs of the past decade, and some of the more notable hobbyist/car woofers in which they were found? I'm planning some new supersubs, and I'm except for the latest TC2+ I'm not sure if any will meet my criteria for long throw and as low inductance and inductance modulation as possible.

[jdybnis]

I know of three such subs:

TC2+
Dayton RS
Peerless XXLS

There are likely others in the megabuck range.

Post more of your requirements in terms of size constraints, budget, and application.

[GrahamT]

Have you looked at Resonant Engineering and the new Adire Tumults?

[ThomasW]

Would someone be so kind as to post a primer on the TC Sounds motor designs of the past decade, and some of the more notable hobbyist/car woofers in which they were found?

No problem, I charge $175/hr, with a $500 minimum.

I'm not sure if any will meet my criteria for long throw and as low inductance and inductance modulation as possible.

Probably not..... :B

[DS-21]

I know of three such subs:

TC2+
Dayton RS
Peerless XXLS

There are likely others in the megabuck range.

Post more of your requirements in terms of size constraints, budget, and application.

Size constraints: Woofer basket diameter 15"-22" (hey, you never know when someone REALLY wants to get rid of a Cabasse 55ND...), Vbox under about 7 cubic feet/side. I can't do I-B here, unfortunately, but I'm good at hiding relatively large boxes.

Budget: See below.

Application: Each woofer powered by an NHT A1 monobloc (rated at 200W/8ohms and 300W/4ohms but interestingly enough weighs as much as the 1000W/4ohms plate amp from PE that uses the same "Class G" topology...), in 17L x 9W x 10H room housing a 7.2-channel system that's technically a home theater but is used more for music than movies, with the front stage (LCR) consisting of Tannoy 8" dual concentric drivers in custom cabinets with crossovers of my design, and the 4 surrounds being KEF Q-Compacts, which are minimonitors using a 130mm variant of KEF's 5th generation Uni-Q (cast basket that ventilates the spider and undercut polepiece/Faraday ring motor).

The actual reason for my excessively broad enquiry was that someone offered me a pair of 18" Eclipse car subwoofers that used the TC Sounds 3HP motor, and I was trying to figure out if they used the same dull, thuddy motor as the HE15's I played with and quickly got rid of several years ago, or if they were decent woofers. I suppose I could've just asked that, but I didn't know all of the details about those woofers until today.

That said, now it's all academic. I recently talked through some pretty wild ideas for cabinets to enclose the 12" Tannoy duals I recently bought for my home office system with a local wood artisan - I'm not good enough with raw materials to do anything that's actually going to be visible in my room... - and the cost of the cabinets is going to destroy my budget for new HT woofers. They'll look great though, and match my modernist HO furnishings (think lots of white, lots of matte aluminum, and a task chair that suspends me in lime green mesh for variety) perfectly. So I'll be using one of two pairs of 15" drivers I already have, JL Audio 15W6's (what I'm currently running) or more likely JBL 2235H's as soon as I get back to ATL to pick up my second one. The latter have less SPL potential (8.6mm xmax vs. 10.7mm for the Jellos) and don't have quite the LF extension in a ported box, but they also have about 1/3 the inductance and the motor upon which ScanSpeak's SD-1 design was based.

[jdybnis]

I recently talked through some pretty wild ideas for cabinets to enclose the 12" Tannoy duals...(think lots of white, lots of matte aluminum, and a task chair that suspends me in lime green mesh for variety).

Looks like you've sorted out your sub situation. I'd watch out for the dispersion characteristics if you cross those 15's above 300 and/or use a low order crossover slope.

You've got to post pictures of those Tannoy cabs when you've got them done. That could look amazing. I'm kind of tired of the old retro look that everyone sticks to (or the DIY raw plywood look ). What model Tannoy's are they.

[DS-21]

Looks like you've sorted out your sub situation.

After spending some quality time with Unibox, it's gotta be the 2235H's unless I did something wrong. With two 160L enclosure tuned to 25Hz and a 20Hz highpass, I can get 110dB from 20Hz up (F3 of 29Hz re: 80Hz) with 200W and never exceed 8.5mm of xmax. (See attached.) Also, with their 4" voicecoils and pro-audio cooling scheme I suspect they're better at resisting power compression than the 15W6's.

I'd watch out for the dispersion characteristics if you cross those 15's above 300 and/or use a low order crossover slope.

I'm only going to use them below 80Hz right now. True, I would prefer to take more bass out of the 8" Duals up front, but I don't have that kind of placement flexibility right now.

You've got to post pictures of those Tannoy cabs when you've got them done. That could look amazing. I'm kind of tired of the old retro look that everyone sticks to (or the DIY raw plywood look ). What model Tannoy's are they.

Will do, though they likely won't be ready until Mid-November or later. Actually, they might not get STARTED until then, because he's building me oversized-depth mockups out of MDF for crossover tweaking, and then the real cabs will come after any audibles on Vbox and tuning have been called.

As for the Duals, the ones for the HT system's LCR speakers are 2046's, which were used in the System 800 nearfield monitor and some other speakers. (Mine were all originally CMS-8 in wall speakers.) The home office Duals will be (they're scheduled to arrive tomorrow) 3134's out of the 1990s-vintage CPA-12 stage monitor. Actually, I didn't just buy the drivers but rather a pair CPA-12's with intentions of harvesting the drivers. Maybe I'll post a picture of them this weekend, as well as a naked driver shot. They're not a traditional Gold or HPD with a pepper pot, but a modern version with the Tulip waveguide and separate ferrite magnets for woofer and tweeter. I've never heard a vintage Dual, but I've been entranced with every modern one that has come between music and my ears And oddly enough, I universal liked the older poly ones (e.g. D700 and Saturn S10 home speakers, System 800 studio monitor; it's a much harder poly than the Vifa P13-type material) better than the new paper cone ones (e.g. TD12 home speaker). According to the propaganda the 3134 are "more robust versions" of the drivers used in the current 12DMT studio monitor. I really hope I like them. If I don't, I suppose it won't cost me much if anything to resell them. They model very nicely in transmission lines....

[brett]

How about the Beyma 18LX60? It goes lower than most HE subs but needs about 370 liters - approx 30% increase in all 3 linear box dimensions w.r.t the 2235. Inductance = 1.2mH, XMAX 9.5mm. The latter figure is not the actual overhang but I think that applies to the 2235 also.

One of the favorites for HE subs.

[jdybnis]

That's excellent. There is nothing like a really big box for making good bass. You nailed the volume and tuning right on the head.

[DS-21]

That's excellent. There is nothing like a really big box for making good bass. You nailed the volume and tuning right on the head.

To be sure, it's not that I nailed the volume and tuning so much as that Gordon Waters of Audio Atlanta did. (Gordon also rescued and reconed both of the 2235H's that I'll be using.) He suggested it on the Lansing Heritage forum a while ago, and I played around for a while on Unibox before realizing how great his suggested alignment was for my room.

PS: One 2235H is at the cabinet-maker already and the other I'll pick up from Gordon on Friday, but here are some shots of the Tannoys with which I'll be using them, both as raw drivers and in their current cabinets. I took the 2046-based speaker (Qtc=0.577 sized cabinet, with an F3 in the 60Hz range) into my office so that I could get them both in one shot. The corner of my task chair (a Teknion Contessa) is an indication of the color scheme for the cabinets that are being built for the 3134's. I was expecting the 3134 (12" one behind the grille) to be a poly cone, but in fact it's paper. They need some crossover work to sculpt the lower mids for home use, but I honestly think I'll be able to do better than the Tannoy TD12 using these drivers and voicing the crossover for my room. The last picture shows the baskets of the 3134 (nice solid cast alloy with spider ventilation) and 2046 (stamped steel, closed off spider), along with two KEF Uni-Q's, the 6.5" from the Q95c from ~1997 (unlike the rest of that KEF Q-series, cast basket with spider ventilation) and the recently discontinued and closed-out (at $55ea including tax possible the loudspeaker deal of the decade) Q Compact.

[jdybnis]

Nice. Can't wait to see the final cabs. ;h