Tweet
Has anyone read this review? Any comments? I'd be interested in reading/seeing more than the summaries listed here on a few of the drivers, specifically the two 10" coaxes by Sica and P. Audio and the HiVi (Expolinear) Trinity 6 spiral planar/ring-radiator/cone triax. But alas I've never seen Hobby HiFi on this side of the Atlantic - if anyone knows of a newsstand that imports it, I'd love to hear about them - and the cost of the magazine goes way, way up when you factor in the cost of a bank transfer. I wish Hobby HiFi would sign up for a service like K+T's, or self-publish PDF files of their issues a la The New Republic...
-
-
I can scan the article for you, just won't promise to do it this weekend
-
If you are going to go through the trouble of scanning it, please copy me as well. Thnx.
-AJ
p.s. did they yank the Thiel from an existing set of speakers? Pity they didn't test one of the bigger PHL mids with flat surround.ManufacturerComment
-
Hey Eric,
Short of a scan, how did the Seas compare with the other offerings?Comment
-
I assume that the distributor who sells the 6.5" Thiel coax in Germany has broadened the lineup a bit.Originally posted by AJINFLA
Also, the baby Thiel (branded "Genesis") wideband (I don't know about you guys, but to me a driver with a metal dustcap and only one voicecoil is not a "coax" but a "wideband") is available in the US as a raw driver from Peter Lufrano, www.theautophile.com.Comment
-
Favorably. The integration of woofer and tweeter is pretty good, with only a very narrow 0° / 10 kHz dip. The woofer has reasonably clean CSD and lowish distortion. I sports an 800 Hz surround dip though that puts any Scan Speak to shame. I believe the old T18RE had much less of a dip, so the move to a lower loss, lower fs surround was not a good move. The tweeter has very low distortion except for a 2nd and 3rd 1% peak at 6 kHz. Wonder if this is an interference issue that will go away off axis.Originally posted by Dennis H
By comparision, the PHL has a much fuzzier CSD for the woofer and higher distortion below 300 Hz, and the tweeter has a much more pronounced on axis FR dip.
The Thiel has a perfect FR (no dips) and good CSD. Midrange distortion is very low, but this driver really should not be used below 300 Hz. Distortion above 4 kHz is acceptable but not really good (0.3% average, many 1% peaks). If you can afford to cross high and don't mind spending $700 a piece, this is your coax.Comment
-
Yes, Thiels are available for retail in Germany.Originally posted by DS-21
What model is the baby Thiel in the Genesis lineup? I saw a lot of adapted Scan Speaks but no Thiel.Comment
-
Apparently the website isn't updated, though there's a thread on it here.Originally posted by capslockComment
-
Have you seen the TAD measurements in Stereophile?
The Pioneer/TAD got a good review, but I was a bit surprised at the tweeter response given the small diameter of the mid portion. The area above 10K isn't all that good. Of course the on-axis was worse, but I still expected better from it.
The other slightly surprising aspect was that they noticed that the impulse response showed clearly that tweeter was well forward acoustically. It's a coaxial driver, but not a coincident one.Comment
-
$800/pr? Yikes. That is an ideal driver for a car as I had mentioned long ago on DIYMA, but $800? Hmmm...
I was not paying close enough attention when I had read up on it on the Thiel site. I did not realize the tweeter was inductively coupled like my Tannoys. Interesting. Now I really must see the data Eric
.
I still see issues with the design, like the very small shallow cone profile providing very little loading of the tweeter. The surround/frame is still not optimal (or close to optimal like my JBL or some PHL's), so I expect a bit of roughness at the very top.
A very similar design is used by Sonance http://www.sonance.com/subs/product_...product_id=376 Pic detail http://www.sonance.com/image_data/pi...1144187309.jpg , though probably a 2 coil coax. Price unknown, assuming replacement part could be bought.
What is nice about the Thiel is that it is very shallow, so for a fully symmetric dipole, 2 could be used back to back in a sealed disc enclosure as dipole tweeter down to maybe 600hz in a much smaller package than 2 back to back WG loaded tweeters, width and depth wise, allowing better correlation to the other drivers.
The directivity of the Thiel seems clearly geared toward (unfortunately) a monopole radiator, which of course the CS2.4, etc is.
A better application (IMHO ) would be something like the method used by MEG, who have some new home oriented monitors http://www.me-geithain.de/index2.html?eng where the cardioid pattern calls for slightly wider (controlled) tweeter dispersion.
BTW, why on earth are no DIYer's doing designs like this (or at least attempting) when so many have not enough space for a speaker (like a dipole) far out from the wall? Only the bass section would need to be active IMHO. I would be very interested to see the insides of one of these to see the flow resistance technique/materials being used.
DLR are you referring to this test?http://www.ultimateavmag.com/speaker...ex/index5.html
cheers,
AJ
p.s. sorry Pallas, had to grab those TC's at that there crazy price
ManufacturerComment
-
That's the one
Yes, it's that system, but the measurements at that linked site are a bit smoothed in comparison, typical of what LMS measurements were like when I used it.Originally posted by AJINFLA
Actually, in the latest Stereophile, it looks better up to about 7K or so. Above that the swings are really wide. The on-axis is especially bad, about +5db @11k and about -9db @14k or thereabout. Even the 30 deg horizontal average has really bad swings above 10K. The tweeter section profile is apparently not nearly as good as that of KEF. I'm guessing that it's the deeper tweeter setting of the KEF that provides a smoother transition from tweeter to woofer.Comment
-
Yep, surround issues. Still trying to get too much excursion out of the WG and paying the penalty. Still pretty nice overall in the midband, etc.
Can't get pass that omni radiation below 300hz though.
The ME220K shows how it can be done for those small rooms. Nice tracking off axis.
Plastic bags of feltmetal/fiberglass sandwich layering? Progressive? Inquiring minds want to know :twisted: .
cheers,
AJ
ManufacturerComment
-
Thiel has three different small upper drivers, the faux-concentric used in CS2.4, a new corrugated ring-radiator mid around a dome tweet with no waveguide loading in their new CS3.7, and a regular 4" coincident in the higher models.Originally posted by AJINFLA
Also, as I posted on DIYMA, I'm not sure that the faux-concentric one is really any different from old PA driver designs, except that the cone is smaller and metal with a discrete joint rather than big and ribbed paper. The ICT seems to have a bit more going on. What I'm really interested in is comparing the Thiel faux-concentric measurements with those for the 9BGS/TG9. (I assume the German-market 9BGS is the same as the TG9, including the copper pole-cap.) That's really an exceptional little driver, and IMO underused in the US.
As I mentioned on DIYMA, KEF now sells 3" and 4" Uni-Q's as in-ceiling speakers, too.
Win some, lose some. Besides, truth be told I have an untouched TC2+ 15 from Oaudio sitting in my closet anyway. Actually, five 15" woofers not currently in use: the TC2+, two JBL 2235H's that were supplanted by a Tannoy B475 in the HT; and two JL Audio 15W6's, one of which is still in the plastic.p.s. sorry Pallas, had to grab those TC's at that there crazy price
Comment
-
Well, one driver costs about $700 here, so that must be a bargainOriginally posted by AJINFLA$800/pr? Yikes. That is an ideal driver for a car as I had mentioned long ago on DIYMA, but $800? Hmmm...
I was not paying close enough attention when I had read up on it on the Thiel site. I did not realize the tweeter was inductively coupled like my Tannoys. Interesting. Now I really must see the data Eric.
My understanding from the HH article is that the dome sits right on the VC former, and that some sort of rubber ring is used to couple (or rather decouple at HF) the cone from the former.Comment
Comment