New drivers from Scanspeak and Peerless
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New drivers from Scanspeak and Peerless
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The Scan-Speak driver looks beautiful! I would be very interested to hear more about that crazy motor.
Tymphany is advertising it as the "flagship" so I can only imagine the price...I'd probably have to sell my car to afford these speakers.- Bottom
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I cringe at the thought of "cost-no-object" though if they are the best, some people will pay. The Revelator woofers are the best I've tested (in my opinion) so I'll keep an eye out for the new drivers. I'm relatively disappointed with everything I've seen on the SB Acoustics products. Maybe Scan Speak will continue to set the bar.
Place your bets now on the cost of the 18cm "Illuminator". I say $300.- Bottom
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$300 sounds about right. I'll say $330 though just to have a bet in this game.
I'd be interested to see some 3rd party measurements of the SB drivers. The response graphs from the datasheets look nice, except for a dip in the frequency response in the same spot as a bump in the impedance response. That worries me a bit, but the impedance responses don't have much of an inductive rise, so that leads me to believe there may be a fairly good motor design (which you would expect from ex-Scan-Speak engineers).
If the SB drivers do perform well, the price sure is right.- Bottom
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Zaph, do you still have Ken Kantor's info, maybe you can drop him a message and see if you can get some drivers to test, and of course publish.
Does anybody from Tymphany view these boards? When will we see a datasheet, price, and avail. info?
The article mentioned new glass fiber and aluminum cones for the HDS exclusive series. Does anyone think they will drop Nomex cones?
It definitely is a cool looking driver. It is almost a crime to put these drivers in a box.- Bottom
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Ken Kantor isn't with Tymphany anymore. Actually most of Tymphany is different than it was a year ago, it's just about all new people.
One thing that really put me off about the Peerless HDS woofers is the cone changes shortly after the introduction, unannounced. There was a new pulp compound or something that had a different look and different response curve. If you ordered one, you might not know what you're going to get, and it might be different from previous woofers. A change like that is a major consistency failure, and as such I've avoided the otherwise good woofers. I hope the new drivers remain consistent.- Bottom
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Originally posted by jkrutkeKen Kantor isn't with Tymphany anymore. Actually most of Tymphany is different than it was a year ago, it's just about all new people.
One thing that really put me off about the Peerless HDS woofers is the cone changes shortly after the introduction, unannounced. There was a new pulp compound or something that had a different look and different response curve. If you ordered one, you might not know what you're going to get, and it might be different from previous woofers. A change like that is a major consistency failure, and as such I've avoided the otherwise good woofers. I hope the new drivers remain consistent.
I'm surprised the SB stuff didn't turn out better. There are a number of ways to skin a cat so they wouldn't have to copy the old motor to take advantage of some of those tricks.- Bottom
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Originally posted by TacoDIf those are available I try a pair. Hopefully they sound different than the sliced cones, that was not my cup of tea.- Bottom
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I think there's a lot more engineering going into the cones of the Revelator woofers than is apparent too. I can visualize how that pattern can damp resonances. I'm very happy with their response curves as they are the most controlled I've come across. (15cm Revelator in-box) The Usher drivers have great motors too, but their cones don't provide anywhere near the smooth response of the Revelators.
Now the new cone designs in my mind aren't going to work as well as the Revelators. It would appear to promote "trilobal" cone loading. I could see a round driver like that not having symmetrical off axis response. I'd bet there's more marketing ploy there than real engineering.
I hope the introduction of the "Illuminator" woofers lowers the price of the Revelators but that's probably wishful thinking.
The SB Acoustics cones (and/or suspension) appear to be a little short on engineering, with the sharp shelves in response that are typical of low end Asian products. I'm as much a fan of good cones as I am of good motors. It's why I prefer the Tangband W4-1337 over the Visaton Ti-100 for example, and the Revelator over the Usher.- Bottom
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As TB has shown though.... there are a lot of ways to achieve a smooth response. I'd say edge termination to the surround and the termination to the dust cap are key and it doesn't take a $30 cone to achieve good results.
I've not measured the SS though so I'm talking out of my butt.- Bottom
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While the Revelator motors are way above average, they are certainly not all tricks pulled, especially not in the case of the 12M.
They kept the nasty cone edge reflection in the 800 Hz range that the 8535 - 8555 sported, they just did a better job of getting rid of the upper resonance spike in the 3 kHz range. The price for that is a very wobbly cone with a poor CSD and lots of 2nd harmonic distortion.
If it's got to be paper, there are better examples.
Vifa had surprisingly good paper cones. I wonder why their segmented cone edge doesn't get used more often.
Then there is the venerable Audax HM170G4 that had a ruler smooth FR and better CSD than the revelators.
Current examples of decent paper cones are the Peerless 6.5 inch SDS and the Seas ER drivers.- Bottom
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very cool about the peerless alu cones, finally we're gonna get some drivers with new gen motor and a real hard cone
the part that interrests me too is
"ScanSpeak Illuminator woofers are based on a patent pending “underhung” neodymium ring motor design with an extremely open cast aluminum chassis. The new 5¼” actually moves so much air, its performance exceeds many competitors’ 6½” models. Multiple cone materials and cosmetic finishes will be available. "
I don't like the part about moving so much air, sounds like a cheap car audio advert.
But i'm interrested in knowing what the "multiple cone materials" is
Looks also like scanspeak is launching it's own car audio line, not OEM for other brands like before.
Hope this is gonna be less vaporware than the "new eton drivers" :W- Bottom
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Originally posted by capslockThey kept the nasty cone edge reflection in the 800 Hz range that the 8535 - 8555 sported, they just did a better job of getting rid of the upper resonance spike in the 3 kHz range. The price for that is a very wobbly cone with a poor CSD and lots of 2nd harmonic distortion.
Were you referring to the 12M specifically, or their whole line?
For me, it's academic since I refuse to pay their prices, but I'm curious.
Thanks!- Bottom
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Zaph, what do you mean by trilobal? I zoomed in on the picture and seemed there is a small rib embossed in a long fiber paper cone. Actually, I don't know if it is embossed or extra material is glued in, what do you all think? Do you think that rib could effect the polar response that much? Have you ever seen thiel(america)'s new drivers, if so, what do you think of them? they are ribbed too. I always thought the sliced cone acted as a rib as well.
I always wondered why there was not more embossed speaker cones.
By the way, I do like HDS exclusives very much, not much bass response though, they need a sub.
Well if you can't hit up tymphany, maybe you can hit up madisound, I mean really, do they expect people to buy these expensive drivers without third party testing (or at least that is line I would use). I am sure they would measure well.- Bottom
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Originally posted by DrewCould you elaborate on this a bit? I haven't measured any Scanspeaks myself, but the revelator woofers have very low distortion - at least according to John's measurements. Even 2nd harmonic.
Were you referring to the 12M specifically, or their whole line?
For me, it's academic since I refuse to pay their prices, but I'm curious.
Thanks!
The 12M specifically does NOT have the SD1 motor system. If you do a quick search of Caplock's posts and keyword "12M" you'll see a long discussion about this driver about a year or so ago.- Bottom
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Originally posted by JedThe 12M specifically does NOT have the SD1 motor system. If you do a quick search of Caplock's posts and keyword "12M" you'll see a long discussion about this driver about a year or so ago.- Bottom
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Pricing
I expect these to be in the $500+ USD range each... Accuton dollars. Not cheap but that motor is cool.
Best,
C
p.s. Preliminary pricing is on a few european sites if you google the woofers part number.- Bottom
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Nah, luckily for North Americans they are nowhere near Accuton pricing.
Solen now has pricing, but no stock for a month or two.
It looks like they will be double the cost of the Classic prices, or 50% more than Revelators.
I did some modelling, and the 18WU/8741T-00 will continue the SS tradition of delivering serious bass (think 18W/8535, but almost twice the displacement)
Having said that, I like the higher sensitivity and smooth and extended FR response of the 18W Revelator more.
Either way, Somebody gonna get a-hurt reall badd. :ELast edited by tktran; 25 April 2008, 09:17 Friday.- Bottom
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I'm eventually going to release the EX-6.5 to DIYers. Right now it has a difficult to work with FR and I'm tooling some parts to improve the suspension and change the inductance curve drastically.
There really seems to be a rush to introduce cost is not an object designs. I see why... $300/driver is a nice price point to be selling at.
I don't think DIYers buy many of these drivers though. I think those are mostly soaked up by the cost is not an object speaker builders, who are selling them to the cost is not an object consumer.- Bottom
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Hi Kevin
I saw the review in Soundstage, and can see that there's something funky going past just past 1.5KHz. Despite this your Kepler design works within the current limitations and I like the way it measures.
I'm look forward to seeing the full gamut of measurements and hearing this speaker in designs made by other DIYers.
Could you please tell me whether this is made locally, or in India, Afghanistan,
Uganda etc?
regards,
Thanh- Bottom
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The motor on the Illuminator looks vaguely like a smaller version of an Acoupower woofer. Of course I guess using a thin, large diameter neo magnet with an underhung motor pretty much has to look like that. I wonder if they use a full-length faraday sleeve over the pole piece, or if they have some different geometry to maintain motor strength.- Bottom
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Originally posted by tktranHi Kevin
I saw the review in Soundstage, and can see that there's something funky going past just past 1.5KHz. Despite this your Kepler design works within the current limitations and I like the way it measures.
I'm look forward to seeing the full gamut of measurements and hearing this speaker in designs made by other DIYers.
Could you please tell me whether this is made locally, or in India, Afghanistan,
Uganda etc?
regards,
Thanh
The response issue is a surround resonance and it is all linear, so you can deal with it in the crossover. In the Kepler, I'm crossing it over at 1.5K 4th order acoustic so the response wiggles you see above that are baffle related on-axis and just typical 6.5" midwoofer-- 1" dome tweeter dispersion differences off-axis. The only way to get smoother off-axis would be a waveguide on the tweeter and crossing a midwoofer over at the appropriate spot. With the EX-6.5, it is problematic crossing over higher due to the surround resonance which is exasperated by the baffle step. I think I'm 10dB down electrically @ 1.5K just to deal with baffle step and the resonance.
I'm going to solve it in the next revision so I'll have to change the Kepler crossover (PIA) and at that time it should be a MUCH easier driver to use.- Bottom
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