ScanSpeak Illuminator project

[jkrutke]

Sure, I'd be happy to. PM me if you don't have my address.

[Jed]

Thanks, I think this answers one of my questions.

I have a 2-way with a 15W Revelator and SS 6600 tweeter with a LR2 crossover at 2400 Hz.. I am thinking of expanding it into a 3-way.

If one were trying to optimize such a system would a 18W Revelator offer any benefits or problems compared to the 15W Revelator? It sounds like you don't think the Illuminator would be much different.

If you wanted a dipole for the mids, I'd either use 2 15Ws or 1 or more 18W, otherwise in a monopole configuration I usually prefer smaller mids for their dispersion characteristics off axis. That and why buy an 18W when you already have the 15W.

[Jed]

I was just looking for something else at Madisound and noticed that a few of the Illuminators are now listed for sale:

http://www.madisound.com/catalog/index.php?manufacturers_id=148

-Jon

:drool:

[Hdale85]

I think the Revelator cones look nicer though... But those baskets and motor structures are just..... speaker pr0n.

[cotdt]

I do hope that Zaph gets to test the Illuminator D3004/602000 Tweeter. It looks like it will make for a nice tweeter for a car.

I think the Revelator cones look nicer though... But those baskets and motor structures are just..... speaker pr0n.

Why didn't they use the Revelator cone with the Illuminator motor?

[Jonasz]

I do hope that Zaph gets to test the Illuminator D3004/602000 Tweeter. It looks like it will make for a nice tweeter for a car.



Why didn't they use the Revelator cone with the Illuminator motor?

Maybe the Illuminator cone is better?

[tktran]

Well would you look at that?

The FR that I linked to, has changed. And so it is- the final data is out-

http://www.tymphany.com/18wu_8741t00

I like this curve better than the old one. X-max is a more reasonable +/- 6 mm, with mechanical excursion +/-16mm. I for one am pleased about this.

The T/S parameters have also changed from the preliminary data.
I'm not sure about the accuracy of the sensitivity rating of 85.4dB/2.83V.
According to my models using Unibox and published T/S parameters, it is 87.9dB... ?

[cotdt]

Strange. Despite some design innovations it doesn't seem to have any improvements over the Revelator, even if distortion turns out to be slightly lower.

Some people I know already got the Illuminator woofers, and they say that the bass output is even greater than the Revelators, clean tight bass without any mechanical noise. Which leads me to beleive that the original 9mm of xmax was reasonable, dunno why they re-rated it down to 6mm. They also gave the Peerless Exclusives only 3.5mm xmax but independant Klippel tests showed 6mm of very linear xmax one-way.

The efficiency also seems lower than the math calculations would indicate. Something is not adding up, I'm guessing that the published T/S parameters are off.

[Jonasz]

I think the FR looks really good compared to the Revelator. It's straight to 2,7 kHz instead of 800Hz for the Revelator. In addition to that the impedance wiggle at 800 is nonexistent and the rise towards higher frequencies seems a lot lower... :P

What do you guys think about these Vifas?

http://blog.sounddomain.com/gadget/2008/08/new-vifa-driver.html#more

Image not available

[Hdale85]

Wow! Those Vifa's look nice...I wonder how much.

[Digisan]

I hope those Vifas don't perform like the XT woofers, awesome until you put some power into 'em. They look very nice, I want to test a pair...

[b_force]

I hope those Vifas don't perform like the XT woofers, awesome until you put some power into 'em. They look very nice, I want to test a pair...

The XT and XG woofers perform very well, but they are not really mid woofers, mid more look (really) good mids.
(do not use them for low frequencies)

[tktran]

To be fair, they are not quite as good in bass as the equivalent sized offerings from SEAS, Peerless or ScanSpeak (typically with with the 5-7mm x-max and big thick surrounds)

But below 100Hz they are comparable (slightly better or worse) to many other 6.5" midwoofers.

And they certainly outperform 4.5" - 5.25" midwoofers. Some people use these kind of sizes in vented 2-ways, and profess to hear "rich" and "amazing" bass.

It's all relative IMHO.

[cotdt]

And they certainly outperform 4.5" - 5.25" midwoofers. Some people use kind of sizes in vented 2-ways, and profess to hear "rich" and "amazing" bass.

It's all relative IMHO.

No way! The Peerless HDS Exclusive 5.5" does everything better than the 7" Vifas. The Vifas distort like hell when you try to rock the house with them. The distortion just goes up exponentially throughout the frequency range with higher output. The 5.5" Exclusive has much cleaner bass even though it's smaller, and doesn't seem to distort at all at high outputs. It will probably sound clean all the way up till you fry its voice coil.

[cotdt]

I think the FR looks really good compared to the Revelator. It's straight to 2,7 kHz instead of 800Hz for the Revelator. In addition to that the impedance wiggle at 800 is nonexistent and the rise towards higher frequencies seems a lot lower... :P

What do you guys think about these Vifas?

http://blog.sounddomain.com/gadget/2008/08/new-vifa-driver.html#more

Those new upcoming Vifas look very nice. Disagree about the response on the Revelator though. The Revelator is purposefully made to shelve at 800Hz for the 7" and 950Hz for the 5.5" so that it would combine with the baffle step in their respective enclosures, and you can take care of the shelving and BSC in a single stroke, simplifying the crossover. Very clever design, you save money.

[tktran]

cotdt you are off ya tree.

[Mingo]

A new project with ScanSpeak Illuminator 15WU/8741T00 in Danish:

http://www.frequence.dk/sider/pca-m5i.htm

A pdf of the cabinet will appear later on the same page.

Mingo

[RAL]

dont know about stock 18WU but bought a bunch of 4ohms VC(not 3.2ohms). they are much flatter than sliced papers which ALWAYS are problematic in 800hz. iluminators dont gow deeper but they have better output at 60-100hz range.

sonicaly they are traditionaly to scan speak "lush/rich" sounding (lots of 2nd) and reminds me in some way old 8424 just more imediatly sounding, and of course lot of mid bass :-)

[JonMarsh]

Very, very similar? Yes....

one to one? I somehow doubt it- you don't have too look too closely to see the difference in how the frame meets the surround, and even something as subtle as this can impact matters in the top end.








Unfortunately I don't have the early ones for comparison, but now I do have a set of the new ones, and have started a variety of testing on various drivers this weekend.

[jkrutke]

Well, I do know that the dome in the 7100 is different from the dome in the 6600. I initially thought they were the same. I wouldn't doubt that the domes are different but it might be even more clear by opening both up and looking at the damping coating on the inside. DLR has some good pictures of a damping ring that isn't present on the 6600.

The 7100 is one of my favorite tweeters too, though it sure doesn't have my favorite price.

[JonMarsh]

The 7100 is one of my favorite tweeters too, though it sure doesn't have my favorite price.

Ain't that the truth....

[TacoD]

The 7100 is one of my favorite tweeters too, though it sure doesn't have my favorite price.

And if you look at the measurements?

[Rick Craig]

Just finishing up a design with the 7" Illuminator. RAAL ribbon and two AudioPulse 10" plus DEQX. :T

[chris-torb]

I would reconsider building the "Frequence" speakers...and if you do build them, measure them with the "clio" ..
Those i made, was not HI-Fi at all...

[jkrutke]

And if you look at the measurements?

Of course I looked at the measurements. My comments are based both on my own measurements and listening experience, which sounded good as the measurements would suggest.

There's a slightly lumpy top octave but I can't hear that. Other than that I couldn't ask for anything better, particularly in the non-linear distortion. I did some extensive low end power handling tests and came away pretty impressed.

Here's a response curve for a system I had it in crossed LR2 at 2Khz, and then a harmonic distortion sweep at 100 dB/1m in that system. I can't think of a single other traditional dome tweeter that could handle a setup like that.

[JonMarsh]

Thanks for the comments and reference plots, John.

Nothing to complain about there!!

A C30N-6-24 with a C90-T5 will perform comparably on distortion, from my experience, but be harder to implement and probably not as smooth in frequency response- the inherent design of their tweeter grille/plate creates it's own share of problems. And of course, we're talking even more cubic money. :W

[benchtester]

The 7100 is one of my favorite tweeters too, though it sure doesn't have my favorite price.

I'd like to put these in to a waveguide; but my management just announced that my factory will be closed next month. (I've been there 11 years.) So that's not going to happen soon. To rub salt in the wound, Madisound just put the 7100 on sale (a little bit).

http://www.madisound.com/catalog/product_info.php?products_id=1349

[JonMarsh]

Some informal testing

This weekend I got a bit of work done and built some test baffles for looking at a couple of tweeters, the ZD3004/662001 and the C30N-6-24. My goal was to see what they looked like in specific physical configurations, so sorry, this won't be all that useful for someone who wants to see IB style frequency response plots.

Instead, the tweeters were mounted on front baffles of PE 1 cu ft rectangular cabinets, in positions approximating how I might use them in a couple of system configurations. The Scanspeak is centered in the baffle, and the C30N is mounted about 1/3 of the length of the baffle. Later I'll be adding two midrange drivers to the SS baffle to test, and a single Accuton C90-T5 to the baffle the C30N is mounted on.

Also, this is new test configuration electronically, with different software, so as John Krutke would say, don't compare these measurements directly with anything else.

The microphone is my ACO Pacific 7012 and basic preamp, with an M-Audio Firewire Solo operating as the interface to a new Mac Mini that is otherwise engaged as a media server, but for testing also runs Fuzzmeasure. Yes, thanks to this newest software, I can now get extremely precise measurements of Fuzz!!! Great Scott! Pretty heavy, eh? :W And it doesn't take 1.21 Gigawatts of power or and advanced degree in acoustics to operate, either! :B It does require external measurement for precise level control; in this case, I leave that up to my trusty old HP 54616B scope.

The gist of all these dancing disclaimers is that due to the specific nature of the setup there will be ripples in the response due to baffle size and shape and untreated diffraction effects. So, take it all with a grain of salt. Still, all in all, I found the results instructive.

SPL curves for the Scanspeak D3004/662002 On axis, -15 deg.; -30 deg.; -45 deg.



The off axis plots do look similar to the factory curves in terms of cutoff shape, and hold up very well for a tweeter of this diameter; I'm rather interested to hear what they sound like.

D3004 distortion at 90 dB/1M



I'm not sure how seriously to take these distortion plots, as I don't have correlation testing done yet, and the HD2 (solid) is higher than I would have expected. Still, above 2-3K the overall performance is quite good.



Accuton C30N-6-24 0/15/30/45 deg.



The SPL plots for the Accuton show the same character as the factory plots, with the elevation in the area from 3-6kHz, and the HF breakup mode. The off axis response is about what you'd expect for an inverted dome of this size - the 30 degree curve holds up pretty well, and I've seen worse than the 45 deg curve- try an XT-25, for example. :W


Accuton C30N-6-24 Distortion at 90 dB/1M



The HD plots are pretty typical for Accuton, if a bit weird compared with other brands- pretty low HD2, HD3 being frequency dependent- would suggest keeping this one above 2 kHz for the most part. Some resonance amplification of distortion products is visible, but at fairly low levels.

Not really a clear winner, here- both are well beyond anyone's notion of their "favorite price".

I'd say both are worth exploring further. At that point, I supposed I'd better stop thread jacking, lest the "real" moderator on this forum section kick me to the curb! :rofl:

[TacoD]

Thanks for sharing these measurements.