Zaph's new driver...

[JonMarsh]

Yeah, but that's why God invented aluminum cutting carbide blades and sliding miter tables!

BTW, these don't model badly, a pair in a 22 L cabinet @-8 dB @32 Hz, nice smooth roll off that should fill in nicely with boundary reinforcement to fairly flat in room.

With a low DCR inductor might hit close to 88 dB system sensitivity.

[fjhuerta]

Yes, it reminds me of why I'm often attracted to shiny things! Combine it with a tweeter that's happy down low, and you could have all kinds of flexibility about crossover choices.

Don't you think you should do an open back MTM midrange with these, Javier, like your recent open baffle midrange three way? Can't you hear them calling to you? :W

Yes... definitely. If things worked out with the little Tang Bands, I'd build a bigger version using the RS270, RS150 and RS28 (which I already have). At this point, though, I'd rather use the RS150's somewhere else and get this driver. The single resonance peak higher up the FR is the selling point to me.

[fjhuerta]

Could I ask a couple international folks what your average shipping cost in USD is from Madisound? For roughly something the size of a couple woofers, tweeters and misc parts for a 2-way pair.

I'm in the process of buying a 6 1/2" woofer and tweeter for my car. I picked the Aurasound 6 1/2" and the Seas 27TBFC.

Shipping price to Mexico for 2 of each is $47 USD.

Madisound is actually pretty good about shipping prices. For similar products (2 RS28's and 2 RS150's) I'd have to pay $70 on Parts Express for exactly the same service (FedEx int'l).

[Irwin AR]

Nice drivers indeed... but those magnet are huuuugee..
i asked madisound the other day if they could provide prolly some semi-shielding at
least for the intended center ones... but they said the generic ones they have is not
big enough.

[Spanky Ham]

Good job, John! :T I can't wait to see the design that you come up with for this driver.

Zaph,
So this truly is your driver that Madisound is buying from you? I had assumed that Madisound had employed you to design a driver and lend your name to one of their products.

Good question, as I was thinking the same thing. So, is this your new company Zaph? If so, then how are you going to handle service and support? If you have answered this on other forums, then I am sorry for asking the same question. I just can't take going over to any of the other forums. Well, maybe PE for a little bit, but not to long before I am driven nuts.

[marchel]

"Could I ask a couple international folks what your average shipping cost in USD is from Madisound? For roughly something the size of a couple woofers, tweeters and misc parts for a 2-way pair."

HI John, The shipping cost to the Philippines for a pair of your mid , a pair of Vifa dx19td05 and a few couples of XO parts is about $69- fedex international priority.

I believe you made the right choice in choosing Madisound, Cause when I asked for a shipping quote( just last month) from another online retailer for a pair of 6.5" silverflute 4 ohms mid bass driver, The shipping cost was $168- , Damn , what were they thinking! In my experience, Madisound has the best international policy.

I can't wait to make a pair of mtm using your new drivers. After I finish making the L18/tbfc. I love metal drivers too. And I like phase plug over dust cap.

[marchel]

Plus, The best thing about Madisound is, They accept my card unlike Parts Express. Which only accept bank to bank transfer , and Who wants that?

[Dave Bullet]

Yeah, but that's why God invented aluminum cutting carbide blades and sliding miter tables!

How true... that reminds me "The good Lord giveth and the good Lord cut'eth away".... or should that be Sith Lord?

[Habs4life]

Could I ask a couple international folks what your average shipping cost in USD is from Madisound? For roughly something the size of a couple woofers, tweeters and misc parts for a 2-way pair.

I recently purchased the Vifa RB2 kit from Mad.Shipping was $30 via USPS.

I will be comparing the RB2 to a pair of your ZMV5's that I recently finished.Congrats on the new driver design(love that chassis) I wish it were retrofitable into the ZMV5 without big changes needed in the xo.

[JonMarsh]

How true... that reminds me "The good Lord giveth and the good Lord cut'eth away".... or should that be Sith Lord?

Good Lord, Sith Lord, in the shop they both have to wear eye protection! Especially if they're cutting aluminum! :W :rofl:

[jkrutke]

Zaph,
So this truly is your driver that Madisound is buying from you?

Correct. Zaph Audio LLC is the company, fully set up as a business entity. The R&D, design, modeling, prototyping and manufacturing were all done and funded by me before I even started looking for a distributor. Madisound is buying my woofer in much the same way they buy from anyone else.

Good question, as I was thinking the same thing. So, is this your new company Zaph? If so, then how are you going to handle service and support?

I only provide service to Madisound, and they provide service to the end users. This was my preferred business model - I was never interested in dealing directly with a lot of customers, many of which can be troublesome and needy. I'll leave that to folks with actual people skills and more patience than myself.

I wish it were retrofitable into the ZMV5 without big changes needed in the xo.

The ZMV5 is retrofitable very easily with minor changes. Just the tweeter padding and one cap. Madisound is working on getting the kits ready and the designs will be posted then.

Nice drivers indeed... but those magnet are huuuugee.. i asked madisound the other day if they could provide prolly some semi-shielding at least for the intended center ones... but they said the generic ones they have is not big enough.

Sorry to say that shielded drivers are dying with the cathode ray tube.

It would be great if Madisound would truncate the frames for "large orders". (Mmmm... line array...)

Mmmm... countersinking 32 woofer holes... cough, gasp. Consider the cheap but nice Peerless 830656 for that. Not the cleanest driver around, but that's a non-issue when you have 16 per side. Bonus: it's surface mount.

I am going to buy a pair and use it in a 3-way of my own design (unless Jed is going to come up with one first, then I'll just use his). To me it just doesn't seem to have the extension for an MTM.

While the kits being working on are all 2 or 2.5-way, usage as a mid was certainly on my mind when I created this driver. The lowish Xmax and high Fs place the ZA14W08 somewhere between woofer and mid. For 3-ways, I'll leave you creative folks to roll your own.

Thanks all for the comments on shipping. Madisound does indeed seem to be good on international shipping.

[DancesWithBeers]

Probably no surprise, Vifa DQ25. The MMTMM design needed all of it's 95 dB. As far as highly sensitive small flange tweeters, there's really only one choice. I'll never get into tweeter design because I just can't beat that. For those who want to roll their own MMTMM here's a couple others that I considered: Scan 7100, and the 18sound ND1060 on a XT120 horn. Both awesome, but not exactly screaming value the same way.

Please consider an option at Madisound with the SS 7100, if only because there are many people who hate that diffuser because it reminds them of the 80's.

Thanks,

-DWB

[Ray Tremblay]

Madisound is working on getting the kits ready and the designs will be posted then.

Hey John, are you able to give a rough estimate as to when those kits will be available?

[Kevin Haskins]

It looks very nice to me. Easy to work with, very reasonable distortion profile and the price is right in DIY territory.

I'd vote for the Seas DXT. I've been measuring a pair this week and I bet they would match up nice with a 5.25" driver. You have plenty of overlap between the two so you could choose your crossover based purely upon where they match up off-axis.

[cotdt]

Zaph, I was wondering if you could tell us about the motor design, and your design decisions, so I won't have to sacrifice $40 taking a ZA14 apart? A picture of the cutaway of the motor would be nice, too. May be some Klippel-type data as well.

[DancesWithBeers]

Looks like the kits might be available soon:

http://www.madisound.com/catalog/index.php?cPath=35_425

[cotdt]

http://www.madisound.com/catalog/index.php?cPath=35_425

looks like they're already out of stock :cry:

[DancesWithBeers]

No, they just have "out of stock" as a place holder because the kits are not available yet.

[Dave Bullet]

Zaph, I was wondering if you could tell us about the motor design, and your design decisions, so I won't have to sacrifice $40 taking a ZA14 apart? A picture of the cutaway of the motor would be nice, too. May be some Klippel-type data as well.

I'm guessing this is intellectual property a driver designer would rather not give away on a public forum.

[JonMarsh]

I'm guessing this is intellectual property a driver designer would rather not give away on a public forum.

Duh! :W I'd certainly agree. Of course, it's a free country, and anyone that wants to go to those lengths to get that kind of data can do so- but it does involve voting with your wallet, not just asking for it on a platter. Not meaning to be harsh, but realistic.

[jkrutke]

Hey John, are you able to give a rough estimate as to when those kits will be available?

Should be soon, maybe even this week. Madisound is getting some parts in to make these buildable.

It looks very nice to me. Easy to work with, very reasonable distortion profile and the price is right in DIY territory.

Thanks Kevin, that's a nice thing to hear from someone with a very nice product line of their own.

I'm guessing this is intellectual property a driver designer would rather not give away on a public forum.

Yup, some is secret and some I'm fine with discussing. I'm still working on a design document. I can say though that cutting open a ZA14W08 isn't going to give anyone any real answers about why it performs the way it does - Unless precise measurements are taken, and then 20 other drivers are cut open so you can see where notable differences are.

[Winter]

Zaph, very few midranges or small woofers perform as well as your ZA14W08, with low 2nd and 3rd harmonic distortion in the 1 to 2.5 khz region, both less than 0.3% (-50dB).
Any plans to use the same driver basic design with a different cone material, such as high performance non metal cones, i.e. sandwiched composites (Focal, Eton) or carbon fiber re-inforced paper?

[69Stingray]

John, any plan to submit a couple samples to Voice Coil magazine for Mr. Dickason to review?

[JoshJK]

John, would you let us know how many shorting rings are in the motor? Full length through the pole piece, or just above and/or below it? Copper or Aluminum?

[Mark K]

Uh, did I mention the dimple dome...

I'll post some measurements by the weekend. Anybody want any special measurements before I put away the mic...

[augerpro]

Yeah put it on an MCM waveguide! You are talking about the SB29 right?

[Mark K]

http://audioheuristics.org/blog/

enjoy!


PS. I wish I had more waveguides to play with!!!

[JonMarsh]

Thanks, Mark- quite informative, and in line with what i expected based on Zaph's published results Any plan to check shaped sine burts behavior, say up to 1800 Hz? I'm too lazy and busy to get out my Praxis setup from storage... :W

[Mark K]

Thanks, Mark- quite informative, and in line with what i expected based on Zaph's published results Any plan to check shaped sine burts behavior, say up to 1800 Hz? I'm too lazy and busy to get out my Praxis setup from storage... :W

I think I'd have to make a new baffle to get a more informative look at the 1-3k area in terms of FR and linear distortion. I may do it with a more direct comparison with some RS125's which would be a more fair comparison with the ZA14. If folks are curious, I can do this. I am curious to see how linear it is up to 2.5k

[JonMarsh]

If you do the tests and post the data, we'll all come read it! :W

[jkrutke]

John, any plan to submit a couple samples to Voice Coil magazine for Mr. Dickason to review?

No. My Voice Coil Magazine subscription was canceled by the publisher. Could this be related to the fact that I have been critical of some of Dickason's tests? Or maybe because I've had less than kind words about contributing editor Steve Mowry's recent Beryllium escapades? I don't know. But even if I still had a subscription and I submitted the ZA14W08, I'd have to be a little suspect of the honesty or accuracy at this point. Too bad, I did like their Klippel testing.

http://audioheuristics.org/blog/

Thanks Mark, I was a little worried about how they would fare in your brutal multi-tone tests. The RS125's would probably be a little small for comparison. 14cm is indeed an odd size.

[benchtester]

Too bad, I did like their Klippel testing.

.

IIRC, Jack Hidley does Klippel testing.

[Thooms]

I'm very keen to see this driver implemented into some designs. It would be great to see this driver available from a dealer in the UK, as buying stuff from the States is a nightmare - expensive shipping, customs charges, VAT, 'handling fees' - I know this would still be the case if they were available over here directly, but it would deffinetly take some of the heartache out of buying things internationally.

Congratulations though, looks like a great product.

Could I ask a couple international folks what your average shipping cost in USD is from Madisound? For roughly something the size of a couple woofers, tweeters and misc parts for a 2-way pair.

Shipping cost (Airmail) for the RBR kit posted earlier would be $101...

[NyxOne]

ZA14W08 Design details.

... just in case you missed it!

Chuck

[---k---]

Yeah, but still no kits.

[Evil Twin]

Kits?

Sith Lords do not need kits...

[Face]

I like the look of that better than Seas's tacky copper phase plug, very nice.

[Silversmoky]

That is a very nice looking driver. Got a pair on the way. Going to try them as mids in a design I have been working on. I really hope Zaph continues on with his line of drivers and makes a matching 7" & 8" with similar performance.

[Dave Bullet]

Zaph - do you have any off-axis measurements?

[Dave Bullet]

That is a very nice looking driver. Got a pair on the way. Going to try them as mids in a design I have been working on. I really hope Zaph continues on with his line of drivers and makes a matching 7" & 8" with similar performance.

Good proposition. Since asthetics matter a lot in commercial designs, then this could open up a whole lot of possibilities. In fact asthetics (= visually matching drivers) in a $10,000 speaker would outweigh the decision on whether the $40 mid or $200 mid was a better performer.

Size-wise, I think a 10" would be a better match though for bass duty.

[Spanky Ham]

Reading the design details reminded me about an article from around eight years ago in Audioxpress. I think it was called "Confessions of a speaker designer" or something like that by Perry Sink (I believe that was his name). I remember him saying how he liked the challenge of designing a a low cost, high quality driver.

[Paul Ebert]

Size-wise, I think a 10" would be a better match though for bass duty.

+1 on that. Something like the Seas L26ROY, but cheaper 8)

[Face]

Zaph - do you have any off-axis measurements?

I'd love to see this too.

[jkrutke]

Zaph - do you have any off-axis measurements?

Nope, didn't do any. Actually I stopped doing off axis curves of woofers years ago because for the most part, they are all what you would expect based on the piston diameter. (not so true with tweeters and dome mids) You could do a simple piston based simulation and and be 95% accurate, no matter if it's a floppy poly cone or ringing metal.

But if people really want to see, I can throw one on a baffle and get some curves.

[Face]

But if people really want to see, I can throw one on a baffle and get some curves.

Please.