Ooh, ooh, new Seas aluminum 12

[Dennis H]

http://www.seas.no/Lotus/Lotus%20PDF/L0014.pdf

Less sensitive than the HiVi but 11 mm Xmax. Hmmmmm......

[ThomasW]

The Seas FR plot has more peaks and valleys than the Glasier audio spokes model :B

Compare the Seas .pdf with this M-12 FR plot from the HiVi site.






theAudioWorx
Klone-Audio

[Dennis H]

I believe HiVi measures with an infinite baffle and Seas measures either on an open IEC baffle or free space in a sealed box. It makes it kind of hard to compare FR with the 3 methods.

Looks like this one was measured in a 30 liter box which is probably way too small for hifi use. That along with the baffle step could give a pretty lumpy looking response.

People have said other Seas drivers are generally quite flat although their published curves don't show it because of box/baffle effects. Who knows?

[JonMarsh]

I've seen this a few days ago; at first I had my hopes up that it was something in the Excel series. :cry:

The rumor I've been hearing is that SEAS doesn't actuall have the tooling to build a 12" driver like this, and it's being built for them in China. In the past they made a paper cone 13" woofer, which would work OK in a largish bass reflex, but was pretty much useless in anything else.

This is a four ohm driver with a characteristic sensitivity of 89 dB; lowish, all in all, considering it's not really a long throw driver- Xmax of about 11 mm. Qts of 0.34 means either a reflex alignment or a small sealed box with high tuning frequency. Hmmm, car audio, I guess that sounds about right!

It has a pretty cone, though, having seen a photo of it.

I'm familiar with what SEAS's sealed box curves look like, without an IEC baffle, and this is somewhat different and more "lumpen". From BS, you'd exect to see a 6 dB shelf up in the 500-1kHz region; it looks like it's starting to do that, but the voice coil inductance (which is HUGE for not being a "long throw" driver 6.44 MH!) is killing the response over a few hundred Hz, as well there seems to be the typical pre-peak suck out in the cone response common to most larger SEAS aluminum cone drivers

Not one of their more stellar efforts, IMO. But it may be the cats meow for what is intended; an automotive boom box with moderate sensitivity and power demands?

Regards,

Jon




Earth First!
_______________________________
We'll screw up the other planets later....

[Davey]

There's a photo here:

http://www.seas.no/Lotus/news.htm

Lotus is their automotive line so it looks like that was their aim.

Davey.