What if the Wavecor Ardent and Natalie P had a "love child"?

[JonMarsh]

They were 100$ each Australian, which is worth about 2/3 of a US dollar. Shipping on top of that is not trivial- it's about as far way from here as you can get, unless you count Antarctica!

[technodanvan]

FYI, saw this link pop up on the MAC/DIY forum. I requested a quote for a dozen, dunno if they go that small but we'll find out.

https://www.micro-semiconductor.com/...ss-by-Tymphany

[JonMarsh]

Well, that's pretty interesting... maybe they would be the worlds only viable distributor for Peerless drivers, if they have hundreds on hand in stock!

[Scareurpasenger]

No luck after digging through each distributor worldwide. I decided to contact them directly to see if they know where inventory might reside.

[Scareurpasenger]

Well the sale pushed me over. Ordered the rest of the drivers to complete a Natalie P ultra BE using t34a tweeters. Planning on a bit of time off from work and will spend some time on speakers projects along with some house upgrades and building a chainsaw for some diy lumber.

The differences are relatively simple to account for- a slightly lower breakup mode peak frequency (29kHz instead of 31kHz) and a top end that is softer by about 2dB above 5-6 kHz. Some may even prefer that...

As I have both types on hand, checking the design characteristics will not be challenging in the least...

[JonMarsh]

Yeah, I'll say that a crossover with the T34A-4 would be loosely based on the Isiris version, but with adjustments due to differences in baffle- same 1800Hz crossover. I have a test baffle the right size, originally started for the T25B-6, I'll just do a "mod" on that to be able to mount the T34A-4, and will cross check a late SN T34B-4, too.

[Bear]

I'll toss a +1 for interest on the T34A version. 😎 I'd be curious about what a 2.5 way / 2x2 version might be like, but I expect that's the "Y in DIY" answer. 😅

[Scareurpasenger]

Well, I located some da25tx00-08 tweeters second hand. There are enough possibilities that I felt it was worth grabbing them.

I can’t wait to the see the winning combo.

[JonMarsh]

Obviously I'd agree that's a smart move!

[JonMarsh]

well, I sure wish I was finishing up some other stuff faster so I could get back to this. But "in other news, but related", I'm giving serious consideration to another variant, with the same woofers, henceforth to be known as the "Natalie C3PO" due to the configuration changes being considered.

This is a tie in to the ET CCTT project that I've been "assisting" with, and listening to, and noting some interesting levels of subjective quality with the two PuriFi PTT8.0X04-NAB woofers and the Tang Band W6-2313 coaxial driver. It took a bit of work to get there, and the interesting question is, would the subjective characteristics be transferable to a conventionally oriented speaker on tallish stands? The W6-2313 has a very smooth bamboo cone woofer element, and the tweeter is very well behaved also. And it's a coax, but not with a steep waveguide cone- a relatively shallow one. This seems to result in improved subjective as well as objective characteristics compared to all other's I've measured.

So, given how well the RSS210HF works (apart from efficiency, you can't do anything about Hoffman's Iron law), I'm wondering if combining those with the TangBand coax might have some similar "magic" in a more conventional application.

Two LF alignments have been enumerated to consider the possibilities in 48L- a sealed configuration and a passive radiator configuration using just one RSS265PR or the newer version of the Seas SL26R, if you like shiny silver cones better!






With 100W of power at 8 ohms, 104 dB is achievable sealed, 108 for the PR configuration.

This also brought to mind the Minerva project, and today I ordered another W6-2313 driver, to consider first testing in a Minerva configuration with the Wavecor 223BD02, as that enclosure already exists.

Today I'm updating the midrange crossover on the CC, and evaluating the results.

[Bear]

The PR really helps with the low end with no volume penalty. Looks great!

[technodanvan]

Jon, I've been breaking down all the new sheet goods for the SMJ-40PE and Crescendos...and have a fair amount left. I was reviewing this thread and thought I might cut down the remaining sheets for two or three of the version using the Peerless corundum tweeter. I know you have a dozen (or probably many more) fires burning you have to keep under control, but I was curious where these stand in the order of operations.

[Steve Manning]

Jon, I've been breaking down all the new sheet goods for the SMJ-40PE and Crescendos...and have a fair amount left. I was reviewing this thread and thought I might cut down the remaining sheets for two or three of the version using the Peerless corundum tweeter. I know you have a dozen (or probably many more) fires burning you have to keep under control, but I was curious where these stand in the order of operations.

Danny, just to let you know that tweeter is no longer available, unless you want a 1000 of them. That's the minimum order these days!

[theSven]

Very upsetting that they are selling in that large of bulk. Can we not get Parts Express to help the DIY community? Otherwise I guess we have to round up enough people to put in an order...

[JonMarsh]

I would describe the situation as this- Peerless made a conscious decision for ALL of their products to not support distributors EXCEPT for OEM business- larger volume producers. For whatever reasons, I think they don't want their stuff showing up in DIY builds, or perhaps their main customers don't want that happening, either in DIY or low volume producers

[technodanvan]

I know, I only have 3 of them!

[Scareurpasenger]

I tracked down 3 pairs second hand. Enough that I also plan on building the calliope as well.

[theSven]

The Calliope are my daily listener when I'm around the house. You will LOVE them!

[JonMarsh]

Congratulations! They're not easy to find, as you well know at this point!

[JonMarsh]

Jon, I've been breaking down all the new sheet goods for the SMJ-40PE and Crescendos...and have a fair amount left. I was reviewing this thread and thought I might cut down the remaining sheets for two or three of the version using the Peerless corundum tweeter. I know you have a dozen (or probably many more) fires burning you have to keep under control, but I was curious where these stand in the order of operations.

I find that if I try to multi-task too much, everything bogs down- so at this point, the SMJ-40/Saint-Saens is the focus of effort until I have a stereo set that I'm happy with. Did some organizing work on that yesterday, even verifying the wood parts that have been cut, including the LF cabinet side braces, and materials on hand for the horizontal braces.

Now, with regards to this puppy, I do have some cabinet parts cut. But not assembled. OTOH, the POC evaluation shown above is based on pretty accurate measurements and modeling, and I rather doubt there will be any significant changes. So, a brave enterprising DIY guy could actually beat me to the punch on these...

This Sunday morning, I'm doing continuing engineer for a PM inquiry regarding construction documents for the Wavecor Ardent, and doing a review of the version with 12MU4731 SS midrange, as that is actually available from Madisound again, (used for Renron's "budget build"), and doing a crossover review with the SS D3004/6640 which also seems to be available again- and can be sub'd with a Satori TW29B-B with ferrite magnet if one is hell bend on "saving" money....

I've seriously screwed up, I realize, because I haven't sucked in and trained any "junior engineers" to help with this stuff! And I spent much of last week on stuff related to my old job, including a 9 hour forum with the guys back in HQ, and some follow up with the VP of the SiC team, including Webex call and more review.

That's my story and I'm sticking to it... for now. The other competing priority is helping ET with the Kii inspired small tower, destined to go in the living room here... But I can demote the priority for that...

[technodanvan]

No rush at all Jon! Like I said, I know you've got plenty going on and each has a set priority level.

I've seriously screwed up, I realize, because I haven't sucked in and trained any "junior engineers" to help with this stuff!

When is the Jon Marsh School of Speaker Design opening?

[JonMarsh]

Why, Technodanvan, it's been open here at HT Guide for over 20 years! That's why I make a point of showing how the sausage is ground! Of course, you may not prefer my favorite German sausages... for some, an acquired taste!

[TNRRClassic]

I like the performance of the RSS210/265/315 drivers. I've used them in some subwoofer builds, and they performed well. That makes this design pretty interesting, despite the efficiency challenges.

I just want to make sure I'm clear on the tweeter situation, though. It looks like there are three options. We can spend $50k (maybe we can get a discount on 1000 units so maybe less) and go with the da25tx00-08 from a reputable dealer, try to buy a few units from the Hong Kong outlets that seem sort of sketchy, or go with the T34A, a driver I'm not familiar with that costs $300 or so each?

This reminds me of the Modula NeoDCC. Fortunately, I bought a bunch of the little Vifa tweeters before I started building any of those, since they were discontinued.

Maybe we'll see a few of the Peerless tweeters show up at some point as somebody finishes up projects and has a supply left over.

ETA: I need to build another MTM like I need another hole in my head...

[Scareurpasenger]

The Hong Kong sources are a bust. I tried that already.

[JonMarsh]

Well, the tweeter situation isn't quite that desperate as per sources. And I have a couple of alternatives from SB Acoustics that I want to finish re-testing soon...

I'm sitting on a small stock of DA25's, but they were bought mainly to be sure I had re-sale capability to Sven, as he had expressed strong interest early to me privately. A number of these came from Austrailia - some are one's I've been "hoarding".

I do have a preference for finding the best $300 tweeter that $50 or $60 will buy... I'm getting kind of sick of seeing some of my old favorites rising up to $500 or more. (my SS 7140's are now worth over $700 each!) While I do like the TW29B-B Ferrite that I have, the SB26CDC-C000-4 is much more interesting as a value proposition leader, considering the extended response, it's usability with the phase shield removed and an appropriate ultrasonic notch filter employed, and the low Fs and relatively long linear travel of 1.2 mm. HD3 is quite low, and HD2 is 10-20 dB lower than the Be dome products, on average, that cost 5x as much!