Compression drivers

Hi All,

I am in the middle of finishing the new Oris 250 series for 2" compression drive units and for 4", 5", 6,5" and 8" cone drivers. In the past I have received several requests for such horns and I thought its about time to come up with a good design for these requests.

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The basic designs for the horns are finished and will go into production very soon but I need some help in deciding which 2" compression drive units I should use to optimise the final design for these.

The horn should be for use in the midrange from 300Hz up to 10kHz-12kHz. Does anybody have a good suggestion for high quality and good sounding compression drive units which are new available on the market?

Thanks,

Bert

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Dear Bert

The horn should be for use in the midrange from 300Hz up to 10kHz-12kHz.
Does anybody have a good suggestion for high quality and good sounding
compression drive units which are new available on the market?

First of all the new horn range looks tariffic. I strongly beleive that many of us welcome this initiative.:-)

Re. compression drivers I beleive that Pioneers TAD series http://www.pioneerelectronics.com/pna/bsc/category/0,,2076_4211,00.html
would be a good option. I have heard those drivers in a lot of set-up's and I must say they sound very good. Juicy prices however.
There is of course also the famous GOTO drivers which dosn't come cheap either. These devils reaches very low frequencies.
http://aca.gr/pop_goto_ale.htm

There are many others of which I never heard, but think they are good:

Fostex
JBL
Visaton
BMS
Renkus Heinz

and so on.

Best regards
GC

Thanks,

Bert

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Hi GC,

First of all the new horn range looks tariffic. I strongly beleive that
many of us welcome this initiative.:-)

Thanks...

http://www.pioneerelectronics.com/pna/bsc/category/0,,2076_4211,00.html

Very little technical information there, not even some decent pictures!

All quality is preserved only for the drivers I guess?

http://aca.gr/pop_goto_ale.htm

I have seen Goto several times, seems to be very good but their price tag is out of reach for most of us. Besides that I do not agree with their way of using their compression drivers. Even if the quality of their bass systems is superb, the time difference will reduce that quality to normal systems....

Fostex
JBL
Visaton
BMS
Renkus Heinz

You did forget one, I am now looking to Beyma compression drive units, these are well documented and look very good on paper. The price is reasonable too...

Will do more research though.

Thanks,

Bert

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Hi Bert

Very little technical information there, not even some decent pictures!

All quality is preserved only for the drivers I guess?

TAD is lousy re. info. I have some old frequency plots of the 4001 Alnico driver showing extreme liniarity and full response to 20 KHz. 116 db/m/w!!!
Their 2" Neodymium driver is claimed to be even better than that excellent driver. Heard that too at CES. Excellent.
Anyway their adoption to horns is standard and it should be an easy job to fit them to the 250's.
Prices are a little scary though.

I have seen Goto several times, seems to be very good but their price tag
is out of reach for most of us. Besides that I do not agree with their way
of using their compression drivers. Even if the quality of their bass
systems is superb, the time difference will reduce that quality to normal
systems....

Yep. Not many can or will pay for the GOTO range. And yes, they have no clue of optimising phase. Seems to me most speaker manufactors have forgotten we are living in a universe where time is one of the dimensions. So many exsamples of displacements between the drivers.
Like to listen to some violines in an orchestra and the basses arrives with the train 1 hour later.

You did forget one, I am now looking to Beyma compression drive units,
these are well documented and look very good on paper. The price is
reasonable too...

Beyma makes excellent products.

Best regards
GC

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Bert BMS or JBL,Even though the better JBL are vintage many audiogeeks use them.BMS sounded pretty good to my ears.And are made on your side of the pond in Germany.TAD might be another choice or vintage Altec.

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Hi John,

Thanks for the suggestions. I'll have to push the drivers to their lower limits though so vintage might not be a good idea...

That's why I want new to see how far I can go, replacing the diaphragms should then not be so costly...

Ciao,

Bert

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bert altecs and jbl can play at 300hz as long a its loaded properly ,they did have some big horns that used the same drivers that people are afraid to go below 500 hz ,i have tried it and they are super ,need tweeter though
love the bms coaxial,prefer tad in wooden horns

i now have a whare house in stuggart so i can send you more uvps t shirts and other stuff, keep up the good work

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Hi Merdy,

bert altecs and jbl can play at 300hz as long a its loaded properly

The oris 250's will load them properly down to 300Hz, no worries...

i now have a whare house in stuggart so i can send you more uvps t shirts
and other stuff, keep up the good work

Stuttgart isn't too far away from Holland! Only about 600km, much less than 5.000km!

Ciao,

Bert

--
BD-Design - Only the Best!

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Hi Bert,

I think this is an excellent idea!

I agree with what has already been suggested, I just want to be a bit more specific about models.

I really think you should go with the BMS drivers. There seems to be three different options for 2" drivers from BMS:

1. BMS 4592 ND - their neodynium super-coax driver, that should be loading all the way down to - yes 300 Hz(!)

2. BMS 4590 - the cheramic version of the driver above.

3. BMS 4591 - the midrange version of the driver (whereas 1 and 2 should go to 20 k the 4591 is no coax and is only usable to about 6.300 Hz.)

The throat exits on these drivers should be identical.

Another mid-driver 2" drive you might consider is the vintage JBL 2482. This driver has a phenolic diaphram and loads well below 300 Hz - on the right horn that is - but caNot be used above 3-4 k. Please note that the JBL 2482 is slightly smaller than 2" in throat diameter.

I would really love to hear the BMS 4592 ND on that Oris 250 horn!!

Do you have any idea about the price for these horns?

Good luck with the project!!

All the best
Peter K

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Hi again Bert,

Please consider making adapters for the Oris 250, so the compression drivers can be mounted properly!

Thanks!

Regards
Peter K.

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Hi Peter,

Please consider making adapters for the Oris 250, so the compression
drivers can be mounted properly!

If I have the drivers I want to use in front of me then you can be sure that the horns will have a very decent adapter... ;-)

Ciao,

Bert

--
BD-Design - Only the Best!

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Hi again Bert,

Thanks, I thought you would!

Please keep us posted about your experiences. If you go for the BMS coax divers, then please try to use them all the way up to 20 k. I know they will beam considerably at high frequencies, but if you sit pretty far away (as I do) that might not be a big problem. In case it works, you will have a very powerful point source from 300 Hz and all the way up :-)

Thanks!

Regards
Peter

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Hi Peter,

Please keep us posted about your experiences. If you go for the BMS coax
divers, then please try to use them all the way up to 20 k. I know they
will beam considerably at high frequencies, but if you sit pretty far away
(as I do) that might not be a big problem. In case it works, you will have
a very powerful point source from 300 Hz and all the way up :-)

I already did write an email to BMS asking for a "prototype" to play with, it would be nice if it will work properly all the way up and with high quality...

If it does then there is a filter to tweak and optimise for us home users. If it doesn't then a separated tweeter has to be used. Either way, the Oris 150/BD15 will be able to do the rest below.

Time will tell where it will end.

Bert

--
BD-Design - Only the Best!

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Hi Peter,

Thanks for the BMS 4592 hint...I will look into these as well.

Do you have any idea about the price for these horns?

The price tag will be equal or lower than the Oris 150/200's's but I can't tell this now.

Good luck with the project!!

Thanks!

Bert

--
BD-Design - Only the Best!

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Hi All,

I have decided to go for the BMS as first try. Their resonance frequency and coaxial design would fit my needs very well.

If these do not play "full-range" to satisfaction then I will use either their midrange compression driver or the Beyma 850ND (needs some modifications though) with a decent tweeter.

Information about the experiments will follow during the process...

Bert

--
BD-Design - Only the Best!

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Hi,

Look also at RADIAN 850PB. They look very good and the price is right...

Martin

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Hi Martin,

Look also at RADIAN 850PB. They look very good and the price is right...

Thanks for the tip but I think that the 3" dome would be a bit too small for proper loading and headroom down to 300Hz...?

I might be wrong though...

--
BD-Design - Only the Best!

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Hi Bert,

I'm sorry I can't help in this... I replied because some time ago I did a little research in 2" compression drivers and this was the one that seemed most interesting to me.

Good luck, Martin

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Hi Martin,

I'm sorry I can't help in this... I replied because some time ago I did a
little research in 2" compression drivers and this was the one that seemed
most interesting to me.

No problem, any tip or hint is welcome and I am sure that most common drivers will be tried in the future.

--
BD-Design - Only the Best!

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Have you considered or looked into a 15" bass module design that would work well with the compression driver+horn with a crossover at 600 Hz (rather than 300 Hz)? The TAD4001 is generally recommended to be crossed over at 600 Hz although it has been done as low as ~ 400 Hz (possibly with tweaks done, I don't know).

I am currently retrofitting/reinforcing two old but beautiful

[img]images/uploaded/image87.jpg[/img] [img]images/uploaded/image88.jpg[/img]

6.5 ft^3 cabinet from RCA that I stripped components out of with a 15" TAD 1601c 'equivalent' but I suspect after everything is said and done, this cabinet may not work all that great and I may have to start from scratch.

Don

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Hi Don,

Have you considered or looked into a 15" bass module design that would work
well with the compression driver+horn with a crossover at 600 Hz (rather
than 300 Hz)?

No, I never considered that as an option. I have heard several 1" compression drivers (also the 4001) with horn loaded bass systems that did not gave me any thrill. The high frequencies were very good, the low fequencies were very good but the most important thing for me was completely missing...

No integration at all like listening to two separate speakers all the time, which is very disturbing to me.

Furthermore, getting too low in frequency with a driver that is not too good there will increase distortion to unacceptable levels and might even damage the driver when you want to crank it up from time to time.

For better integration and for speed and dynamics in the low-mids it is best to cross as low as possible (with low distortion, good power handling, etc.) and use a driver that is capable to do this well. Only a 4" diaphragm as used within 2" drivers with some extra linear excursion will be capable to do this well if properly loaded on a well designed horn.

6.5 ft^3 cabinet from RCA that I stripped components out of with a 15"
TAD 1601c 'equivalent' but I suspect after everything is said and done,
this cabinet may not work all that great and I may have to start from
scratch.

I don't think that this driver will be capable to mate an 1" compression driver that well. It will be too "slow" in the crossover range and besides that, its character will be too much different.

Ciao,

Bert

--
BD-Design - Only the Best!

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Well I have the TAD4001 which is a 4" compression driver. Going to use with a Rey audio wood horn. Having the TAD woofer, I thought I would give the bass box I have a try. Horn loading the bass will not work according to some because I did think originally about something like an altec VOT bass bin which combines horn loading with bass reflex. But I think my only hope will be bass reflex. The TAD woofer frequency response is flat to 2000 Hz if you can believe that. I would love to crossover at 400 Hz but the recommendation is 600 Hz and as you say, that lower point might lead to distortion or even damage. I should be able to integrate the two, after all they are two TAD drivers and used in other systems (like Classic Audio Reproductions). The key though will be the crossover and bass box. The crossover I am first going to use is a digital dbx driverack to try to set the slope and frequency, and then either build or have built a passive one based on my experiments. Going to work on this as time permits over the next bunch of months.

Sincerely,

Don

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Hi Don,

My BD15's go up to 5kHz and still I do not want to use them too high. When you're used to listen to the Oris horns low-mid performance in terms of clarity and speed then it is impossible for any bass drive unit to keep up with that in the same frequency range. That is what you'll hear when you do use big cones up to 600Hz.

Don't forget then when you cross at 600Hz that there is still disturbing audible information provided by the woofer up to 1200Hz, even if it is 18dB down.

This does not mean that it will always sound bad, but it can sound much better in terms of clarity, dynamics and integration.

I do not want to demotivate you though, I am only trying to explain what the limits are to your approach.

Ciao,

Bert

--
BD-Design - Only the Best!

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I may well be revealing my profound ignorance on the subject, but could drivers such as these 1", 2" and 3" drivers from Aura Sound possibly work as compression driver substitutes?

http://www.aurasound.com/ (click on "speaker components")

I thought you might be interested anyway - they have such unusual characteristics. Look at the moving mass, diameter, efficiency, xmax and power handling - all extraordinary for drivers of this size.

This is not to mention the 477mm (18") woofer with the 75mm (3") peak to peak excursion and 800 WRMS power handling (3200 peak) and 400gm moving mass!

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Dear Russell,

I may well be revealing my profound ignorance on the subject, but could
drivers such as these 1", 2" and 3" drivers from Aura Sound possibly work
as compression driver substitutes?

No, these will dot work in horns at all...

This is not to mention the 477mm (18") woofer with the 75mm (3") peak to
peak excursion and 800 WRMS power handling (3200 peak) and 400gm moving
mass!

400gm is nice for home cinema (with a 1000Watt amplifier) to get real deep in frequency.

No offends but their range of drivers have not much to do with the musical and dynamical qualities I am looking for.

Ciao,

Bert

--
BD-Design - Only the Best!

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