Negligible Force Factor Modulation (FFM) and Surround Radiation Distortion (SRD)
WTF kinda BS is that? I mean if it doesn't have Quadraditure Hexagonal Plastisis then what's the point? Oh and no berillllliyum? Tisk tisk.
I'm pretty sure Sound Radiation Distortion (SRD) only becomes a problem when the surrounds have been stored in close proximity to Uranium-235. But it hardly ever matters - not because it is inaudible but because the listener usually dies from radiation poisoning within hours of listening.
@6thplanet said:
That's RAAAAAAAALLLLLLLL territory.
Except they seem a lot better. I’ve never heard a rectangle tweeter that I liked - because I want to be able to stand up. The very wide directivity all the way up with a huge and low Fs dome is a compelling combination IMO.
And I guess they’re still half the price of the replacement tweeters for my Revel Gem2’s- which look on the outside like a Be dome atop a Vifa XT motor with a proper faceplate.
I went to my local show, which is Munich High End. Yea. The listening rooms are an example of how one can fritter away your life fortune on shiny and exotic hi-fi equipment some of which sounds good and much of it not so much. Oh and I listened to that 1 million dollar system from Asia again with the big horns. The horns were not bad but the two subwoofer columns were gawd awful and muddy sounding. It didn't help that they made the entire drop ceiling vibrate and resonate... I almost felt bad for the designer/owner about that part.
In contrast, the IPS vendor section is interesting and you can meet and greet the manufacturers. I had some great conversations with the Purifi crew and visited the SB Acoustics booth, among others. Which finally brings me to the reason for my post...
SB will be releasing a new Satori woofer with model number WO34HC-4. It will use the same honeycomb cone construction as the SB42 15" and comes in a nominal size of "13-1/2 inch", making it a tweener between a 12 and a 15. There is no other info, and I only took a pic of the cone with the model number tag inside so it's not really worth posting. Looks very beefy and was indeed no lightweight. I talked to the reps about it and they said the release was slated for late fall, November ish. There is absolutely no information on the driver at this time, no preliminary data, etc. I asked what sort of Xmax the driver might have (it is of course built up and sitting there in front of me at the time) and they rep eyeballed the voice coil and surround and thought 20+mm peak to peak, so it is probably the 12.5mm Xmax type motor system they use on some of the 12" woofers/subwoofers that are related to/derived from/copied from the Peerless XLS/XXLS motor. That has pretty good performance but the 12" drivers IIRC have over 50mm peak-to-peak mechanical limited excursion so maybe not quite the same motor design overall.
I am keeping my eyes open for any announcement about this driver since it could be an interesting option as a large woofer that isn't quite a true subwoofer.
I went to my local show, which is Munich High End...
There is absolutely no information on the driver at this time, no preliminary data, etc.
These are "trade shows" usually the type where the companies ges to show off their warez to potential customers.
Whether the customer is another business, or end user, it's getting it more blurry these days... because the CEO median salary is now US$10M... so corporation or consumer, it's doesn't really matter.
The company is non-committal, exactly because one can specify a magnet gap and voice coil and hence geometric
x-max, motor efficiency β and cost (and hence neo or ferrite size, spider and surround size/corrugations, basket design, as well as the front facing appearance- frame and cone's material and appearance.
Construction is kept in-house for IP protection, other commodity parts can be sourced elsewhere, like the magnet, cone / surround / spider, can and are all interchangeable like LEGO building blocks Manufactured in the countries with the higher comparative advantage. eg. motor vehicle or high speed rail from Germany -> USA -> Japan -> South Korea -> China -> ??
If you look at the datasheet eg. https://www.scan-speak.dk/product/5f-8422t01/
from an American / Canadian / Australian DIYers point of view, you might ask yourself- why would I buy this?
But this driver got a kick-start after the first order for 50,000 units came in 2013-
In Japan, an island of 125M people, where an apartment "living room" doubles as your sleeping area at night, and the oven does microwaving, roasting, grilling and stovetop function, and IS the same size a microwave oven... well then,
it makes sense...
If someone's buying- they'll make it.
PS. The beryllium tweeters that made it into the Revel Ultima line were designed by Claus Futtrup when he was at Tymphany (when they owned Vifa and Peerless) before he went to Scan-Speak (when Scan-Speak split from Tymphany) to design the Illuminator line-up and the aforementioned 2" driver, hence the common elements you might spot.
Looking through them, I see a couple concerns - mostly they all seem to exhibit breakup at a lower than typical frequency limiting their upper end usage. Not such a big deal on the 8" and 10" (although another 8" woofer capable of being used in a 2-way would be nice to have on the market), but the smaller diameters especially it would be nice if the breakup allowed for a higher crossover point. Additionally, the 5" model has some severe linear distortion issues with a big notch right at 1500Hz coupled with a breakup that is in full swing at only 3200Hz- that's a problematic area for a driver that diameter. The 4" would make for a nice dedicated midrange, except the breakup is in full-swing by only 4500Hz, which means we would likely need to use nice tweeter to cross low enough. The 6.5" looks to be the best of the lot, but would still require a robust tweeter for a two way.
I think PE could have done better. The poly cones on the super cheap GRS woofers are better behaved. Would like to see those nice cones with these nicer motors. That would be a win.
Since the off axis response doesn't seem go all wacky around the peak on alot of them I wonder how bad it realy is though... looking mostly at the bigger ones.
Yep my take just looking at them was 4-screw (except the 10") poly cone designer series. IMO the designer series is much more overpriced. But this may just be PE's typical "Intro" pricing to generate some early positive reviews.
If you filter the drivers by diameter and sort from lowest to highest price, with a few exceptions the only drivers cheaper are other GRS and Goldwood. Hard for me to label them overpriced even if they are quite bad. If they are Designer Series with poly cones they'd seem a bargain.
I really liked the 6.5" and 8" aluminum DS drivers. The paper DS 6.5" had issues. I believe the aluminum versions to be a fair value.
The 4" GRS looks like a solid performer the more I look at it. Pair it with the little Dayton waveguide and you will likely have a pretty nice monitor out of it.
Poly cones are probably the cheapest to mass produce and should have a lot of natural damping, ie no terrible breakup. But I've never designed a driver before...
The poly cones seem to have a weird breakup that I find surprisingly annoying. Meaning I have to push it down like an aluminum cone driver. I aways think it's going to be OK but it never is. I tend to avoid them when possible.
Comments
New Purifi tweeter is now available.
[Edit: fixed price per wolf's correction below]
DKK 3,750 = USD 513
https://ptt.purifi-audio.com/shop/ptt1-3t04-hag-01-ptt1-3t04-hag-01-wg104-2088
Isn't that 3750 DKK? Should be $513.
InDIYana Event Website
$561.10 USD NUTS!
That's RAAAAAAAALLLLLLLL territory.
The graphs look very good. I would guess that it's worth the cost, but as with anything the law of diminishing returns is in play.
Negligible Force Factor Modulation (FFM) and Surround Radiation Distortion (SRD)
WTF kinda BS is that? I mean if it doesn't have Quadraditure Hexagonal Plastisis then what's the point? Oh and no berillllliyum? Tisk tisk.
I'm pretty sure Sound Radiation Distortion (SRD) only becomes a problem when the surrounds have been stored in close proximity to Uranium-235. But it hardly ever matters - not because it is inaudible but because the listener usually dies from radiation poisoning within hours of listening.
I will not be purchasing those Purifi tweeters, not for any of the reasons mentioned like isotopes or plastises, but because my wife would kill me.
Wow, same net result, different causes related to the same stigma.
InDIYana Event Website
While I'll be far more likely to go with BZ or Viawave than these, no matter the route the wife would likely have some stern words for me.
There are worse things. I know from experience. 😆
Well, at least they stayed with the ugly theme.
https://www.jfcomponents.com/
Except they seem a lot better. I’ve never heard a rectangle tweeter that I liked - because I want to be able to stand up. The very wide directivity all the way up with a huge and low Fs dome is a compelling combination IMO.
And I guess they’re still half the price of the replacement tweeters for my Revel Gem2’s- which look on the outside like a Be dome atop a Vifa XT motor with a proper faceplate.
I went to my local show, which is Munich High End. Yea. The listening rooms are an example of how one can fritter away your life fortune on shiny and exotic hi-fi equipment some of which sounds good and much of it not so much. Oh and I listened to that 1 million dollar system from Asia again with the big horns. The horns were not bad but the two subwoofer columns were gawd awful and muddy sounding. It didn't help that they made the entire drop ceiling vibrate and resonate... I almost felt bad for the designer/owner about that part.
In contrast, the IPS vendor section is interesting and you can meet and greet the manufacturers. I had some great conversations with the Purifi crew and visited the SB Acoustics booth, among others. Which finally brings me to the reason for my post...
SB will be releasing a new Satori woofer with model number WO34HC-4. It will use the same honeycomb cone construction as the SB42 15" and comes in a nominal size of "13-1/2 inch", making it a tweener between a 12 and a 15. There is no other info, and I only took a pic of the cone with the model number tag inside so it's not really worth posting. Looks very beefy and was indeed no lightweight. I talked to the reps about it and they said the release was slated for late fall, November ish. There is absolutely no information on the driver at this time, no preliminary data, etc. I asked what sort of Xmax the driver might have (it is of course built up and sitting there in front of me at the time) and they rep eyeballed the voice coil and surround and thought 20+mm peak to peak, so it is probably the 12.5mm Xmax type motor system they use on some of the 12" woofers/subwoofers that are related to/derived from/copied from the Peerless XLS/XXLS motor. That has pretty good performance but the 12" drivers IIRC have over 50mm peak-to-peak mechanical limited excursion so maybe not quite the same motor design overall.
I am keeping my eyes open for any announcement about this driver since it could be an interesting option as a large woofer that isn't quite a true subwoofer.
These are "trade shows" usually the type where the companies ges to show off their warez to potential customers.
Whether the customer is another business, or end user, it's getting it more blurry these days... because the CEO median salary is now US$10M... so corporation or consumer, it's doesn't really matter.
The company is non-committal, exactly because one can specify a magnet gap and voice coil and hence geometric
x-max, motor efficiency β and cost (and hence neo or ferrite size, spider and surround size/corrugations, basket design, as well as the front facing appearance- frame and cone's material and appearance.
Construction is kept in-house for IP protection, other commodity parts can be sourced elsewhere, like the magnet, cone / surround / spider, can and are all interchangeable like LEGO building blocks Manufactured in the countries with the higher comparative advantage. eg. motor vehicle or high speed rail from Germany -> USA -> Japan -> South Korea -> China -> ??
If you look at the datasheet eg. https://www.scan-speak.dk/product/5f-8422t01/
from an American / Canadian / Australian DIYers point of view, you might ask yourself- why would I buy this?
But this driver got a kick-start after the first order for 50,000 units came in 2013-
In Japan, an island of 125M people, where an apartment "living room" doubles as your sleeping area at night, and the oven does microwaving, roasting, grilling and stovetop function, and IS the same size a microwave oven... well then,
it makes sense...
If someone's buying- they'll make it.
PS. The beryllium tweeters that made it into the Revel Ultima line were designed by Claus Futtrup when he was at Tymphany (when they owned Vifa and Peerless) before he went to Scan-Speak (when Scan-Speak split from Tymphany) to design the Illuminator line-up and the aforementioned 2" driver, hence the common elements you might spot.
New GRS Poly cone woofers 4", 5-1/4", 6-1/2", 8" and 10", in both 4- and 8-ohm. Copper caps, vented pole pieces.
https://www.parts-express.com/GRS-8-Woofer-Surface-Mount-Poly-Cone-4-Ohm-8SMP-4-292-866
Yep I ordered a few earlier today.
https://www.jfcomponents.com/
Over priced.
Looking through them, I see a couple concerns - mostly they all seem to exhibit breakup at a lower than typical frequency limiting their upper end usage. Not such a big deal on the 8" and 10" (although another 8" woofer capable of being used in a 2-way would be nice to have on the market), but the smaller diameters especially it would be nice if the breakup allowed for a higher crossover point. Additionally, the 5" model has some severe linear distortion issues with a big notch right at 1500Hz coupled with a breakup that is in full swing at only 3200Hz- that's a problematic area for a driver that diameter. The 4" would make for a nice dedicated midrange, except the breakup is in full-swing by only 4500Hz, which means we would likely need to use nice tweeter to cross low enough. The 6.5" looks to be the best of the lot, but would still require a robust tweeter for a two way.
I think PE could have done better. The poly cones on the super cheap GRS woofers are better behaved. Would like to see those nice cones with these nicer motors. That would be a win.
Since the off axis response doesn't seem go all wacky around the peak on alot of them I wonder how bad it realy is though... looking mostly at the bigger ones.
To me, not much copper for that impedance rise on those drivers. Also, ditto on the early break up.
So the low breakup modes are a result of cone / surround issues, right?
They’re just a Dayton DSA series with a GRS sticker on them and a poly cone.
https://www.jfcomponents.com/
Cone primarily
That was my consensus as well as thinking overpriced.
InDIYana Event Website
Yep my take just looking at them was 4-screw (except the 10") poly cone designer series. IMO the designer series is much more overpriced. But this may just be PE's typical "Intro" pricing to generate some early positive reviews.
If you filter the drivers by diameter and sort from lowest to highest price, with a few exceptions the only drivers cheaper are other GRS and Goldwood. Hard for me to label them overpriced even if they are quite bad. If they are Designer Series with poly cones they'd seem a bargain.
I really liked the 6.5" and 8" aluminum DS drivers. The paper DS 6.5" had issues. I believe the aluminum versions to be a fair value.
The 4" GRS looks like a solid performer the more I look at it. Pair it with the little Dayton waveguide and you will likely have a pretty nice monitor out of it.
Poly cones are probably the cheapest to mass produce and should have a lot of natural damping, ie no terrible breakup. But I've never designed a driver before...
The poly cones seem to have a weird breakup that I find surprisingly annoying. Meaning I have to push it down like an aluminum cone driver. I aways think it's going to be OK but it never is. I tend to avoid them when possible.