Bring back the L-pad ?

tajanes

Vintage speaker designs, such as JBLs, encorporated L-pad designs to provide user integration into a specific room environment / preference.  

Been playing around with a contour circuit (coil with parallel adjustable resistor, aka one path of L-pad).  The full adjustment range is ~3dB, the pic is at approx 1/3rd and 2/3rd rotations.  

Billet

I have been thinking of using an L-pad so I can bump up my tweeter level when I demo my speakers and drop it back down for late night listening sessions.

dcibel

I set up my crossovers for a "neutral" response, and any tuning beyond that is easily done externally via EQ. The advanced parametric EQ solutions available these days negate any need for passive crossover user adjustments.

tajanes

dcibel,
Yes I agree.  I use a miniDSP to both bi-amp and eq (parametric) my speakers.  The pic is of a litt'l AN4in. broad-range driver I use with a 300Hz high-pass filter.  Once set up as 'neutral' (~flat, with a slight tapering off) I was thinking of just having the L-pad on the drivers...

jhollander

I used to tweak on the hot side for MWAF and got burned last year.  I'm back to normal/ neutral and cursing bad recordings.

PWRRYD

Wow, when I saw the title of this thread the first thought that popped into my head was:  L-pads, Zobel networks, Speaker Builder 201, WinISD, etc.  

Wolf

I have never changed my voicing for MWAF, and really don't understand why others do so. Chuck pulled the top-end down on his MTMs last year, and I thought they sounded dead/dull at InDIYana. I took the Zingers over there last year, and compared the voicing. He told me that's what he did, and I don't really understand why. Dull at home is dull everywhere, IMO.

tajanes

The room / the sound enviroment, can and does have significant impact / effect - 
thinking of a downtown appartment with floor to ceiling windows vs my listening/ living room...

Wolf, I agree in that at these speaker-offs often (to me anyway) it comes down to the integration of the tweeter; just right, too muddled or too bright.  With the contour circuit (using L-pad for its varialble resistance across an inductor) vs. using the L-pad as a level control provides a controled tilt (as opposed to raising and lowering the whole driver, which can cause issues at the crossover). 

rjj45

jhollander said:

I used to tweak on the hot side for MWAF and got burned last year.  I'm back to normal/ neutral and cursing bad recordings.

I have 3 torture tests for builds:  Mozart's Requiem for massed voices, Yello for pumping bass, and Bonnie Raitt for her seemingly inherent sibilance. If I can nail all 3 I'm done with the build.

jhollander

Yeah, I've got hours of music.  My latest mistakes have been vertical off axis.  Goofy baffle shapes are a learning experience.