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New GF180-4 two way project
With the Cyber sale today and needing more to get free shipping I pulled the trigger and ordered a pair of those new fangled GF180-4 woofers. I am planning an easy to build 2 way using the tried and true Peerless DA25BG08-06 aluminum dome tweeters. I haven't received, broken in, or measured the T/S parameters of these new woofers yet... but based on Dayton's published parameters (which are usually pretty accurate) I will be squeezing them into a slightly smaller box than optimal, giving up a few Hertz of F3, but not really losing anything overall when you look at F6, F10, and in room response. My Son has been after me to build another project together and these should be the ticket, maybe replacing the small MT's + sub in his room. This time he'll be doing all the measurements and xo work with my guiding hand. Should be a great learning experience and awesome time doing father/son stuff.
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Sounds like a great project. I really hope those woofers measure up. And to be able to teach your son the ropes - it does't get much better than that!
I have to say though- the completed Dayton Audio speakers offered with these are severely hampered by the tweeter chosen. I would hope the woofer is an inexpensive gem, BUT- the new Dayton Audio tweeter is not looking good to me at all.
InDIYana Event Website
It looks like a tweeter I pulled from an ebay speaker years ago. Pretty basic tweeter, the one I pulled was identical to the Dayton titanium cheapie with a fabric dome. Same FS, same impedance curve, same motor, same faceplate (sans lens), etc.
Unfortunately it uses a pretty rare cutout, so dropping a better tweeter in will be a little on the difficult side.
I see this one, though, has three mounting holes instead of four and is a smaller diameter. Looks like an even cheaper tweeter.
Makes me wonder when PE is going to price the Tymphany BC25 another $4-5 higher.
Yep that's what I'm afraid of. ~$26 is very good... over $31 still not terrible but not as good. But I guess according to that one dbag we are all a bunch of poor bastards who can't afford to pony up for decent drivers
Who was the dbag? I must have missed that thread.
Don't remember his user name but PE deleted his threads in about one day. He was spouting off about how we should all buy the worlds greatest driver the Peerless NE225W-08 but we don't because we are all too cheap or whatever.
I laughed at the gall he had. His wants were his alone, and asked if all of us would spend a bunch of money, make documented projects of clout, and HOPE Tymphany would save his preferred driver by looks alone.
Yeesh.......
InDIYana Event Website
I received the woofers late last night (never had UPS come after 8:30). Really cool looking cones. Unfortunately the same crappy thin sheet metal frames as the Designer Series. At least the DS series has vented pole pieces. These have no venting whatsoever. I'm not expecting these to be inexpensive gems but hopefully I'm wrong
Whoa! I must have been really tired when I looked at these last night. They do in fact have the same vented pole piece as the DS series. Gonna break them in when the kids get up and will report back what their measures T/S parameters are.
Need more coffee!
I can't drink coffee or any other caffeinated beverage after 5 PM or I will be tossing and turning till 2 AM
The two drivers were within a few % of each other and not terribly far off factory specs.
A B Factory
53.8Hz 52.49 49
3.64ohm 3.70 4.4
3.73 3.47 3.43
0.43 .42 .48
9.93L 10.61 16.5
1.12mH 1.13 1.1
I only lightly broke them in. I'm sure Fs would come down another couple Hz and Vas go up a bit with more break in. Any who, they're going in some existing ~14 L boxes with 2" dia x 6" ports.
That's much better than I expected. I'll bet they settle in just fine after a few hours of thrashing. I'm anxious to see the squiggly lines!
Just a subjective comment about these new GF cones... besides looking cool, they felt very stiff when I was pushing on the cones from front and rear to flex the suspension. I've owned aluminum and paper cone versions of the RS180's and RS150's and these are much stiffer. Even stiffer than the fiberglass Peerless 5.25" I have. Maybe that's why they have such a sharp breakup peak???
I hope the squiggly lines aren't too squiggly
They should be fairly pistonic through the pass band if they are that stiff. The breakup might require some examination off-axis.
PWRRYD, any progress over Thanksgiving that updates your thoughts on the quality of these driver's? I'll grab some at the Black Friday discount if you think this may be the "inexpensive gem" we are hoping it is.
Sorry David it was a busy family weekend with no time to work on any speaker projects. That said, I did take a good look at them and think their unit to unit quality looks very good. Especially for a mid $20s driver. Nice clean glue lines and such. And they measured very close to each other and not that far off from PE's specs. Way better quality than those TCP115 buggers I bought with sloppy glue everywhere and I had to go though a bunch to get 4 that matched each other somewhat closely. So based on just that these may have some potential. People sure seem to like the TCP projects.
Craig
Any progress Craig? Just put a set of these into the cart today.....
We finished machining the baffles yesterday. So today we just need to round over the port ends, line the inside with foam, then assemble them. Should be taking FR and distortion measurements this week!
We just finished taking all of our measurements: driver impedances, on-axis Fr, off axis FR, FR averages, and distortion measurements. These Peerless tweeters were no surprise. Very nice $26 tweeters in every respect.
Our GF180-4 woofers FR measurements are exactly what I expected based on the published FR and our baffle dimensions. Overall a pretty easy driver to work with. Distortion measurements are just MEH... significant 3rd order distortion peak at 1.5kHz which is indicative of this size driver with a budget motor design. Overall I wouldn't shun this woofer at all. Pretty good value for many designs. I wouldn't choose it as the anchor of a truly great project though.
Run six of the 4ohm series/parallel it would probably be awesome. Throw a big ass horn tweeter on top and bam
👍
I'm guessing this will fill the bill for your father-son project - which is pretty good for a $25 7" woofer. It helps that the DA25 is a good sounding budget tweeter that can cross low.
I have been thinking about what the ideal use-case is for the GF180. Maybe a lower cost HiVi L6-4R that plays up to 1 kHz in a small budget 3-way with a 2"-3" mid. Maybe a pair of them as the low end of a 3-way tower in the PE tower flat pack...
Sehlin Sound Solutions
Hi Scott,
Yes this fills the bill quite well. Luckily my experience with that awesome DA25BG made the crossover pretty easy. Eight parts per side but 2 of them are resistors and one is a tiny cap across the woofer's coil.
I do like this driver and it should work out pretty well in this smaller 2 way project. But honestly it would work better crossed even lower in a 3 way with a larger enclosure.
Just spit balling here but two of these GF180 woofers, two Vifa TC9FD's, and a small decent tweeter in a WWMTM tower could be quite the performer and pretty reasonable cost wise.
All that said, going to PE's website and entering all the crossover parts for our little 2 way design... oh boy! The xo parts plus the basic particle board, t-nuts, bolts, and screws we used cost as much as all four drivers! Don't know why but that seems insane to me. Need a beer and a few days off work I guess
Luckily I've been doing this long enough that I have all the necessary xo parts in my inventory. I threw one xo together this morning to just have a listen. Not bad. Can't wait to hear a stereo pair and make tweeks if needed. Pretty great bass considering the enclosure size and that there was only one playing.
I got to spend some quality hours voicing this project today. My son (wife and daughter too) loves them!!! I am very pleased with how these turned out. In fact I would go as far as to say I think these new GF180-4 drivers are a "great bang for the buck" driver (until PE jacks the price up)! The whole project could be built for $170 if you don't insist on exotic veneered finishes and fancy pants binding posts
If you have a little extra space, putting these woofers in a bigger box could make for some pretty awesome bass.
Here is a picture from today before we take them apart to do some final prep and paint.
Hope everyone had a nice Christmas weekend.
Looking good! What color are you going to paint them?
Great looking project! Are the PE TS parameters accurate enough for box modeling?
Not sure Tom. My son hasn't decided yet.