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SB23 woofer variant distortion

I have a pair of 2-way cabinets cut for SB23 woofers, which are a really goofy size, so nothing else I can find fits. No prob, they're great woofers right? Not so much for 2-way duty according to HiFi Compass with pretty severely rising odd order HD in the upper midrange. Just wondering if any of you guys have measured any of these and could offer a second opinion. Really disappointing since some of the SB17 variations have crazy low HD from 200 - 2kHz.

Comments

  • edited December 2023

    Have you considered installing an adapter plate and using something from the SB17 lineup or other 6.5" ish driver?

  • @charlielaub said:
    Have you considered installing an adapter plate and using something from the SB17 lineup or other 6.5" ish driver?

    Yeah but it's a big cab so I'd want a bigish driver and adapter plates close to the driver size are tricky to make work. The cabinet is already veneered, by the way.

    jhollander
  • Thought you could 3D print an adapter for other 8-inch woofers. No harm in bringing the woofer forward of the tweeter.

     John H, btw forum has decided I don't get emails
  • edited December 2023

    A stiff, thin ring can be made from aluminum or even acrylic. For the latter material you can sketch up a design for the part and have it laser cut by Pololu:
    https://www.pololu.com/product/749
    I have used this company for a few acrylic projects and they are great.

    You would probably have to drop down a size for the driver from 8" to 7" or 6.5", but if it is a vented cab that is actually not a bad thing. Now is your chance to try one of those Purifi woofers!

  • edited December 2023

    Open up the woofer hole a bit and drop WO24P in there.

    Keep in mind with SB23 as well with normal woofer implementation of 6dB baffle step, relative level >300Hz is -6dB relative to the bass frequencies, so actual performance in use may not be as bad as the raw unfiltered measurement suggests. If you have the woofers already, I'd drop them in and measure with a filter in place before you give up on them.

    I'm not deaf, I'm just not listening.
  • You could use a wide range as a tweeter...

  • @Wolf said:
    You could use a wide range as a tweeter...

    Mark audio has a 40mm wide range that looks pretty flat, and that’s really no bigger than an old cone tweeter.

  • Thanks for that - seems to corroborate HFCs measurements...

  • @dcibel said:
    Open up the woofer hole a bit and drop WO24P in there.

    Keep in mind with SB23 as well with normal woofer implementation of 6dB baffle step, relative level >300Hz is -6dB relative to the bass frequencies, so actual performance in use may not be as bad as the raw unfiltered measurement suggests. If you have the woofers already, I'd drop them in and measure with a filter in place before you give up on them.

    That's a good point, but I don't already have them. Was hoping for a stress free drop in project. Opening it up for the WO24 might be the easiest safe option.

  • @jhollander said:
    Thought you could 3D print an adapter for other 8-inch woofers. No harm in bringing the woofer forward of the tweeter.

    Now that CSS is my full time gig, I lost my 3D printing hookup! If I brought the woofer forward a little that would make adapting a lot easier and would only align ACs better. I'll have to think about how that would look...

  • @charlielaub said:
    A stiff, thin ring can be made from aluminum or even acrylic. For the latter material you can sketch up a design for the part and have it laser cut by Pololu:
    https://www.pololu.com/product/749
    I have used this company for a few acrylic projects and they are great.

    You would probably have to drop down a size for the driver from 8" to 7" or 6.5", but if it is a vented cab that is actually not a bad thing. Now is your chance to try one of those Purifi woofers!

    I've tried the 6.5" and the 4" Purifi so far and I've heard the 8". They are definitely state-of-the-art, but this project doesn't have a Purifi budget!

  • You guys have inspired me to explore the adapter plate route. I didn't notice before that the SB23s have an extra thick 8.5mm flange, which makes gluing in an MDF adapter plate pretty easy with a more common 6-6.5mm thick flange.

    hifisidesilverD
  • You could consider surface mounting the woofer. The diffraction effects of this are largely overblown. That would make the construction of the adapter plate even easier.

  • @charlielaub said:
    You could consider surface mounting the woofer. The diffraction effects of this are largely overblown. That would make the construction of the adapter plate even easier.

    That's true and I agree, especially for the woofer, surface mounting is usually fine acoustically... just looks ugly, especially with thick flanged high-end drivers designed to be recessed.

    jr@mac
  • Print or rout a tapered ring for the surface mounted woofers?
    (ask Drewsbrews about trim rings).

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