We have all the stores around here, but Home Depot is the closest so that's where I tend to frequent. And I did look online the day before and they showed several options in the size I needed in stock. I ended up just buying longer versions and cutting them shorter with my grinder.
I am having terrible luck with these buyout Scan Speak woofers. I spent an hour or so getting tweeters assembled and getting things ready for some measurements Saturday. I took both cabs to the office since I still needed to flush trim the port opening and the whole back panel, and our dust collection at the office shop is better than at my house right now. I brought one woofer and one tweeter. Got everything routed, threw some damping material in one of the cabs and took it to the lab. Measured the tweeter from 0-70 degrees in 10 degree increments, everything looking very promising - switched over to the woofer annnnnnnnd nothing. Nadda. Pulled it out of the box, tried to test if 9 ways to Sunday and it just had an open coil.
Now, this damn thing tested fine 2 years ago when I found the defect with the first one. As did the other two I have. I gave up and came home thinking I still have two other woofers, I'll bring those in on Monday and finish up. I got home, tested the other two and only one still functions. So one woofer out of four "works". At this point I don't trust any of them so they are all going in the trash.
Luckily while I was in the lab, one of our Signature Series 8's was sitting on the bench and the frame fit the cutout absolutely perfectly, I just need to open up the through-hole a little which is no big deal. So I will be using a pair of those now instead. They model very well in the same volume.
Darn...
I know some SS drivers had some acidic glues used and they would just die after a certain period of time. Once you remove the tinsels, and resolder to the VC leads, they would be fine again. But- it's not an easy fix.
@PWRRYD said:
Wow! That stinks. How old were the buyouts?
Best I can figure is ~20 years. These were from an Aerial Acoustics buyout a few years ago, but they were NOS when we got them.
@Wolf said:
Darn...
I know some SS drivers had some acidic glues used and they would just die after a certain period of time. Once you remove the tinsels, and resolder to the VC leads, they would be fine again. But- it's not an easy fix.
It may have been something along those lines, and I did look at the tinsel lead connections but I couldn't see anything obvious. Its not worth my time at this rate, especially since we have something else that is basically a drop-in.
I finally got some proper measurements and even mocked-up a prelim design but it will be tweaked at the very least. I've got my sim available but the measured design responses are on the laptop in the lab.
The Signature woofers work pretty well. The rebate for the frame is slightly deeper than it should be, but I can fix that. otherwise, a quick jig and routing made them drop right in. I also need to increase damping material, but I already knew that.
This is a very quick thing I came up with during my lunch break at work today, so it needs a lot of work. (Ignore everything below ~450 Hz, I did not take NF measurements.)
For anyone interested, here are the measurements I took. 0-70 degrees for both, both wired together at 0 degrees for phase, and .zma files in-box.
Here are the measured results so far. I have since padded the tweeter ~1.5 dB or so but I'll have to voice them a lot more before I make anything final. I'll be at CEDIA all next week but I hope to pick this back up when I get back. I'm confident I can smooth this out quite a bit.
Although they are representations of the same data, sometimes I like to switch to the Polar Map view instead of the line chart. But in the line view there’s bunching around 4.5KHz, which can be seen in a “bloom” in the polar map. The Signature series has a nice response thanks to the clever geometry and polyimide former. Hopefully you can improve the crossover further, but the midwoofer’s bandwidth is perhaps a bit too low. I can’t see a way to allow an acoustic LR2 response, can you?
That would allow a smoother power response and predicted in room response.
On the other hand, we can look at the tweeter. I concur with @dcibel - a 8” WG would help.
If that tweeter suits the Visaton WG148R 6” waveguide, (and from the measurements, it looks like it works well) then please consider using 3D printed 8” WG from here- https://www.somasonus.net/scanspeak-r2904-7000
the geometry of this series is very similar to the WG148R.
@augerpro who is a member over at PETT/diyAudio forum has worked tirelessly to design these, and people can print them, for just a small donation
With Monacor discontinuing the WG300, you’d think there a gap in the market for other WGs?
I tweaked the high pass filter to flatten the bloom a bit. Might sound a little dark. Impedance trending downward above 20kHz might be a concern as well. Just giving the FRD's a spin to see what I could do.
Comments
Yup, it was glorious to DIY builders.
We have all the stores around here, but Home Depot is the closest so that's where I tend to frequent. And I did look online the day before and they showed several options in the size I needed in stock. I ended up just buying longer versions and cutting them shorter with my grinder.
I am having terrible luck with these buyout Scan Speak woofers. I spent an hour or so getting tweeters assembled and getting things ready for some measurements Saturday. I took both cabs to the office since I still needed to flush trim the port opening and the whole back panel, and our dust collection at the office shop is better than at my house right now. I brought one woofer and one tweeter. Got everything routed, threw some damping material in one of the cabs and took it to the lab. Measured the tweeter from 0-70 degrees in 10 degree increments, everything looking very promising - switched over to the woofer annnnnnnnd nothing. Nadda. Pulled it out of the box, tried to test if 9 ways to Sunday and it just had an open coil.
Now, this damn thing tested fine 2 years ago when I found the defect with the first one. As did the other two I have. I gave up and came home thinking I still have two other woofers, I'll bring those in on Monday and finish up. I got home, tested the other two and only one still functions. So one woofer out of four "works". At this point I don't trust any of them so they are all going in the trash.
Luckily while I was in the lab, one of our Signature Series 8's was sitting on the bench and the frame fit the cutout absolutely perfectly, I just need to open up the through-hole a little which is no big deal. So I will be using a pair of those now instead. They model very well in the same volume.
More updates to come, sorry for the novel.
Wow! That stinks. How old were the buyouts?
Darn...
I know some SS drivers had some acidic glues used and they would just die after a certain period of time. Once you remove the tinsels, and resolder to the VC leads, they would be fine again. But- it's not an easy fix.
InDIYana Event Website
Best I can figure is ~20 years. These were from an Aerial Acoustics buyout a few years ago, but they were NOS when we got them.
It may have been something along those lines, and I did look at the tinsel lead connections but I couldn't see anything obvious. Its not worth my time at this rate, especially since we have something else that is basically a drop-in.
Nice to have options
And connections
I finally got some proper measurements and even mocked-up a prelim design but it will be tweaked at the very least. I've got my sim available but the measured design responses are on the laptop in the lab.
The Signature woofers work pretty well. The rebate for the frame is slightly deeper than it should be, but I can fix that. otherwise, a quick jig and routing made them drop right in. I also need to increase damping material, but I already knew that.
This is a very quick thing I came up with during my lunch break at work today, so it needs a lot of work. (Ignore everything below ~450 Hz, I did not take NF measurements.)
For anyone interested, here are the measurements I took. 0-70 degrees for both, both wired together at 0 degrees for phase, and .zma files in-box.
That looks solid. I prefer a gentle downward slope in my designs as well.
Here are the measured results so far. I have since padded the tweeter ~1.5 dB or so but I'll have to voice them a lot more before I make anything final. I'll be at CEDIA all next week but I hope to pick this back up when I get back. I'm confident I can smooth this out quite a bit.
Looking pretty good👍🏻
Hi Matt,
Thanh here.
Although they are representations of the same data, sometimes I like to switch to the Polar Map view instead of the line chart. But in the line view there’s bunching around 4.5KHz, which can be seen in a “bloom” in the polar map. The Signature series has a nice response thanks to the clever geometry and polyimide former. Hopefully you can improve the crossover further, but the midwoofer’s bandwidth is perhaps a bit too low. I can’t see a way to allow an acoustic LR2 response, can you?
That would allow a smoother power response and predicted in room response.
On the other hand, we can look at the tweeter. I concur with @dcibel - a 8” WG would help.
If that tweeter suits the Visaton WG148R 6” waveguide, (and from the measurements, it looks like it works well) then please consider using 3D printed 8” WG from here-
https://www.somasonus.net/scanspeak-r2904-7000
the geometry of this series is very similar to the WG148R.
@augerpro who is a member over at PETT/diyAudio forum has worked tirelessly to design these, and people can print them, for just a small donation
With Monacor discontinuing the WG300, you’d think there a gap in the market for other WGs?
I wonder who can make this happen?
BR,
Thanh
I tweaked the high pass filter to flatten the bloom a bit. Might sound a little dark. Impedance trending downward above 20kHz might be a concern as well. Just giving the FRD's a spin to see what I could do.