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Oh, no! A swapping speaker driver thread!!!


Pea Turgh
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Bill's right, the other problem is the nature of the suspension, in an instrument speaker the suspension is likely to be progressive stopping the cone from leaving the magnetic gap. The roll surround will be designed for linearity. I've had a look at WinISD and this is the frequency response. I've assumed 9l for the cab volume the same as mine. The green plot is the Fane and the red the Farnell/Monacor.

image.png.5519b409622e42e6ddcf85e94ca024c4.png

You get a lot more deep bass out of the hi fi speaker and it's flatter in response, what isn't shown here is that below 50Hz and with just 20W input it exceeds the excursion limits by a lot and this would lead to failure of the speaker in short order without an HPF. this isn't a problem with the Fane (or the other PA/bass drivers) I'm guessing that's why they rate it at 35W

The Monacor is probably going to sound fine and will be an improvement on what you have which won't handle bass either but i don't think it will last long if you play it at any volume. £28 isn't much more than a set of strings so I'd still go for the Fane.

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  • 2 weeks later...
On 17/11/2020 at 09:40, Phil Starr said:

Bill's right, the other problem is the nature of the suspension, in an instrument speaker the suspension is likely to be progressive stopping the cone from leaving the magnetic gap. The roll surround will be designed for linearity. I've had a look at WinISD and this is the frequency response. I've assumed 9l for the cab volume the same as mine. The green plot is the Fane and the red the Farnell/Monacor.

image.png.5519b409622e42e6ddcf85e94ca024c4.png

You get a lot more deep bass out of the hi fi speaker and it's flatter in response, what isn't shown here is that below 50Hz and with just 20W input it exceeds the excursion limits by a lot and this would lead to failure of the speaker in short order without an HPF. this isn't a problem with the Fane (or the other PA/bass drivers) I'm guessing that's why they rate it at 35W

The Monacor is probably going to sound fine and will be an improvement on what you have which won't handle bass either but i don't think it will last long if you play it at any volume. £28 isn't much more than a set of strings so I'd still go for the Fane.

IF the cabinet tuning resulted in the same curve shape (translated to filter terms this would be Q and slope) than the red trace has the potential to provide better performance with both tuned to slightly under critically damped. Now the elephant in the room is what the relative sensitivities are between those two drivers (which would be the gain term of the filter equation). Is the red driver significantly lower sensitivity than the green driver by chance?

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51 minutes ago, agedhorse said:

IF the cabinet tuning resulted in the same curve shape (translated to filter terms this would be Q and slope) than the red trace has the potential to provide better performance with both tuned to slightly under critically damped. Now the elephant in the room is what the relative sensitivities are between those two drivers (which would be the gain term of the filter equation). Is the red driver significantly lower sensitivity than the green driver by chance?

I didn't save the data so this is from memory, which may of course be faulty.

I agree with you about the potential 'better' performance from the red speaker. That's certainly a cleaner curve and showing 'better' damping of the hi-fi driver. Resonant frequency is lower as you would expect with a slightly heavier cone and a less stiff suspension. The sensitivity was very similar if I remember correctly, at the expense of lower excursion limits. I've met PeaTurgh and he says in this thread some of this stuff goes beyond him so I made the assumption what he wanted was a practical solution and a fun project rather than an extensive breakdown of options. I was concerned about the excessive excursion below 50Hz but wanted to show him the frequency plots so he could see the gains the hi-fi drive potentially offered for himself and ask about that if he wanted to and all of this is there in what I've said. I must admit I had reservations about recommending a £12 speaker with potential reliability issues against a speaker I had actually in a similar cab in my room in front of me. I pm'd him with a recording of my bass through the cab to see if he was happy with the sound I was getting. I'd deliberately tailored the response of my own cab and it wouldn't necessarily suit him.

So yes, this was a recommendation based upon practicality. I quite like my little practice amp. the lack of bass means it doesn't annoy my neighbours, the 2db hump at 120hz gives it a gentle suggestion of bass and it sounds OK just plugged and played. Above that it's nice and clean, revealing enough to show up my every mistake which is what I need for practice. Unlike the cheap beginners amp it started out as it now sounds like a bass. The Monacor speaker would probably have sounded great with noticeable extra bass and probably survived quiet practice but i couldn't really recommend something that I thought might not be reliable long term.

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Ok, so progress has been slowed by possible Covid infection - been sleeping most of the weekend!

However, the transplant is done and I am very happy with the results!  I’ve made a video demonstration, but you really need headphones to appreciate the difference - you can’t hear it through phone speakers at all.

I still need to put some wadding in there, and I do wonder if the ports could be improved.  Need to play it in now.

 

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48 minutes ago, Pea Turgh said:

One thing I forgot to mention was that I EQ’d the amp to make it as good as possible with the standard driver, and didn’t touch the settings when recording it with the Fane driver.  With a bit of twiddling, it sounds better again.

That calls for another video and test. Nice video work.

 

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I do like a happy ending, and yes good video too.

If you measure up the inside of the cab and the diameter of those holes I'm happy to do the calculations for you, I may even have some port tubing the right size I can post.

Hope you feel better soon.

 

Edited by Phil Starr
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40 minutes ago, Phil Starr said:

If you measure up the inside of the cab and the diameter of those holes I'm happy to do the calculations for you, I may even have some port tubing the right size I can post.

 Ooh, lovely!  12cm x 30cm x 23.3cm, and 2x 4cm holes for ports.

Thanks again, Phil 👍🏻

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Oh forgot to say the only 4cm tube I have to hand is the liner of a toilet roll, I'm sure you have them at home :) ? if not you might find a round shampoo bottle the right size. Cardboard is quite a good material for a port if it is thick enough. you can stiffen it up with papier mache, (soak newspaper in watered down glue and wrap it round the outside).

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This is bringing me much joy!  I have found some tubing to use for the ports, and still on the hunt around the house for wadding.

Ive also taken the SubZero plate off the front and painted it metallic black, upon which will go my “Pea Turgh” transfer that didn’t get used on my last bitsa.  OTT, but fun 😁

492EA39F-D048-4D5A-9833-5F1E8CEE1751.jpeg

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Speaking of fur and such, going back decades acousticians used to refer to sound absorption or anti-reflection as "dead cats". If you needed to reduce the reverb time, you would stick some more "dead cats" on the walls. Not a very PC way to describe it though.

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