open baffle??

[Paul Barker]

Well I didn't want to lay it on thick about the Fane but it has no faults I have noticed.

[NickG]

I know, I keep wondering about a plasma tweeter as well.

[Darren D]

Ah yes, but you still need the right ones,

So we ain't told em notin Paul, you carry on hunting

I was fiddling with the settings on mine last week sometime and it was interstiing to hear loads of stuff in the room rattle and vibrate, yet I could here nothing at all.
Weired....

[steve s]

fanes.. I know where there is a big pair of fane hi fi speakers.. £100... they are around 3" tall x 15 wide.. wonder whats in them... most guitar speakers have a high res freq???

i'm not too sure now about my obs at the moment.. fab bass but compared the horns is like se vs p/p.... they are very good..but not what i'm used to..
too busy this week end in the garden..

steve

[andrew ivimey]

Do you remember when Fanes were considered ****? and they were cheap in those days (ads in the back or Practical Electronics)

a thousand years ago I used an 18inch Fane in my first bass guitar cabinet.

now there is a reasonably reliable rumour that Fane make drivers for the big Tannoys...

[G.Axiom]

A simple high-pass filter has in many situations made great impact in the performance, in box speakers also but specially with baffles, with no Q.
That is, simply putting an high pass to the tuning freqvecy, or about in to the baffles low limit.
It has -funnily enough!- always actually added the level of perceived low extension, not to mentioning its quality, or opennes and detail level of midrange. That must of course be because of reliefing driver of most impossible demands makes its life much easier, and it makes that what it does with great ease and definition.
I rthink it is pretty useful trick to be tried with almost any construction, that including some commercial constructions with I have tried it.
That of course should not be the case with well executed constructions with dedicated woofers, but mostly with constructions where the same driver is expected to take care of both low end and midrange.

Edit: oh yes, an active line level device is usually a good tool for this. Discrete componenets in speaker line level mostly achieves compeletely silly needed values for example, lets's say -24dB, 50 hz high pass. Or, havn't ever tried this, but should be dead easy to include such high pass filter into the amps input stage.

[Paul Barker]

I remembered the cheap Fanes also, and poo pooed them when Darren told me what he was doing.

Not all Fanes are alike.

I can apreciate the high pass theory. Have experienced it with that well known high pass filter the output transformer.

[IslandPink]

Gary Pimm uses Fanes somewhere in his setup ..
Bass units I think .

MJ

[steve s]

My Set up has a bit of use this week end, the 301/ex4 sounds very good together.. i have got quite used to them, the 301's do good bass

Scott came around yesterday afternoon to pick up some drivers.. he had a listen.. i think he liked them..


i'm still unsure about them to be honest.. don't know why.. but they are staying on for a while

a few more mods required.. i need to lift them higher.. so i need to knock up a plinth to stand them on..
i have to place them close into corners, as theres no where else for them.

not ideal positions but they are designed only to make bass if they are next to a wall and they do make bass very well, there is a good balance at lower volumes.. scott suggested i roll of the top end of the 301 he thought that may improve the detail ( its not at the horn level)
as a quick test i disconnected the 301's ,the ex's made a reasonable go at bass.. but the midrange /top end did not improve.. so electrically i don't think there's much i can do.. the 301's sounded very good on there own too..

whats missing is the 'big' sound that you get from big speakers, and especially horns.. lots af aspects improve ...
going back to the 50's briggs wrote that you can get 30hz from a 2 cu foot speakers.. but there are real gains from one much bigger.. and o'bs are quite small speakers from a wave cancellation point of view

what i like about the o/bs,.. is what every one raves about.. the lack of a box and the effect on the sound.. but as always there are trade offs.. but they are only very minor really ..

what i have now is a real standard to build horns to.. assuming thats is possible to achieve what ob's are good at.. with a horn ?
the issues for me are at the bottom end....

cheers steve

[Scottmoose]

Oh I liked them. A lot. Lovely clarity, & seriously impressive bass clout from those old Goodmans 301s. Steve's fire vibrates. This combination is superb on female vocal. Fed with my inevitable Loreena McKennitt (for which I make no apologies -her music is wonderful, and perfect for testing as well) they were wonderfully relaxing. Reminded me of the Dark Stars a friend built last year, but with more detail and LF weight. Steve's plan of lifting them up a couple of inches should be a good move too.

I was a little surprised that the two drivers worked as well together as they did. There didn't appear to be any HF attenuation to speak of caused by the output of the two units combing, and only a slight suggestion of phase issues off axis. Don't ask me why, but it seems to work, despite using two pretty hefty FR / WR drivers. And that's more than I can say about any of the line arrays using unsupported FR units that I've heard (straight array + FR drivers = don't even think about it).

It's a heck of a challenge, trying to get the OB performance from horns. It's that naturalness that's so difficult to achieve with drivers in enclosures. Still, wouldn't life be dull without a challenge? FWIW, I reckon that shifting to a hyperbolic profile should give more gain and a smoother response in the LF comparted to Steve's existing tractrix horns, while lowering the upper-cut off point will clean up the mids. That last is the hardest bit to get right IMO. Oh for the days of field-coils. They made life so much easier in this respect.