After my current hybrid HE / SE speakers leave the house I won't have anything to listen to, so speed is of the essence in getting my next build under way.
While my current Paladin speakers http://www.avforums.co.za/index.php/topic,16179.0.html are really good and probably better than anything you could buy for under 100k in a store, I feel they are missing some of the magic of true high efficiency speakers. This then gives rise to my latest project - the largest and possibly ugliest speakers I have yet built
While I was investigating what to build next, I did a huge amount of research into drivers, cabinet types, etc etc. I already have the top of the range 18Sound 1" compression driver in the NSD1095N, and I absolutely love it, however I always had some TAD 2002 thoughts running around in the back of my mind. The TAD 2002 is probably in the top 5 of most expensive commercially available compression drivers, and has a cult following of note. I don't mind spending the money if the performance is really that stellar.
In researching TAD compression drivers in particular, I found the Beyma TPL150H high frequency driver which runs on the HEIL transducer principle (AMT). It is a pleated diaphram, high efficiency, high power driver. After doing much research on that driver, I decided it looked good enough to try out.
From there, I found many implementations of this driver, and stumbled across a design by Norwegian Stig Erik Tangen. He calls this speaker the InConcert Miles and his build looks like this:
I will be building a copy of Stig Eric's cabinet and crossover design with the view of modification and / or complete redesign if the results are not up to my standards. I have never built a copy of someone else's speaker for my own use, so I am curious as to how this will perform. Obviously I will post all my findings here in this thread if you are interested to follow.
The speaker uses a Beyma TPL-150H for the tweeter, and 2x Beyma 15P80ND drivers for the mid/bass. Claimed efficiency is 103dB @ 2.83V, with a power handling capability of 1000W. There is a video on YouTube (can't find the link right now, but will post as soon as I do) where some nutter pushes these speakers up to 135dB or something stupid like that.
What exactly does that mean in real life? Simply that the headroom with a high power, high efficiency system is incredible and that the evil power compression is nowhere to be seen at normal listening levels. It is this power compression that kills dynamics in all non HE speakers, and after you get used to music without compression, there is simply no way back down the ladder...
Cost wise, this set of speakers is no small investment. The 15P80ND drivers I found here in SA. Sound & Light city has given up their Beyma distributorship, so no new drivers will be coming through their doors. I managed to purchase 4 of the 15P80ND drivers from them (they only had 8 left around 2 weeks ago). I paid R 3200 each for these.
The TPL150H was another story entirely. The only place I could find these readily available was from USSpeaker. USSpeaker only ships via post, and their cost is USD 580 per driver, so no way I was trusting that much money through the SA postal service. That obviously meant I had to use a mail forwarding company. In total, my landed cost on the pair of TPL150H drivers is nearly R 14K after shipping, duties, VAT, disbursement fees, etc.
So, on drivers alone my investment thus far is around R 27k. Like I said - this is no small investment.
Because I am not completely convinced that Stig Eric's design will be what I want, I need a way to make the speaker flexible enough so I don't need to rebuild everything in the event that things don't work as planned. What I am going to do is build each driver into its own cabinet. These cabinets will then be stacked on top of each other with some form of gasket between them like so
Stig Eric's build is a simple 2 way, using the 15" drivers in parallel. I will try it his way to start with, but I have a feeling the very first modification I will make is to change the design to a 2.5 way. If that still doesn't work out, I will add another cabinet with a 10" driver and change the driver configuration to W : T : M : W in a 3 way, or 3.5 way configuration.
As it stands, I received the TPL 150 H drivers from DHL this morning, and I already have the 15P80ND drivers at home, so the next step will be to get some wood cut and start building!
Cheers,
Ian.
While my current Paladin speakers http://www.avforums.co.za/index.php/topic,16179.0.html are really good and probably better than anything you could buy for under 100k in a store, I feel they are missing some of the magic of true high efficiency speakers. This then gives rise to my latest project - the largest and possibly ugliest speakers I have yet built
While I was investigating what to build next, I did a huge amount of research into drivers, cabinet types, etc etc. I already have the top of the range 18Sound 1" compression driver in the NSD1095N, and I absolutely love it, however I always had some TAD 2002 thoughts running around in the back of my mind. The TAD 2002 is probably in the top 5 of most expensive commercially available compression drivers, and has a cult following of note. I don't mind spending the money if the performance is really that stellar.
In researching TAD compression drivers in particular, I found the Beyma TPL150H high frequency driver which runs on the HEIL transducer principle (AMT). It is a pleated diaphram, high efficiency, high power driver. After doing much research on that driver, I decided it looked good enough to try out.
From there, I found many implementations of this driver, and stumbled across a design by Norwegian Stig Erik Tangen. He calls this speaker the InConcert Miles and his build looks like this:
I will be building a copy of Stig Eric's cabinet and crossover design with the view of modification and / or complete redesign if the results are not up to my standards. I have never built a copy of someone else's speaker for my own use, so I am curious as to how this will perform. Obviously I will post all my findings here in this thread if you are interested to follow.
The speaker uses a Beyma TPL-150H for the tweeter, and 2x Beyma 15P80ND drivers for the mid/bass. Claimed efficiency is 103dB @ 2.83V, with a power handling capability of 1000W. There is a video on YouTube (can't find the link right now, but will post as soon as I do) where some nutter pushes these speakers up to 135dB or something stupid like that.
What exactly does that mean in real life? Simply that the headroom with a high power, high efficiency system is incredible and that the evil power compression is nowhere to be seen at normal listening levels. It is this power compression that kills dynamics in all non HE speakers, and after you get used to music without compression, there is simply no way back down the ladder...
Cost wise, this set of speakers is no small investment. The 15P80ND drivers I found here in SA. Sound & Light city has given up their Beyma distributorship, so no new drivers will be coming through their doors. I managed to purchase 4 of the 15P80ND drivers from them (they only had 8 left around 2 weeks ago). I paid R 3200 each for these.
The TPL150H was another story entirely. The only place I could find these readily available was from USSpeaker. USSpeaker only ships via post, and their cost is USD 580 per driver, so no way I was trusting that much money through the SA postal service. That obviously meant I had to use a mail forwarding company. In total, my landed cost on the pair of TPL150H drivers is nearly R 14K after shipping, duties, VAT, disbursement fees, etc.
So, on drivers alone my investment thus far is around R 27k. Like I said - this is no small investment.
Because I am not completely convinced that Stig Eric's design will be what I want, I need a way to make the speaker flexible enough so I don't need to rebuild everything in the event that things don't work as planned. What I am going to do is build each driver into its own cabinet. These cabinets will then be stacked on top of each other with some form of gasket between them like so
Stig Eric's build is a simple 2 way, using the 15" drivers in parallel. I will try it his way to start with, but I have a feeling the very first modification I will make is to change the design to a 2.5 way. If that still doesn't work out, I will add another cabinet with a 10" driver and change the driver configuration to W : T : M : W in a 3 way, or 3.5 way configuration.
As it stands, I received the TPL 150 H drivers from DHL this morning, and I already have the 15P80ND drivers at home, so the next step will be to get some wood cut and start building!
Cheers,
Ian.
