2. speakers
  3. 135863-9818

Why Aren't More Speaker Designers Building Augmented Widebanders?

Over the years I've owned a number of different speakers - KLH, Cerwin Vega, Polk, Opera Audio, Ars Aures, and Merlin VSM. One thing they all had in common was a crossover point in the 2000 hz (+ or -) range. I've read reviews of speakers where the reviewer claimed to be able to hear the crossover point, manifested as some sort of discontinuity. I've never heard that. My Merlin VSM's for example sounded completely seamless. Yet my new Bache Audio Metro 001 speakers, with a single wideband driver covering the range of 400 hz to 10,000 hz, augmented by a woofer and a super tweeter, sounds different from all of these other speakers. The midrange of the Bache 001's is cleaner, more coherent, more natural than I have heard before. Music flows from the speakers in a more relaxed manner, and subjectively dynamic range is greater, with no etch or brightness, and no loss of resolution compared with the Merlins. I have to conclude that Bache's design has an inherent advantage over more traditional designs with a crossover point or points in the midrange frequencies. I wonder why more speaker designers haven't tried this approach?
128x128cellcbern

Showing 4 responses by renisnceman

renisnceman
50 posts
 
Eric_squires—true, the diy community has been doing FAST (Full range Assisted Subwoofer Technology) or WAW ( Wide band Assisted Woofer) for some time now. My diy 2-way has a woofer that crosses over at 535 Hz to a Tang Band Full range driver loaded into a tractrix waveguide.  The SQ is amazing and driver integration is seamless.  Many designs set the crossover frequency lower, usually close to the baffle step frequency.  One of the inherent challenges of these designs is the crossover component costs- you’re looking at huge inductors and caps crossing over that low—might explain why we don’t see more commercial designs.
renisnceman
50 posts
 
Eric_squires—true, the diy community has been doing FAST (Full range Assisted Subwoofer Technology) or WAW ( Wide band Assisted Woofer) for some time now. My diy 2-way has a woofer that crosses over at 535 Hz to a Tang Band Full range driver loaded into a tractrix waveguide.  The SQ is amazing and driver integration is seamless.  Many designs set the crossover frequency lower, usually close to the baffle step frequency.  One of the inherent challenges of these designs is the crossover component costs- you’re looking at huge inductors and caps crossing over that low—might explain why we don’t see more commercial designs.
renisnceman
50 posts
 
Timlub- funny, I’m using the 3” TB W3-2141 for full range duties.  The 535 Hz crossover gave the flattest response without breaking the bank in caps and coils.  I can’t discern the crossover point when listening, and the speakers pretty much disappear.  But, it’s a challenge; I spent about 18 months with software, drivers, more filter designs than I can count and cabinet parameters before I got it right, to my ears at least.  
renisnceman
50 posts
 
The W3 series, both ferrite and neodymium play out to 20 kHz.  The neo has a flatter frequency response, but they’re both very good drivers.  Going back to the OP, I think one of the challenges ( at least for commercial production) with crossing so low is that the crossovers end up costing more than the drivers.  Re-capping mine with Mundorf Supremes approaches $500.00.  But, I’ve built a few speakers with the typical 2nd order L/R at 2000-3000 Hz crossover- using pretty decent tweeters- and the wide banders come out on top.  I’m not sure why—they just sound more coherent.  And despite the fact that I’m using large values for caps and coils, the parts count is actually pretty low- not a lot of parts in the signal path- which might explain why they sound good.  Some of these designs use a simple first order x-over on the woofer and second order on the FR.  With impedance equalization you’re looking at maybe 5 components in the x-over, maybe less.  Compare that to the parts count in a 3-way.  
More to discover