Kyle

Changed compliance surely plays a part. The impedance results indicate that the peak has shifted down some. I guess it could be possible that some of the breakup nodes have shifted as well. You can see a baffle step in all of the results as well. Nothing in the enclosures has changed.

 

I'll be revisiting this at some point so I can do a comparison back to back on the same day. Might be interesting to check that same RF driver every year and see how much it changes over the next few years of use. Makes me wonder how far the suspension will soften and what the original brand new driver will look like compared to 3 or 4 years of use later.

These changes are very small, what I have found in the past is that temperature difference can make a larger impact.  As an extremely example, a motor chilled below 0 deg. can yield as much as 1.5dB greater burst output with max power which is pretty remarkable.

 

 Well if you look at the 21.0 tests, and add three db across the board, you get an idea how the 18.2 would look as they share the same motor structure and amplification(per driver) and proportionally more airspace. So it should be nearly matched for long term output under ~30hz, with similar distortion at max output, lower distortion at just below max as already the 21.0 is very close in distortion given the same output level(115db sweep for 21.0 compared to 105db sweep for S2) under 30hz when both are down a couple sweeps below max. Then it walks away for output over 30hz and distortion over 50hz. Not really a fair comparison though considering the cost. The S2, and proportionally the S1 shows awesome performance for the money under 40hz, the 18.2 shows what it takes to match that performance under 40hz at nearly half the size. Massively more power and cost, is what it takes to push the laws of physics hard up to the wall.

 

Comparing to the 18.0 is a little more fair as they are closer in box size and power per driver, although the 18.0 still costs more. Considering the S1 is said to be basically half the S2, so -5-6db across the board. Factoring that in the S1 and 18.0 look near equal 30hz down for long term output with the 18.0 having a clear advantage over 30hz, as it compares directly to the S2 40hz up. Burst output is very close across the board to the S1, each having a little more than the other in some areas, as well as distortion is comparable 30hz down. The advantage the 18.0 has is over 50hz where distortion and power compression are much lower, lower even than the S2 compared directly at similar outputs in that range.

 

Ya, there is a huge cost difference between those subs and I think its still interested to see how subs with similar architecture stack up.  The Cap will probably outgun the G213 for 1/3 of the cost but clearly the 18.2 is another level

 Well if you look at the 21.0 tests, and add three db across the board, you get an idea how the 18.2 would look as they share the same motor structure and amplification(per driver) and proportionally more airspace. So it should be nearly matched for long term output under ~30hz, with similar distortion at max output, lower distortion at just below max as already the 21.0 is very close in distortion given the same output level(115db sweep for 21.0 compared to 105db sweep for S2) under 30hz when both are down a couple sweeps below max. Then it walks away for output over 30hz and distortion over 50hz. Not really a fair comparison though considering the cost. The S2, and proportionally the S1 shows awesome performance for the money under 40hz, the 18.2 shows what it takes to match that performance under 40hz at nearly half the size. Massively more power and cost, is what it takes to push the laws of physics hard up to the wall.

 

Comparing to the 18.0 is a little more fair as they are closer in box size and power per driver, although the 18.0 still costs more. Considering the S1 is said to be basically half the S2, so -5-6db across the board. Factoring that in the S1 and 18.0 look near equal 30hz down for long term output with the 18.0 having a clear advantage over 30hz, as it compares directly to the S2 40hz up. Burst output is very close across the board to the S1, each having a little more than the other in some areas, as well as distortion is comparable 30hz down. The advantage the 18.0 has is over 50hz where distortion and power compression are much lower, lower even than the S2 compared directly at similar outputs in that range.

Yep this thing is a beast, esp. for a sealed design -- 127dB . I would love to see this thing run up against the G213 or better yet, FunkAudio 18.2 just for fun

 

I do have audio measurement capabilities and know how to do a gated measurement. I don't have access to an anechoic chamber anymore. I don't have a multimeter, I may get one. However wouldn't the only purpose of that to satisfy the curiosity of what the sensitivity of the tweeter would be?

 

 

Yeah the box is ridiculously small. It is around 10x smaller than the recommended enclosure volume for these woofers. Because of that the graph for 2 L16 sealed looks exactly the same as the 2 L16 with PR except the roll off below tuning. The excursion graph is essentially a flat line at 6mm from 90Hz and below, which is the xmax of the driver. I worry about the distortion from running the driver at xmax. 

 

I cannot double the amps into the PR system. The amp I'm using is already the most powerful small amplifier I can find. Even if I can, the driver cannot safely handle more than 80W. 

 

This woofer is about as good as it gets for bass. There are woofers more capable for bass, like the Tang Band W5-1138SMF, but the bass and lower midrange sound quality would be far inferior. There are woofers with stronger motors, such as the Scanspeak 15WU, but at $317 it is over 3x the price and the improvement is likely not big.

 

I'm not sure if I want to add a thermal protection system. I'm not aware of any commercial product with that capability, and I'm not designing this for a commercial product. But for curiosity sakes, what were you thinking of using to add a thermal protection system?

 

 

 

Urghhh group delay, I never thought that would be an issue. Although I wonder what horrible group delay sounds like. 

 

I definitely want to boost the bass to at least flat to 40Hz and more. Could my Option 4 work?

 

What if I EQ'd flat to 40Hz and set the high pass at 35Hz? Would that alleviate the group delay problem a bit? I did this on my current speaker where I boosted it flat to 45Hz and a high pass was set at 40Hz.

 

"It is around 10x smaller than the recommended enclosure volume for these woofers"

You might want to find a driver with more BL product and a lower Q, otherwise its going to be tricky to EQ the thing. The other thing you could do is drop a size down and go with a 4" or 5" woofer. Your PR is already smaller than your driver which is unconventional to start with.

Here these dudes say they use 13 Kg of new N48 on their single 32 sub, 8" voice coil. Sick!

http://alphard.audio/general/product/id2793

wow, gotta be pricey, why no TSPs tho?

Don't be mentioning that on some of the 'audiophile' forums, they'll cry 'Heresy!!', round you up with pitchforks, burn you at the stake, then return to a nice dinner listening to their single 10" because, you know, 10s are lightweight and 'fast'

haha I know everything is relative, more mass + more bl to offset only means the Q goes down. This thing has a low ass Q!

This driver honestly gets me excited about woofer design again

That didn't used to be in the specs from what I can remember. They seem to keep revising and adding to the information released. Some of the videos they've posted I don't remember either. That is an absolute huge amount of neo. 7+ lbs???

 

By the way if you dig around you can find these for under $1500 shipped. Still super expensive but over $1000 under MSRP is a significant savings.

that might run you ~300+ bucks for the raw magnet alone!

Good question...Couple of reasons.

 

#1. I switched from the K10 amp to the more powerful K20 amp. The K20 should have about 1 to 1.5dBW higher burst output.

#2. Some of the pro style drivers are failing for distortion or even bottoming out at 50-80Hz and this limits the SPL. 280volts+ is not a joke. No issue for this driver.

#3. There are things that start to happen at those types of very large signal input levels that are different from what the small signal data suggests might. Current induced distortion gets out of hand in some drivers, others lose linearity in the suspension and /or motor and the effective motor force and efficiency drops off greatly at higher output levels. All of this can cause compression of the output so that by the time you are hitting the driver with 250 volts its performance has shifted greatly from what it was at 2.5 volts. Once the power levels get high enough you're no longer getting a full dB from the speaker per dB of signal increase. It may be a half dB or even 0.3dB. This isn't only something related to thermal heating or excursion. I see this all the time with the burst tests where thermal heating is not a factor. The RF compresses less and exhibits less behavior change with strong input signals than most other drivers. Beastly strong motor helps with the huge MMS.

#4  Magical Super Woofer Dust (Trademark of Simonian's California Bass Blingers)

 

 

For example look at the 21SW152 sealed test burst graph under static images. It is distortion limited at 50Hz and then mechanical limited before the amp runs out of gas and that was with the old K10 amp with less burst potential. The driver is actually being run out of xmax at 50Hz. Check out the 21LW1400 also. That driver is way more sensitive and efficient than the 19 but it folds up shop way sooner as well.

 More or less my suppositions. The thing just deals with compression so much better than most drivers, essp. the pro drivers. I'm guessing for mere mortals that can only put 2-3k on a woofer -- a high end pro driver would be a better option. but holy smokes this thing has headroom. The problem with the B&C drivers is that while they have impressive SPLSens, they fall flat on their ass at high power because they have such short coils. Even the iPAL only had a ~1.7" long coil or so for the 18". My guess is this is why it didn't work well for you.

I don't want to knock the RF in anyway, but I do believe that the DD motor plays less of a role in its performance and its more just a crap load of magnet with a very robust suspension. To me, this is what the XXX should have been. I think this driver has over double the BL of that driver

to me, BL^2Re is light horsepower (albeit it a non-linear scale). A driver with 500 and this kind of stroke is freaking impressive . The new bar is 600/700

Josh, I'm not sure if this has been asked but how the heck does this thing beat out 18" and 21" woofers with even far more sensitivity even at the upper bass frequencies like 60Hz? Including the BC21SW152, Pro5100 and BMS18N862? It matches or bests all those at 60 and just obliterates them below 60 

And It embarrassed the LMS5400 from pretty much  20Hz on up and the RE XX only hangs from 20 to 30hz. This thing has set a new bar, damn...I never figured a moving mass of 1Kg could do that!

Ya, I really want to hold on to em, but I need to the funds for other projects

I have 4 BNIB TC Pro 5100's Never fired up!

 

Was planing to keep these for a while but its time to give the up now. These are the drivers I helped design while I worked at TC Sounds and are some of my all time favorite woofers! I would like to get 1k for each.

 

 

Lowering price to 900

I have 4 BNIB TC Pro 5100's Never fired up!

Was planing to keep these for a while but its time to give the up now. These are the drivers I helped design while I worked at TC Sounds and are some of my all time favorite woofers! I would like to get 1k for each.

I'm not really sure what to do here, people getting upset about content. ugh.

How do people feel about keeping this thread for modern movies, and how many people just don't really care, content is content?

Just picked up a pair of RMX-4050s, huge power, big upgrade over the EP4000.

Down side is they are not cheap and very heavy

Upside is they really deliver and for a lot less $ than a PL or itech

If you don't need to move your amp around too much, you can't go wrong with this thing. Got em for about $1100 each.

This may be tested soon too, its a little project im working on

I had a bit of help, I probably wouldn't have heard about it as quickly otherwise, but I do pay attention to patents, as one can learn a lot from them. Also used to spend a LOT more time talking speakers than I do now. Was hoping I'd see Kyle's patent put to good use sooner rather than later, because it is a FANTASTIC idea. Simply put, Kyle has "fixed" several of the issues with LMS coil and motor.

 

Hoping that we can see the state of the art take a step forward, and sounds like there have been a few significant steps with this one. Also thrilled that there is some R&D taking place at TC.

Thanks for the support, i need to get my butt in gear, been working on some pro projects which have consumed much of my time, ill plan to put work into The prototype this year for sure

I appreciate the enthusiasm!

No eta, it has a new surround which is currently a 15" BUT 18 is planned

It would be a bonus to also get the missing UXL-18 THD measurements.

 

LMS-R2????

 

Whoa! I did not know about that one. Is it is step up or down from the current 5400?

Its an in between, larger motor than the R and more excursion More sensitivity , but still.a 3" coil

LMS-R2 = less inductance?

 

JSS

 Yes, a lot less

It won't use the variable resistive coil as that is not developed as a product yet but its a 3" coil, copper over the poll, larger magnet.

A birdy told me the prototype LMS-R2 will be ready for testing soon. I'll try and get a beta version here from TC. Keep fingeres crossed.

guys i did an update on the ipb software, not sure if we got any more options for photos or uploads, but let me know if things are working ok .... or not

+1 For the Sanway.