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Unusual Speaker Designs

OP
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OP
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FrantzM

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I came to know about Thomas Danley, an eminence in things Audio through .. gasp !! The Absolute Sound magazine ... maybe 30 years ago ... He designed a subwoofer ( still designing some really different subs...) where the transducer mebrane was driven by a Hard Drive motor... I thnk it was called the Servo Drive... This product no longer figure in Danley's company Website but another company seems to have taken the designs or patents and is currently producing it .
Here is the original Danley Product
1604511741382.png


And here is the current version
1604511868407.png


And a commercial cabinet using it, the ServoDrive BasstECh 7

The company's website http://tritechlightandsound.com/links.html

1604511842134.png
 

pavuol

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another Cabasse, "Tri-axial"
Cabasse-Tri-axial.jpg

What you see here is a 4-way digital active speaker based around a coaxial point source driver arrangement. You can see a dome tweeter with a midrange and lower midrange driver. There is also a 15″ woofer behind (not visible).
Designer-Chris-Cabasse.jpg
 
OP
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another Cabasse, "Tri-axial"
Cabasse-Tri-axial.jpg

What you see here is a 4-way digital active speaker based around a coaxial point source driver arrangement. You can see a dome tweeter with a midrange and lower midrange driver. There is also a 15″ woofer behind (not visible).
Designer-Chris-Cabasse.jpg
Would love to see a spin of that. And go bowling with it.
 

FrantzM

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A bit OT...

Please read those posting from one of the great minds of aUdio .. Tom Danley.. A bit under the radar because he is most invested in the commercial (Read PA) sector but Man! The Man is innovative ... The ServoDrive is beyond capable ...

We tend to look down PA.... SOme PA system will run circles around many expensive AUdio systems in all that matters.. from FR.. Phase coherence, anny objective metrics, you care for.
Read on:
God of Bass postings (Tom Danley)

From: Thomas Danley
Subject: Re: We need more power, Capn!


> From: Mike Ford
>
> At 7:16 PM -0800 2/6/98, Cathleen & John Halliburton wrote:
>
> > Ten BassTech 7 cabinets running in the warehouse, or twelve Contrabasses,
> > or a sonic boom
>
> Makes me ask a couple of questions,
>
> What is the largest array of basstech 7 cabinets ever fired up and tested?
>
> Running the two sets of 6 BT7s as described in the U2 concert at full
> power, how far away would I have to be to get a good blend with my Quad ESL
> 63s (average max spl around 98 dB)?


Hi

I don't recall the largest number we tested, probably about 12 or 16,
there begins to be a point that doing this indoors even in a wharehouse
becomes dangerous, remember that 132 dB is about 2 pounds of pressure
per square foot and hearing decent bass on the out side of a cinder
block and brick wall means its moving and there not supposed to.
Inside, you can actually get to the point where you have "enough bass".
12 BT-7's can produce 2400 acoustic watts from 28 to 125 HZ, steady
state which is pretty loud. 12 units, close coupled also is large enough
to have some directivity but disregarding that increase in on axis SPL,
2400 acoustic watts from a point source would be about 126.8 dB at 10
meters, at 80 meters about 108 dB and at 160 meters, 102 dB and at 320
meters would have fallen to 96.8 dB. By 5620 meters (3 1/2 miles) the
sound would have fallen to a modest 72.8 dB. I guess thats why the World
music theater got "Bass" complaints from more than 5 miles away when U-2
played there.

A fellow named Gene Patronis, an Acoustic consultant for the gov't
spec'd in 12 contras (with a bunch of other high range stuff) in a
"battle field simulator", a special room at Aberdeen proving grounds
that had 36" thick concrete walls and could reproduce the sound of a 105
mm Howitzer at some distance. The sound system in this room could induce
"shell shock". Gene (a fellow who also like loud noises) said it was
very realistic, although I have no idea what actual levels it got to.

I think the loudest audible range sound we ever made was a compressed
air siren in the 300-600 HZ range (John do you remember that beast ugh).
It measured 155 dB at 6 feet and drained John's Big air compressor tank
in a few seconds, it also broke the welded seams in the steel horn it
was attached to. That was so loud at 20 feet that even with ear plugs
AND muffs with your hands clamped on them, it was still too loud, it
even made the bones in your face hurt. It was designed to shake the dust
out of cloth bag air filters at power plants and fortunatly we only had
to build and test one. Nasty Nasty Nasty.


Tom

Ey, the dylithium crystals canna take any more Cap'n



From: Thomas Danley
Cc: Erik Olson
Subject: Re: BassTech 7 and SPL ratings


> Subject: BassTech 7 and SPL ratings
> Date: Fri, 20 Feb 1998 13:20:16 -0800 (PST)
> From: Erik Olson


> Check out this brouchure on the ContraBass Page:
>
> http://www.mindspring.com/~sdinc/pages/contra_p19.html
>
> It is for the folded horn BassTech 7.
>
> They claim a sensitivity of:
> 1 unit (1W, 1m) 107.5 dB
> 4 units (1W, 1m) 110.0 dB
>
> SPL at full rated power: (28Hz - 125Hz)
> 1 unit 134 dB
> 4 units 141.5 dB
>
> Low Frequency Corner of: (-3dB)
> 1 unit 30 Hz
> 4 units 28 Hz
>


Hi all

One of the problems you run into measuring large speakers is that the
size of the boxes and the area of the source effects the measurments.
The spec sheet above was a preliminary one and had aparently type'o in
it although the response / phase / distortion measurments are ok.
To resolve the size issue we hired an independant consultant called
"Summit Labs" to set the units up (out in the desert in California) and
measure the units at 20 meters, a distance which reflects the true
acoustic power of the units and eliminates the size effect.
For the sensitivity measurments, the units were driven at 1/4 rated
power and then levels calculated back to 1 watt, 1 meter.


The sensitivity and efficiencys they reported are as follows.

1 BT-7 = 98 dB 1w/1m 3.8% efficiency

2 BT-7 = 104 dB 1w/1m 15.1% efficiency

4 BT-7 = 107 dB 1w/1m 30.2% efficiency

6 BT-7 = 109 dB 1w/1m 47.9% efficiency

I think ServoDrive is in the process of getting a web site
at www.servodrive.com, they can be reached at 847-724-5500.


Best Regards,

Tom



From: Thomas Danley
Subject: Re: Intersonic BT-7 - Indestructible?


> From: Douglas Purl
>
> On Tue, 24 Feb 1998, Nicholas McKinney wrote:
>
> > >Evidently, the poster's suggesting that the Intersonic BT-7 is easy to
> > >destroy. Wasn't this one of those systems based around the almost
> > >indestructable Contrabass-type system?
> >
> > Hello Brian,
> >
> > The people owning the Basstechs over here just had me put in regular sub
> > drivers because they kept blowing the motors. They could not get used to
> > the low distortion and just kept adding power until they exploded the
> > brushes and center shafts. Supposedly they have replaced these motors befor
e.
> >
> > I think that it is operator ignorance that kills these things. Turn it up
> > until it distorts, then back down a little kinda mentality.
>
>
> I had a long discussion a year or two ago with a corporation exec who had
> dealt with the problems of warranting destroyed company products. (Voice
> coils not uncommonly return to the factory carbonized.) There is much
> experience in the company in engineering, operating, etc., professional
> sound systems. Their conclusion is that many fellows operating gear have
> no more engineering understanding of the equipment they are operating than
> the average driver has of the operation of the engine and running gear of
> his automobile. Such operators burn up scads of equipment, even nominally
> bullet-proof gear.
[snip]
>
> No doubt Tom will respond on this, but surely Nicholas' caution is a good
> one. Many operators judge speaker overload by the predominance of
> harmonic distortion. The bass power of the CB systems misleads them into
> overdriving them.
>
> Doug Purl

Hi all

A person that says they have made something idiot proof or bullit proof
has not met some of the idiots I have run across in the pro sound biz.
Some are very sharp but some are well lets just say, not.


When we got in the pro speaker biz, we were using a overcomming the
skepticism of a new aproach which many didn't think could work and
overcomming the lack of a track record. The BT-7 was the last horn
system we designed and it was also the best. As John H. mentioned at
Brians web site, the system far surpassed the AES measurment criteria,
infact would technically pass even at 2X rated power but to be
conservative we kept the rating at 400 Watts. At that level, there "life
span" at full rated power from 28 to 90 HZ was about 96 - 108 hours, a
number of times the life of big name drivers in the same frequency
range.


On the other hand there are a small number of people who judge how hard
there driving speakers by the level of distortion and /or consider the
duty cycle of the red lights on there power amp as indicators of getting
there monies worth. The bass tech 7 can be damaged by either type of
person, frequent clipping and / or substancial over powering will damage
the driver, rather than instant failure, this damage accumulates until
parts fail (in this order acording to repair record) 1st drive belts,
cone assemblies and then motor repair.


In some cases, the large touring sound companies can aparently afford a
substancial driver mortality. On Micheal Jacksons thriller tour, 16
ServoDrives were added to improve the bass in a Giant sound system where
24 dual 18" vented boxes were the subwoofer system. The cone system was
loosing 10 to 12 drivers PER SHOW. Switching to ServoDrives gave them
more and deeper bass in less truck space and they went 51 shows before
service was needed. The sound company was pleased with both performance
and relaibility and has since used more of them for other artists. In
there case getting the most sound in the smallest space was there main
concern and reduced service was a plus.

Many servodrives (about 500) are hidden in various places at Disney
theme parks & Epcott, in there case, the reliability in difficult to
service locations was there concern, getting better bass was a plus.


In short, the Bass Tech 7 got the reputation for producing the loudest,
cleanest bass you could get in a given space and was proved reliable if
driven within reason.
Best Regards,


Tom



From: Thomas Danley
Subject: Re: driver measurements and jerks


> Oliver Friedman wrote:
>
> > Limit the input bandwidth!
>
> Since our directional hearing sense indicates a differential time
> perception of 10 us or better, bandwidth less than 100KHz results in
> time distortion.


Differential is as in a 10us difference BETWEEN your ears not that you
can hear a delay of 10us presented to both ears.



> Further, most of the time distortion occurs in
> speakers, where it grows to 90-180 degrees at resonance. At 40 Hz, this
> is 12-25 milliseconds. Since harmonics typically shift phase with
> distance from the source, this doesn't sound at all bad; but moving cone
> drivers have a universal delay distortion mechanism as follows:


In the 15 1/2 years I have been measuring drivers with a TEF machine I
have never seen a driver alone that had more than -80 degrees of phase
shift, most are more like + - 30 to 60 deg. Point sources (if they have
a flat response) are constant acceleration devices.


The acceleration force is NOT the voltage input to the system but rather
the current and so the acoustic phase mirrors the phase of the current.
The moving mass of the system appears as capacitive reactance and hence
the 1 pole filter (of the velocity) is realised that is needed to offset
the changing radiation resistance vs frequency. In theory this would
yield a 90 deg phase shift but it is never that much in practice.
What makes real world things more complicated is the effect of
additional reactances in the system, for example in a sealed box the
driver has a leading phase below resonance, at resonance it is at zero
degrees and above resonance it is lagging (capacitive reactance). As the
frequency is increased, one reaches a point where the series inductance
and the motional reactance form a conjugate and the phase is again zero
degrees (this is the R-min point in the impedance curve). Above this
frequency the phase leads (inductive reactance). The actual acoustic
phase is typically no more than 40-60 deg either way due to the additional
effects and as you can see is at times leading, lagging and resistive
depending where one is in frequency.

> You also say "Since harmonics typically shift phase with
> distance from the source" What mechanism acounts for this? Sound does not
> chan ge velocity with frequency, why doesn't this show up when you measure
> speakers?


> (1) The ratio of sound pressure level to cone displacement rises with
> the ratio of cone area to wavelength at +6db/octave.


What are you getting at here?

> (2) The moving mass of the cone system and the combined compliance of
> the speaker suspension and air spring formed by the box volume comprise
> a first-order resonator. The amplitude response of this resonator to
> applied force is -6db/octave above and below the resonance. This
> combines with the "air transduction curve" in (1) to yield flat response
> above the resonance and -12db/octave below the resonance.


The slope on the radiation resistance DOES not impose a phase shift, it
is simply a changing resistance. The 6dB per octave slope on the
driver's velocity is as explained above, at most a -90 degree shift.


There is much more on the page ...
 

Omar Cumming

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I got yer subwoofer right here:
 

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richard12511

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A bit OT...

Please read those posting from one of the great minds of aUdio .. Tom Danley.. A bit under the radar because he is most invested in the commercial (Read PA) sector but Man! The Man is innovative ... The ServoDrive is beyond capable ...

We tend to look down PA.... SOme PA system will run circles around many expensive AUdio systems in all that matters.. from FR.. Phase coherence, anny objective metrics, you care for.
Read on:
God of Bass postings (Tom Danley)

From: Thomas Danley
Subject: Re: We need more power, Capn!


> From: Mike Ford
>
> At 7:16 PM -0800 2/6/98, Cathleen & John Halliburton wrote:
>
> > Ten BassTech 7 cabinets running in the warehouse, or twelve Contrabasses,
> > or a sonic boom
>
> Makes me ask a couple of questions,
>
> What is the largest array of basstech 7 cabinets ever fired up and tested?
>
> Running the two sets of 6 BT7s as described in the U2 concert at full
> power, how far away would I have to be to get a good blend with my Quad ESL
> 63s (average max spl around 98 dB)?


Hi

I don't recall the largest number we tested, probably about 12 or 16,
there begins to be a point that doing this indoors even in a wharehouse
becomes dangerous, remember that 132 dB is about 2 pounds of pressure
per square foot and hearing decent bass on the out side of a cinder
block and brick wall means its moving and there not supposed to.
Inside, you can actually get to the point where you have "enough bass".
12 BT-7's can produce 2400 acoustic watts from 28 to 125 HZ, steady
state which is pretty loud. 12 units, close coupled also is large enough
to have some directivity but disregarding that increase in on axis SPL,
2400 acoustic watts from a point source would be about 126.8 dB at 10
meters, at 80 meters about 108 dB and at 160 meters, 102 dB and at 320
meters would have fallen to 96.8 dB. By 5620 meters (3 1/2 miles) the
sound would have fallen to a modest 72.8 dB. I guess thats why the World
music theater got "Bass" complaints from more than 5 miles away when U-2
played there.

A fellow named Gene Patronis, an Acoustic consultant for the gov't
spec'd in 12 contras (with a bunch of other high range stuff) in a
"battle field simulator", a special room at Aberdeen proving grounds
that had 36" thick concrete walls and could reproduce the sound of a 105
mm Howitzer at some distance. The sound system in this room could induce
"shell shock". Gene (a fellow who also like loud noises) said it was
very realistic, although I have no idea what actual levels it got to.

I think the loudest audible range sound we ever made was a compressed
air siren in the 300-600 HZ range (John do you remember that beast ugh).
It measured 155 dB at 6 feet and drained John's Big air compressor tank
in a few seconds, it also broke the welded seams in the steel horn it
was attached to. That was so loud at 20 feet that even with ear plugs
AND muffs with your hands clamped on them, it was still too loud, it
even made the bones in your face hurt. It was designed to shake the dust
out of cloth bag air filters at power plants and fortunatly we only had
to build and test one. Nasty Nasty Nasty.


Tom

Ey, the dylithium crystals canna take any more Cap'n



From: Thomas Danley
Cc: Erik Olson
Subject: Re: BassTech 7 and SPL ratings


> Subject: BassTech 7 and SPL ratings
> Date: Fri, 20 Feb 1998 13:20:16 -0800 (PST)
> From: Erik Olson


> Check out this brouchure on the ContraBass Page:
>
> http://www.mindspring.com/~sdinc/pages/contra_p19.html
>
> It is for the folded horn BassTech 7.
>
> They claim a sensitivity of:
> 1 unit (1W, 1m) 107.5 dB
> 4 units (1W, 1m) 110.0 dB
>
> SPL at full rated power: (28Hz - 125Hz)
> 1 unit 134 dB
> 4 units 141.5 dB
>
> Low Frequency Corner of: (-3dB)
> 1 unit 30 Hz
> 4 units 28 Hz
>


Hi all

One of the problems you run into measuring large speakers is that the
size of the boxes and the area of the source effects the measurments.
The spec sheet above was a preliminary one and had aparently type'o in
it although the response / phase / distortion measurments are ok.
To resolve the size issue we hired an independant consultant called
"Summit Labs" to set the units up (out in the desert in California) and
measure the units at 20 meters, a distance which reflects the true
acoustic power of the units and eliminates the size effect.
For the sensitivity measurments, the units were driven at 1/4 rated
power and then levels calculated back to 1 watt, 1 meter.


The sensitivity and efficiencys they reported are as follows.

1 BT-7 = 98 dB 1w/1m 3.8% efficiency

2 BT-7 = 104 dB 1w/1m 15.1% efficiency

4 BT-7 = 107 dB 1w/1m 30.2% efficiency

6 BT-7 = 109 dB 1w/1m 47.9% efficiency

I think ServoDrive is in the process of getting a web site
at www.servodrive.com, they can be reached at 847-724-5500.


Best Regards,

Tom



From: Thomas Danley
Subject: Re: Intersonic BT-7 - Indestructible?


> From: Douglas Purl
>
> On Tue, 24 Feb 1998, Nicholas McKinney wrote:
>
> > >Evidently, the poster's suggesting that the Intersonic BT-7 is easy to
> > >destroy. Wasn't this one of those systems based around the almost
> > >indestructable Contrabass-type system?
> >
> > Hello Brian,
> >
> > The people owning the Basstechs over here just had me put in regular sub
> > drivers because they kept blowing the motors. They could not get used to
> > the low distortion and just kept adding power until they exploded the
> > brushes and center shafts. Supposedly they have replaced these motors befor
e.
> >
> > I think that it is operator ignorance that kills these things. Turn it up
> > until it distorts, then back down a little kinda mentality.
>
>
> I had a long discussion a year or two ago with a corporation exec who had
> dealt with the problems of warranting destroyed company products. (Voice
> coils not uncommonly return to the factory carbonized.) There is much
> experience in the company in engineering, operating, etc., professional
> sound systems. Their conclusion is that many fellows operating gear have
> no more engineering understanding of the equipment they are operating than
> the average driver has of the operation of the engine and running gear of
> his automobile. Such operators burn up scads of equipment, even nominally
> bullet-proof gear.
[snip]
>
> No doubt Tom will respond on this, but surely Nicholas' caution is a good
> one. Many operators judge speaker overload by the predominance of
> harmonic distortion. The bass power of the CB systems misleads them into
> overdriving them.
>
> Doug Purl

Hi all

A person that says they have made something idiot proof or bullit proof
has not met some of the idiots I have run across in the pro sound biz.
Some are very sharp but some are well lets just say, not.


When we got in the pro speaker biz, we were using a overcomming the
skepticism of a new aproach which many didn't think could work and
overcomming the lack of a track record. The BT-7 was the last horn
system we designed and it was also the best. As John H. mentioned at
Brians web site, the system far surpassed the AES measurment criteria,
infact would technically pass even at 2X rated power but to be
conservative we kept the rating at 400 Watts. At that level, there "life
span" at full rated power from 28 to 90 HZ was about 96 - 108 hours, a
number of times the life of big name drivers in the same frequency
range.


On the other hand there are a small number of people who judge how hard
there driving speakers by the level of distortion and /or consider the
duty cycle of the red lights on there power amp as indicators of getting
there monies worth. The bass tech 7 can be damaged by either type of
person, frequent clipping and / or substancial over powering will damage
the driver, rather than instant failure, this damage accumulates until
parts fail (in this order acording to repair record) 1st drive belts,
cone assemblies and then motor repair.


In some cases, the large touring sound companies can aparently afford a
substancial driver mortality. On Micheal Jacksons thriller tour, 16
ServoDrives were added to improve the bass in a Giant sound system where
24 dual 18" vented boxes were the subwoofer system. The cone system was
loosing 10 to 12 drivers PER SHOW. Switching to ServoDrives gave them
more and deeper bass in less truck space and they went 51 shows before
service was needed. The sound company was pleased with both performance
and relaibility and has since used more of them for other artists. In
there case getting the most sound in the smallest space was there main
concern and reduced service was a plus.

Many servodrives (about 500) are hidden in various places at Disney
theme parks & Epcott, in there case, the reliability in difficult to
service locations was there concern, getting better bass was a plus.


In short, the Bass Tech 7 got the reputation for producing the loudest,
cleanest bass you could get in a given space and was proved reliable if
driven within reason.
Best Regards,


Tom



From: Thomas Danley
Subject: Re: driver measurements and jerks


> Oliver Friedman wrote:
>
> > Limit the input bandwidth!
>
> Since our directional hearing sense indicates a differential time
> perception of 10 us or better, bandwidth less than 100KHz results in
> time distortion.


Differential is as in a 10us difference BETWEEN your ears not that you
can hear a delay of 10us presented to both ears.



> Further, most of the time distortion occurs in
> speakers, where it grows to 90-180 degrees at resonance. At 40 Hz, this
> is 12-25 milliseconds. Since harmonics typically shift phase with
> distance from the source, this doesn't sound at all bad; but moving cone
> drivers have a universal delay distortion mechanism as follows:


In the 15 1/2 years I have been measuring drivers with a TEF machine I
have never seen a driver alone that had more than -80 degrees of phase
shift, most are more like + - 30 to 60 deg. Point sources (if they have
a flat response) are constant acceleration devices.


The acceleration force is NOT the voltage input to the system but rather
the current and so the acoustic phase mirrors the phase of the current.
The moving mass of the system appears as capacitive reactance and hence
the 1 pole filter (of the velocity) is realised that is needed to offset
the changing radiation resistance vs frequency. In theory this would
yield a 90 deg phase shift but it is never that much in practice.
What makes real world things more complicated is the effect of
additional reactances in the system, for example in a sealed box the
driver has a leading phase below resonance, at resonance it is at zero
degrees and above resonance it is lagging (capacitive reactance). As the
frequency is increased, one reaches a point where the series inductance
and the motional reactance form a conjugate and the phase is again zero
degrees (this is the R-min point in the impedance curve). Above this
frequency the phase leads (inductive reactance). The actual acoustic
phase is typically no more than 40-60 deg either way due to the additional
effects and as you can see is at times leading, lagging and resistive
depending where one is in frequency.

> You also say "Since harmonics typically shift phase with
> distance from the source" What mechanism acounts for this? Sound does not
> chan ge velocity with frequency, why doesn't this show up when you measure
> speakers?


> (1) The ratio of sound pressure level to cone displacement rises with
> the ratio of cone area to wavelength at +6db/octave.


What are you getting at here?

> (2) The moving mass of the cone system and the combined compliance of
> the speaker suspension and air spring formed by the box volume comprise
> a first-order resonator. The amplitude response of this resonator to
> applied force is -6db/octave above and below the resonance. This
> combines with the "air transduction curve" in (1) to yield flat response
> above the resonance and -12db/octave below the resonance.


The slope on the radiation resistance DOES not impose a phase shift, it
is simply a changing resistance. The 6dB per octave slope on the
driver's velocity is as explained above, at most a -90 degree shift.


There is much more on the page ...

Would love to see some Danley loudspeakers tested here. I'm of huge fan of Danley!
 
OP
pozz

pozz

Слава Україні
Forum Donor
Editor
Joined
May 21, 2019
Messages
4,036
Likes
6,827
A bit OT...

Please read those posting from one of the great minds of aUdio .. Tom Danley.. A bit under the radar because he is most invested in the commercial (Read PA) sector but Man! The Man is innovative ... The ServoDrive is beyond capable ...

We tend to look down PA.... SOme PA system will run circles around many expensive AUdio systems in all that matters.. from FR.. Phase coherence, anny objective metrics, you care for.
Read on:
God of Bass postings (Tom Danley)

From: Thomas Danley
Subject: Re: We need more power, Capn!


> From: Mike Ford
>
> At 7:16 PM -0800 2/6/98, Cathleen & John Halliburton wrote:
>
> > Ten BassTech 7 cabinets running in the warehouse, or twelve Contrabasses,
> > or a sonic boom
>
> Makes me ask a couple of questions,
>
> What is the largest array of basstech 7 cabinets ever fired up and tested?
>
> Running the two sets of 6 BT7s as described in the U2 concert at full
> power, how far away would I have to be to get a good blend with my Quad ESL
> 63s (average max spl around 98 dB)?


Hi

I don't recall the largest number we tested, probably about 12 or 16,
there begins to be a point that doing this indoors even in a wharehouse
becomes dangerous, remember that 132 dB is about 2 pounds of pressure
per square foot and hearing decent bass on the out side of a cinder
block and brick wall means its moving and there not supposed to.
Inside, you can actually get to the point where you have "enough bass".
12 BT-7's can produce 2400 acoustic watts from 28 to 125 HZ, steady
state which is pretty loud. 12 units, close coupled also is large enough
to have some directivity but disregarding that increase in on axis SPL,
2400 acoustic watts from a point source would be about 126.8 dB at 10
meters, at 80 meters about 108 dB and at 160 meters, 102 dB and at 320
meters would have fallen to 96.8 dB. By 5620 meters (3 1/2 miles) the
sound would have fallen to a modest 72.8 dB. I guess thats why the World
music theater got "Bass" complaints from more than 5 miles away when U-2
played there.

A fellow named Gene Patronis, an Acoustic consultant for the gov't
spec'd in 12 contras (with a bunch of other high range stuff) in a
"battle field simulator", a special room at Aberdeen proving grounds
that had 36" thick concrete walls and could reproduce the sound of a 105
mm Howitzer at some distance. The sound system in this room could induce
"shell shock". Gene (a fellow who also like loud noises) said it was
very realistic, although I have no idea what actual levels it got to.

I think the loudest audible range sound we ever made was a compressed
air siren in the 300-600 HZ range (John do you remember that beast ugh).
It measured 155 dB at 6 feet and drained John's Big air compressor tank
in a few seconds, it also broke the welded seams in the steel horn it
was attached to. That was so loud at 20 feet that even with ear plugs
AND muffs with your hands clamped on them, it was still too loud, it
even made the bones in your face hurt. It was designed to shake the dust
out of cloth bag air filters at power plants and fortunatly we only had
to build and test one. Nasty Nasty Nasty.


Tom

Ey, the dylithium crystals canna take any more Cap'n



From: Thomas Danley
Cc: Erik Olson
Subject: Re: BassTech 7 and SPL ratings


> Subject: BassTech 7 and SPL ratings
> Date: Fri, 20 Feb 1998 13:20:16 -0800 (PST)
> From: Erik Olson


> Check out this brouchure on the ContraBass Page:
>
> http://www.mindspring.com/~sdinc/pages/contra_p19.html
>
> It is for the folded horn BassTech 7.
>
> They claim a sensitivity of:
> 1 unit (1W, 1m) 107.5 dB
> 4 units (1W, 1m) 110.0 dB
>
> SPL at full rated power: (28Hz - 125Hz)
> 1 unit 134 dB
> 4 units 141.5 dB
>
> Low Frequency Corner of: (-3dB)
> 1 unit 30 Hz
> 4 units 28 Hz
>


Hi all

One of the problems you run into measuring large speakers is that the
size of the boxes and the area of the source effects the measurments.
The spec sheet above was a preliminary one and had aparently type'o in
it although the response / phase / distortion measurments are ok.
To resolve the size issue we hired an independant consultant called
"Summit Labs" to set the units up (out in the desert in California) and
measure the units at 20 meters, a distance which reflects the true
acoustic power of the units and eliminates the size effect.
For the sensitivity measurments, the units were driven at 1/4 rated
power and then levels calculated back to 1 watt, 1 meter.


The sensitivity and efficiencys they reported are as follows.

1 BT-7 = 98 dB 1w/1m 3.8% efficiency

2 BT-7 = 104 dB 1w/1m 15.1% efficiency

4 BT-7 = 107 dB 1w/1m 30.2% efficiency

6 BT-7 = 109 dB 1w/1m 47.9% efficiency

I think ServoDrive is in the process of getting a web site
at www.servodrive.com, they can be reached at 847-724-5500.


Best Regards,

Tom



From: Thomas Danley
Subject: Re: Intersonic BT-7 - Indestructible?


> From: Douglas Purl
>
> On Tue, 24 Feb 1998, Nicholas McKinney wrote:
>
> > >Evidently, the poster's suggesting that the Intersonic BT-7 is easy to
> > >destroy. Wasn't this one of those systems based around the almost
> > >indestructable Contrabass-type system?
> >
> > Hello Brian,
> >
> > The people owning the Basstechs over here just had me put in regular sub
> > drivers because they kept blowing the motors. They could not get used to
> > the low distortion and just kept adding power until they exploded the
> > brushes and center shafts. Supposedly they have replaced these motors befor
e.
> >
> > I think that it is operator ignorance that kills these things. Turn it up
> > until it distorts, then back down a little kinda mentality.
>
>
> I had a long discussion a year or two ago with a corporation exec who had
> dealt with the problems of warranting destroyed company products. (Voice
> coils not uncommonly return to the factory carbonized.) There is much
> experience in the company in engineering, operating, etc., professional
> sound systems. Their conclusion is that many fellows operating gear have
> no more engineering understanding of the equipment they are operating than
> the average driver has of the operation of the engine and running gear of
> his automobile. Such operators burn up scads of equipment, even nominally
> bullet-proof gear.
[snip]
>
> No doubt Tom will respond on this, but surely Nicholas' caution is a good
> one. Many operators judge speaker overload by the predominance of
> harmonic distortion. The bass power of the CB systems misleads them into
> overdriving them.
>
> Doug Purl

Hi all

A person that says they have made something idiot proof or bullit proof
has not met some of the idiots I have run across in the pro sound biz.
Some are very sharp but some are well lets just say, not.


When we got in the pro speaker biz, we were using a overcomming the
skepticism of a new aproach which many didn't think could work and
overcomming the lack of a track record. The BT-7 was the last horn
system we designed and it was also the best. As John H. mentioned at
Brians web site, the system far surpassed the AES measurment criteria,
infact would technically pass even at 2X rated power but to be
conservative we kept the rating at 400 Watts. At that level, there "life
span" at full rated power from 28 to 90 HZ was about 96 - 108 hours, a
number of times the life of big name drivers in the same frequency
range.


On the other hand there are a small number of people who judge how hard
there driving speakers by the level of distortion and /or consider the
duty cycle of the red lights on there power amp as indicators of getting
there monies worth. The bass tech 7 can be damaged by either type of
person, frequent clipping and / or substancial over powering will damage
the driver, rather than instant failure, this damage accumulates until
parts fail (in this order acording to repair record) 1st drive belts,
cone assemblies and then motor repair.


In some cases, the large touring sound companies can aparently afford a
substancial driver mortality. On Micheal Jacksons thriller tour, 16
ServoDrives were added to improve the bass in a Giant sound system where
24 dual 18" vented boxes were the subwoofer system. The cone system was
loosing 10 to 12 drivers PER SHOW. Switching to ServoDrives gave them
more and deeper bass in less truck space and they went 51 shows before
service was needed. The sound company was pleased with both performance
and relaibility and has since used more of them for other artists. In
there case getting the most sound in the smallest space was there main
concern and reduced service was a plus.

Many servodrives (about 500) are hidden in various places at Disney
theme parks & Epcott, in there case, the reliability in difficult to
service locations was there concern, getting better bass was a plus.


In short, the Bass Tech 7 got the reputation for producing the loudest,
cleanest bass you could get in a given space and was proved reliable if
driven within reason.
Best Regards,


Tom



From: Thomas Danley
Subject: Re: driver measurements and jerks


> Oliver Friedman wrote:
>
> > Limit the input bandwidth!
>
> Since our directional hearing sense indicates a differential time
> perception of 10 us or better, bandwidth less than 100KHz results in
> time distortion.


Differential is as in a 10us difference BETWEEN your ears not that you
can hear a delay of 10us presented to both ears.



> Further, most of the time distortion occurs in
> speakers, where it grows to 90-180 degrees at resonance. At 40 Hz, this
> is 12-25 milliseconds. Since harmonics typically shift phase with
> distance from the source, this doesn't sound at all bad; but moving cone
> drivers have a universal delay distortion mechanism as follows:


In the 15 1/2 years I have been measuring drivers with a TEF machine I
have never seen a driver alone that had more than -80 degrees of phase
shift, most are more like + - 30 to 60 deg. Point sources (if they have
a flat response) are constant acceleration devices.


The acceleration force is NOT the voltage input to the system but rather
the current and so the acoustic phase mirrors the phase of the current.
The moving mass of the system appears as capacitive reactance and hence
the 1 pole filter (of the velocity) is realised that is needed to offset
the changing radiation resistance vs frequency. In theory this would
yield a 90 deg phase shift but it is never that much in practice.
What makes real world things more complicated is the effect of
additional reactances in the system, for example in a sealed box the
driver has a leading phase below resonance, at resonance it is at zero
degrees and above resonance it is lagging (capacitive reactance). As the
frequency is increased, one reaches a point where the series inductance
and the motional reactance form a conjugate and the phase is again zero
degrees (this is the R-min point in the impedance curve). Above this
frequency the phase leads (inductive reactance). The actual acoustic
phase is typically no more than 40-60 deg either way due to the additional
effects and as you can see is at times leading, lagging and resistive
depending where one is in frequency.

> You also say "Since harmonics typically shift phase with
> distance from the source" What mechanism acounts for this? Sound does not
> chan ge velocity with frequency, why doesn't this show up when you measure
> speakers?


> (1) The ratio of sound pressure level to cone displacement rises with
> the ratio of cone area to wavelength at +6db/octave.


What are you getting at here?

> (2) The moving mass of the cone system and the combined compliance of
> the speaker suspension and air spring formed by the box volume comprise
> a first-order resonator. The amplitude response of this resonator to
> applied force is -6db/octave above and below the resonance. This
> combines with the "air transduction curve" in (1) to yield flat response
> above the resonance and -12db/octave below the resonance.


The slope on the radiation resistance DOES not impose a phase shift, it
is simply a changing resistance. The 6dB per octave slope on the
driver's velocity is as explained above, at most a -90 degree shift.


There is much more on the page ...
I spent a while exploring that website...

Tactile transducers: you can attach them anywhere and they will provide nice shakes at low SPL. Nice augmentation for a regular system.

I briefly thought about buying a haptic vest for similar reasons. What's out there is kind of gimmicky though (in terms of wearables, I mean).
 

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