Upcoming Tom Danley Hifi speakers

[fluid]

I do use modeling for horns, I design a lot of horns at work, often a program called AKABAK (what i used to find the Tapped Horn design) but there are some fudge factors and other issues that must be compensated in order to get the predicted results to match the measured results.

Thanks for taking the time to try and answer my questions. I used ABEC for the modelling which came from the same developer after the AKABAK you used.

Fwiw, the exit wave shape from compression drivers can be quite different, the ones with a dome and phase plug can be from planar to curved while the ring radiation compression drivers tend to produce an expanding wavefront.

How were you able to determine the shape of the wavefront from the different compression drivers?

 

[Tom Danley]

Thanks for taking the time to try and answer my questions. I used ABEC for the modelling which came from the same developer after the AKABAK you used.

View attachment 134579

View attachment 134580

How were you able to determine the shape of the wavefront from the different compression drivers?

Hi
How to sus the output shape from a compression driver or other sound source?.
In the late 80's and 90's one of my jobs was to develop sound sources for acoustic levitation. These generally run at a bit over 20KHz and making a directional source was imperative as the intensity needed was quite high, levitation began around 155dB.

Sound is both pressure changes AND velocity of air molecules separated by 90 degrees in phase or quadrature.
I developed a way to "see" the velocity in such a sound field, attached is a photo of a levitator sound field at 21KHz.
Dark is loud haha.
When there is an interference pattern (lobes and nulls), one see's it in this kind of scan .
The down side is this requires the driver to be pretty loud which may or may not be a problem

One can also probe the sound field with a capillary tube (tiny diameter tube) attached to a 1/8 inch microphone, for a compression driver, scanning across the opening can show amplitude and phase vs postion. This is a tedious process while the image in the picture took about 15 seconds

The TDS approach also allows one to measure arrival time or "distance" the same way.

To gather the Time information TDS uses a linear sweep signal as the source which is multiplied against the returning mic signal. The result of multiplication (modulation) of two signals is a sum and difference frequency and given the sweep rate and resulting difference Frequency (as the mic signal is always a little behind in frequency) , when converted one has the time it took for the signal to emerge after arriving at the terminals or distance.
It's been a while since I looked at this stuff but I did observe a trend.
When you look into the driver, past the bug screen, generally speaking, the smaller in diameter the passageway gets, the more likely it is to radiate a simple shape or contour as that small acoustic dimension forces / leans towards simple radiation.
For the normal "ring" style phase plug, that can be more complicated and Celestion for example has taken a good hard look at what emerges from the phase plug. The larger drivers like 2 inch exits tended to be the "least simple".
The ring radiator compression drivers tend to direct the energy to the center where it begins the conical horn shape at a small dimension.
I am not up to speed on ABEC and it took a while to get the hang of AKABAK but it has proven to be very useful.
Best,
Tom

 

[pozz]

@Tom Danley Below are directivity plots for the SH50 and SH60 from your Polar Explorer software (wonderful by the way).

So it should be expected that the Hyperion will look roughly the same?

 

[Tom Danley]

@Tom Danley Below are directivity plots for the SH50 and SH60 from your Polar Explorer software (wonderful by the way).

View attachment 134718

So it should be expected that the Hyperion will look roughly the same?

Hi
The polar explorer is a fun tool, I don't know if the picture is still up but the original intro page was a guy covered in ice haha.
That program but more so the Direct program is used in a lot of large room designs, it much easier and faster than EASE the other popular design program. It produces a direct coverage map based on the measured patterns of the various loudspeakers.

Both the SH-50 and SH-60 are 7 driver, 3 way Baltic Birch Synergy horns with one having a slightly narrower pattern. Both of these look pretty similar.
The one you should look at is the SM-60F which is the same molded horn i used in the new speaker (with 4 of the ports closed off).
These were 5 degree full spherical measurements taken by an independent lab at 8 Meters distance displayed in the CLF format and so may or may not be directly relatable to the polar plots taken closer
Tom

 

[pozz]

SM-60F

Impressive. I can see why some use it in their living rooms.

 

[Stu Pidasso]

@Tom Danley I have lived with both the SH-60's and the SH-50's and while I don't have any measurements other than my ears, I found the SH-50's are somehow better sounding to me. I set the two pair up and A/B them for friends and every one of them also found the SH-50's to be more pleasing to listen to. I've not listened to the SM-60's but I purchased a pair on Wednesday to see how they sound in comparison to the SH-50's which are my reference speakers now. I doubt I'm the first person to find the SH-50 sounding better than the SH-60, can you comment on why this may be?

 

[Tom Danley]

@Tom Danley I have lived with both the SH-60's and the SH-50's and while I don't have any measurements other than my ears, I found the SH-50's are somehow better sounding to me. I set the two pair up and A/B them for friends and every one of them also found the SH-50's to be more pleasing to listen to. I've not listened to the SM-60's but I purchased a pair on Wednesday to see how they sound in comparison to the SH-50's which are my reference speakers now. I doubt I'm the first person to find the SH-50 sounding better than the SH-60, can you comment on why this may be?

Hi
I would have to agree with you, of the two in my living room, I prefer the stock SH-50 over the stock SM-60. There are several differences, the SH-50 has a lower pattern loss frequency, it goes down lower and can go louder and at living room levels, the passive SM-60 crossover was much harder to make work as well as the SH-50 even through the SH-50 is pretty old. If you match the frequency responses, they sound very similar.

Recall too neither of these were intended for home use but it's cool when people do that.

I have made prototypes of the SM-60 with a crossover that worked more ideally on two occasions but there is a problem with how much space there is inside that cabinet and how low / loud they can go. My target then was soffit mounted monitor speakers which is a rapidly shrinking area so I ended up making a studio monitor that was much smaller. The passive crossover issue with the SM-60 is the hf driver is just short of 2 inches too early to be ideal.
On the other hand, the SM-60 horn body was my first choice for the new speaker as the acoustic relationships in the horn are good and it's small and while you can't fiddle with time passively very easily, it's a snap with dsp and the subwoofer section takes care of "not low enough".

I do want to make a "home" version of an SH-50 with a new passive crossover and some driver changes at some point, I think >100dB 1W !m sensitivity would breath new life into a lot of amplifiers.

I don't know if you have the gear or would be interested but if you measure each speaker on a step ladder out doors, you can make a global DSP correction, if you have something like a mini-dsp open drc that has FIR filters, you can correct the magnitude and phase.
Anyway, if you have the stuff, do give it a try, unlike many multi-way speakers, the correction applies everywhere in front equally.

Hey, if you want to take a shot at going fully active, I can give you a place to start with an alignment..

Tom

 

[Adam Bernau]

View attachment 132096

The WAF would be probably very low.. But i love the industrial design, btw the shape reminds me little bit of these small japanese fullranges by Hora..

 

[richard12511]

I've come to the conclusion that I need multiple listening rooms with different dispersion patterns. Nothing has equaled that laser beam holographic imaging I heard with the SH50(JTR 212RT comes pretty close). At the same time, those speakers don't give me the sense of envelopment and spaciousness I get with a Revel Salon2. Unfortunately, I'm not ready to spend that much atm.

 

[Newman]

One-trick ponies are easy. Balanced all-round performance is most gratifying. Envelopment and spaciousness are essential to the latter.

 

[richard12511]

One-trick ponies are easy. Balanced all-round performance is most gratifying. Envelopment and spaciousness are essential to the latter.

Do you have suggestions? Genelec 8351b + subs are probably the best balanced system I've heard so far, but I'm always looking for something better.

 

[KSTR]

I do want to make a "home" version of an SH-50 with a new passive crossover and some driver changes at some point, I think >100dB 1W 1m sensitivity would breath new life into a lot of amplifiers.

If you do, you might consider an option for a break-out connector (4-channel Speakon) for direct access to the drivers, bypassing the passive XO. Basically a short Speakon link cable going from XO-Outs to driver Ins. Or just an XO-less option to save costs.

 

[voodooless]

@Tom Danley, what were the reasons for the specific coax choice (looks like BMS 5NC140)? Why not 5NC162 for instance? It looks smoother in the data sheet and can be crossed a bit lower.

 

[puppet]

If you do, you might consider an option for a break-out connector (4-channel Speakon) for direct access to the drivers, bypassing the passive XO. Basically a short Speakon link cable going from XO-Outs to driver Ins. Or just an XO-less option to save costs.

I can see why a maker like Danley wouldn't do this as well. A bit like Ferrari offering their 812 without a fueling/timing curves computer. Wouldn't really be a Ferrari anymore.

 

[KSTR]

@puppet, I see what you mean, OK.
Let's rephrase it like this; make it modding-friendly in that it is not a major PITA to get to the driver connections.
I know Tom's speaker are absolutely fine with their passive XO's (had a chance to hear SH50's and some floor monitors already) and this is just a suggestion.

 

[MarkS]

Did we ever get a price on these?

 

[puppet]

@puppet, I see what you mean, OK.

I don't think you do.

 

[Stu Pidasso]

The best place I have to listen to my SH-50's is outdoors. I live in eastern Washington in a rural town called Prosser... so I can do that. I welcome anyone who wishes to stop by and listen to them, just give me a heads up prior to showing up. At the moment my subs are a pair of ContraBass (because they're easier to move around compared to the Basstech 7's.) I just acquired a set of Danley XD118's that haven't arrived yet and am looking forward to hearing them, however they're also going to be somewhat unwieldy.

@Tom Danley I think I just may have the test gear / dsp to modify a pair of SH-50's with an active three channel amplified solution if you're willing to provide some hints for settings. The only caveat is I will either need to use onboard amplifier modules ( maybe Speaker Power or perhaps Power Physics ?) since I loan these out for events and right now being driven by a single Crown Studio Reference. Perhaps using an NL8 and a switch to bypass the internal crossover might be an approach to avoid having to buy the amplifier modules and a bunch of cutting holes in the enclosure.

Your occasional guidance in times past always helped me succeed when working on your systems. (Such as building servo drive belts, facilitating cooling on Basstech 7's etc.)

Wonder why that would be? ;-)

Still hoping for help with the two pair of Quantum Sound Focus Fields I own. They seem to exhibit an intermittent mechanical issue where the panels are connected at the front of the enclosure - think of a sagging gate rubbing when you try to open or close it.

To me, a working set of Focus Field speakers sound like Quad 57's only they play nice and loud and have no issues down to 100hz without the fear of letting the magic smoke out. Raise the hair on my neck, I'm not kidding you, and as long as you don't move from that three foot sweet spot, they're spooky.

 

[Stu Pidasso]

If you do, you might consider an option for a break-out connector (4-channel Speakon) for direct access to the drivers, bypassing the passive XO. Basically a short Speakon link cable going from XO-Outs to driver Ins. Or just an XO-less option to save costs.

I really need to pay more attention... but I came up with the same idea, somewhere a few messages past this one. The cost savings I was thinking was the ability to drive this with a single amplifier when you cannot lug the three amplifiers around when taking these to a wedding reception or something, and the plate amplifiers by Speaker Power and Power Physics cost the moon unless you're a manufacturer buying huge quantities.

 

[Newman]

Do you have suggestions? Genelec 8351b + subs are probably the best balanced system I've heard so far, but I'm always looking for something better.

I like your suggestion, actually.