Fane Sovereign 12-250TC project measurements

[ppataki]

what was the programme you used there please winisd?

Bass Box Pro

 

[Rednaxela]

@jamescarter1982

Gotcha, thanks. Haven’t heard the twelves myself either so most of it is theory on my part too.

 

[jamescarter1982]

Bass Box Pro

thankyou

 

[Rednaxela]

One edge I personally see that the fifteens do have over the twelves would be bass extension.

Here’s a project that tries to actively take advantage of this aspect.

Most others (including me at the time) seem to start out in a way that at one point they’re gonna think about adding bass drivers.

 

[ppataki]

One edge I personally see that the fifteens do have over the twelves would be bass extension.

Here’s a project that tries to actively take advantage of this aspect.

Most others (including me at the time) seem to start out in a way that at one point they’re gonna think about adding bass drivers.

One more advantage of the 15s that I would add is that they have 60% more cone surface area vs that of the 12s
530 sqcm vs 855 sqcm (each)
So it will move much more air in the room and I do believe that it will hence provide more impact and more presence (further contributing to that 'live' feeling)
You will physically feel the air pressure

 

[Rednaxela]

You will physically feel the air pressure

Only in the bass region right?

 

[ppataki]

Only in the bass region right?

Yes, basically any frequencies that come off of the 3rd cone (the biggest cone)

 

[Rednaxela]

All right, thanks.

So all else equal you’ll find your twelves having to go back and forth a bit further to produce the same impact as your fifteens. Which you may or may not notice. At the expense of benefits to the twelves you may or may not notice either.

Only one way to find out. Time to start building man!

 

[ppataki]

Time to start building man!

Well....as mentioned above, my current system has just been finished a few months ago so it would be a bit odd to replace it already
But definitely I am planning to do that - just need to figure out when exactly. Some time in the coming 9 months it will be done for sure
In the meantime I need to finish this project + this project........

 

[jamescarter1982]

I need to get these back out of storage and have a play with them . thanks op for posting this thread good to see other people out there interested in these drivers

 

[Rednaxela]

For what it’s worth, here is another opinion on the twelves vs. the fifteens.

Your loudspeakers are too small!

Then tell the ignorati that asking how to measure it is meaningless. (resisting getting sucked into yet one more eristic debate) Which, yet again, simply ignores the caveat I gave where specific examples of "micro dynamics" would obviously be measurable. But, yes, please do not succumb to...

www.audiosciencereview.com

Edit: opinions galore on line of course but because this one was posted on ASR I thought I’d link to it here as well.

 

[jamescarter1982]

One of my friends has built a pair of floorstanding loudspeakers using 12" Fane 12-250TC fullrange drivers. I am posting this on his behalf and with his permission.

Cabinet is sealed with the below parameters:

View attachment 215267

Made of 19mm baltic birch plywood using internal bracing (unfortunately I do not currently have the pictures of the inside of the cabinet)

The final result looks like this:
View attachment 215269

The objective measurements will follow below, also with the mdat file attached

Subjectively the sound is typcial to fullrange drivers:
- very 'live sound', you feel like you could talk to the musicians in the room
- extremely holographic presentation, each instrument has its own 3D space
- extremely precise soundstage
- very heavy DSP is needed to flatten the response (all the listenings were done with DSP - don't even try these without it, you will cry )

Now the measurements:

FR with zero correction (L/R channels)
1/12 smoothing

View attachment 215273

FR with full correction

View attachment 215274

Corrections were done using a combination of 'pre-EQ' low and high shelves followed by parametric EQ-ing using CraveEQ (Transparent Phase Mode) based on REW generated filters and then CurveEQ for further flattening of the response
Also tried Dirac Live but the resulting sound became a bit dull and lifeless compared to the above method

Now when listening to music using the above curves the bass was not there......
After measuring the LR channels combined the reason for that became apparent:

View attachment 215275

There is a huge cancellation dip between 50 and 100Hz when the two speakers are measured together
Normally we shall not touch this since unwanted ringing might occur if we try to compensate but we had no choice and applied some further filters to correct the summed response which looks like this after correction:

View attachment 215277

By listening we could not notice excessive ringing, I suspect due to the size of the room (70 sqm)
Bass came to life and the 'order of the world' is restored

Distortion looks OK too in my opinion:


Step response is pretty nice too:

View attachment 215280

Wavelet diagram:

View attachment 215281

Overall my friend is extremely happy with the results!

I cannot upload the measurement since it is too big but here is the link to it:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/17ZQfNaIoeTs3OJc9DGobv_K5fRjhnc7H/view?usp=sharing

I would encourage anybody to try a big fullrange driver (with adequate DSP) - the listening experience is worth the effort

could you tell me is this considered a low distortion loudspeaker driver ive read the distortion to be 0.843% is that correct please ? .
many thanks

 

[ppataki]

could you tell me is this considered a low distortion loudspeaker driver ive read the distortion to be 0.843% is that correct please ? .
many thanks

If you take a look at the distortion graph you will see that above 100Hz it is kept in check; however below 100Hz it has peaks up to 5%
This is inevitable when you compensate for the low end of sealed cabinets (either with low shelf or Linkwitz Transform filters)
Also note that when there is a dip in the frequency graph that translates into elevated distortion in the distortion graph
I can tell you that this is still totally inaudible

 

[jamescarter1982]

If you take a look at the distortion graph you will see that above 100Hz it is kept in check; however below 100Hz it has peaks up to 5%
This is inevitable when you compensate for the low end of sealed cabinets (either with low shelf or Linkwitz Transform filters)
Also note that when there is a dip in the frequency graph that translates into elevated distortion in the distortion graph
I can tell you that this is still totally inaudible

OK thankyou so above 100hz were down around 0.5 percent .I understand about raising distortion in the bass by forcing the driver to work harder in a sealed cabinet . that could be solved by using a separate bass driver if you really wanted .
is the 0.5 above 100hz low for a speaker driver I'm trying to correlate the relaxed unforced sound I hear with the distortion measurements if that's possible

 

[ppataki]

that could be solved by using a separate bass driver if you really wanted .

Correct, but I deliberately will not do that since it would defeat the concept of a 1-way system

is the 0.5 above 100hz low for a speaker driver I'm trying to correlate the relaxed unforced sound I hear with the distortion measurements if that's possible

In my opinion yes, 0.5% above 100Hz can be considered a good value

See the distortion graph for my current MCLA system at 75dB:

I am totally not worried about this - it sounds awesome

This is the distortion graph of a Nubert nuBox 483 at 75dB:

Does not look much better above 100Hz (and it is a 2-way speaker)

Finally, the distortion graph of this project at 75dB:

As you rightly pointed out, using a sub would reduce the distortion, but again, I personally cannot hear those ~5% values for the other systems I quoted

 

[jamescarter1982]

Correct, but I deliberately will not do that since it would defeat the concept of a 1-way system


In my opinion yes, 0.5% above 100Hz can be considered a good value

See the distortion graph for my current MCLA system at 75dB:

View attachment 220142

I am totally not worried about this - it sounds awesome

This is the distortion graph of a Nubert nuBox 483 at 75dB:

View attachment 220143

Does not look much better above 100Hz (and it is a 2-way speaker)

Finally, the distortion graph of this project at 75dB:

View attachment 220144

As you rightly pointed out, using a sub would reduce the distortion, but again, I personally cannot hear those ~5% values for the other systems I quoted

thankyou all interesting reading . have you ever tried removing the low bass using eq to see if that had any effect on the distortion of the higher frequencies my theory would be the driver would be moving less if not asked to produce bass so then might have even lower distortion .
these graphs do make me think we might be living with speakers that have a lot more distortion and are either used to it or unable to hear it

 

[ppataki]

thankyou all interesting reading . have you ever tried removing the low bass using eq to see if that had any effect on the distortion of the higher frequencies my theory would be the driver would be moving less if not asked to produce bass so then might have even lower distortion .
these graphs do make me think we might be living with speakers that have a lot more distortion and are either used to it or unable to hear it

Yes I did that

I applied a 24dB/oct. high-pass filter at 23Hz to my MCLA system

See the distortion graphs overlayed (the one with the cut highlighted)

Apparently there is no impact on the higher frequencies

Even if I zoom in:

 

[jamescarter1982]

Yes I did that

I applied a 24dB/oct. high-pass filter at 23Hz to my MCLA system

See the distortion graphs overlayed (the one with the cut highlighted)
View attachment 220151

Apparently there is no impact on the higher frequencies

Even if I zoom in:

View attachment 220152

thankyou I think it would depend on frequency cut and also level . and maybe vary from speaker to speaker . my idea would be to cut around 100hz or something like that . hoe do you perform these tests is it a frequency sweep with a mic close to the speaker cone can you do these tests on a budget I'd be jnsterested to do some myself

 

[jamescarter1982]

Yes I did that

I applied a 24dB/oct. high-pass filter at 23Hz to my MCLA system

See the distortion graphs overlayed (the one with the cut highlighted)
View attachment 220151

Apparently there is no impact on the higher frequencies

Even if I zoom in:

View attachment 220152

would a line array with these fane 12inch full range work the cone would be be barely moving to produce huge volume I would expect

 

[ppataki]

thankyou I think it would depend on frequency cut and also level . and maybe vary from speaker to speaker . my idea would be to cut around 100hz or something like that . hoe do you perform these tests is it a frequency sweep with a mic close to the speaker cone can you do these tests on a budget I'd be jnsterested to do some myself

Once my Topping DM7 arrives I will do that cut at 100Hz to see what happens

I always perform these measurements at the MLP (main listening position), umik-1 at 90 degrees, sweep measurement