DIYMobileAudio.com Car Stereo Forum banner

Hey NPDang, how about a DIYMA full-range?

6K views 39 replies 13 participants last post by  AJinFLA 
#1 ·
How about a DIYMA 3" full range driver for mounting up in the dash? I can't wait to test out your tweeter, but I'm looking for a good portion of the spectrum to be playing high on the dash.
 
#27 ·
I'd be more than happy with 200/300 up to 4-5k, which i think would be more than enough to cover the vocal range, and slightly blur into the regions above and below the vocal ranges, to keep the transitions in the vocals smooth. But to 16k, i think that would be asking quite a bit, to be able to get that kind of range, and still have the lower vocals very prominent, without huge distortion numbers in the lower region of the driver. The Css Fr125 is basically what were talking about in a nut shell, but an enclosed rear would help alot with low end extension, and the plug and play idea. How large are we talking for the enclosed rear?
 
#28 ·
man someone give me a number to a build house and me and rimshot will try and desing one lol

the market REALLY needs a 3" midrange, enclosed woudl be sweet

asnything from 200-4000 and Im happy with off axis repsonse as good as the new peerless exclusive drivers IMO


I mean the ATC SMC exist already, but the darn thing is 500 each
 
#31 ·
sheepdog said:
I want a 3" that will play flat from 20Hz-25KHz


oh, but with no "beaming" in the treble range


and an install depth of only 1/2"


:D
Haha piece of cake :rolleyes:

Would that be Sealed, ported, or IB?

Like i said before 200hz-4/5k would be awesome, SQ hopefully better than the Excel line, with a small rear enclosure would be great. Doubt i'd put them in pod's though, kicks seem more like the ideal space, out of the driver's eyes. Then again if you can get them crammed somewhere where it wouldn't have interferrence then it could work very well.
 
G
#32 ·
NP
I have to ask, does flat response even matter? It won't look anywhere near flat in the car, and especially if you're mounting them up in the dash lol.
Yes, flat response will yield good linear distortion amongst other benefits.

NP
I was thinking more along the lines of usable response from 200hz-3khz, covering the human vocal range. By usuable I mean no serious energy storage or distortion... capable of ~96db-100db @1m.
That's a midrange rather than a fullrange, but would still be nice ;)
There is a certain amount of "coherence" from a small fullrange that cannot be duplicated from seperately mounted (and much less point-source) drivers.
The problem of course is getting the fullrange to have anything close to the performance of a real (well designed) tweeter. So far no one has even come close IMHO. In that sense I agree with your assessment:
really don't think you want a 3" driver producing treble frequencies... at least I don't
:)
But there is another alternative. Not a trivial engineering task. But hey, I can ask can't I :rolleyes:
How about a Neo motor, Stiff cone, copper rings, overhung motor (The usual goodies in a high end midrange - to quote you) version off this:
http://thielaudio.com/THIEL_Site05/Pages/Tech/unicoildiag.html


Cheers,

AJ
 
#36 · (Edited)
As a former Thiel CS2.3 owner (the 2.3 used an earlier iteration of the above-linked driver), I don't think anyone will be happy with these drivers in the nearfield. Their HF response is much less clean than an Aura Whisper's or NS3's. This driver isn't a real coax like a KEF Uni-Q, Tannoy Dual, or Seas H1144. It's basically a woofer with a lossy connection between the cone and voicecoil, coupled to a hard dustcap. The price (in both the CS2.3, which I lived with for quite a while until the right offer to buy them came along, and the CS2.4, which I've heard) is peakiness in the upper mids and highs that gets worse the closer you are to the driver. Diffraction effects, perhaps?

Oh, and for the record, replacement CS2.3 drivers - I never needed one, but was curious - are either $320 or $350 each from Thiel....

Those little KEF's AJ pointed out look really neat, and if that driver would fit in my upper doors I'd buy that HT set to try 'em out. Apparently KEF has gone to best practices driver design throughout their range, even in their least expensive speakers. (A benefit of moving production from the UK to China, perhaps?) The cutaway on KEF's page even shows a ventilated spider! On a 3" driver! (Who wouldn't love to see an Aura NS3 cone/motor in such a basket?) I know their 5.25" variant is absolutely incredible, both for the money and on an absolute basis. Seriously, if I had to choose between listening to these speakers (with a pair of subs that have good response out to 150Hz or so, at least) and listening to Thiel 2.4's for a year, music would be flowing from the cheap KEFs all year. After hearing them briefly on a shelf in a box store, next thing I knew I had scrapped plans to DIY surround speakers using 4 Aura NS3's per side and was trying to fit four KEF packing crates into my Miata. (For the record, two in the trunk and two in the passenger seat. Which is two more than a Solstice would fit...) Listened to in proper environs, the inexpensive little Q Compact clearly bests the much expensive Thiels in the mids and treble, an improvement that would only be more glaring if one were to take the 5.25" Uni-Q, put it on top of a nice bass section (say, a pair of Dayton Reference 10's) and filter the lows out of the Uni-Q. And a hundred bucks a pair... Maybe this weekend I'll post a little show-and-tell of coincident/concentric drivers, because I'll have an interesting collection here: fourth and fifth-generation KEF Uni-Q's (4G being the 6.5" unit in the Q15/Q95c), as well as 8" and 12" Tannoy Duals (2046 and 3134, respectively). It's amazing how cool that little 5.25" KEF driver looks, even when it's next to a big Tannoy dual.
 
G
#37 ·
Hi DS,

Yes, the Uni-Q's are quite nice although not in the SEAS Excel league...yet. I've been eyeing the 3"er for car use, but NP is rumored to be making a better one :p .
I like mine with dipole bass and a little DSP as well ;) One of my many coincident drivers also.


That's the Uni-Q(8" next to last generation) 2nd from the top. Yes, I neeeed a new camera :blush: .

Cheers,

AJ
 
#39 ·
AJinFLA said:
Yes, the Uni-Q's are quite nice although not in the SEAS Excel league...yet. I've been eyeing the 3"er for car use, but NP is rumored to be making a better one :p .
I like mine with dipole bass and a little DSP as well ;) One of my many coincident drivers also.


That's the Uni-Q(8" next to last generation) 2nd from the top. Yes, I neeeed a new camera :blush:
I dunno...I like the Excels but I'd probably never use them myself. I just like my music at home to have scale, and there's some truth to that old Magnepan propaganda: "What happens to a piano when it's squeezed out of an 8" woofer?" Maybe if Seas made a 12"-15" Excel midbass with a copper waveguide bored through the polepiece and a mount designed to accept a tweeter in lieu of a pole vent behind the backplate, I'd get real interested real fast....

Also, I don't think the driver under discussion here is comparable to a Uni-Q, but I don't mean that pejoratively. The DIYMA driver is never going to have the bandwidth of a good coincident driver. I bet it costs them less than a dollar to make, but KEF really got something right on these tweeters. I bet they cost KEF 40 cents each but dammit if they don't sound like Hiquphon OW1's with an extra third of extension up top.

That said, *my* ideal 3" widebander would be as simple as an Aura NS3 cone/motor structure in a spider-venting cast basket as good as the cheap KEFs' have. (I'd buy six or seven pairs of them!)

Also, the 5th generation drivers are much better than the earlier ones. I've had a fair number of KEF Uni-Q's pass through my hands, in both Reference (RDM one nearfield monitor, KAR 160Q car-fi Uni-Q) and Q-Series (Q15, Q Compact). From the midrange up, the new Q's are better than the old References. A new Q-series driver in a cabinet as solid as the old RDM one's would be a helluva nearfield monitor, for those who want monopoles. In addition to the great tweet, probably some combination of the smaller diameter woofer and the new waveguide on the tweeter gives the Q Compact such constant directivity that even Dr. Geddes would be impressed. Or maybe not, because it's a pretty wide coverage angle all the way up. Come to think of it could lead to all kinds of messy reflections in a car...

'Course, there are limits to what these little drivers can do, especially with respect to dynamics and palpability. They ain't big Tannoy Duals or BMS 4590's on 90x40 CD horns with big low-distortion woofers under 'em, but nothing else is, either. Speaking of which, sort of, have you played with that P.Audio coax you mentioned on diyaudo.com a few times much? (I go by Pallas, another riff on the Citroën theme, over there.)
 
G
#40 ·
Hi DS/Pallas :)

The P-Audio's are sitting in the boxes I bought them in :( . They won't be used any time soon. Perhaps I'll ask NP if he's interested in testing them for now. May be interesting to see how good the motor design is. P-audio seems to make some decent quality stuff. I believe JBL sources from them for their pro drivers,etc. I thought I also read where they may be the largest supplier of voice coils worldwide. These would not be too practical for car audio with the huge motor (the magnet is nearly 6" dia.), unless possibly mounted in the rear deck.
They will be used for a distant future HE cardioid project.
http://www.shanghaiproaudio.com/specsBM8CXA.htm



Cheers,

AJ
 
This is an older thread, you may not receive a response, and could be reviving an old thread. Please consider creating a new thread.
Top