This thing looks like it means business *PIC*

[shawn_a]

http://www.partsexpress.com/imageslarge/296-603L.jpg


I haven't searched around the PE site for a little while and stumbled across this Usher driver I hadn't seen before. Lawdy be, it looks....well....er..... mean. Price tag is too. Oh Santa, possible 12 Days of Xmax item suggestion here???

shawn

[DougP]

> I haven't searched around the PE site for a
> little while and stumbled across this Usher
> driver I hadn't seen before. Lawdy be, it
> looks....well....er..... mean. Price tag is
> too. Oh Santa, possible 12 Days of Xmax item
> suggestion here???

> shawn

Hey Shawn are you going to have a measurement rig set up at your gathering this spring? I would like to take some measurements of the Tri-Trix MT's I'm working on. I've changed a couple of things in the box and would like to see how these changes have affected the frequency response as compared to Curts measured response. I would of course post these on my website, probably as a warning against changing something in a proven design.

Doug

[andre]

> I haven't searched around the PE site for a
> little while and stumbled across this Usher
> driver I hadn't seen before. Lawdy be, it
> looks....well....er..... mean. Price tag is
> too. Oh Santa, possible 12 Days of Xmax item
> suggestion here???

> shawn
You're dreaming Shawn !!!, BTW the xmax is not 12 days it's 6.0 mm , but still a very good driver!
Andre

[AJ]

Ushers most popular woofer yet no one has bought one... Hmm....

[shawn_a]

I'll bring my measurement rig to the show. Totally slipped my mind but thanks for bringing it up.

shawn

[shawn_a]

But are you really sure about that excursion not being 12 days? I've heard of three hour tours but man, a 12 day excursion woofer would be sweet!

shawn

[shawn_a]

Simply because I like the way it looks.

shawn

[brianp]

Looks like that one got dropped on the floor a coupla times.

[neildavis]

http://home.comcast.net/~neilandbarbaradavis/temp/murphyboard.jpg


This driver has been around a long time. I tried buying the 8" "Charlie Brown" drivers from Zalytron about 2 and a half years ago but Elliot was out of them and he offered me a pair of these instead for about $70 each.

I've got them in some Meniscus "PE-look-alike" cabinets with all-digital TI "equibit" amps that have a TAS3004 crossover and a digital front end (SPDIF input). One of them was on loan to Dennis Murphy and we both sort of forgot about them until he moved earlier this year. I need to get back to them now that I have a fairly easy way to develop crossovers for the TAS3004. Maybe I should get some help with these or sell them off...they are very cool and it is a shame to not be using them. The tweeter is the 9950

[shawn_a]

I have a woofer at home with a cracked magnet and honestly, it's harder than hell to see at times. Now if it's a scratch or a scrape, which is what it looks like to me in the pic, you can see it like the nose on your face.

shawn

[donc]

[Wolf]

> I haven't searched around the PE site for a
> little while and stumbled across this Usher
> driver I hadn't seen before. Lawdy be, it
> looks....well....er..... mean. Price tag is
> too. Oh Santa, possible 12 Days of Xmax item
> suggestion here???

> shawn

I agree about it's looks and menacing attitude. The specs are also nice, but $o i$ the price! If I were to do an Usher design, it'd be these or the phase-plug CF-cone monsters.
Let me know if you get one!
Wolf

[billfitzmaurice]

Usher has 'emulated' a number of drivers from other companies.

[dlr]

Interesting one. I note that they've used a fairly significant amount of (what I assume is) acrylic treatment of the surround. That must be for an inherent cone/surround resonance that it is meant to control.

dlr

[billschu]

There seems to be a tad of a smear near the bottom end of it.

> I have a woofer at home with a cracked
> magnet and honestly, it's harder than hell
> to see at times. Now if it's a scratch or a
> scrape, which is what it looks like to me in
> the pic, you can see it like the nose on
> your face.

> shawn

[jkrutke]

Kinda looks like what you did on the insignia woofer. I've seen Tangband do the same thing on a few of their drivers. Perhaps a thick bead of silicone, spread out with a finger could do something. Do you need a couple of insignia woofers to mess with? I have a few in my closet that I'm not going to use. You could try more mods.

> Interesting one. I note that they've used a
> fairly significant amount of (what I assume
> is) acrylic treatment of the surround. That
> must be for an inherent cone/surround
> resonance that it is meant to control.

> dlr



(Originally posted by: jkrutke)

[dlr]

> Kinda looks like what you did on the
> insignia woofer. I've seen Tangband do the
> same thing on a few of their drivers.
> Perhaps a thick bead of silicone, spread out
> with a finger could do something.

The thickness and coverage area are critical to proper damping in addition to the material properties. Silicone might be similar enough, the acrylic remains almost tacky afterwards. A fingernal will catch on it if you try to scrape it. Silicone would be a lot harder to apply evenly.

I got my idea from observation as well. I had noticed that my 13m/8640 had some kind of fine bead of some kind. I noticed that in a pair that had QC issues with it, mostly not even touching the surround roll section, that it had more irregularities. A pair with more consistent applications were closer to spec. I had also seen it in a Tangband pair I use. Hence my desire to test it. I hddn't expect to see the level of improvement it actually made to the Insignias.

> Do you
> need a couple of insignia woofers to mess
> with? I have a few in my closet that I'm not
> going to use. You could try more mods.

I've been mulling over other possible mods, haven't come up with much. I have a pair that will remain stock as a comparison pair and one leftover driver to test with the generic acrylic I have on-hand. If had more in mind I'd say yes, but I'm not sure what else to try, other than differing amounts and coverage area. Maybe the back side, I don't know.

If I think of something else to test I'll let you know, but at this point they might just sit on a shelf for a long time. If you'll never use them, send them, I'll eventually do something, even if nothing more than confirm consistency of mod results.

I just with I could find some way to improve the tweeter. After the woofer resonance, this seems to be where the remaining grundge originates. It may still be more a factor of woofer/horn loading, making it fixed and unimproveable.

Have you used the boxes? They seem well-suited for an RS150. I have yet to get back to some real work, but measurements of a Hi-Vi (TN28 IIFC) tweeter on top of the box showed little box diffraction influence when placed on the side with the little "droop" of the edge. This looked like a good combination bang-for-the-buck re-use.

dlr