Nice curves... - Scan-Speak 15M/4624G

[scholl]

Or perhaps a larger 6.5" satori mid with high sensitivity and the cone area to support SPL? Since we are spitballing now.

Yes, that one looks great! At $150 it should but if I just want to finish these off for good what's another 300? $1500 in parts, another couple a hundred for cabinets plus a few hundred for electronics. A 3K system that'll be hard to beat for any music.

I like the bass biamped best of all.

[Pete Schumacher]

The Nimbus, never hear it but gotta be an awesome system. Now the brain is churning.

Thanks!!

If you're ever in NY, there's a high end wine shop that has the first ever pair of Nimbus on display playing music for the customers. Someone sent me a screen capture of someone's tweet and there they were. Surprised the s#!t out of me.

Found the pic

[Pete Schumacher]

Or perhaps a larger 6.5" satori mid with high sensitivity and the cone area to support SPL? Since we are spitballing now.

PM180, especially with the slit cone mod.

[JasonP]

Or perhaps a larger 6.5" satori mid with high sensitivity and the cone area to support SPL? Since we are spitballing now.

[scholl]

The Nimbus, never hear it but gotta be an awesome system. Now the brain is churning.

Thanks!!

[JST_NTHR_SPKR_GY]

Yes, the SB15MFC does have better specs and I do like to have 3rd order distortion lower than 2nd. But I was also targeting midrange only devices over 90db sens, to match the TD15Hs with a passive crossover. At 86.6 db I don't think the SB15MFC will match up.

The 4624 might not be a great value but it's doing very well with integrating into my system so far. My biggest debate is to tackle the passive crossover to the woofer or stay with active.

You'd need a pair of the SB to keep up with the TD15.

2nd order network on the TD15H is all you need to cross to that midrange. What's the hesitation? Just go with a good ERSE steel core inductor and let the woofer cover the entire baffle step region. Cross between 350 and 500Hz to the mid.

2nd order networks are what we used on this, and it turned out great. Wavecor paper WF152; excellent mids.

[scholl]

Yes, the SB15MFC does have better specs and I do like to have 3rd order distortion lower than 2nd. But I was also targeting midrange only devices over 90db sens, to match the TD15Hs with a passive crossover. At 86.6 db I don't think the SB15MFC will match up.

The 4624 might not be a great value but it's doing very well with integrating into my system so far. My biggest debate is to tackle the passive crossover to the woofer or stay with active.

[johnnyrichards]

I think it is just over-priced and under-performs for the money.

Kind of sums up the state of European built drivers at this point. Not a popular opinion, though.

Even more unpopular opinion: as Asian sourced drivers continue to match or exceed European drivers for less money, you will see more claims of "it has qualities that cannot quantified".

That being said, I used the Discovery 4 ohm woofer and it was very nice. Then I built the Vermillions with a $50 SB 5" and there is no comparison.
​​

[JasonP]

I think this driver is not used more because it just doesn’t sound that good. The 12W/8524G00 is a better sounding driver. I wonder if a dust cap and rubber surround help damp the woven fiber glass cone which is not that well damped on the 15M. I have used both these drivers. You can’t completely tell what a driver sounds like from the specs.

I've used this driver and it is quite nice. I do think it has a certain sound to it that I can't put my finger on exactly, but I don't think that is why it isn't used more. I think it is just over-priced and under-performs for the money. Unless you need its high sensitivity, there are better options for less money. If you wander over to the HifiCompass measurement pages you can see some analytical data to back this up. The SB15MFC 5" woofer is 20$ less and performs better in almost every way (except sensitivity). This is why the driver isn't seen more, IMO.

[scholl]

I think this driver is not used more because it just doesn’t sound that good. The 12W/8524G00 is a better sounding driver. I wonder if a dust cap and rubber surround help damp the woven fiber glass cone which is not that well damped on the 15M. I have used both these drivers. You can’t completely tell what a driver sounds like from the specs.

I don't know how you used them but in my application they sound great and are very easy to use. They compliment the woofers impact very well. They have nice detail and tone. Having a constantly variable crossover frequency is nice to dial in vocal ranges.

I do agree that a person can't tell what a driver sounds like from the specs and bought only a few devices that I couldn't like no matter how hard I worked on it.

[fdieck]

Interesting to compare 15M with Seas H1262. Seas is very popular in DIY but this one is not definitely. It's suspicious

The SEAS is very nice sounding driver that I have played with. I think it does better above 700 Hz due to light cone and limited Xmas. It is very smooth and you can get away with 4 to 6kHz cross overs to 3/4 inch tweeters.

[fdieck]

I think this driver is not used more because it just doesn’t sound that good. The 12W/8524G00 is a better sounding driver. I wonder if a dust cap and rubber surround help damp the woven fiber glass cone which is not that well damped on the 15M. I have used both these drivers. You can’t completely tell what a driver sounds like from the specs.

[scholl]

Hi guys, Just started a project with 4624s crossed to SB29RDNCs at about 3K. So far this is a slap dash project with a 2nd order crossover using parts that are close to what the computer outputted (parts on hand). The tweeter is padded about 1.5db. Super duper sound for little effort and no measurements.

I use a 24db active crossover to a AE TD15H at about 500hz and two Ashly FTX2001 amps. I call it "The not so rich mans Cerwin Vega". LOL

I have a history of having the simplest electronics stream so avoided active crossovers in the midbass area. That may have been a mistake. The TD15H is an awesome woofer taken a good step better with no crossover parts in it's coil circuit. This also avoids a complex, expensive and difficult crossover design at the cost of 200 bucks more worth of used gear.

I do notice that on a lot of music the midrange amp is running about 3db lower level than the bass amp. Eyeballing Xmax shows it never moves too far but there is concern for life expectancy of the 4624s small coil run by over 300watts of amp. It's hard to keep the volume down when the sound is soo good and clean and bass so tremendous.

It took me about 2 hours to cobble this system together with parts on hand adding only the 4624s.

[akarma]

Interesting to compare 15M with Seas H1262. Seas is very popular in DIY but this one is not definitely. It's suspicious

[critofur]

So Chris,
What did you end up using your 15Ms for?

I'm still working on a 3-way with 2 x Anarchy 6.5 on the bottom and the Wavecor TW030WA03 tweeter - a project I started around 2003 I've got a half dozen different prototypes of speakers in my room, but none were satisfying enough to take to completion thus far. This one however, is very promising.