small midrange shootout: Faital Pro 4FE32 and ScanSpeak 10F4424G00

[jonasz]

Re: small midrange shootout: Faital Pro 4FE32 and ScanSpeak 10F4424G00

The only thing unclear to me at this point is, if you put it in the right designers hands does it have the magic secret sauce? IE: does it just look good in the lab and on the test bench, or can it be magic to the ears too?

Well, in my NaO Notes they sure sound very very good! In this design they're used between 1000Hz and 6kHz. Can't hear any strain or misbehaving even at loud volumes, a very sweet yet detailed reproduction.

[ErinH]

Re: small midrange shootout: Faital Pro 4FE32 and ScanSpeak 10F4424G00

Charlie, thanks for the time you took to do this.

Like others, I would encourage you to always measure the SPL. Not only so you can compare apples to apples but so we understand just how hard the driver is being pushed. Additionally, what would be nice (and I sometimes fail to do this myself) is to provide step measurements. IE; loud, louder. This gives is an idea of how the driver behaves at different levels to see if its nonlinear distortion has any linearity to it or if there's a "breaking point" where the driver loses its composure and maybe trace that back to a level and apply that to practical crossover locations. Because at the end if the day, HD is largely useful for determining crossover points. IMD data is more beneficial but isn't a must.

One person asked already so forgive me if I missed your answer: how ode was the mic placed for testing these? Which mic?

Thanks again for the efforts and resulting discussion.

- Erin

[charlielaub]

Re: small midrange shootout: Faital Pro 4FE32 and ScanSpeak 10F4424G00

Charlie, thanks for the time you took to do this.

Like others, I would encourage you to always measure the SPL. Not only so you can compare apples to apples but so we understand just how hard the driver is being pushed. Additionally, what would be nice (and I sometimes fail to do this myself) is to provide step measurements. IE; loud, louder. This gives is an idea of how the driver behaves at different levels to see if its nonlinear distortion has any linearity to it or if there's a "breaking point" where the driver loses its composure and maybe trace that back to a level and apply that to practical crossover locations. Because at the end if the day, HD is largely useful for determining crossover points. IMD data is more beneficial but isn't a must.

One person asked already so forgive me if I missed your answer: how ode was the mic placed for testing these? Which mic?

Thanks again for the efforts and resulting discussion.

- Erin

I positioned the mic at about 0.5m. That should be in the far field in this case, or close to it. The mic is an Earthworks M30BX.

I've always been hesitant to assign an SPL to my measurements. I take measurements through an outboard ADDA box, which has adjustable gain for both the outgoing and incoming signals, my amp has adjustable gain, and the software as well... too many places to screw up on the gain setting. I do have an SPL meter, but I don't really trust these things to give a very accurate SPL measurement since there are several factors that come into play. When I design speakers, I take all measurements of all drivers with the mic and amp at the settings that they will be used with, and then only the relative levels are important. As a result I've never really need to or bothered to pin down actual driver SPLs.