"The Flatback Banned" OmniMet

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Cressy Snr
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#136 Re: "The Flatback Banned" OmniMet

Post by Cressy Snr »

Cheers Mark,

This omni thing will run and run; a bit like your "undergrowth" work.

This version is now a serious listen. Not fecking background music anymore. :wink:
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#137 Re: "The Flatback Banned" OmniMet

Post by Cressy Snr »

Thoroughly enjoying these cheap, 3 inch, polypropylene cone, 92dB efficient tweeters in the OmniMets.
Image

Cone tweeter? :shock:
That's it! He's completely fecking lost it now! :lol: :lol:
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#138 Re: "The Flatback Banned" OmniMet

Post by Cressy Snr »

Cone beaming doesn't seem to be a major issue in my room.
The tweeters have a very nice natural, treble tone, with clean sibilants. Female vocals are especially good, as are massed strings; no nasties with digital Ray Charles either.
As for any lack of ultimate extension, I couldn't care less at my age, as I wouldn't know one way or the other.
Efficiency is 92dB and power handling is 22W, so I wouldn't trust them to survive for long in the hands of knuckle draggers, but with an efficient pro bass/mid driver such as the Faital I use in this design, they should be perfectly safe.

Let's say the omnis now have something of a vintage sound, and in a good way. The crossover is not quite right yet, but a classic Gilbert Briggs cap value in the tweeter path looks very attractive. I think that will just about do it.

The mainstream hi-fi market is not interested in cone tweeters, which makes them cheap as chips and fun to play with.
Experimenting with different profiled turned, wooden phase plugs in place of the little paper dustcaps would be a particularly good line to go along. The things are cheap enough for it not to be a total disaster if things were to go wrong.
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#139 Re: "The Flatback Banned" OmniMet

Post by Cressy Snr »

Was up 'til 3am testing and evaluating.
Treble tone is excellent, the music hangs together properly.
If you want to sit there analysing the sound, then with these speakers, you have come to the wrong place.
They are no longer making ANY pretence to be hi-fi in the currently accepted definition of the word, Instead they get on with making music.

It is easy to get lost in the performances through these things and forget the passage of time, hence me suddenly realising it was 3 o'clock in the morning.

I would say that these speakers now operate firmly in the tradition of the old American big hitters. Though a 6" driver is not going to cut it in the bass slam dept. compared to the Yank speakers, the mid to top is musical in the old sense of the word. The sound is definitely pre BBC and none the worse for that. They represent an utter rejection on my part of corrupted, bullshit, modern audiophile speaker philosophies. Good result. I'm happy and that's what matters in the end.

Would love to hear a paired array of paralleled up, vintage, 15 ohm Wharfedale Super 3 cone tweeters on these things. Wishful thinking on my budget unfortunately.

I've decided to start a new company. "Hi-Fi My Arse!" (HFMA for short). Don't forget, you heard it here first folks!
The HFMA range launches early next year with cocktails, canapés and lots of freebies from down the back of my sofa.
Loads of demonstration quality George Formby 78s will be on hand throughout the event.

Date to be announced - Put in in your diaries!
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#140 Re: "The Flatback Banned" OmniMet

Post by pre65 »

Steve, your enthusiastic review made me realise I have a pair of 2" cone tweeters, so I may give them a try in place of the Mark Audio tweeters on the baffles.

They are Mc Voice HT-700 (German) 2-18kHz, 8 ohm and 90db.
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#141 Re: "The Flatback Banned" OmniMet

Post by Cressy Snr »

Piss taking aside, just bear in mind that you're not dealing with 21st century hi-fi, Phil. Cone tweets are not the next big thing, the sound of them harks back to simpler, gentler times. If you want forensic, icy clarity, I absolutely guarantee you will be disappointed.
I'm enthusiastic because I like 50s and 60s music of all kinds, from rock 'n roll to soul and easy listening, and the cones I have are able to portray this music, better than ANYTHING I have heard in the past thirty years. I know you like it too, so listen on those terms and keep an open mind. :)
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#142 Re: "The Flatback Banned" OmniMet

Post by IslandPink »

Would be nice to hear. I remember Richard Cooper's OB set-up with the Greencone drivers ( including a greencone tweeter ) was very nice.
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#143 Re: "The Flatback Banned" OmniMet

Post by Dr Bunsen Honeydew »

It was the work of the BBC white coats (with a desire to commercialise it) that lost us music and gave us hi-fi. Well not exactly, but it changed the emphasis. KEF were their collaborators in drive unit design.

THE best compromise I have ever found was the AR / Allison nipple :mrgreen: which was a paper construct of a nipple type dome on a small cone. In the later Allison versions the paper was formed up and glued together to create the nipple. Sadly they are not around anymore as virtually all have failed due to the glues breaking down, and exposed voice coil wires on the front plate didn't help, little fingers saw off a few of those off.
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#144 Re: "The Flatback Banned" OmniMet

Post by IslandPink »

Personally I don't think you can beat a ribbon, probably because they have a tiny membrane mass and negligible mechanical damping ( Rms ) .
Cone tweeters actually have rather a lot of mechanical damping, I checked the Rms number on the Scanspeak ones recently - maybe that's why they never seem particularly alive or colourful to me. Anyhow , it would be good to find the params of one or two of the cone tweeters for comparison. Maybe Troels has something on the greencone tweeter on one of his pages....will check.
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#145 Re: "The Flatback Banned" OmniMet

Post by Cressy Snr »

Aye, proper ribbons are good, in the context of a superHF unit filling in above a regular tweeter. Or they were when I was younger. :lol:
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#146 Re: "The Flatback Banned" OmniMet

Post by karatestu »

Hello Steve,

You have inspired me to dig out my Marantz imperial 7 tweeters and give them a blast. Dont even know if they work as i put them in a drawer without testing. As the 7's were not highly regarded i expect they will sound like a BOS (bag of shite).

Stu
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#147 Re: "The Flatback Banned" OmniMet

Post by Cressy Snr »

Mark

Troels has a nice CLIO plot of the Peerless 62 CT polyprop cone tweeter.

Image

The red FR trace is virtually identical to that of the Monacor pp tweeter I have. The distortion profile is not bad at all with the Peerless. I know it is foolish to try to extrapolate the performance of one driver from the graph of another, but using my ears I reckon the distortion pattern from the Monacor is probably just as good and the construction and materials used in the Peerless and the Monacor are virtually identical.
Last edited by Cressy Snr on Tue Oct 24, 2017 8:53 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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#148 Re: "The Flatback Banned" OmniMet

Post by Cressy Snr »

karatestu wrote: Tue Oct 24, 2017 7:31 pm Hello Steve,

You have inspired me to dig out my Marantz imperial 7 tweeters and give them a blast. Dont even know if they work as i put them in a drawer without testing. As the 7's were not highly regarded i expect they will sound like a BOS (bag of shite).

Stu
You never know till you try. :wink:
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#149 Re: "The Flatback Banned" OmniMet

Post by Toppsy »

Cressy Snr wrote: Tue Oct 24, 2017 7:32 pm
The red FR trace is virtually identical to that of the Monacor pp tweeter I have.
Not exactly Steve. If you check out the Monacor driver FR plot it has a (approx.) 5dB suck-out from 5kHz - 9kHz that is not apparent on the Troels plot.
Image
But nevertheless I can see perhaps why you like this tweeter. You may also wish to try out the MOnacor HT-22/8 Cone tweeter. Scott rates these highly and I happen to have a couple should you want me to post them to you for experiments. Not quite as efficient as the ones you have though.
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#150 Re: "The Flatback Banned" OmniMet

Post by Cressy Snr »

Yes, I said " virtually" rather than exactly like the Peerless, but it's in the same ballpark, and as you know, shelf suckouts or lifts are usually nowhere near as audible as narrowband ones, plus there are no particularly nasty peaks anywhere else in its range either :)
They do sound very, very nice and being "low tech" and unfussy, need nothing more than an old time, bass blocker cap to work properly.

As you say, the other Monacor tweeters are 10W and only 90dB efficient, so might not be loud enough with the bass/mid drivers. However I wouldn't say no to your offer. I'll find something to use with them that's for sure. :D.

Shame about the chrome effect dustcap though; soooooooo late 70s :mrgreen: :mrgreen:
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