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lickweed View Drop Down
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    Posted: 19 January 2014 at 11:46am
Anyone have experience with this coaxial driver?
thanks
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ArthurG View Drop Down
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I've tested this model few weeks ago.... so many things to say... hmm... where to start ?
short answer, forget it, very flawed design.

bit longer answer, many issues:
1/ unbalanced design between excursion and power handling. the tiny M roll surround is good for 400W, after it starts to flap flap flap...
2/ the big horn creates a huge 12dB dip on the frequency response of the cone in the middle of the critical vocal range (1.5kHz). No EQ can save it, it's physical. 
3/ Because of point 2/, ideal xover point between LF and HF is around 800Hz (one octave below the dip). However, the HF can't go so low. 1.5kHz is the lowest this 2.5" HF coil can accept before reaping your hears...
4/ The HF needs a complex passive crossover to EQ the 4kHz anomaly and to higher the HF above 10khz.
5/ tonality is off the chart and 3rd harmonics distortion is too high on HF. High-mids rip your heads off. What a harsh HF driver ! 
6/ out of axis response is worst than Disneyland roller coaster !  

I think it's enough, all in one, the engineer who did this design never made a real world listening test nor did a crossover for it because that thing should have never leave the R&D lab... Dead
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lickweed View Drop Down
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Thanks for reply,i assume the 12" version suffer the same issues?
http://www.liquidsound.co.uk/
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ArthurG View Drop Down
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as odd as it seems, the 12" is even worst...
dip at 1.6kHz is 20dB, yes 20dB Shocked
4kHz peak is unbearable even with big EQ OuchOuch

useless piece of shit... Dead


Edited by ArthurG - 19 January 2014 at 2:01pm
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It is indeed strange that apart from a few exceptions the newest p.audio drivers are a huge step back from the previous line-up. Some designers definitely needs to be sacked, and R&D has to be rethought.

I have not tested their coax drivers myself though, I must admit.
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lickweed View Drop Down
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Arthur did test new 21",im intrested in SD21-1800N
Many thanks
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ArthurG View Drop Down
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Originally posted by lickweed lickweed wrote:

Arthur did test new 21",im intrested in SD21-1800N
Many thanks
Sorry, I haven't tested any new P.Audio 21". Reason is simple, when I saw the new range at the last PALM show, I found the surround very limited in excursion for the claimed power handling...
However old 1kw ferrite SD21 was balanced but I did not like the sound (lack of accuracy)
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Andy Kos View Drop Down
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Originally posted by ArthurG ArthurG wrote:

I've tested this model few weeks ago.... so many things to say... hmm... where to start ?
short answer, forget it, very flawed design.

bit longer answer, many issues:
1/ unbalanced design between excursion and power handling. the tiny M roll surround is good for 400W, after it starts to flap flap flap...
2/ the big horn creates a huge 12dB dip on the frequency response of the cone in the middle of the critical vocal range (1.5kHz). No EQ can save it, it's physical. 
3/ Because of point 2/, ideal xover point between LF and HF is around 800Hz (one octave below the dip). However, the HF can't go so low. 1.5kHz is the lowest this 2.5" HF coil can accept before reaping your hears...
4/ The HF needs a complex passive crossover to EQ the 4kHz anomaly and to higher the HF above 10khz.
5/ tonality is off the chart and 3rd harmonics distortion is too high on HF. High-mids rip your heads off. What a harsh HF driver ! 
6/ out of axis response is worst than Disneyland roller coaster !  

I think it's enough, all in one, the engineer who did this design never made a real world listening test nor did a crossover for it because that thing should have never leave the R&D lab... Dead
 
Ive used this driver in some monitor wedges, and my experience doesnt quite tally with your appraisal, how it works may well be dependent on what cab you put it in and what you are trying to achieve, we were making vocal wedges.
 
1. The 15" is a 500W driver, we didnt experience any flapping in the monitor wedge over 400W, in fact we had power levels very significantly in excess of 500W, but we did have a HPF in use, rolling off erverything below 50Hz (it was a monitor wedge after all) - this is not a sub-bass driver, if you put loads of bass through it, it will flap.
 
2. The horn does affect the sound, but we managed to balance the EQ without significant difficulty. Took us about an hour playing around with a measurement mics and crossover settings. We did the testing bi-amped, and the final solution we transferred to a passive crossver.
 
3. We found crossover frequencies that worked without problem to get a balanced sound.
 
4. We use a passive crossover with a notch filter to succesfully balance the sound, the notch was a touch lower than 4 Khz.
 
5. We did not find the HF particularly harsh at all, in fact it has a fairly smooth sound at medium power levels. It did struggle at extremes of power, but we were exceeding the recommending power ratings for this to happen.
 
6. The off axis response isnt great, and there is beaming from the HF horn (this is probably the biggest problem with this driver), but when used as a monitor wedge this didnt present us with a significant problem. If you have a singer who wants to move around a lot though, it would be problematic.
 
 
I certainly wouldt recommend the SN15-500CX as a PA speaker, its only use is for a monitor wedge, where the listener will be on axis.


Edited by Andy Kos - 19 January 2014 at 7:18pm
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Andy Kos View Drop Down
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Originally posted by ArthurG ArthurG wrote:

as odd as it seems, the 12" is even worst...
dip at 1.6kHz is 20dB, yes 20dB Shocked
4kHz peak is unbearable even with big EQ OuchOuch
 
 
This is also different to my tests. There are anomalies on the response, but  I have managed to balance the sound and tweak the EQ without significant difficulty. I did not experience a 20db dip at 1.6khz with both 12 and compression driver running. The frequency response of the 12" on its own dips at 1.6Khz, but in our configuration the compression driver filled this dip without problem.
 
The 4kHz peak was present, but not impossible to compensate for with some EQ. I have heard much worse.
 
The main problem is the design of the horn flare, with significant beaming occuring on both the 12 and 15 versions. Tweaking the horn design could significantly improve this driver.


Edited by Andy Kos - 19 January 2014 at 9:26pm
just a guy with a warehouse and a few speakers... www.bluearan.co.uk
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ceharden View Drop Down
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I tried the SN12-500CX recently because I was thinking of upgrading my very old Beyma 12XM loaded cabs (lovely sound just not very loud).  I came to similar conclusions to Arthur, although I'm sure he spent longer playing with them.  The main issue I had was the design of the HF horn flare.  It has absolutely terrible dispersion control which for a monitor wedge is absolutely critical.  The first section of the 2" flare is almost straight, more of just a tube and as a result beams like nothing else I've heard.  It doesn't look like they put any thought into it at all.  I'm surprised they didn't go for a 1.4" exit compression driver which may have allowed for a better initial expansion.

Again, similar comments on the P-Audio 21's.  Haven't tried the Neo but I found the SD21-1800EL Ferrite to be quite impressive.  I can't comment on the sound/accuracy so much as I was installing them in a club system (in a horrible sounding venue) and the only real aim was making lots of noise, which they do!
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lickweed View Drop Down
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Thanks for replies,looks like not the best coax driver around,i will pass with this one.
I was also intrested in SD18-1700EL ,but with 4.8mm x-max it dosn't look good
http://www.liquidsound.co.uk/
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Andy Kos View Drop Down
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Originally posted by lickweed lickweed wrote:

Thanks for replies,looks like not the best coax driver around,i will pass with this one.
I was also intrested in SD18-1700EL ,but with 4.8mm x-max it dosn't look good

The 15-500CX is a tricky driver to get sounding right, and has limited applications. For a general purpose co-ax there are potentially drivers out there easier to configure and more versatile in application.
just a guy with a warehouse and a few speakers... www.bluearan.co.uk
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