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broad range 15s

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pitty sing View Drop Down
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    Posted: 14 August 2020 at 2:47am
Hey folks, been a long time lurker here and deeply appreciate all the knowledge ive gathered from this community. 

i spent the last couple years developing a live rig and im updating it currently and had a couple questions that all of my lurking couldnt quite figure out. 

the question is are there hi wattage  15" speakers that can handle a broader range? im kind of limited to eminence it seems, being in the states. was trying to go fane and i contacted them to see if i could but they dont ship over here. 

right now im runnin 4 eminence 18s for subs, and i have these rad vintage boxes that i found that house 2x15s a piece and they came with matching (but separately housed) mid horns. so the plan was to get some good speakers in the 15 boxes, get some better mid horn drivers for those, and get a tweeter array lined up for tops. basically tryin to skip the 12s if i can. this rig is a touring rig, so im tryin my best to keep it minimal, but i figured id see what yall had to say about skippin the 12s before i dove in. 

also curious about what people are doing for tops/tweeters. any suggestions? 

thanks in advance!
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pitty sing View Drop Down
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote pitty sing Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 14 August 2020 at 2:48am
also would be keeping the 4 18s for the subs. meaning id be trying to use the 15s with those mid horns to traverse that range.

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citizensc View Drop Down
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote citizensc Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 14 August 2020 at 8:37am
Hi

Got a few questions, by 'broader range' do you mean you want a 15 that will play as high as possible? I'm assuming you are not looking for the 15s to go super low as you are using 18 inch subs. 

Are you able to give more info about the boxes? A spec sheet, a model number? a brand? If you can measure them and figure out the internal volume, port cross sectional area and port length this would help a lot.

What existing horn flares do they have? Are they for a 1inch, 1.4 inch or 2 inch compression driver? how big are they? do you have a picture?

I often see people comment that they are limited to Eminence because they are in the US, I don't really understand this. You guys have Parts Express and US Speaker Parts, they sell pretty much everything, I wouldn't limit my self to Eminence when there are so many good European drivers to look at. 

Getting a 15 to play high and sound good off axis is sort of impossible, its not a limitation of the quality of the driver but a limitation of diameter of the driver. There is something called 'Beaming', you can google it but basically direct radiating drivers have different dispersion for different frequencies. A 15 inch driver might have 100 degrees dispersion at 500hz but 30 at 1500 hz, this means it may be flat on axis but if you stand 20 degress off axis, 1500hz will significantly quieter than 500hz. The larger the driver, the lower the frequency where this starts to become a problem.

(dont quote these numbers, I just made them up as an example.)

Rather than trying to get the 15s to play high, the best option is to get the compression driver to play low. An example of a driver that can do this is the RCF ND950, it is happy crossing over well below 1000hz and is available in both 1.4 and 2 inch throat diameters. 

Hope this is of some help. 
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Chris Grimshaw View Drop Down
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Chris Grimshaw Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 14 August 2020 at 9:31am
Just a quick FWIW that the Fane 15" triple-cone sounds okay-ish off-axis, but generally needs some EQ. You could get away with those and some VHF tweeters for "sparkle".

That said, if you've already got compression drivers, get some decent 15" midbass drivers (they'll have better low end than the Fanes) and don't look back.

Chris
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote snowflake Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 14 August 2020 at 2:25pm
Originally posted by Chris Grimshaw Chris Grimshaw wrote:

Just a quick FWIW that the Fane 15" triple-cone sounds okay-ish off-axis, but generally needs some EQ. You could get away with those and some VHF tweeters for "sparkle".

That said, if you've already got compression drivers, get some decent 15" midbass drivers (they'll have better low end than the Fanes) and don't look back.

Chris


what size box and tuning have you used for the fanes?
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Chris Grimshaw Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 14 August 2020 at 7:01pm
Smallish 40Hz-tuned. I just took my sub drivers out and dropped the Fanes in for a test. After a little while, blocked the ports.

As predicted in Hornresp, not much actual bass on account of the very high Qts and small cabinet.

Throwing some EQ around got them sounding nicer, but they don't have the directivity control of a good compression driver and horn.

Chris
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pitty sing View Drop Down
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote pitty sing Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 14 August 2020 at 7:41pm
damn this is why i love this forum so much - thank you all for your feedback. 

shoulda been more specific with cab specs. the cabs are gollehan boxes and mid horns. i dont have the exact measurments off hand but i have a picture of the stack from the guy i bought em from. 

i think they are gollehan 450L bass bins, and the mid boxes are gollehan mr90. was planning on replacing the innards anyway, im not much of a carpenter and dont have the space or tools to make my own cabs so ive just been trying to find unique ones when i come across em. 

this was the listing :  https://www.shoppok.com/portland/a,55,242287,Gollehon-PA-Speakers-for-sale----500--Vancouver-.htm

i dont think i can paste a photo in here? but hopefully that link stays up. 


Edited by pitty sing - 14 August 2020 at 7:53pm
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote citizensc Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 15 August 2020 at 1:41am
Thanks for the info Pitty, you can ignore a lot my original post, I wasnt aware you wanted to the 15s to go in horns/waveguides. This changes things a little. 

If it were me, I would try not to stray too far from the TS paramaters of the original drivers. Are you able to pull an original out and figure out what it is? maybe post a picture of the back of it? Some quick googling suggest it may be one of these but I cant really be sure. http://pdf.textfiles.com/manuals/STARINMANUALS/Bosch%20-%20EV/Archive/EVM15L%20Series%20II.pdf

Maybe someone more knowledgeable about vintage gear could be more helpful than me. 
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote pitty sing Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 15 August 2020 at 4:21am
ahhh ok.. so you feel like the cab design limits my options to that degree? I will certainly pull one out and see what the story is. The speakers in there do not sound good, runnin at 150 rms according to the old fella i bought em from. nowhere near the sound that im wanting. 
thanks for the heads up about parts express. looked around on there for awhile today. i am havin a hard time finding a dealer for the compression drivers you mentioned. 
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Peter Jan Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 15 August 2020 at 8:53am
Originally posted by citizensc citizensc wrote:


If it were me, I would try not to stray too far from the TS paramaters of the original drivers. Are you able to pull an original out and figure out what it is? maybe post a picture of the back of it? Some quick googling suggest it may be one of these but I cant really be sure. http://pdf.textfiles.com/manuals/STARINMANUALS/Bosch%20-%20EV/Archive/EVM15L%20Series%20II.pdf

Maybe someone more knowledgeable about vintage gear could be more helpful than me. 


EVM speakers never had that red/orange surround, but RCF had the L15P200 that looked just like that.

I would check it out as is. Are all components in good shape and working ? Does it sound decent ? What is the crossoverpoint between the fifteens and the mid/high ? From similar systems I had in the late seventies/early eighties, I remember the crossover could already be as low as ~800 Hz and highs where usually lacking big time if not supported by some bullet tweeters and such (drivers with phenolic diaphragms could drop fairly low, but did not go much higher than 10-12k or so).

These days there are much, much more compression driver options to choose from, so my suggestion would also be to see if you can drop the crossoverpoint lower ( 500-600-isch ) with another compression driver ( BMS coaxial maybe ). The mid/high horns seem big enough to go that low. Another (modern) driver will also do the highs a lot better than whatever is in there right now (probably University or Klipsch with screw-on flange ).

For the fifteens, if they are indeed L15P200, those are not exactly the most sensitive low/mid speakers, rather allround bass speakers. They will make noise of course and from what I remember, they sound very decent too. Four of them with two mid/highs could work out just fine for you, but if it was me, I would replace them with something in the style of B&C 15PLB76 or Beyma 15P80Nd/or /Fe.

Or if you are not keen on putting in all that time, money and effort, just leave it as is, but add a good bullet tweeter to it, because I'm sure the lacking fresh highs will be the main "problem" with the system as it is right now ( if all components are original from back in the day ).


Edited by Peter Jan - 15 August 2020 at 9:55am
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pitty sing View Drop Down
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote pitty sing Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 15 August 2020 at 8:50pm
Thanks so much for the reply. Such a huge help. 
I took the cabs apart but there are no identifying markers of what the speakers are.  I’ll try to include a link with the photos. 

I suppose my main question is am I going to be able to get some higher wattage speakers in these cabs if I want to? Something that will handle more volume? I love when a sound system is fully enveloping and huge but still feels like it has some headroom. I feel like to get the feel I want from these speakers I would be slamming them. 
Thanks again

Link :  https://imgur.com/gallery/USCmVz7 - https://imgur.com/gallery/USCmVz7
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Peter Jan Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 15 August 2020 at 9:03pm
That's what the 15's could look like :



And the drivers :


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