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Martin Philishave MH-212 : Guess the driver !!

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URL: https://forum.speakerplans.com/forum_posts.asp?TID=65522
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Topic: Martin Philishave MH-212 : Guess the driver !!
Posted By: needle fx
Subject: Martin Philishave MH-212 : Guess the driver !!
Date Posted: 02 April 2012 at 2:23pm
Hi everyone.
Let see if someone can help me, I bought a couple of martin philishaves i think model mh212
(because is the 2 parts mold horn) and not a m600 as the seller stated but... thats another history.
At the moment I'm curious about the drivers that are loaded in. I have some pics uploaded, I hope now.
The old owner told me he drove the 2 phillis (x4 drivers in total) with 600wRMS 4ohm bridged.
And that he didnt touched them inside in 10 years he owned them (I guess pretty old drivers, still working though ;) )They are connected in series as can be seen in one of the pics. They dont have any label as can be seen. For the basket I reckon can be an RCF unit. But thats as far as I go without blind guessing.
If someone could help me would be great, I want to refurbish completely the horns and this information would help a lot the process. 
Thanks everyone for your time.

http://img17.imageshack.us/img17/7996/dsc08635om.jpg
http://img855.imageshack.us/img855/2668/dsc08634p.jpg
http://img3.imageshack.us/img3/2243/dsc08633uk.jpg
http://img685.imageshack.us/img685/9136/dsc08632fp.jpg
http://img338.imageshack.us/img338/5725/dsc08631l.jpg
http://img152.imageshack.us/img152/9461/dsc08624t.jpg
http://img193.imageshack.us/img193/2848/dsc08623rg.jpg


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Needle FX



Replies:
Posted By: Jimmer
Date Posted: 02 April 2012 at 2:35pm
RCF L12P24?


Posted By: Centauri
Date Posted: 02 April 2012 at 4:22pm
Certainly not the ATCs which would normally be in there - are the phase plugs present?  Also, what is that box and wiring on the inside of the cabinet?


Posted By: jbl_man
Date Posted: 02 April 2012 at 4:31pm
Originally posted by Jimmer Jimmer wrote:

RCF L12P24?


Yep,looks like them.


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Be seeing you.


Posted By: Teunos
Date Posted: 02 April 2012 at 5:11pm
Originally posted by jbl_man jbl_man wrote:

Originally posted by Jimmer Jimmer wrote:

RCF L12P24?


Yep,looks like them.
Front of the cone looks exactly like the 24, except for the truly obvious missing metal dome. However the glue on the dome doesn't look original so the dust caps were probably replaced sometime.


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Best regards,
Teun.


Posted By: needle fx
Date Posted: 02 April 2012 at 5:18pm
Nice first steps forward, thanks again for the input.

Another differences I noticed were the rims of the drivers in different material, they grey ones being more clothy/matt like and also the terminals are push-in in one and soldered in the other.
They are the same mix of drivers in both speakers. Any idea why this could be? 


To centauri:
The phase bungs are present. The black box at the moment isn't connected to speakers, 
anyway I think, for what I've being reading around, that is used to change the impedance 4/8/16ohm.




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Needle FX


Posted By: cravings
Date Posted: 02 April 2012 at 5:21pm
can the phase bungs fit with those rcfs? thought they only fitted with reversed dustcaps on the old ATC drivers.


Posted By: needle fx
Date Posted: 02 April 2012 at 5:56pm
To cravings.
They do fit for the looks of it, apparently they have being there for at least 10 years. 
Although I havent push it very hard just to normal listening level and the dustcup looks ok, no damage.
I think the ATC original drivers have normal dustcup but not 100% sure.
I think some people use rcf L12p520 that has inverted dustcup on them. Maybe one of the reasons is because not many drivers would fit with that shape of bung?


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Needle FX


Posted By: cravings
Date Posted: 02 April 2012 at 6:04pm
yeah maybe i'm wrong.. the bungs are missing from a lot of phils because they don't fit with some of the drivers.. i do know that. hold onto the bungs! and if you felt like / are able to make up some new ones, there's probably a few people would be interested.


Posted By: Teunos
Date Posted: 02 April 2012 at 10:19pm
Originally posted by needle fx needle fx wrote:

Nice first steps forward, thanks again for the input.

Another differences I noticed were the rims of the drivers in different material, they grey ones being more clothy/matt like and also the terminals are push-in in one and soldered in the other.
They are the same mix of drivers in both speakers. Any idea why this could be? 
Different ages of the drivers. The P24 were produced for quite a few years. I've seen at least 3 different version, however all of them with a metal dome.


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Best regards,
Teun.


Posted By: jbl_man
Date Posted: 03 April 2012 at 9:22am
Originally posted by needle fx needle fx wrote:


I think the ATC original drivers have normal dustcup but not 100% sure.



Yes,it is a normal dustcap,just a very small one,that only just covers the 3inch coil.

Ditto what everyone else is saying about the RCF's you have there,they all had a silver ally dust cap originally,but due to the age of yours,its probable they have been changed at some point.


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Be seeing you.


Posted By: Earplug
Date Posted: 03 April 2012 at 1:47pm
Alu dustcaps do tend to disintegrate after a while. One pair of my Phillies also came with small xover network. Maybe that´s what your 'black box' is.




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Earplugs Are For Wimps!


Posted By: burningbush
Date Posted: 03 April 2012 at 2:21pm
Isn't the black box their impedence matching thingy/brick wall limiter?

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music is the message


Posted By: audiomik
Date Posted: 03 April 2012 at 2:22pm
Yup!
Mik

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Warning! May contain Nuts
plus springs, washers, screws, etc, etc.


Posted By: needle fx
Date Posted: 03 April 2012 at 6:55pm
Originally posted by Teunos Teunos wrote:

Originally posted by needle fx needle fx wrote:

Nice first steps forward, thanks again for the input.

Another differences I noticed were the rims of the drivers in different material, they grey ones being more clothy/matt like and also the terminals are push-in in one and soldered in the other.
They are the same mix of drivers in both speakers. Any idea why this could be? 
Different ages of the drivers. The P24 were produced for quite a few years. I've seen at least 3 different version, however all of them with a metal dome.



Was the dustcup the same size as they are in mine?
I read somewhere that the phase bung for the ATC has slightly different shape than the bungs done for the RCF to fit the shape of the different cones. Maybe to achieve same results? Is that true?

 


 



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Needle FX


Posted By: BrownSock
Date Posted: 24 May 2012 at 9:07am
Ressurecting this old thread here.

Originally posted by burningbush burningbush wrote:

Isn't the black box their impedence matching thingy/brick wall limiter?

I've never seen anything like that inside a Philishave.  I have a couple of the Auto-Matching Transformers and they look just like a transformer.




Posted By: Robbo
Date Posted: 24 May 2012 at 9:48am
A few facts here----There are considerably more Phillishaves out there with RCF drivers than the older ones that are loaded with ATC drivers.
All original factory fitted drivers have a normal dust cover---there have never been any Phillishaves with factory fitted drivers with inverted dust caps.
RCF and ATC phase bungs are different---You can fit an RCF driver on an ATC phase bung as the RCF has a much deeper cone assembly but you cannot do the reverse as the ATC drivers are very shallow cone and foul the RCF bung----You can get around this by making a plywood spacer to move the ATC further from the baffle board.
All Phillishaves are 4 ohms impedance per cabinet as they are fitted with two eight ohm drivers in parallel---None ever left the factory with drivers wired in series---Hope this helps clear a few points up---Cheers--John..


Posted By: madboffin
Date Posted: 29 May 2012 at 9:45pm
Just to add:

Early MH212's were supplied with the 12" PA75-314-STD-PDM (the type with a big 4" paper dome) and the phase plug had a large radius curve to suit.

Later ones (as Robbo says, these are the commonest type) had the RCF L12P24, sometimes badged as a Martin M30. The phase plug was redesigned with a smaller radius curve to suit the driver's 3" dust dome. These were supplied until June 1984.  A normal 12" ATC can also be used in these as the dust dome is the same size as in the RCF.

The final version of the Philishave was the M600. This had the one-piece horn and it used a pair of ATC's with extra-large magnets, built specially for Martin and known as the Monster Mids.
The M1230 was used from 1/1983, then the M1231 from 6/1986. The difference is that the 1231 had the basket sealed with plastic cover plates to provide a very small rear chamber volume.

All the ATC types can still be reconed by ATC in Stroud.

RCF L12P24's can still be reconed, with a higher power rating than the original. Wembley loudspeakers will be able to do them.






Posted By: BrownSock
Date Posted: 30 May 2012 at 10:12am
What is the difference, if any, between the STD and STD-PDM type drivers.  My MH212's are loaded with a combination of the two.  They both have a nominal power rating of 75W but the STD has a max power of 125W whilst the STD-PDM is rated to 150W max.  Is that all there is different between the two?  I doubt it seriously matters if there is a mixture of the two inside though.


Posted By: madboffin
Date Posted: 30 May 2012 at 2:02pm
This ATC spec sheet dating from the late 1970's has the data, including TSP's, for their 12 inch range at that time. Current versions are not quite the same, 30+ years worth of advancing technology has led to some minor upgrades...

http://www.spamabyss.net/pictures/OldATC12spec.jpg" rel="nofollow - http://www.spamabyss.net/pictures/OldATC12spec.jpg

However, if your speakers have been reconed at some time in their life, they might not have been relabelled to show any differences from the original software.

The original ATC Standard "STD" cone had a 3" metal dust dome. I think this was changed to a paper type around in 1980.

The original STD had an integral suspension (i.e. the surround was part of the cone) whilst the "LS" version had a pleated Linen Surround and a lower resonance.

I haven't seen a new ATC-STD with a metal dome or an integral suspension for decades.

The original Paper Dome "PDM" was larger than the metal type, being about 4" diameter. These were the ones in early Phillies. I can't remember if they had the linen surround as well.

Although the "nominal" quoted power rating was only 75 Watts this was extremely conservative. This figure crept up over the years so as to provide a more valid comparison with competitors' products, but ATC have always been careful not to over-claim on power handling. Bill Woodman always used to say that a more realistic rating was "100 W per inch of voice coil diameter" which in this case means 300W.

If you can't hear a difference between the drivers in your Phillies then it probably doesn't matter. However I'd expect that using the small dust domes with the "large radius" phase bungs would result in an audible difference if compared with a unit with the large domes.


Hoping this is useful, or at least interesting.


Posted By: BrownSock
Date Posted: 31 May 2012 at 3:41am

Physically, all my drivers look the same. None have metal domes, they are all paper domes about 4" across yea.  Id say they were all reconed at one stage to be STD-PDM's since they are all original MH212's with the bolted horn.

This all would have been done way before they had come into my possession since a couple have "tested ok 25-2-87" written on them. Good to know some history.



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