I made the move toward to what I think might be done with Injection Channel for my Macondo. In the picture below is a new home for the 10-incher Red. The box is done interestingly. The front baffle is 1” MDF all the rest is 3/4n if a regular cheap plywood. The box is 33” high, the front baffle is 14” and the back is 8”. I did it sloped to reduce the reflections in the box and to make it look and feel like the … horn. It is not painted yet  and not intalled proporly yet but it does look above the Macondo as it was born there- very non-abusive. The box is very “live”. It has a very light rib at the middle. I plan to tune it more precisely with injectable extra bracing and dumping as I go along… and …if I find it necessary.

I do not how it sound yet and I feel that it will take some time to learn how to make it to sound correct (remembering that it is not the normal channel but the Injection Channel), however now I have some tools to play with…

jessie.dazzle wrote:

Romy, I'm very pleased to learn that you've got your Injection Channel done. I assume the above illustration is not indicative of the way you have the Tannoy Red aligned with regard to the other drivers, as it appears to be sitting out in front of them (?) I'm very much looking forward to following your continued research on the single stage Melqs. jd*

Well, I would like do not mislead myself and others: the Injection Channel idea is NOT perfect and in a way a half-ass solution. It is effective. If the right “coloration driver” is found and properly implemented/mixed then the Injection idea might be superbly beneficial but… the Injection does inflict also some harm, amplitude of which might wary. In a way the Injection Channel is a semi-foolish attempt to fix the situation since we have no pool of seriously sounding drivers, particularly the horn drivers. The tone of the driver is everything in loudspeaker (is to look ONLY at the tonal dimension). It is like a needle in analog. People who do analog know that if a cartridge is dull in some aspect then no mater what you do you never make the Sound coming from this cartridge better. The same with horn drivers…. We all use crap drivers that were this made hundreds years back where definition of good sound was AM radio broadcasts or the today’s high power pro drivers that were made buy deaf and ignorant people…

Could the Injection Channel with a properly selected and mixed “colorizing driver” be a solution? Yes, it can but only at the level of self-entertainment end proving the concept. For the serious results however, the results targeted to the highest level of objectives, I do not think that it would be place for any Injection Channels but insisted the properly/seriously sounding but none-existing drivers (that have all tone already “Injected”) should be used.

jessie.dazzle wrote:

I assume the above illustration is not indicative of the way you have the Tannoy Red aligned with regard to the other drivers...

jessie.dazzle wrote:

I assume the above illustration is not indicative of the way you have the Tannoy Red aligned with regard to the other drivers, as it appears to be sitting out in front of them (?)

I always say do not stress them they do not like it and I always hate third bass. The 10” are particularly are fragile with a power handling of a few watts. It is applicable pretty much to any lover MF driver that pushed to work with the “open bottom”. It is applicable to any vintage driver, and in my given case I was talking about the Tannoy Red 10”. As you know with my new unnecessary gluttonously-large box for my Injection Channel I got too much bass and not the regular but the typical Tannoy-type bass. Today I desided to high-pass the channel. I put a pair of actively biased electrolytic caps that made roughly 50Hz 6dB filter and listened it. Then running the crossover point up and down, I ended up with somewhere 110Hz.

Wow, suddenly the Tannoy-type bass is evaporated and was replaced with VERY high quality upperbass, I mean the superb upper bass! Of course it is not the normally well-accepted full balanced sound and the complete channel itself do not sound pleasant but if to do the “targeted listening” and to pay attention only at what is important for the given channel then it was very much what is necessary and the Injection Channel in context of Macondo now does excellent (after realignment).  My move to larger box was no a smart move but I think if I did not do it then I would allays would like to try it.

Now I need to decide if to repackage the Reds into some kind of miniature 0.5 cub feet box for my Injection Channel or to keep it “as is”, using it high passed.

Well, never say never and what I said that the Injection Channel is done it meant that it WAS done.

I am experimenting now with other way of use Red injection. The application as is at the picture practically had no impact to imaging. However, I needed some Red’s lower midrange that I have no space to develop….So I used the boxed Injection Channel about the Macondo running juts Red Woofer along with the tweeter sitting above the “Water Drop”… Without setting up and aligning everything precisely, preliminary, I kind of like it.

However, it becomes to appear to me too certifiable, not the THX certifiable…

jessie.dazzle wrote:

So if I understand correctly, you are still using both elements of the Red, but have separated them, and now have the HF element as shown in the above photo, and the woofer is still in the large box (still sitting up on top?), and filtered to simulate the smaller box. And, by separating the elements, you are able to get the HF element in there where it does less damage to imaging... Was that your motivation in um, liberating the HF element? Where in terms of frequency do you want the additional tone? Would it be enough to inject this tone in the Upper-Bass and Lower Mid-Range, or are you also looking to add it up in the S2 range as well? At what frequency range do you have the HF element of the Red functioning? (where is it high-passed or band-passed?). I assume it is emitting frequencies lower than the Water Drop.

Yes, they are as you described. My motivation was to bring the Red’s tweeter as close as possible to the sours of HF of the entire system. You see, to have 2 sources of HF, even in the vertical plane prone to many problems. The problems might be minimized theoretically but it is VERY complex and I do not think that it is possible in my specific conditions (distance and so on). Sure, one of my sources is at 9dB down but it still has SOME negative effect to imaging, though very positive to tone. A slight rolling off HF on Red help a little but it requires in order to get the same effect of “Injection” to increased the output for Red’s tweeter – it is not good as it move the entire virtual center point image up.

The to locate the Red’s tweeter as it on the picture above helps but I really have no space in there as the frame (the high of the Fundamental channel horn) had fixed for S2-WaterDrop-S2 trio. Also, the Injection of the Red between the Water Drop and upper S2 as I have done is not free from problems. The damn Red tweeter when it sits outside of his woofer and is not driven by own crossover sounds much cleaner and has less coloration. However, I do not it its clean sound - I need to use only it’s colorations! So it makes me to crank it up but it is not what I would like to do…. I do not think that I will keep it next to WD  – too complex, better for imaging from one point of view but questionable from other point of view. With all things being equal I feel that the high-passed Red in own full assembly is more useful for the Injection… but it is too damn bid and good only to sit above the Macondo.Perhaps I shell leave it there….

Still, the biggest problem is that I hardly can say anything defiantly. Since the temperature is risen in Boston and everyone turned the Air Conditioners on the electricity went bad. For the last 2 weeks audio is hardly listenable and I would like do not make any decisions in this state. Some days it is so bad that I juts turn the playback off in order do not get irritated…

jessie.dazzle wrote:

However, I must say, I have a lot of trouble accepting the idea of redundant drivers.

Yes, it dose not sound attractive to me but it is not the redundant drivers but one main driver and another at minus 9dB driver, sort of the “colorizing driver”. It dos not really emits own sound but rather slightly tone up the main driver. It is hard to believe but if you sit in my room it would be easily demonstrateable….

jessie.dazzle wrote:

Do you really feel that it would be desirable to inject tone up in the range where you have the S2s working?

It is NOT necessary but it is beneficial. I started to do it bit because the S2 deficiencies but become the certain Red’s tonal inflections that I do fount appealing (in a small well quantifiable doze)

jessie.dazzle wrote:

My own Mid-Range arrangement is based on that of the Macondos... Listening to my own system (I have enough of it done now to make some observations), I can say that there are two elements which bring significant tone to the overall perception: 1) The AK151 Mid-Bass drivers, even without horns.

Absolutely phenomenal driver, nothing can touch it!!! If you corner-load it in a right room you will have the upperbass that will be EXTREMELY difficult to beat. Sure they you would need to time alight it with the rest of the system that should not be in the corner.

jessie.dazzle wrote:

2) The pair of 18" Lower-Bass drivers in sealed boxes (a sort of effortless bass with very good tone... A nice surprise, as I had to buy them without having heard what they could do).

Hm, the “tone” subject in context of the lower octave is VERY different subject …

jessie.dazzle wrote:

Obviously, neither of these directly add tone anywhere higher up than Upper-Bass... Nevertheless, they may be affecting the way the S2s channels are "perceived". In my case, I don't feel that the S2s would benefit from more tone. However, if I could hear your experiment, I may change my mind.

You can’t not imagine how good the S2 with AK151 if they properly used (room). I keep some of them in my storage and I would LOVE to found some use for them….

jessie.dazzle wrote:

What diaphragms did you finally settle for use with your S2s... Plastic or metal suspension?

It never changed. For MF I use the plastic suspension and for Fundamental Channel the metal (wich is not critical)

jessie.dazzle wrote:

What diaphragms did you finally settle for use with your S2s... Plastic or metal suspension?

               Reply from Romy : 
               "It never changed. For MF I use the plastic suspension and for Fundamental Channel the metal (wich is not critical)"

You did at one point (circa early 2005) prefer the metal suspension for MF :

http://www.goodsoundclub.com/GetPost.aspx?PostID=871

               Quote from Romy - Early 2005:
               "I have now my S2 running with the original diaphragms in the very same way in which it was made 55 years aback: I have no HF harshness at all"

Reading your thoughts on the two suspensions at that time leads me to wonder if the plastic suspension is not stealing away some of the tone?

Regarding Eugene :

The reference to Eugene and his ax came to mind upon seeing the disemboweled Red driver. This will "enlighten" you as to who he is... Mind you, it is not at all the sort of thing I usually have playing... But it is what was around while growing up... sometimes I do take a trip back :

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-4488671888968650349

BTW, As I do sometimes listen to music other than classical and jazz, before getting this far along with the project, I was REALLY curious about how a Vitavox/Horns/SET amps system would do with this other music... Answer : Wow, nice... even with electronic "music".

jd*

jessie.dazzle wrote:

You did at one point (circa early 2005) prefer the metal suspension for MF : http://www.goodsoundclub.com/GetPost.aspx?PostID=871                Quote from Romy - Early 2005:                "I have now my S2 running with the original diaphragms in the very same way in which it was made 55 years aback: I have no HF harshness at all"

Jessie, my site is not a collection of “audio wisdom” but rather a diary of an audio psycho, sort of a chronicle of my adventures in audio. We all and certainly I do make moves into wrong direction, or in less productive direction, not to mention the very stupid directions. It happens here, my site reflects it (like my attempts to use tweeter attenuation with moving the tweeter on the slope and a few others….) and I have no problems to admit it. When I discover or realize about my wrong or not fruitful moves I always publish the follow-ups but never delete or edit the older posts.

There were a periods (and not ounces) when I felt that my use of the original diaphragms was warranted. I do not feel that it was stupid but conditional – slightly discharges drivers, a good electricity, a certain use (or do not use) of tweeter. Then I found some justifications do not use original diaphragms. It is all about the relationship between the conditions and the results. The top end of the original diaphragms does much better with soft magnets (I have S2 with different magnets), in fact the best with electromagnet. When electricity is very good the original metal diaphragms do extremely well but as soon electricity has a very little nose the metal diaphragms begin to sound very nasty.  The plastic suspension is much more “liquid” and less sensitive to electricity. So, what I said that “It never changed” I meant that it never changed since my last findings and I have for a couple years the plastic suspension in my MF channel…
 
http://www.GoodSoundClub.com/GetPost.aspx?PostID=878 

http://www.GoodSoundClub.com/GetPost.aspx?PostID=937

http://www.GoodSoundClub.com/GetPost.aspx?PostID=948

http://www.GoodSoundClub.com/GetPost.aspx?PostID=1253

http://www.GoodSoundClub.com/GetPost.aspx?PostID=1344

Saying it, I very much might try to use the metal suspension again when I will be driving the MF with a single-stage Milq, direct coupled or ater I try the Duddanization of the cone. The single-stage Milq should be “a cleaner electronics” and it should be advantageous....

jessie.dazzle wrote:

Reading your thoughts on the two suspensions at that time leads me to wonder if the plastic suspension is not stealing away some of the tone?

Very reasonable question. However, the difference between the plastic suspension and metal suspension (BTW, I have 2 different version of plastic suspension) is not in tone at least not in the tone that makes the S2 different from Red. We are approaching the moment when it is difficult to describe the things and it should be experienced. Since you already do have the S2 driver then buy from Mike one single plastic suspension cone and try it next you original cones. If you have only plastic suspension then I do encourage you to find the original cone. If you can’t then I might send you one to try. When you play both of them then you might understand why I went back and forth with the cones in past and perhaps will do it again in future perhaps. I still do not feel that it is not “tone” that drives me.