WOOF WOOF - part two of a Horny Day.

[djnagle]

Hi All, well, we did it again. Dnewman, Kegger, Cosmos, Tubino, DingusBoy and I met at ding's house (Brad from Black Swamp audio) to compare the TAD 1601, Lambda TD-15M, and JBL 145E woofers. We had such a great time the first time with horns (see link to the origanal thread) we needed to do it again with woofers. For the most part we used Tubino's TAD 4001 CDs with origanal diaphragms.

http://www.audiokarma.org/forums/showthread.php?t=285193

So yesterday we all gathered at Brad's and had a great day swapping woofers and doing some critical listening.

For my part, I liked all three woofers. The TADs seem to be the most well rounded, with great detail, solid low end (don't know what they went down to but it was low enough not to need a sub) and a rich upper mid. The JBLs were a little less detailed but has some kind of richness in the volcals that stood out and a kick bass that absolutly thumped the chest. They had more of a "wall-O-Sound" feel to them.

The Lambdas were extremely detailed from top to bottom. There was clarity between each note. They shook the house on a couple techno tubes like I'd never heard. The upper mids did not have the richness or fullness of the TADs or JBLs.....BUT....the Lambdas where BRAND NEW. Freash out of the box and we were all amazed at the way they sounded. I've broken in many many drivers and I think the the Lambda with it's accordain surround will sound amazing after a couple of days left running.

We also put on Bran's Yuichi horns with TAD CDs using Radian Diaphragms and they sounded great. I also have Radian Diaphragms in my JBL 2441 CDs and that diaphragm is very detailed and LUSH but does not extend as high as the Origanal TAD Beryllium diaphragms or the Dan's JBL 2445 CDs with the TrueXtent Beryllium diaphragms that Brad sells. The JBL with the TrueXtent is my favorite out of all of the CDs so far.

So which Woof am I buying? The Lambda.

 

[similost]

OH YEAH.... So glad to see another convert...

You are right about them needing a little break in time. As the last few weeks have gone on, mine have only gotten richer sounding, and the bass seems to have grown a little bit more.

Any idea what the box you had them in was tuned to and the size of them? I have my box tuned to 35hz, and it's 4.5 cuft, and just amazing sounding. I'd really like to experiment with different size boxes and tunings, but I got what I got. I may try dropping them down to 30hz, and I still want to try my PR's with them too, but I think that tuning would be way too low..

They are a very stunning driver for sure, and like you said, with time they seem to age very very well.. Mine aren't ever going anywhere..

BTW.. they are are a hell of a lot more massive driver than they look in pictures aren't they?

 

[djnagle]

Yep, those are massive for sure.

I don't know about the boxes. Those are Rick's and I'm sure he will chime in. It was a great day.

 

[dnewma04]

We had a little exchange of emails off AK and I'll post my comments I made there.

What I took away was mostly a good time. It was interesting and fun, but a tough way to really compare the three, impossible to really draw any sort of solid conclusions. My impression of all of the options was pretty favorable.

It usually takes me a while to process my impressions of things more thoroughly. At first, I'm usually thinking "hey, cool! it's track 10!". *track 10 was the 10th track on a CD called "Culver City Dub Collective". Mr. W was the track name and it featured some fairly low bass. At least lower than the rest of the music we were listening to and did a nice job testing the low freq extension of the woofers we were using.

Here are a few of my thoughts that stood out to me in no particular order.

• I am still very Lambda biased. I won't pretend that my investment in them hasn't tainted my impressions.
• The TADs, not just in that box, but in that room, in that particular location, with that crossover point, etc, might have had the best balance. Perhaps just having the ability to toy with them for a while and know their optimum setup gave them an edge. Toss up between the TD15M and TAD here.
• After listening to Keg's comments about the upper midrange of the lambdas lacking a certain flair, I listened much more closely to that range of sound. I didn't detect anything particularly missing, but I was pretty sure I knew what he was getting at and it made me think about something. Perhaps the signficantly deeper acoustic center (relative to the TAD and JBL) of the lambda driver could have put it acoustically out of phase with the compression driver in some area where it was giving us the perception of a lack of output. In hindsight, it may have made sense to swap the polarity on the horns and see if that did anything to help in that regard. What prompted me to think this was that when the highs were removed, there seemed to be no imbalance between the deep bass, midbass, midrange and even upper mids of the Lambda. If it was a driver characteristic, it would have been heard regardless of the setup unless it was out of the passband of the driver.
• I knew the TD15Ms would win in terms of frequency extension on the top end, but I wasn't expecting them to make us think a little super tweeter added to them might make for a pleasing speaker.
• I was dreading the lack of break in on the way down. Normally i'm not a big believer in break in after the first few seconds on modern drivers with a few exceptions, one of them being on drivers with accordian surrounds that are known to have longer settling in times than foam and rubber surrounds. From what I was hearing, immediately out of the box, they were already performing at a very high level. The lack of bass worry that I had was of no consequence in the end.
• I had my preference for dynamics above all else reinforced. There is something about utterly compression free sound that draws me in. The Yuichis and TAD drivers covered the top end extremely well. That combined with a deep rooted lust for big wood horns makes me think some day I'll be making a pair of them after i finish the Unities and the big waveguide. Maybe even ahead of the waveguides.
• Any differences we heard between drivers could have easily been chalked up to behavior around the crossover region or near the tuning frequency. The first being soemthing that could probably be seen in a FR graph of the driver up near the crossover point and the latter being found by taking some room measurements.
• I wasn't familiar with most of the tracks played, and the ones I was familiar with, I'm not intimately familiar with them for the kind of listening test we had done. That said, part of me wonders if what we thought was exaggerated deep bass wasn't actually accurately portraying what was on the disc?

Thanks to Brad and Rick for going through the effort of getting things setup.

 

[240sx4u]

Color me green with envy, wished I could have heard these. Sounds like you guys had a great time.

 

[Cosmos]

Primary goal was to compare Woofers.. We tried Lambda TD-15M, TAD TD-1601a and JBL E145-8.

Here is my notes formed during our testing..

Special thanks to Brad (Dingusboy) for having us, Rick (Tubino) for bringing damn near his entire system, Dave (DNewman04) for bringing the Lambdas and Dennis (DJNagle) for bringing his JBL drivers/horns.

In short, here's my perception, jotted for posterity, conversation and next action planning:

1. The TAD TD-1601a and Lambda TD-15M woofers are really, really nice.
2. The Lambdas need a lower tuning than Ricks boxes are tuned for and the TADs seem to like.
3. I'd suggest Rick try a slightly lower tuning frequency as well, even on the TAD drivers.
4. The Lambdas are by far, the most capable big woofer I have ever heard at going full range.. bar none with no known close competition.
5. The JBL E145-8, while not as extended as the Tad or Lambda drivers, also have a very nice, musical presentation and may cover drums better then any of them.
6. In my mind, as played, the TAD are the most musical. However, with the right tuning, I suspect the Lambdas may do that as well and provide better LF extension.
7. The JBL E145 likely are as musical but suffer lack of LF extension. With better tuning or certainly with Subwoofer support, they could be very nice as well
8. The Yuichi horns continue to please. They sound great. Dennis' Tractrix also kicked butt..

It's amazing to me.. every combination we heard seemed to gel really nicely.

Having compared the woofers today, I'd feel really comfortable with any of them. However, what I heard suggested some trials at home in my system.. When I got home, I dropped the E145 into the 4507 (5 Cu Ft) boxes and played with tuning ending up between 30 and 36 Hz. It sounds great. In these boxes and with this tuning I like them better than the 2226 drivers I have been running. However, I now think I should pay more attention to re-tuning the box with 2226 drivers..

Damn, I learned a lot in one day..

Thanks again. :thmbsp:

 

[djnagle]

Hey 240, yes it was a lot of fun and I feel much more enlightened about what I like to hear in a woofers and which one I will land on.

Color me green with envy, wished I could have heard these. Sounds like you guys had a great time.

 

[Kegger]

My comments from the email thread..

Thanks for having us over.

-----------------

Now 1 thing I learned is with all these so called non “low” bass drivers there was deep enough bass
for me I think on pretty much any music I’d be listening to, I am pretty happy to hear that outcome.

As I’m for the higher sensitivity and would like to be in that 95db or higher category, nice to hear it.

------------------------

Second was what Dave mentioned and that’s the higher energy/more output near the upper end of
the woofers xover frequency, the E145 had the most an for some things like electric guitar an drum
gave it that like on stage concert type sound, now the problem for me with the 145 was a touch to
much output in that area that it cluttered the lower registers where they just weren’t as clean, but
it gave a whole different presence to the sound stage that gave you a giant wall of sound that filled
the room better then any of the other drivers did. (driver didn't go quite as low as the others did)

-------------------------

I thought the Lambda had the lowest and deepest output but I did feel the upper registers were in
fact lacking just a bit when setup as a “whole” system, better with the retuned cabinet an maybe
with breakin would fill in that area. Or as Dave mentioned xover phase might of helped as well.

But 1 thing I’ll mention towards Daves assessment that as a standalone driver he didn’t notice it
or at least not as much is I’d be willing to bet as the frequency climbed on that driver that upper
register performance is going to "tailor" off to where on it’s own the mid bass/lower mids probably
are close to the output above that to where you wouldn’t notice/hear lowish output in that area.

------------------------

While the TAD’s certainly were no slam dunk noticeably far superior driver I do feel they had the
best balance IN THIS SYSTEM, with solid well defined bass and a closer match to the mid-range
presence of the E145.

-----------------------

Now a driver for me that might have done it all was one that had the low end performance of either
the TAD or the Lambda but a bit more in it’s upper registers, somewhere between the TAD and the
145 where the upper registers are concerned would of really been tailored to my liking.

---------------------------

All in all I think any of them could make a really nice system, only thing that might concern me is
whether the 145 upper registers became to much an overpowered the system frequency response.
(would like to hear the Lambda again after full breakin)


For all these drivers it would probably come down to room/cab an personal preference for someone.

After doing this shootout I wish there would’ve been more time and more drivers to get into the mix,
the 2225 an 2226 would have been good to get in there, an keeping with 15” drivers I would of loved
to hear the LE15A compared to these in this setup.


All of the top sections were different sounding as well, in the end I did give the overall thumbs up to
Ricks, at first switch from Brads to Ricks I felt tonal change from slightly fat on the low end of Brads
to a more extended top on Ricks and wanted to say Ricks sounded a bit thin, but after settling in I’d
found Ricks to just have a flatter, cleaner response top to bottom and preferred them. The top piece
from Dennis’s sounded nice as well but it didn’t have the sparkle that Ricks had, Alison Krauss vocals
were quite pleasing to listen to though at high volume.


Defiantly a good experience for me with all these setups..

Thanks,
Keg

 

[Kegger]

I believe the boxes were 7 cubic feet an tuned to 35hz, (pre 2 x 8 "adjustment")

 

[Cosmos]

I believe the boxes were 7 cubic feet an tuned to 35hz, (pre 2 x 8 "adjustment")

That is a good point and for the benefit of those not present... the tuning "adjustment" we did was unscientific and random. It just ended up sounding considerably better, but we did not give the Lambda a completely fair chance (both in terms of break in and in tuning). The strange part is, the box tuning should have been about just right for the TAD... Not sure why it wasn't.

I think we all came away with very similar thoughts and impressions..

More testing and listening is required. :yes:

 

[similost]

I've been wanting to make a few comments in this thread, but haven't had the time.. so.. now I do..

First off, I find it so interesting that the TAD's seem to be kind of a favorite here in a few areas. I guess I'll ahve to try and give a pair a listen. If they held up to the Lambda's, then they must be pretty fine sounding..

About the bass on the Lambda's... I saw Dave said he thought they were pretty heavy on the bottom end as a whole, but then thought maybe it was just what was on the recording. I'm going to say yes to this...

The reason why is, there is a lot of music I listen to and they just aren't boomy at all, and the bass doesn't feel very heavy. Then I put on other recordings and DAMN.. I'm gonna shake the boxes apart. I use my EQ to pull some of this out for certain recordings when too much bass becomes an issue.

I use mine a lot for listening to the TV with. Voice through them sounds so realistic. Very smooth, very natural, and super clean. Because of this, I have to wonder what it is that you all didn't think they were as good sounding in this region as you were expecting. I'm wondering could it be the box? Maybe the way you had them crossed over?

When I'm listening to music on mine, I LOVE the sounds of the snares on them. Piano and guitar sounds super fantastic and crystal clear. This is why I wonder if the difference I seem to hear and what you all are describing is that crossover or box difference?

I sure do wish I could have been there to listen to the differences in these woofers. Sounds like it was a great assortment with drivers that seem to do different things than each other, but are all still high end....

 

[djnagle]

About ALL the bass we heard this weekend, it is important to know that the boxes were sitting dead flat on the floor and the floor resenated (sp) so both of those would add to a heavier and exagerated bass responce. I have concrete floors and will lift my boxes up on 4" round x 5" tall spikes I am making next week. That should tighten the bass up even more.

Sim, you said "they just aren't boomy at all, and the bass doesn't feel very heavy" that is what I liked. Great and detailed seperation between each note without interferience. (sp).

 

[Ski]

Can we have the midrange day at my house? I do live between you guys after all. Did you wave while driving past?

I am not that educated in the fine art of critical listening and would love to learn.

 

[dnewma04]

I am 100% confident that I could make any of the woofers sound like the others with a minimal amount of effort. That's why I really couldn't take away anything from the comparison as a whole. I wasn't focusing on small areas of the presentation because 90% of the source material was unfamiliar to me. I was looking for the little details that typically get masked by other drivers and that's where the TD15Ms excelled for me.

Again, i'll fully admit to being a TD slappy, and if I owned the TADs, I could have very well come away with a different impression. For JBLs, I thought the E145s performed very respectably.

 

[Kegger]

Dave I think you'd have heck of a time making the Lambda sound like the E145 did.
(not saying it's a good or bad thing, just a characteristic of that JBL driver)
(there known to be mid-range monsters, an they certainly showed it there)

As far as bass is concerned, with a properly tuned cab any of them would of been
just fine and no bloating or exaggerated bass unless you wanted it in your setup.

In a proper setup I think the Lambda could win out in the bass department though.

 

[BlackSwamp]

My thoughts:

The experience was very fun and very interesting. But, drawing conclusions on the comparative merits of these drivers after such a brief and unscientific experiment will simply bear no fruit.

All performed admirably; The TAD 1601a’s because they just sounded great, The Lambda TD-15M’s were impressive out of the box – I doubt they will sound exactly like this 50 music hours from now – preferred box size and tuning might all change substantially from what we heard. Hell it probably was changing while we were listening. The JBL E145’s were very impressive in the midbass regions. Kegger nailed the explanation here – I won’t bother to repeat it.

If you have a horse in this race you can claim victory if you’d like – the photographer missed the finish.

From what we heard, I’d not argue with anyone who preferred any of these drivers. I'm not quite as confident as Dave that I could get them all to sound like each other but perhaps that’s more a reflection on differing skill level as opposed to different drivers.

I own 1601’s and E145’s so I’m pretty happy with the results. If I were to populate a box with a new production driver, I’d SERIOUSLY consider the Lamdba TD-15M

Here is what I really came away with: Speaker wise, I’m on the right track for my ears. A Quality 15” drivers with a nice wood horn powered by a high quality compression driver is just great. Dynamics are much of what make the music magic and this type of system offers quality dynamic energy.
Bi-amping with a tubed crossover is also VERY appealing. The Heathkit’s Rick brought along do need a facelift but they nonetheless bested my passive and solid state active crossover options. I expect to be done with my DIY tube crossover in the next couple of days. Unlike everyone else that was here Sunday, I really appreciate what a BIG difference this made compared to Saturday listening.

Like Rick, I though the box tuning experiments initiated by Dan were great to hear.

 

[Andyman]

Looks like you guys had a grand time!! Now I know why Keg wasn't able to come to the record show Sunday

So did any of you guys measure Brad's cab to see how some of the box modeling programs would forecast response?? Just curious as sometimes small changes can reap large returns, and some of those programs could point you in the right direction, at least as far as relative performances go.

 

[BlackSwamp]

Looks like you guys had a grand time!! Now I know why Keg wasn't able to come to the record show Sunday

So did any of you guys measure Brad's cab to see how some of the box modeling programs would forecast response?? Just curious as sometimes small changes can reap large returns, and some of those programs could point you in the right direction, at least as far as relative performances go.

We modeled the cabs in Winsid based on the 1601a - tuning was 35hz. Woofer Tester suggested the box was tuned correctly. As noted we did find success with retuning when the Lambda's were in there. They suggest a very similar box and tuning and once broken in that may have been the case. They then may not have appreciated the monkeying around we did with the port size.

 

[dnewma04]

As the tests sort of showed, it's very easy to change the perceived tonal character by playing around with a small area of the frequency response. Tune it lower, the bass drops, the midrange becomes more prominent in relation to the bass. Want a midrange monster? Throw the lambdas in a sealed cabinet. Want very extended deep bass, an EBS alignment works well. Want that perceived deep bass without any particularly real extension, throw it in a slightly oversized box tuned a bit higher than recommended and drop in that Culver City disc again. Most of that energy wasn't particularly deep bass. Get a peak at 45-50hz and we would have thought someone was going to try to take down the house with bass. I guarantee the impression of the lambdas would have been one of exaggerated bass with poor midrange performance.

That combined with dealing with the crossover point could make our results completely inconsistent with these speakers in optimized systems compared to what we heard. For instance, a lot of the midrange energy being talked about was in frequency regions that were most likely being covered from the TADs, not the woofers. The initial snap of a drum is of significantly higher frequency content than what any of the woofers were playing. Below 250hz or so in most rooms, the room will dominate the sound. Above that to about 1000hz, an awful lot of the voicing of instruments takes place. Even a slight wide band bump in this range can dramatically effect the way we hear percussion, stringed instruments, and keyboards. Our crossover point was smack dab in the middle of that range. If we had more time, it would have been interesting to take some measurements and see what time aligning the acoustic centers would have done. I would expect a similar impact to the sound that the port tuning caused. A non-generic crossover would also likely yield big changes for the better with all of the woofers.

In my car audio days, I used to always be amazed with how dealing with midrange drivers, crossover points, etc made more of an impact on the perceived bass response than any change of position, crossover point, subwoofer change made. For instance, I was having a heck of a time getting realistic sounding kick drums. I changed from JL Audio's TOTL subs at the time to Adire Audio Shiva subwoofers in big sealed cabints. Bigger is better and tighter because of better damping, right? Wrong, going to an enclosure with a higher Q made for a better match for the cars interior and sounded tighter. But even so, there was something missing that prevented realistic percussion. I got the idea to work on my midbass integration and the crossover point from mids to tweeters. After some experimentation, I had my bass. I threw the JLs back in for fun and still had my excellent kick drums. Getting good bass in a big room is a bit more complicated, but I've found the same principles apply to a large degree.

For the record, unlike the others, nothing in that test made me think I could ever be happy with any of these woofers without subwoofers supplementing them. Not even for the music we were playing. It was acceptable bass, but not superior, ideal, or maximized in terms of performance. Significant improvements could be made.

 

[Kegger]

Well I say you can "equalize" all you want, but there are certain characteristics in
things like caps, resistors, tubes, transistors, wire, amps, drivers, ect that yu just
can't mimic by just getting the same tested frequency response.

No that Lambda aint gunna sound like the 145 no matter what you do to it, afaic.
(could you get more mid-range out of it, you betcha)

There are certain traits that are in devices we use that tailor them to what were
after, some lend themselves to achieve what we want, if we could make anything
sound "exactly" like anything else there would be no need for more then one piece.

I don't believe any of us thought the setup gave us truly "deep" bass but what it
showed me was it was deep enough for me without the "need" for sub-woofers.

I would be quite happy with that bass response without needing to further enhance
it lower with sub-woofers, I was pleasantly surprised at what they "could" do there.

None of the setups were optimal, but me personally I could tell a lot from what was
being played/heard there to form a pretty good idea of what could be done an what
might come from these drivers in different setups and break-in from the lambda's to.

I heard at times truly Incredible Music reproduction that bested quite a bit of other
setups I've heard to let ME know this is defiantly the correct direction I'm headed in.
(and as was mentioned by many, not near an optimal setup, that says a lot to me)

(when I setup my system an room it is setup for what is best for my listening spot)
Once I got all my gear settled on in that room I would tailor it so it sounded best at
my normal listening position, pulling that back couch off that wall was a pretty nice
improvement in how the bass reacted back there, I believe the room could be tuned
for an overall excellent system response without needing sub-woofers. Least for me.