Phillips Phun!

[dc270]

"theclerk74" swung by my place this past weekend to hand off a tuner he owed me, while here he also gave me some empty Kappa 6 cabs and some unknown Phillips cabs with drivers in tack! Really nice guy to have given me this extra stuff

Well I almost have the cabinets going, have rebuilt the x-overs, totally
refinished the cabs, checked all the drivers and installed terminal cups. The Phillips SQ-8 mids and the tweeters need so L-Pads as they outrun the woofer considerably. The tonality is there- just needs some tweaking....

DC

 

[walsn]

Very good stuff. Philips suggests an hermeticaled sealed box with 40 to 80 lts volume. The woofer (Ithink they are the AD12100/W4 (or 8, this number is the impedance) will work in acoustic suspension mode with these volume. The squaker is very good and so the tweeter (these may be the weakest unit for some people). You will get well controled bass , fast, with slam and a lot of SPL. The mid unit is flat from 500 to 5000 Hz. Tell us your opinion when they comes to life

 

[dc270]

That Phillips mid bhas been used by Infinity and several other Mfg's, it is a very good cone mid I agree, super efficient too. I have seen the 12" rubber surrounds AD12100/W8 woofer in another design and it is also a great low end AS driver! The tweeter is another clean sounding classsic.
I did encounter a problem withn the one woofer, when I checked th impedance it was prfetty high at 36 ohms!. Come to find out a tinsle lean was barely dangling onto the connection terminal. The person who assembled these used large "globs" of solder at all the connection points in the drivers and crossovers. When I recapped the crossover I corrected all the wite junctions, including the one bad woofer. They are well build woofer ideally suited for AS application!
Thanks for the doccument inclutions- that helpe me understand their herritage- Phillips made quite good gear in their day and these are no exceptions!
DC

 

[dc270]

Phillips Project

Now that I have corrected the bad woofer tinsle lead wires, put them both back together and done some sound trials, I have formed some conclusions/ opinions.

I like the driver compliment quite well- they offer pretty good definition and are keenly articulate. Female vocals are well pronounced, piano ranges very clean and memorable, violins, bass tubas, horns sound true to their nature.

The one caveat I have is again the mid/high end is a little over powering- perhaps by 1.5 ~ 2 db. I am deciding between L-Pad's or simple resistors. I have plenty of L-Pads to use and they offer more flexibility for others more discerning than me. None the less after some padding down of the mid/ twtr they sould sound really good!

The bass that is they now is really good, very fast, not bloated or has that AS hang-over about it. A bass guitar or pipe organ low end is pretty real sounding. These do need a bit of power to gather their low end sound- but once there you are well rewarded!

The grill covers are OK. I might still restretch them and find a name tag or two to reward them. I always like a mirror imaged set of speakers but these are OK for not being such- Had I made them I would have MI them for sure. The cabinets turned out pretty nice after their refinish, one a bit tone lighter but both looking very nice for multi coated, hand rubbed, Tung Oil finish. I did install small terminal cups, only had the push pin plastic types, but they can be easily removed to install the larger 5 way binding posts. The front & rear baffles were refreshed with hand painted flat black paint.

All in all not a bad project for a 12" 3 way with well known, good sounding drivers. With a bit more tweaking these should be a real delight or sight and sound in any ones home.
DC

 

[janikphoto]

...The one caveat I have is again the mid/high end is a little over powering- perhaps by 1.5 ~ 2 db. I am deciding between L-Pad's or simple resistors. I have plenty of L-Pads to use and they offer more flexibility for others more discerning than me. None the less after some padding down of the mid/ twtr they sould sound really good!

That's such a minor amount, it shouldn't really be an issue. 3db is supposed to be the first noticeable increase in sound and is measured by a power factor of two. I'm sure an L-pad will be more than enough, though I'd just tweak the receiver's tone controls a bit and call it a day.

 

[dc270]

That's such a minor amount, it shouldn't really be an issue. 3db is supposed to be the first noticeable increase in sound and is measured by a power factor of two. I'm sure an L-pad will be more than enough, though I'd just tweak the receiver's tone controls a bit and call it a day.

Normally that would be a good idea to tweak the receiver- but my amplification offer no tone control!
Thanks for the input, it would be valid if I had tone controls on my integrated or on my preamp. Guess I will look into the L-Pad route-
DC

 

[stickman]

I recently bought one of those AD5060-Sq-8 Philips midrange drivers to play with. I took it out of its small plastic housing and mounted it in a small wooden enclosure so it could operate "full range" (well extended range in this case). I'm amazed at how smooth the upper end roll off characteristics are. This is one midrange driver where a cross-over choke coil wouldn't really be needed with an upper cross-over point around 5000 Hz. I also have one of the earlier Philips 5" mid's with a whizzer cone which was used in the Rectilinear 3 and although it has much greater high frequency extension it's also far peakier throughout its normal operating range.

PS- It's funny that Philips used both the "M" (for midrange), and "Sq" (for squawker) designations on various midrange drivers they manufactured back then. The Dahlquist DQ-10 utilized the "W" woofer version of this 5" driver.

 

[bazz_77]

In fact, letter M was for fullrange and Sq was for midrange. But yes, that AD5060 and different variants of it were one of the best sounding midranges back in the day. And still are, of course.

I have a pair of AD5062/Sq8 (early 80's model) and oh my, those can sing. Goes on axis up to 9kHz, with only minor cone breakup. I'm planning using them on my open baffle project, as a midrange from 500 to 5000Hz.

 

[walsn]

Philips says about the AD12100/W (for 4 and 8 0hms repectively), ReVc 3,4 and 6,5 ohms. Fo 19 Hz (both), power handling in a 80 lt sealed box 40 watts and 80 watts in a 40 lts one. Operating power is 2 watts ( is the amount of watts to get 96 db), in other terms the efficiency is 93 dB/1 watt. Take notice that in a three way system the passband gains 3 db so you have to attenuate it.
Philips used to put a 16 ohm tweeter if the woofer and sq impedance was 8ohm, so they are attenuating it 3 db. The AD0160/T8 has an efficiency of 92 db/watt.
Please look at this link which is very useful in order to get the best from this tweeter.
Let us know your progress!

http://www.troelsgravesen.dk/WWDT.htm

 

[walsn]

A similar proyect

 

[walsn]

Forget the link

http://www.audiokarma.org/forums/showthread.php?t=467169

 

[dc270]

Was it normal for these not to have terminal plates, or mperhaps be sold as kits? Judging from the solder connections on the x-over board it looked rather ameture. All the parts looked top notch, as did the cabs!
I am in the process of putting a nice dual L-Pad platre on the front for the level controls...............

DC

 

[dc270]

Phinish Picture

Well here they are with their own level controls, all be it them borromed from a Mrantz 600 speaker with a few name modifications. They look nice, with a bit more polishing could be even better but the aluminum plate has them looking good and the level controls work like a drem- much better balance is now achieved and the over all sonics much improved! Those woofers are really capable of digging very low. A 28 hz note was no problem for these!!

These finally turned out to be pretty good bookshelf speakers. They easily rival and possibly beat out the likes of JBL L-100's and Infinity QB's and a few other! Yes- they are just that good!

DC

 

[walsn]

Good job !

 

[dc270]

Why thank you!! I barely shoe horned it in!!! Gives it a splash of elegance- befitting of their better than average sound I think!
DC

 

[hewlew1]

Those tweeters look an awful lot like a Radio Shack Tweeter.

 

[dc270]

RS sold these same tweeters for a time-among other brand names!
DC

 

[theclerk74]

They looks very nice! Glad to hear you got the sound quality worked out too. I'll be back to get them this weekend! Just kidding...

Sent from my SCH-R970C using Tapatalk

 

[dc270]

They looks very nice! Glad to hear you got the sound quality worked out too. I'll be back to get them this weekend! Just kidding...

Sent from my SCH-R970C using Tapatalk

I fully understand why you did not favor them- they sounded tinny, thin and definitely needed work! After some carefully re-work the ended up becoming an outstanding speaker system! That 12: with rubber surround produces a low end that is incredible, complimented only by those nice top end driver. You would be proud to own these now for sure!

Thanks for complimenting and again for the donation!
DC