Well it’s a few weeks since the PE gathering and the bug has bitten. I’ve been wanting to do the coax thing for years and after a brief chat with the coax king, Mr Jones, it’s happening.
I have been holding out for an R series KEF driver for to long now, nothing has came close enough pricewise for me to bite. I’ve also been checking out large format coaxs too. Faital, B&C, and Beyma have really nice offerings…at a steeeeep cost, likely around what KEFs were going to cost.
But AJ hinted to a company I obviously knew about, but didn’t really consider because of what I thought would be cost prohibited… Tannoy.
So I searched a bit and came across an eBay seller that had a bunch of these coaxs that are for overhead paging and background music. What company buys 12" Tannoy coax drivers for that?!?!?! Anyway, made the deal and jumped in both feet. Let’s get this party started
It’s a CMS 12 TDC of which I couldn’t find much on, the CMS 1201DC is apparently a newer version, but the xover on it doesn’t look like this one.
The xover is ok, not great. I just got done listening to them solo, had to EQ to compensate for the OB situation, but otherwise they sound pretty good. Once they’re fully DSPd I can imagine they’ll be quite nice.
When I was checking them out the top end looked a little better on the 12 TDC compared to the 1201DC, despite looking like the same driver, different crossover. Now I can’t find the graph I saw on the 12 TDC.
Threw the Ultimax units in to see if they would alter the coax FR. Negligible, so all good there. Waiting on some cables and connectors to get the active set-up going.
I’ve long considered open baffles but never gone all in because of room size.
What are you using as an absorber behind to reduce back reflection power?
Do you think it does a convincing job of increasing the perceived room size?
I’d though about a combination of shaped foam, felt, and dowel rods to absorb, deflect, and diffuse the back wave to minimize temporal smearing but ultimately have not tested.
I have a Roxule 2’x4’x2" panel behind each one. Otherwise my room is set up on the long wall and there’s all kinds normal room stuff in there defusing. Nothing special.
The whole thing about needing a bunch of room to have an OB setup is kinda blown out of proportion. I think it works just fine with the baffle around a couple feet away from the wall, which is likely what your normal speakers probably all ready are.
Well after fighting the whole mic/interface/REW for a couple nights early this week, I’ve had a few sessions and finally got a respectable sound out of this setup.
The peak in distortion @1K is probably the tweeter. I have to use it down into it’s FS area, no doubt causing it. I don’t really hear it with music, but the squiggly lines show it.
I contemplate maybe a passive FS notch? Might ease that?
Yeah, I know, guess I just figured it’d be a bit better to address it since it’s probably an FS thing. If the woofer didn’t have such an abrupt drop at 800Hz, I wouldn’t have to bring the tweeter so low and excite the resonance.
Another day of listening and some minor tweaking, digging them.
I don’t know if I would make that assumption. This one in particular had it’s issue. The Faital Pro and B&C I was initially looking at didn’t show this anomaly, but they both were significantly more expensive than these were used.
On the other hand, these Tannoys are as expensive new.
More listening… I’ve never spent time with a large format two way. It’s pretty incredible at dynamics. A 12" driver really nails snare and kick impact, especially in a home environment. The upper midrange/vocals are nice as well. Not quite like the Audaxs in my previous build, but quite engaging.
Also my first fully active system. I definitely see the merits to it.
What company buys 12" Tannoy coax drivers for that?!?!?! Anyway, made the deal and jumped in both feet. Let’s get this party started
Now I can’t find the graph I saw on the 12 TDC.
