Alpair12P Desktop Monitor

Next up on the project list. Alpair12P in ~20L vented cabinet. Front ported.

More info later. Still need to finish the cabinet.

 

Wow, that looks phenomenal! Can't wait to see some measurements & impressions.

 

Looks better now

 

Looking forward to hearing more about this.. was the enclosure easy to build? add any bracing or damping foam?

 

Looking forward to measurements! And dibs on any unwanted OJneg creations

 

I had a pair, it measured terribly all across the FR. something like 8 db variation even over 500hz. they sounded allright but the jeff bagby continuum blew them away. that said, the alpair 12p bettered many revered fullrange drivers like coral beta 8 in my room.
I used likely the same enclosure design.

 

No idea what you are talking about. Are you measuring in room off axis? This is one the flatter widebanders I've measured to be honest. You could probably get away with a simple baffle step shelving circuit. Of course with digital PEQ you can always make it "perfect".




Classic 2-ways do have their advantages in terms of FR smoothness and separation that comes with multi-way system, but they'll never give you the dynamism and purity that you get with the best widebanders.

 

That's near-field ~1ft away from driver. Still sitting on my desk though.

I don't feel that the cone coloration is bad, or at least it's not as bad as I had thought given your orignial impressions. I actually remember preferring these woofers to the other ones you had put on your OB when you still had that thing constructed. The Lowthers seemed to have a more overt gritty coloration that did not quite go away with EQ. These are however less resolving and introspective than the Lowthers, being slower and less dynamic. I might hook up a supertweeter to see if it does anything for me, but as you can see on, paper, it would seem the air region is filled in.

 

Do you have any 1 meter on axis measurements?

 

I see between 7 and 10 khz a 6db dip in the nearfield and also lots of 5db variations all across the FR! I played with 12p in 2012 so dont have the measurements anymore, but I had similar 6db and even more db variations all across the FR even over 1khz (where room doesnt matter much in terms of FR) but it seems your measurements dont! anyways, sorry if I came out rude! maybe I didnt have a perfect measurements rig?

I personally dont hear the purity some of you guys hear in a fullrange driver, the highs are far from pure, dynamism is nothing dramatically better then multi ways and I hear coloration in the upper mid and highs. I still have my fonken fe127en but are stored.
im interested in the sea exotic driver though

 

No worries, I think we agree but might not be communicating effectively. Widebander response will always be more ragged than a good tweeter, and you can definitely hear it. It's just geometries and physics. The actual nulls here are probably artifacts, or at least not heard as seen. You'll start to hear what the driver can really do once you lock things in with PEQ. Right now I'm sitting happy with a high shelf starting at 800Hz and a broad decrease around the 6k region that you noted. Widebanders also tend to respond much better to EQ in general, while unevenness with multi-ways can be harder to correct.

What you see above is the jist of it.

 

Those look terrific OJ - nice work!

I just started gluing up some small cabinets I made for the Alpair 6p. I have the drivers running in in some temporary mounts at the moment but they do sound quite promising for such a small driver so might be okay for inexpensive near-field desktop use where space is limited.

I just noticed that in the specs it recommends a very specific long and gentle break-in process of something like 300 hours... did you or Marvey notice any changes overtime with the 12p? or is this kind of stuff usually overstated ?

To start with the 6p sounded a bit like someone playing music in a cave through a walkie-talkie, but they seem quite a bit smoother and more solid sounding now.

 

215 Bicone Signature in open baffle with active sub to fill in the last octave. I think ill build this very soon.