Velvet Hammers

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Posted by FredT [ 76.31.85.80 ] on August 02, 2007 at 16:36:58:

In Reply to: Re: Lone Star Bottleheads - Houston, July 28 posted by Wayne Parham on August 01, 2007 at 15:37:18:

They are a variation on the "Blue Wonders" from the Parts Express Project pages. The woofer is the Hammer 18CLF, a recent PE buyout driver which is similar to the Eminence Definimax 4018LF, the Eminence Beta 8 as the midrange, and the Eminence PSD2002 compression driver (instead of the range-limited ASD1001) with a Dayton waveguide. The crossover is the same as in the project except I used Dayton poly caps instead of electrolytics in the midrange crossover and Northcreeks in the tweeter signal path. The enclosures are built of 3/4" Birch plywood lined with 1/2" plywood plus extensive internal reinforcement.

I'm not entirely pleased with these speakers. They sound great at low power, but when driven reasonably hard by a high power amp, tube or SS, with music having strong bass content such as classical pipe organ music, there's audible distortion from the woofer. Confused sounding bass distortion is the last thing I would have expected from a cast aluminum frame Eminence Pro woofer with a copper shorting ring rated at 800 watts RMS. I wonder if the 400hz crossover isn't too high for this driver. Here's a link to the specs for the Hammer 18:

http://www.partsexpress.com/pe/showdetl.cfm?Partnumber=299-444



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