Transparency


I've been using the same full range drivers in a few different open baffles over the years, and after trying a few series or parallel notch filters, am trying a tweeter to take care of the upper treble, above 13000 hertz. The roughness is about 12000 hertz, so I'm lowpassing the full range driver about 11000 hertz, also first order, to put the roughness in the slightly deeper knee of the crossovers.

This works better than I anticipated; better than the deep or shallow wide or narrow notch filters I've tried.

I figured in for a penny, in for a pound, and so tried out a speaker level highpass first order about  120 hertz to reduce Doppler distortion.

Using a couple of decent quality paralleled metallized polypropylene caps, I'm losing a fair bit of detail in spite of the reputation of capacitors having much less distortion than inductors.

Comparing the same drivers with and without the plain Jane aircore inductors, the midrange frequencies sound unchanged.

This effect isn't apparent with some MarkAudio, Seas, or regular woofers.

Do I just have a set of drivers that are barely good, and can't withstand being highpassed with a 147uF capacitor?

I've tried bypass film and tinfoil caps up to 2.2uF to no avail.

And trading in added Doppler distortion and relying on an undersized pair of baffles to act as highpasses to meet the lowpassed sub.

mitsound

Is this a trick question? It’s easy you forgot to hook up the flux capacitor.

Do I just have a set of drivers that are barely good, and can’t withstand being highpassed with a 147uF capacitor?

Obviously yes. Have you tried kevlar drivers yet?

If you want transparency did you try an outboard crossover

Yes, I've built and sold custom speakers for about 35.years, any kind I've come across.

My idea with full range drivers was to simplify things as much as possible and still get the results I am after.

Your comment to me has nothing to do with with my core question- to make it plainer- why am I hearing more distortion from a capacitor than an inductor, considering the distortion from capacitors are supposed to be be about an order of magnitude lower than distortions from an inductor.

@mitsound 

These forums crack me up, maybe you should come back when you have some more experience! Kidding of course, welcome. I have no valuable input for you, I’m just a hack that loves music. 

 

I can't answer your question directly.

I suggest looking at the problem from first principles:
if performance is worse with a cap than an inductor, then the system is more sensitive to voltage regulation than current regulation. I agree it seems odd on an open baffle, especially considering you tried using a bypass cap.