One year ago I discovered a pair of these PA small horn speakers in a recycling warehouse and took them home. It's a two way system with backloaded horn, a cone tweeter and 10" woofer. I hooked them up and they sound pretty good, although the subbass is lacking (obviously with such a small horn). Nevertheless they sound punchy and clear, with good resolution. A good find in my opinion. Now, the question: does anyone has some info on these speakers? I have browsed the internet for details, but there is nothing to be found, not even pictures or data sheets. Also the Pearl website does not mention them. On the back, a sticker only states: 50W @8 ohm, no type- or model number.
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Those drivers seem to go back a long ways, so guessing best to contact them just in case they've kept at least an advertisement archive.
Thank you for your reply, GM, I guess they are from the 80's. They have a 6.3mm jack input, typical for pro equipment of those days. Also, the power handling is ancient (50W). I remember reading a thread regarding cone tweeters, I must say they sound pretty good and hifi worthy. It sounds quite neutral in that respect, the highs are more beamy but that translates into nice detail resolution and focus.I must admit they sound better than expected, definitely involving. In PA monitoring, a bit of beaming keeps the mic from feeding back.
That tweeter looks suspiciously like a 4” wide range unit of years past, perhaps from Foster. Their use in combo with woofers is not as old as that speaker appears. I would pull it and have a look.
Yes, I will and check, tnx Cal. A bit of reverse engineering should be fun. Btw that "horn" is more like some bassreflex kind of tuning appearing like a horn.
It has the appearance of a scoop from this side of the screen. You may tell more once you pull the small driver.
Yeah, that or again considering the woofer, thinking it might be a 1/8 WL stub horn vent popular in the '50s - '60s.
I won’t be able to sleep until he comes back with answers. Best put the kettle on.
Not quite bedtime here yet and he’ll probably be getting up soon. We still have a chance. (Insert big winkie smile here)
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Well, hold your pants... I took one of the speakers apart to have a peek inside. I really like this concept because of it's bare bones design. The tweeter is a 4" cone with first order high-pass filter (10 ohm resistor and 3,3 microF). The woofer has no filter at all, just parallel connected to the input jack. The tweeter is in parallel with the woofer. That's why this speaker has a wide soundstage, great punch and dynamics, detailed with good stereo separation -among other virtues as it has virtually no crossover (wink). Drivers made in Japan as a bonus.
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What I learned from this design is, assuming that it sounds "correct" -and to my ears it does to a certain degree- that, to make this simple design work, the tuning of this loudspeaker has been done in a non-electrical way. There is only a first order filter and no other correction networks, so the characteristics of the drivers and the housing themselves must have been tweaked to complement each other. F.e. the 10" driver has to operate full range, so how the woofer breaks up and behaves at high frequencies becomes important.
So, this speaker is a good find from the recycling store, happy with them as my new PC speakers, Wharfedales Denton II out... they have their own merits but that is another story.
As a side note, sometimes it occurs to me that designers just throw in a bunch of fancy parts, and fix the problems with electrical tuning e.g. via the crossover/impedance corrections/notchfilters. Of course, that may also deliver good results, but I like it as simple as possible, small or big speakers alike. Parts quality does matter, but they have to be matched, so you can minimize electrical corrections i.m.o.
So, this speaker is a good find from the recycling store, happy with them as my new PC speakers, Wharfedales Denton II out... they have their own merits but that is another story.
As a side note, sometimes it occurs to me that designers just throw in a bunch of fancy parts, and fix the problems with electrical tuning e.g. via the crossover/impedance corrections/notchfilters. Of course, that may also deliver good results, but I like it as simple as possible, small or big speakers alike. Parts quality does matter, but they have to be matched, so you can minimize electrical corrections i.m.o.
Just for fun, I took some simple measurements of the Pearl speakers from where they are placed to listen to. One measurement in front of the left speaker (red) and one in my listening position (near field), green. They confirm that I like them as near field pc speakers. It shows also that they are a little bass light, but that is not really a problem in practice. I think it is impressive for a 10" woofer with no filter and a cone tweeter with 1st order filter. The rising treble suits my aging ears 😊 'Nuff said
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That measurement can't be right! If so, you have undoubtedly the best anechoic chamber in the world😉
You may be surprised as I treated the room acoustically pretty well. This is what the umik recorded anyway, so must be what the speaker has produced. No photoshop here, either.
Addition: I am also amazed, I'll try to falsify the measurement. I used the standard rew settings (50-20000Hz), linux version and umik usb mic with calibration on standard pc with embedded soundcard. When you do something wrong or something went wrong, usually you end up with worse results, not better i.m.h.o. The phase, group delay and waterfall graphs where useless by the way but the spl graph struck me as well.
Please provide of axis data as well, overlaid in one graph. Simply measure at 0, 10, 20, 30 and 40 degrees.
Use scale 50 to 100dB.
well yeah cause it looks pretty darn good.
and almost impossible with a cone tweeter.
logo looks like Pearl drum manufacture.
So likely sold as monitors for electronic drums
and almost impossible with a cone tweeter.
logo looks like Pearl drum manufacture.
So likely sold as monitors for electronic drums
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