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fEarful 15 with Yorkville 7407 driver

Hawkbone

Hawkbone

Mar 23, 2009
942
251
Newfoundland
#1
hey all
So I just scored a Yorkville 7407 15" driver off a local dude. He bought it years ago to fix his Unity U15 PA cab but the driver wasn't the issue, so it sat unused for years. My research says it's made by 18 Sound in Italy and is likely their 15NW530. So, I've been playing with WinISD for the 1st time ever, trying to figure out what sort of cab to put this in. Seems to me that the 15NW530 is close enough to the KL3015LF that a direct swap into the fEarful 15 Sub should work, but I'm open to wisdom and mockery related to that idea. 18Sound suggest a 100L box tuned to 43hz. From what I can gather, the fF 15 Sub is a 116L box tuned to ~46Hz. So, barring wisdom to the contrary, I'll just build the 15 Sub box and maybe extend the shelf by a couple inches if I want to tune to 43 Hz instead of 46. Here's some screen grabs from WinISD. Signal is 400w @ 1m. Green line is the fEarful 15 (as I've modelled it, maybe I missed something like proper alignment??). Red line is the 15 Sub cab tuned to 43, blue line is 15 Sub cab tuned to 46. What say y'all?

~hawk

T/S for 15NW30
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T/S for 3015LF
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#6
I know some Traynor drivers are Eminence made. That exact model could easily be what you say it is, though, and could be something else. Honestly it seems like you're doing your homework.

At any rate, I wish I could help more, those graphs don't look too far off to my eye, but it's been a while since I've used winISD on a regular basis.
 
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#9
If you're not using the drivers specced, it's not a Fearful. You can use the box and put whatever driver you want in it, but it won't be a Fearful.

A Fearful 15Sub with nothing on top is very dark. The 3015LF frequency response gets up to ~2khz and drops like a stone. That's why the Fearful 15Sub is called a Sub, it isn't really intended for standalone use, it gives you more LF driver area to use with more / hotter HF drivers. The Eighteen Sound 15NW530 FR (per manufacture website) gets up to 3k then also drops off hard. Whether that's enough is up to you, but Eighteen Sound still calls it a subwoofer, certainly not a fullrange. For comparison, the popular FaitalPRO 15PR400 gets up to 5k flattish and then has a more gradual inherent rolloff.

The 15Sub with the 3015LF is also set up to have fairly flat FR and low extension. Some people like that and some bassists prefer more of an in-built midrange hump. Low extension can give grief depending on the room and some folks highpass it out anyway. I didn't reproduce your model but the 18Sound looks similar in that box in those respects. 43hz is a low tune for a bass cab, generally.

In summary, build it as a test and see if you like it.
 
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#13
I played around with the 3015LF, a TL-606 cab and the coil and cap in the fEarful sub plans. While it wasn’t a true to spec fEarful sub, it was pretty close. Paired with a built to spec fEarful 15/6/1, it was crushing. Total overkill.

Paired with a 12/6 with the alpha 6 mid, I didn’t get enough mids.

Alone, the sub is not cool for bass guitar.

I ended up building another 15/6/1 and using the 3015LF in that cab.

I figured the sub would just sit home 98% of the time and it was worth building out the 15/6/1, and I got a great deal on a pair of the 18 sound mid drivers.

In the end, I built a 12/6 cube and sold the two larger fEarfuls.

A sub is kind of a one trick pony. It was a fun experiment, and it didn’t cost me more than a couple hours of messing around since I already had the cab and parts.

If the 7407 is a reasonable substitute for the 3015LF, why not build a 15/6/1, or skip the horn and build a 15/6? You’ll need the mid driver and another coil and cap.

I wouldn’t build that dedicated sub cab unless I was 100% sure I wanted a sub.
 
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#14
Thanks singlemalt. Others have said the same as well and it makes perfect sense. I'm not fixated on any course of action yet. I basically used the 15 Sub box as an easy way to get used to WinISD and see how this driver compares to the 3015. I may just make this a PA sub and use it with my Bose L1 but of course then I need a crossover and power amp.
 
#15
+1 to singlemalt’s suggestion. That looks like a solid 15” woofer that would work well with a 6” mid for bass guitar. I’d build it as a fEarful 15/6 with the standard port depth (unless you drop tune to A or lower), not as a sub. You can build a port extension piece to A/B test and see the difference it makes but you sacrifice efficiency in the upper bass by tuning too low. Call Yorkville to fill in any missing info and proceed from there.
 
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#16
5StringPocket said:
+1 to singlemalt’s suggestion. That looks like a solid 15” woofer that would work well with a 6” mid for bass guitar. I’d build it as a fEarful 15/6 with the standard port depth (unless you drop tune to A or lower), not as a sub. You can build a port extension piece to A/B test and see the difference it makes but you sacrifice efficiency in the upper bass by tuning too low. Call Yorkville to fill in any missing info and proceed from there.
Click to expand...
Dunno how this driver's T/S parameters compare with the 3015LF... however, with my T3W 15/6/1 I've found that there's more than enough midbass with standard porting, such that I wouldn't mind losing a little for lower extension for my 5-string. But then I am not a fan of any sort of boominess in the midbass at all, and much prefer hearing solid low fundamentals. Might be restated as I would prefer to be slightly lean in the midbass if it provides more solid fundamentals. YMMV.
 
#17
If you know your preferences the cab can certainly be tweaked in that direction.

I plugged the T/S parameters for this woofer into Eminence Designer with the 18Sound suggested 100L (3.53 cu-ft) box tuned to 43hz. This is an impressive driver with lots of power down low. It has a smaller Vas (154 vs 180.9 liters) than the 3015LF so it can work well in a slightly smaller enclosure. Here is a link to the specs and screen shots of amplitude response and cone displacement.
Eighteen Sound 15NW530
18Sound 15NW530 NormResp.PNG

18Sound 15NW530 ConeDisp.PNG
 
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#18
If I'm reading the above graph correctly, it looks like there's a slight midbass bump with that particular box/tuning. Would be interesting to see the results in the larger fEARful box with a similar or lower port tuning, say 43Hz down to maybe 35-40Hz. Note: this is assuming that we have identified the correct driver!
 
#20
100 to 115 liters is a larger 1x15
It is a very rich deep sound.

The 18 sound drivers outperforms the 3015LF
and handles more thermal power, has a longer gap and more powerful magnet
As you can see the 18 sound also has a lower FS at 38 hz

So it can be tuned lower.
tuning 3 to 5 hz above Fs is pretty standard practice.

As you can see in the cone excursion graph, below tuning
the speaker unloads faster with a high tune.

All in all you will have good performance.
Ideal tuning would be lower at 38 to 43hz

With a slot port 15" enclosure you shoot for standard 40hz tuning
and with typical end factor errors and lower efficiency of shared wall square ports.
Expect real world tuning to be 38 to 43hz which is ironically the ideal tuning for the 18 sound.

It is also likely if traynor did a custom driver for bass application.
They would do changes to the coil and possibly the cone.
Which usually shoots for higher efficiency or better highs.
For all you know Fs has likely moved upward.
Within reason the current tuning is ok.
 
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