New Tang Band 8" full-range driver - W8-1808

JohnR · « **on:** 21 Aug 2009, 01:30 pm »

I ran into these a few days ago when researching drivers for a friend of mine's HT:

http://www.parts-express.com/pe/showdetl.cfm?Partnumber=264-894

(Sorry about the commercial link, but the pictures there are better than on the manufacturer's site.) I guess it could be considered expensive compared to other TB drivers, or cheap if it compares sound-quality-wise to other 8" FRs on the market. Unfortunately I couldn't find any reports on sound quality yet.

There's also a low-Qts version called the W8-1772.

Mariusz · « **Reply #1 on:** 21 Aug 2009, 02:55 pm »

I was also looking at those drivers...........

They look well build.
Curious if anyone have any experience with them as well?

Mariusz

Bob_Brines · « **Reply #2 on:** 22 Aug 2009, 04:31 pm »

I have a pair of W8-1772's on order. I should have them next week. I'll report T/S numbers as soon as possible. Modeling of the published specs indicate that the 1772 will drop into my FT-2000 cabinet designed for the FE207E. I can then compare the 1772, FE207E and Lowther DX3. THAT report may take a while.

Bob

FullRangeMan · « **Reply #3 on:** 23 Aug 2009, 02:01 am »

Wonderful driver.
The 1808 looks very good, the Freq.Resp chart is better than the B200.
I cant wait to read some report about the 1808 as OB.
Wonder if these radial magnets are really better than a regular donut shape??
Neodymium and radial magnets are always expensives.

opnly bafld · « **Reply #4 on:** 23 Aug 2009, 02:22 am »

Quote from: FULLRANGEMAN on 23 Aug 2009, 02:01 am

The 1808 looks very good, the Freq.Resp chart is better than the B200.

B200 lovers all over the world are glad we don't listen to Freq.Resp charts.

The TBs look interesting, no harm in having more choices when it comes to fullrange drivers.

Lin

FullRangeMan · « **Reply #5 on:** 23 Aug 2009, 02:35 am »

Quote from: opnly bafld on 23 Aug 2009, 02:22 am

Quote from: FULLRANGEMAN on 23 Aug 2009, 02:01 am
The 1808 looks very good, the Freq.Resp chart is better than the B200.

B200 lovers all over the world are glad we don't listen to Freq.Resp charts.

Lin

Sorry for it.

JohnR · « **Reply #6 on:** 23 Aug 2009, 12:57 pm »

Quote from: Bob_Brines on 22 Aug 2009, 04:31 pm

I have a pair of W8-1772's on order. I should have them next week.

Cool - look forward to hearing your impressions.

Duke · « **Reply #7 on:** 24 Aug 2009, 04:37 am »

I'm using the W8-1772 in a current project, but I'm using a subwoofer system to provide the bottom couple of octaves - which is cheating, I know. There's some description of the project over on my forum.

The measured on-axis response of the W8-1772 is reasonably close to the published curve, but I look at a lot of other stuff too. In my opinion the W8-1772 benefits from a bit of filtering.

Assuming the W8-1808 is essentially cut from the same cloth, looks to me like its parameters make it a better candidate for truly fullrange operation. It might be sort of a poor man's verson of the Seas exotic F8. That 5 mm of x-max is very impressive for a fullrange driver.

That being said, I have no doubt that a W8-1772 in a Bob Brines enclosure would give very good bass extension. Bob's design may look fairly simple, but he's doing some very innovative juggling; there's a degree of optimization there that I don't think I've seen anywhere else.

As for the motors, both use an underhung topology and have extraordinarily low inductance, which makes me suspect that a shorting ring of some sort is employed even though I don't see any such feature mentioned on the spec sheet.

JohnR · « **Reply #8 on:** 24 Aug 2009, 11:31 am »

Ah-hah! So how does it sound so far? Must at least be OK if you still have them

I'm starting to wonder if I've done something weird to my copy of Unibox though, I'm getting something like f3 of 115Hz for the 1772 sealed - I better download a fresh copy

Duke · « **Reply #9 on:** 24 Aug 2009, 04:14 pm »

John, so far I haven't built a stereo pair yet, but your reading between the lines is correct.

Your calculated sealed box f3 sounds about right to me. The configuration I use (offset bipole) gives a bit of apparent bass boost because the bass output of the rear driver wraps around and reinforces in-phase while higher up the rear driver's energy reinforces in random phase.

As a ballpark approximation of minimum sealed-box F3 with a normal configuration, divide .707 by the Qts, and multiply the result by the resonant frequency. So in this case .707 divided by .27 = 2.62, and 2.62 x 42 Hz = 110 Hz. That's within a small fraction of an octave of your result; if we calculated F3 based on a Qtc of .74 (instead of .707) we'd get an estimated F3 of 115 Hz.

DanH · « **Reply #10 on:** 12 Sep 2009, 06:56 am »

I had a pair of 90 liter bass reflex cabinets sitting around I built for a pair of hemp acoustics fr8 drivers. I never could solve the upper mid-range shoutiness of that driver. The tang band driver dropped into my cabinets with no modification. This driver is very smooth. I can not detect any peaks or raggedness anywhere. I have been listening for about six hours now and I really like this driver. It gives as good bass as the fr8 driver. It can reproduce the sizzly decay of a cymbal strike. The fr8 never could do that.

mp9 · « **Reply #11 on:** 15 Sep 2009, 11:42 pm »

dan, are you using the w8-1808 or w8-1772 ?

VadimB · « **Reply #12 on:** 16 Sep 2009, 04:44 pm »

Dan, please, do keep us posted. I'm the author (and owner of the prototype) of Vadim horn project for Hemp FR8, that was for awhile on E-speakers web site. Due to personal circumstance (not related to sound quality) I was just about to put those prototypes for sale here on AudioCircle.
The W8-1808 looks like a direct replacement of FR8. The PUBLISHED T/S parameters are practically the same (they were not for FR8). Main thing, this horn was designed for Q of .45 - .5, not the low Q of the rest of them. 5mm of Xmax will not hurt either. Even the flange size and the bolt circle are the same, although TB has 8 holes vs. Hemp's 4. If it's this good, I may keep the horn cabinets just to try and see.
Vadim

DanH · « **Reply #13 on:** 17 Sep 2009, 04:49 am »

I am using the 1808 driver. I have not heard the high end drivers but this diver has no peaky resonances like the hemp acoustics fr-8. It sounds contradictory but it seems to be smooth and detailed. I was listening to some ELP, most of you are not old enough to remember them, but I thought something was wrong with the driver but I realized it was just the raspiness of the synthesizer they used that I had not noticed before. I was at first impressed by the high end but as it has broken in some the bass has become impressive too. It has the usual rising response that most full range drivers have. I just don't toe them in very much to correct that. I have had friends over and they were just blown away by the sound of this driver. The magnet system is very powerful. As I was soldering leads to one I let the iron get a little to perpendicular to the magnets and they yanked it out of my hand. I about shit but no damage was done. VadimB I always lusted after your horn design but I just did not think I had the wood working skills to build them.

mp9 · « **Reply #14 on:** 17 Sep 2009, 09:39 pm »

VadimB, i'm interested in the w8-1808 driver, could you post or pm me the plans of your hemp fr8 horn which is no longer on e-speakers site?

VadimB · « **Reply #15 on:** 19 Sep 2009, 01:21 am »

Dan,

The parts for my prototype were cut out by Meniscus. I left one side removable so I could adjust the damping and stuffing as long as I wanted (and it did take long time). Ever since, I am trying to talk Mark (the main Meniscus guy) to make a flat kit available. The only way it may work is to CNC the sides. I am able to supply the CAD files, because that's the way the design is made, but still, the initial programming fee is pretty high. My guess is you would need to have at least 5 people interested to make the price of parts reasonable. I may have one or two people ready to paticipate.

Vadim