My very first version of this speaker started a few years ago, when I decided to do a 3 way design using the Accuton C173-6-090. It's in my opinion a very special driver, and I just had to give it a try. I mated it up to Scan Speak drivers, which performed very well. Since then, I've tried several 10" drivers and tested each of them in terms of linear and non linear distortion, and of course listening impressions. Some of these woofers that were under "consideration/testing" were the Scan Speak 26W Aluminum cone woofers, Seas L26RNX, L26ROY, W26FX, Dayton RS270, and lastly, the Seas Nextel W26FX02. I also tried a few different Scan Speak tweeters, but just really wanted to try the RAAL OEM ribbon in this speaker. The Duet10SE is over 3 years of R&D. In fact, it's probably much longer than that, because many of the tests I've done on various components used in this speaker date further back.
With all that said, I feel that these parts just really have great synergy (RAAL+Accuton C173-6-090, Seas nextel W26FX02), and it wasn't something that just happened. Many considerations and tests were performed to get what you see here today, and I'm very proud of where it ended up.
The cabinets were made using a dado construction, thick cabinet walls, with horizontal and vertical bracing. The crossovers are massive, as they use the large high end Clarity Cap MR series caps in the tweeter, ESA range in the midrange circuit, Mundorf resistors, and quality air core inductors. Alone, the crossovers retail for about $1500 in parts and the crossover boards are all point to point with silver solder used throughout. Because of the complexity of the internal construction, the only way to build the crossover was to put it on 5 separate boards roughly 5X7" in size (per speaker!). It was one big crossover, which is the heart and soul of this effort.
I went to work on this most recent derivative of the Duet10, now called the Duet10SE, with a client. He'll take delivery of these speakers in CA next week.
Below you will find some measurements of the final system response:
The measurements turned out about as well as I could have hoped. Easily +/- 1.5db as the in room response below suggests:
The impedance was also designed to work with a variety of amplifiers. I drove it to very loud levels with my Ayre AX7e 60 watt integrated. I'd recommend someone have at least the same characteristics in their amplifier to get the same level of performance.
The port tuning is around 30hz, which I find gives the best bass response for an F3 of 30hz.
PM me if you have any questions or would like to schedule a purchase on the next pair.
Best Regards,
Jed
