Ocean Way Audio HRA Loudspeakers

bonzo75

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They won't work in 35 by 14 IMHO. Well they will, but they need way wider to be at their best.

They will be fantastic. I have heard a similar construction in another big room, and if you put JMLC horns on that the dispersion will be narrower and not wide.
 

ddk

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JBL had their own beryllium, mainly used on 476, 435, etc. Do you have 476?

TAD have their own, and others use Truextent beryllium, including with many JBL drivers. Beryllium can get hot but it is a bit like an electrostat. Very see through and transparent, and upstream can affect it a lot. I like it because of the transparency (both see through and to upstream gear and recordings), ease, and their resolution is highest for large scale orchestra is the highest. The music is just there. With paper, despite the lovely tone, it is the tone of the driver, and large scale congests. Though I am not comparing the same driver with diaphragm swapped, but essentially the beryllium drivers of TAD and Radian to other non beryllium, so there might be other things. Nuance is also very high
I have the 475 Ti and 476 Be. Be has a sound character and quality but I wouldn't say that it's more transparent or has additional resolution over other metals, just a different presentation. It comes down to personal taste, I had a problem with Focal's Be tweeters in Kharma speakers, Charles had to modify the housing replace the ferrofluid with something different to negate most of it's signature. I owned a lot of horn speakers from everywhere and I like aluminum diaphragms, the better ones are livelier and have a more natural presentation without an obvious signature compared to Be or Ti where I hear some slight homogenization. But at the same time using solid state amplification negates most of the differences I hear.

Paper drivers are a different subject.

david
 
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bonzo75

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I have the 475 Ti and 476 Be. Be has a sound character and quality but I wouldn't say that it's more transparent or has additional resolution over other metals, just a different presentation. It comes down to personal taste, I had a problem with Focal's Be tweeters in Kharma speakers, Charles had to modify the housing replace the ferrofluid with something different to negate most of it's signature. I owned a lot of horn speakers from everywhere and I like aluminum diaphragms, the better ones are livelier and have a more natural presentation without an obvious signature compared to Be or Ti where I hear some slight homogenization. But at the same time using solid state amplification negates most of the differences I hear.

Paper drivers are a different subject.

david

Cone beryllium like focal is horrible, makes ears bleed, and nowhere similar to Radian or TAD. I am not familiar with Kharma outside shows, but don't see any similarity. Plus, focal beryllium does not run on low watt SETs.
 

ddk

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Cone beryllium like focal is horrible, makes ears bleed, and nowhere similar to Radian or TAD. I am not familiar with Kharma outside shows, but don't see any similarity. Plus, focal beryllium does not run on low watt SETs.

Materials have pretty specific sonic characteristics Ked why people opt for one over the other. Yes the implementation matters but material is material.

We setup a lot of Kharma/Lamm ML2 systems with no issues almost all with the Focal Be driver, even with in couple of systems with Focal Grand Utopias the ML2 drove them. Yes the big woofer would have benefited from more power and current but overall the sound was excellent. ML3 can drive any of them.

david
 

jeff1225

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I understand what Aquaplas is and what it does just don't know if it's a JBL invention or someone else's product they renamed. I sent my speakers to Greg Timbers to look over when I first bought them, it's all new re-cones and he applied Aquaplas to the Be diaphragms because I found them a little too hot for my taste. I don't like Aquaplas on paper cones so none on the woofers. From what I understood from GT, the put that stuff Be too.

david
It was Greg Timbers that partnered with Peter Noerbaek at PBN audio to create my speaker system.
 

jdza

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I'm trying to figure out what Aquaplass is, I have it on some of my JBL speakers and know what it does on Be diaphragms, but what is it?

david

There was some speculation that it was actualy a product by a Canadian company, even that it was cribbed from Altec but nobody really seems to know.

Regarding another question. JBL did cover Berillium diaphragms commercially with Aquaplas. The 435Be driver found in the K2 was covered with it.


"In 1999, Doug Button began development on a new series of compression drivers that would result in the 435Be. With the 435Be, Doug wanted to address both the bandwidth and output requirements without compromise in distortion. The goal was to have a driver that was pistonic throughout its bandwidth and have extension that did not rely on parasitic resonance. The solution was in a different diaphragm material – beryllium. The use of beryllium in compression drivers was not new. The TAD division of Pioneer had been producing such drivers for many years. However, the approach and design objectives set for the 435Be were unique.


435Be Beryllium Diaphragms
© Don McRitchie​

To ensure pistonic response, Doug specified a smaller 3" diameter. A beryllium diaphragm of this size ensured that breakup modes would be above 15.5khz. A thin layer of Aquaplas was applied to the back of the diaphragm to damp spurious resonances."

The 2435HPL found in the line array PA systems was essentially the same driver ,although cosmetically different, but not Aquaplas covered. I owned a pair of 2435 HPL that had its Be dias covered with Aquaplas. It was a lovely sounding driver but its 3 inch dia made for a more "forced" sound than the effortless ease of 4 inch dia drivers that I ultimately prefer.
 
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jdza

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It was Greg Timbers that partnered with Peter Noerbaek at PBN audio to create my speaker system.

I think it is worthwhile pointing out that for many years Greg Timbers was JBL. He was the designer ot the most legendary modern JBLs until he was one day (in a scandalous way) kicked out of the company. I am not sure if he was the designer of the M2 your speaker is based on .
 
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jeff1225

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I think it is worthwhile pointing out that for many years Greg Timbers was JBL. He was the designer ot the most legendary modern JBLs until he was one day (in a scandalous way) kicked out of the company. I am not sure if he was the designer of the M2 your speaker is based on .
From what I understand, he was not at JBL when the M2 speaker was created. PBN worked with Greg to create a crossover for the compression driver in the M2 as it is DSP controlled in the commercial version of the speaker.
 

bonzo75

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Robh3606

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From what I understand, he was not at JBL when the M2 speaker was created. PBN worked with Greg to create a crossover for the compression driver in the M2 as it is DSP controlled in the commercial version of the speaker.

Yes the M2 is DSP controlled but the actual M2 waveguide is very well behaved and you can come up with passive networks that work very well with it. Aquaplas has been a staple with JBL drivers since the 1960's. Mostly on the woofers to stiffen damp and add mass. I preaty sure it was Greg who came up with it's use on compression driver diaphragms. Makes for a significantly cleaner CSD measurment.

Rob :)
 
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ddk

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I think it is worthwhile pointing out that for many years Greg Timbers was JBL. He was the designer ot the most legendary modern JBLs until he was one day (in a scandalous way) kicked out of the company. I am not sure if he was the designer of the M2 your speaker is based on .
Every noteworthy JBL design during the Harman years were designed by Timbers, real shame the way he was treated. Sadly it all left a bad taste in his mouth, enough to not want to have anything to do with the industry.

david
 
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Folsom

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Every noteworthy JBL design during the Harman years were designed by Timbers, real shame the way he was treated. Sadly it all left a bad taste in his mouth, enough to not want to have anything to do with the industry.

david

Harmen burns every bridge with all employees over time. Even if you manage to retire, they’ll wave goodbye but that’s it.
 

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