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New Yorks, Tannoy project

I'm intrigued by the hanging speakers at the NT; do you know what show were they used for?

Not specifically, but these type of drivers have been used in Gerry Springer the musical, The Freddy Mercury stage show and numerous others here and in the US. The general application seems to be as natural acoustic reinforcement where say there's a live orchestra and/or choir.
 
As I needed to retune these York(ish) enclosures to best suit the 3833/36 drivers I decided to measure them accurately, deducting port/driver/brace volumes. The 'empty' enclosure came in at 172L which drops to a surprising 156L after the above allowances and just 6L larger than the 15 DMT monitors. The 50hz port slot was equivalent to a 204mm dia circular port and so was easily modified retaining the existing height and depth by reducing the slot to 102mm to achieve a 29Hz tuning. They sound faster, cleaner and leaner now......
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Except.........I hadn't anticipated the effect of the proximity of the enclosure/damping sides on the port tuning given the position of this modified port-the end correction basically, the surprise was I figured the port was sufficiently clear of any internal surfaces, alas nope.
Real world consequences are that 'effective' port lengths can be 50% longer.

The impedance plot shows the bottom of the saddle is at 23hz rather than 29hz predicted by software. We can also see the second peak is higher than the first which indicates the port tuning is below driver Fs, the minor ripples would indicate some cabinet resonances-but I knew that already;-)

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The result is the bass is 1 to 2dB leaner than it need be.

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Bracing baffle area around the driver, the baffle is only 12mm ply so rather than just doubling the thickness I decided on some incremental changes. The rather odd free floating rectangular 50mm shelf rattled like a sod so I anchored it to the side panels with an L shape bracket brace. The midpoint at the side of the driver cut out also had a 50mm blocks either side added then I fitted some open triangular shaped braces to each corner around the driver holes. This seems to have removed a hollow "vvmmm" sound when you rap on the baffle. Upper bass is now noticeably cleaner.

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I'll be putting up 2 pairs of these refurbished drivers plus crossovers for sale soon, a very economical way to get the 15DMT2/Arden Legacy, Very good condition Arden 1's have to go too so watch this space.
 
Oooh, I'm picking up a pair of large empty cabinets this weekend (all things being equal) so would definitely be interested in some affordable 15" drivers to put inside them!
 
They're Amesburys which are pretty much identical to Yorks I believe.

Cool the port/slot doesn't seem as tall as the 50hz York.
I've just modified these Yorks to have 1 port@ 29hz I was toying with 3 which would give flexibility as in the Ardens to have 1@29,2@38,all 3@49 hz tunings for room placement. They are sounding nice.
 
Holy crap, these Amesbury/York cabinets look absolutely bloody huge in my house! I knew how big the dims were but even so was slightly unprepared for their physical impact, ha ha. I think the effect is exaggerated as I have low ceilings but I keep having a double-take every time I look at them - my other half reckoned it felt like she'd been shrunk as the cabs look much like other vintage Tannoys I've had......just twice as big.

Funny :D
 
You get used to it, and after a while start to wonder where the hell you'd keep all the stuff you store on the tops if they weren't there...
 
Just measured the T&S of my newly acquired 3833 drivers;
Averaged over the pair;

Fs 31hz
Re 5.45 ohms
Qts 0.47
VAS 326L
BL 12.2

This confirms they are effectively the same driver as the 3836.
 
Now tripple ported as per Arden/ Legacy. I've always found a slight gap between front teeth rather attractive ;-)

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How do they compare to the DMT15 II?

A bit more rich in the bass I would imagine.
Interestingly enough the internal volumes aren't that different, there's only about 15 L in it when the porting etc is taken into account-they prob go a bit lower but room placement has a significant impact on that lower octave-there's not much in it,I'd say the DMT's were a bit punchier with the 'New Yorks' reaching a shade lower. The DMT enclosures are really something though, there is a level of 'no-box' clarity that's very special-same driver, same crossover just totally uncoloured.
 
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