       This page created
and mismanaged by Jason Petrasko, circa 1998. |
The Peerless 833599, or "how I
learned to love high-end"
Why choose such an average driver for the
mid-bass? Why not use a driver with a smoother
roll-off or better distortion figures? These are
all good questions, and I would like to say that
I have a single good technical answer. Well, let
me make one up. Here we go: "I wanted to see
just how good a sound can be achieved from lesser
drivers.". In truth my reasons are from my
past. You see, my first DIY speaker was a two-way
bass-reflex built using the thiel-small model
when I was fourteen. Each utilized one peerless
1599 6.5" woofer and a rat-shack dome
tweeter with a text-book first order crossover at
2,500 hz. The argonaut prestige woofer choice is
a homage to this first loudspeaker.
Now, let me make a few remarks about the 833599
6.5" polypropylene woofer. First, I feel it
is a very under-rated woofer. It is not used in
any designs on the net. Why? I think because it
is not an easy driver to use and does not like
text-book crossovers one bit. Unless you have
almost unlimited patience and a very analytical
mind, designing a crossover for a difficult
driver like this torture. I personally found it
rather as a fun challenge. What are the features
of this driver? Let me describe them for you. It
has a maximum power handling of 150 watts RMS.
Believe me, it can handle 150 watts. I tested my
older 1599 with 220 watts into 60 hz before it's
suspension blew (took three seconds, and this
driver is only rated at 50 watts). The xmax of
the driver is 4mm peak. This offers good
performance at louder volumes. With a maximum
excursion peak of 10mm, it can survive the deep
bass frequencies with substainal input power.
Here are the downsides. Cone-breakup begins at
about 800 hz, this manifests itself as a +/- 1 db
ripple which becomes +/- 3db above 2,000 hz.
Second above 2,000 hz the driver's response
increases to a +3 decibel peak at 3,000 hz before
dropping off as a second order function at 4,000
hz. Now,this peak is most likely the large cloth
dustcap's output being hornloaded by the woofer's
cone. However this is not a problem for the
speaker since I chose a steep third-order
crossover at 2,000hz where the driver is still
pretty flat.
- Fs: 36.2 Hz
- Qms: 1.55, Qes: 0.35 -> Qts: 0.28
- Moving Mass: 14.4g
- Impedance: 8 ohms
- Re: 6.3 ohms
- Inductance: 1.2mh (Wow, talk about
masking mechanical resonance)
- Emitting Surface: 130 square cm.
- xmax: 4mm linear, 10mm maximum
- Sensitivity: 90 db/2.83V @ 1M (Higher
than the 88db specified)
- Maximum Power: 150 watts RMS (100 watts
continuous)
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