Help..... Need assistance in speaker selection.....

[Tommy L]

Hello! My first post to this forum

I've just purchased a used EA NL210 and it has some noise coming from
it, so I took it apart, replaced the gaskets, checked to make sure
there were no wires or foam touching the cones.

I put her back together and it sounded great, then.....after it
warmed up, I started getting a low fuzz sound of distortion once
again. It is not very loud, but it's there.... The voice coil
moves freely in the magnets with out feeling any noticeable rubbing.
I tried different amps and basses to exclude the noise from coming elsewhere.
I contacted John at EA. He feels the 10" drivers are done and the
upgrade kit is $800 for the 10's and the tweeter.

Since it's a T-line cabinet, I don't know how to shop for a 10"
speaker. It's the 8ohm 500w cabinet.

Can anyone help me to select a speaker for purchase for this cabinet?
I would merely get the speaker re-coned, but I hear that this Series I cabinet
speakers fail often.

Thank you!

Tommy L sends.....

[LelandCrooks]

Not many specs available, because it's proprietary. From what I can find, I'd suggest a Deltalite 2510, or a 3010mb. They state in the marketing stuff they're crossing at 2k, so you need the rising response at 2k like these two drivers provide. The 3010lf will probably give the most bass, but the top end will suffer.

[Tommy L]

Not many specs available, because it's proprietary. From what I can find, I'd suggest a Deltalite 2510, or a 3010mb. They state in the marketing stuff they're crossing at 2k, so you need the rising response at 2k like these two drivers provide. The 3010lf will probably give the most bass, but the top end will suffer.

Hi Leland!

I greatly appreciate your input! I built a 2x10 cabinet 15 years ago from biscuits, 3/4 ply and PL premium.
No horn, just a 2x10 and I only just loaded it with Eminence BP102's. It seems to be a great match with the
NL210 as my 2x10 is very dark/sub sounding with the same EQ going to both cabinets. It filled out the bottom
nicely.

So sticking to a more "MID/HIGH" sounding 10" in the NL210 (as it is my top cabinet for Bass Guitar) might
be what I'm after.

What do you think about the Eminence B 102 10" whizzy?

I mentioned the BP 102 to John at EA and he said "The Sensitivity, Response and Qt are not a close match to the original driver". John also mentioned that they wouldn't have gone to all the trouble of creating their own if one was available off the shelf. But Their must be something close enough that would work well and take EQ well.

Even my 2x10 with the BP102 sound very sub like, especially without a horn on it's own. But if I hit it with some
EQ, the mids start to come alive.

The EA NL210 is very pure sounding cabinet. I built my own bass guitar and just putting it thru a tube compressor and
tube preamp direct to a 2000w amp and only using some Mid Cut, Treble Cut and some Bass Boost on my On Board Bass
preamp, the EA NL210 sounds great. And when coupled to the homemade 2x10 with the BP102's as a low end enhancer,
I'm very pleased.

I would be nice to find similar character in another driver to put in that EA NL210.

Tommy L sends.....

[Bill Fitzmaurice]

You need the right driver specs, period. If EA won't give them to you then you have to either measure them yourself, which requires gear, or you have to reverse-engineer the cab, which requires a precise model of the cab dimensions.

$800 for two tens and a tweeter is absurd.

John also mentioned that they wouldn't have gone to all the trouble of creating their own if one was available off the shelf.

Don't believe that for a minute, that's not how the OEM driver market works. If a speaker company has the ability to place an order for a thousand drivers then an OEM supplier will create a driver with specs that the user wants, assuming it's possible, from parts they have in stock. A frame from this pile, a motor from that, a cone from another, etc. If they need to create entirely new parts then the minimum order goes to perhaps 5,000 units. An outfit like Ampeg can do that. EA? No way.
The usual route with a small entity is that the driver manufacturer has a bunch of variants of stock drivers that they offer for OEM. They show you what they have available, you pick the one that works best for you.
A start is to post a clear picture of the driver, from the side and rear. That will allow identification of the frame and motor. With a given frame and motor there's only so much variation possible with the driver specs.

[Tommy L]

You need the right driver specs, period. If EA won't give them to you then you have to either measure them yourself, which requires gear, or you have to reverse-engineer the cab, which requires a precise model of the cab dimensions.

$800 for two tens and a tweeter is absurd.

John also mentioned that they wouldn't have gone to all the trouble of creating their own if one was available off the shelf.

Don't believe that for a minute, that's not how the OEM driver market works. If a speaker company has the ability to place an order for a thousand drivers then an OEM supplier will create a driver with specs that the user wants, assuming it's possible, from parts they have in stock. A frame from this pile, a motor from that, a cone from another, etc. If they need to create entirely new parts then the minimum order goes to perhaps 5,000 units. An outfit like Ampeg can do that. EA? No way.
The usual route with a small entity is that the driver manufacturer has a bunch of variants of stock drivers that they offer for OEM. They show you what they have available, you pick the one that works best for you.
A start is to post a clear picture of the driver, from the side and rear. That will allow identification of the frame and motor. With a given frame and motor there's only so much variation possible with the driver specs.

Bill,
Agreed that 800 is absurd. This is why I'm looking for best fit to match this cabinet.
I will take a 10" back out and post pictures shortly.

Also, Is it possible to have that distortion noise be something bad in the cross over?

Thank you kindly for your input. I do greatly appreciate it!

Tommy L sends....

[Bill Fitzmaurice]

Also, Is it possible to have that distortion noise be something bad in the cross over?

It is. Bypass it, leave the tweeter out of the circuit.
BTW, rumor has it that the EA isn't a TL anyway, that it's a ported box with a long port. If it was a TL the pipe would have to be at least five feet long.

[Tommy L]

Here with pics of the driver.
I isolated the the distorting driver. Happenings to be the top 10" speaker.
If I dampen the top 10" cone with me hand, Distortion goes away.
If I dampen the bottom 10" the top cone still produces the distortion.

The cone moves but the center Silver Metal cap stays still. Not sure what design name
it is called, but I thought I'd mention it.

[Bill Fitzmaurice]

You have a combination of two drivers there. The cone is from the original Deltalite 2510, which you can tell by the screened dome and the stationary polepiece that can be seen beneath it. You're not seeing that polepiece move because it doesn't. The frame and magnet is Deltalite II 2510. It's an odd arrangement to say the least. My guess is that the box was designed around the original Deltalite, and when the frame and magnet for those were no longer available they started using original Deltalite cones, domes and polepieces with a Deltalite II magnet and frame. Spec wise the main difference is the cone mass, which is lower with the screened dome.
In any event replacing it with a stock Deltalite II 2510 should be fine, if you need to. Check closely the glue joint between the cone and surround and between the surround and frame of the bad driver. That could be the source of the noise.

However, you say it's an 8 ohm cab. That means the drivers are either 4 or 16 ohm, and the 2510 is only available in 8 ohm. That would be a problem.

[Tommy L]

I know that I'm only taking Resistance Ohms when I check the speakers.
Each speaker says 8.1ohms(ion their own disconnected)but they are parallel to the cross over showing 4ohm total.
The horn is also 8ohms. IS THIS NORMAL? I know that 8 plus 8 is 4 in parallel, but what should the
Cross over see?

The cabinet itself says 8ohms on a sticker. Checking the resistance thru the crossover with all the speakers
hooked up it's 4ohms (actually 5ohms but my cable has 1ohm loss)

Thoughts?

I got a quote for $75.00 for a re-cone. I heard that some of the speakers where not glued correctly from eminence
in production. So now I know they were made by eminence. And your observation too!

Tommy L sends......

[Bill Fitzmaurice]

I know that I'm only taking Resistance Ohms when I check the speakers.
Each speaker says 8.1ohms(ion their own disconnected)but they are parallel to the cross over showing 4ohm total.

You should read DCR of around 6 ohms with an 8 ohm driver. An 8.1 ohm DCR would indicate a 10 ohm impedance.

The cabinet itself says 8ohms on a sticker. Checking the resistance thru the crossover with all the speakers
hooked up it's 4ohms (actually 5ohms but my cable has 1ohm loss)

The sticker lies.
I'd only recone if you can't fix it yourself. The reconer might be perplexed to find a Deltalite cone on a Deltalite II frame.

[Tommy L]

I found the sticker on the cage. I called Eminence and they confirmed its theirs.
101425

[Bill Fitzmaurice]

The Deltalite II 2510 isn't exactly the same, but it's close enough.

[Tommy L]

Bill,

You have been extremely helpful and I greatly appreciate your efforts!

If I would like to put this back to an 8ohm cabinet, then I'll need 16ohm speakers. Is this correct?

The Eminence tech mentioned the Delta 10B and said ...."it's 16ohm and has the same size magnet, so it should work"
I'm not having a lot of confidence in his statement..... lol

Here's a pic of the cross over. Not knowing much about cross overs..... is this a protection for the horn so
no LF can damage the HF...... or does this look like it is also cutting the highs from the 10" drivers?

[Bill Fitzmaurice]

If I would like to put this back to an 8ohm cabinet, then I'll need 16ohm speakers. Is this correct?

Either 4 ohm series wired or 16 ohm parallel.

The Eminence tech mentioned the Delta 10B and said ...."it's 16ohm and has the same size magnet, so it should work"

That was not a technician, that was a customer service doofus. The Delta 10 has too high an Fs.

Here's a pic of the cross over. Not knowing much about cross overs..... is this a protection for the horn so no LF can damage the HF...... or does this look like it is also cutting the highs from the 10" drivers?

Impossible to say without a schematic. By the parts count it could be a 4th order high pass, or a 3rd order high pass with 1st order low pass, or 2nd order high and low pass.

[Tommy L]

I have a couple of Eden 10" speakers so I mounted or tried to mount them in the EA NL210.

The basket is slightly too big but i placed them in the hole and tried them out.
I had the same distortion sound. Made me go hmmmmmmmmmm.

The eden speakers were letting some wind pass from under the basket edge at higher volumes.
I took the eden speakers out and started taking a closer look at the porting and bracing to make
sure it was solid. That was all good. Then I started moving the FOAM that was in the cabinet.
I tried making it more secure. I loaded up the EA 10's and now there is no distortion sound coming from
that driver. I'm thinking that the foam was possibly creating Turbulence and feeding back thru the driver?

I'll keep my ear to it. I think I'll pick up some 2 sided tape and secure the foam better.


Tommy L sends....