That is a spicy meatball.

Because you know if it handles 3000 watts instead of 1500, it must be at least twice as loud!

Woowoo!

Ever heard of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neodymium_magnet ?

At Mike: probably a Street A Db-drager, 2x10" subs tends to play louder than 1 12" , guess it was that he needed it for :)

Dig the hex nut spacers between the basket and top plate. Very Incriminator Audio Death Penalty seriesish. At $499 can we get a machine shop to make top plate?

It was custom made at the request of a customer for the aforementioned power handling. The "stock" Nightshades are optimized for 1500-watts and get plenty loud with it. Of course, as we all know, people love to put 3000 watts into single drivers just to say they can!

And yes, neptyr is correct - the only "practical" application for such a driver is Street-A competition and/or someone who just wants a huge 10" driver for fun. I doubt these will ever be full production "stock" items, they will only be made at customer request - most likely nearly exclusively for Street-A guys. The listed pricing is suggested MSRP on the driver if it were to be produced in mass.

As far as neo - that is a bit expensive, neo prices are up dramatically thanks to Hybrid vehicles using so much of it (15kg for a Prius).

I also happen to like the hex nut spacers vs. a round spacer, looks industrial! If requested I could use a round, machined, spacer for those that liked that look better =)

- Jacob
- Owner, Sundown Audio

Yeah, i figured neo would be a bit expensive..
But how much extra are we talking?

Neo is about triple the price per BHmax.

Jacob, have you tried using wider spacers? Obviously the goal is to draw air across the top plate and down into the windings for active cooling (convection); I think higher air velocity's might be achievable with less area between the spacers.....just curious.

Neo is extremely expensive. I wouldn't doubt that putting an equivalent Neo motor on that driver would make it $1,000+.

That looks awesome!

Yes yes overkill but those db drag guys need something to play with too.

Also how cool would it be to walk up to someone's car and see their 2 12" drivers goin like crazy and you just look the guy in the face and say my single 10" is louder then walk away. awesome.

I guess I just chuckled when I read the "customer wanted 3kw handling" part...

I would have thrown a few big aluminum housed Dale power resistors in series with the input terminals and told him it now handles 5000 watts... heh heh heh..

Neil,

I will be experimenting with different height spacers as that is easier to vary than using extremely wide spacers and you can vary the cross sectional area just as well. I want to be sure that a great deal of air noise isn't generated but also do want to have a fairly high velocity.

I also have some completely different cooling methods in the works on some prototypes that you may see next year for production - but this system actually does work quite well as it stands. Of course, there is almost always room for further tweaking and improvement.

It seems to be more effective than the venting on a 12-spoke as the spider motion forces air between the coil windings and the basket cut-out for the coil - right over the coil itself - rather than all over the place like with a 12-spoke or other similar basket.

---

Mike,

I see where you are coming from =) This is why the "regular" Nightshade was optimized for 1500-watts - its kind of silly to use so much power for anything but an SPL burp. Many customers want that sort of speaker anyway so I will build it for them if they want to pay for it.

I have at least three customers that I know of doing 150s on music (low 150s) with two Nightshade 15s and "only" 1500-watts each, that is "overkill" for a daily setup already - IMO. I know I can't sit in a low 150s car without ear plugs.

You can vary the cross sectional area, for sure, and certainly easier. The alternative (wider) is harder, but lets you use a shorter former and adds more steel right above the top plate...good for passive cooling.

Interesting anecdotes about the baskets...

Indeed - other shape spacers are worth a look if I decide to pursue this method of cooling further once I have tested other methods more in depth. What I do know for sure is that using these spacers sure beats having no venting at all like the 4-spoke by itself =)

I have several other cooling types that I'm looking into - centering more on air cooling than passive cooling from the metals. I'll post some more information on my forum about those as prototypes come in.

Either way, it looks badass and I want one.... :)