EnABL'd?

[johnnycopy]

Eddie,

Did I read on another forum that you have been EnABL'd. If so please let me know the sonic effects you've encountered. Any feelings on what it might do for Hawthorne SI's or Ed's Horns.

Thanks John.

[dweekie]

What does Enabld mean?

[johnnycopy]

What does Enabld mean?

A tweak done by painting a fluid onto drivers that alters (improves??) their sound.

Below are some forum cut and pastes.

Apparently it makes drivers better behaved at high volumes.
It's a pattern of carefully sized and placed blocks of dense acrylic paint (Tamiya brand matte model paint or similar) with a very light incremental layers of puzzlecoat over the top.

The EnABLE pattern (in theory) disperses/ejects/dissipates most of the surface acoustic wave just before it gets to the physical transition at the surround and the voicecoil/dustcap so that there it little to reflect. This removes the "hall-of-mirrors" effect we get if the wave does reflect dramatically improving downward dynamic range. It does not seem to change the high level response.

John

[Jrebman]

I think he likes it. I'm just waiting for mine now.

-- Jim

[Eddie Vaughn]

Howdy John,

Yep, that's been done to my FE 127s, although I didn't even know it was called EnABLE.........

The improvements in clarity, focus, inner microdetail, dynamic attack. and overall coherency are quite profound. It also does some good things to the bass performance as well. It sounds as if you had peeled away a layer of distortion and phase shifts. AAMOF, when comparing it to the sound of a stock FE 127, you'd never believe they were the same driver.

Although there's no way to know without actually trying it first, my guess would be that it couldn't hurt anything to do it to the Horns or Silver Irises. It sounds like snake oil, but it DEFINITELY works.

Eddie

[Doorman]

I agree with Eddie. The difference between treated drivers and untreated is quite remarkable (evenI can hear it!)
Don

[chrisby]

For those not familiar, the process was developed (and patented) by Bud Purvine, who has also been building custom audio transformers for several decades.

Examples of Hemp Acoustics and Lowther drivers with this treatment were demonstrated at the recent RMAF.

It should be pointed out that unlike basket damping with putty, or tip-toes under the cabinets, this is a non-reversible tweak. Until you experience it for yourself, it's certainly difficult to accept that a "few blobs of paint*" can elicit such a transformation.

*there's so much more to it than that, that truly "grokking" how/why it works requires is more than just a coffee break read of the white-paper


As Eddie, and Lynn Olson and more than a few others with a lot of listening under their belts, have noted - it definitely works. I've dearly love to read what Harvey would have to say about it.



P.S. While my experience to date with EnAbled drivers suggests all systems could benefit from the reduction in low level distortions, improved resolution and clarity of dynamic leading edges (to name but a few enhancements), not all listeners may "get it" on first exposure. Also, there's less room for potentially conflicting sonic signature(s) of the upstream equipment or recordings to hide.

As I think Eddie can attest, some combinations of electronics / enclosure design and drivers will be less synergistic than others.


P.P.S. just for fun, try to wrap your head around another "snake oil"? contribution proffered to the DIY community by Bud - the "Ground Side Electron Pool"

http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/showthre ... did=102180

[giorgino]

Hi - Have never heard of this EnABL process (and I'm all for non-measurable snake oil tweaks ). Is there a link anyone can point me to for such a recipe?

Best regards

George

[chrisby]

one of those 30+ page / 800+ post threads guaranteed to cure your insomnia


http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/showthre ... did=100399


The white paper as published in Positive Feedback


http://www.positive-feedback.com/Issue2 ... gwaves.htm


get carried away with food coloring or other water soluble dyes in a "primer" coat and you can get some pretty funky results


http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/showthre ... ost1319883

(FE127E)

The "recipe" is a scalable pattern for determining the location size and numbers of rings of paint blocks on the speaker cone / diaphram


Get some practice, and then go to town on production:

http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/showthre ... ost1324330

(FE126E)

Also note that per Bud's white paper, and several posts near the end of the thread, that the process can be applied to baffles, horn mouths, etc.



http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/showthre ... ost1323782



Hemp Acoustics FR8 in Bamboo Demetri cabinet as demo'd at RMAF

http://www.6moons.com/industryfeatures/rmaf07/44.jpg

[preiter]

I did part of this pattern on a pair of 127e drivers mounted in a MLTL (the diyAudio full range reference project). I just did the center pattern (not the dots around the edge or in the center) painted on with that artist's shellac (the name escapes me atm) and a thin layer of puzzlecoat across the whole driver.

I found it cleaned up some harshness in the driver, and extended the bass a bit. It was a definite improvement. It did attenuate the highs a little bit, though.

[preiter]

Yes, I did it before you guys came up with the brown spots, I believe. This was about a year ago.

It did make a decent improvement.

I'd try the brown spots, but I sold those speakers. I don't want to be the first to try that treatment on my SIs.

[hurdy_gurdyman]

Yes, I did it before you guys came up with the brown spots, I believe. This was about a year ago.

It did make a decent improvement.

I'd try the brown spots, but I sold those speakers. I don't want to be the first to try that treatment on my SIs.

Oh, go ahead and be a pioneer. I was waiting for someone else to try this to SI's before I try it.

Dave

[chrisby]

Yes, I did it before you guys came up with the brown spots, I believe. This was about a year ago.

It did make a decent improvement.

I'd try the brown spots, but I sold those speakers. I don't want to be the first to try that treatment on my SIs.

Just to be clear, the "brown spot" treatment was developed by H. O. Purvine, U.S. patent # 5,304,746 publication date April 1994. I'd love to hear what his development pair of Ohm F's could do in the right space with a Nelson Pass F4.

Those of us DIYers who have adopted the use of this process offered so selflessly, owe Bud a huge debt of gratitude.

[Darrel Hawthorne]

Hey Guys,
I bumped this here so that it can be viewed by speaker builders not visiting all the other sections of our forum.

We have been receiving e-mails asking about the EnABL tweak and our drivers. We have not had the pleasure of hearing this tweak and have no official stance on it's potential merit or value.
I have however set into motion a possible solution to this and with luck we may soon have an EnABled Silver Iris in house.
Planet 10 Dave has written and asked to get a driver to work with.
If we can work this out we will send a well run in driver up to him and have him tweak it. He will then return this tweaked driver down here to us for an unbiased assessment of it performance.
We would sincerely and thoroughly evaluate this as a potential upgrade path for our drivers and report our unbiased findings. We feel that we are the most intimately familiar listeners of these drivers having spent as much R&D time as we have with them. Between HGDave and ourselves, we have collectively enjoyed years of listening, tweaking and evaluating these drivers. We therefore feel that if any significant performance gains are to be realized through this tweak, we would be the most qualified and trusted to make that determination.
There are countless little nuances inherent in these drivers that we feel are critical and it would be essential for these to remain perfectly intact after the tweak.
After Diana and I spend some time with it, we would also like to have a couple other trusted ears give it a go and collectively we will report our discoveries. Beta test?..... Road Iris? Anybody want to hear an EnABled Iris?
If this proves to be a worthwhile procedure you all will be the first to hear about it. We would then work with Planet 10 Dave to have these done prior to shipping them out to you should you decide to commission this work done by him.

So as not to put the cart before the horse we would need to get a sample of the paint to my guys at Eminence to insure that it does not contain anything that could adversely effect the longevity of the cone or surround material. Don't want to do something that we may regret down the road ... never a good idea.
We could then fully endorse this tweak and offer some type of product assurance/product warranty to our customers. As it stands now, our official position would have to be that this is a unauthorized, unproven and warranty voiding non reversible tweak.

Tweaks such as what is being proposed are often met with much skepticism and proponents of these tweaks are sometimes heralded as wishful thinkers or even worse, snake oil salesmen.

We of course have been in this game long enough to know better and we realize that there does exist many sound enhancing techniques that upon first glance seem to have no foundation in science or physics. Diana and I like to approach this with a very open mind but must maintain one foot firmly planted in the business aspect of selling these audio products. Customer confidence is a very fragile thing.
In this game the only thing that truly matters is what our customers say about our work.
We have over the years developed a high degree of customer confidence and trust in our performance assessments and to fully authorize and endorse; this procedure, we would have to feel very confident in it when viewed from our point of reference and also from the end users perspective.
This could prove to be a very welcome and exciting new discovery.

Stay tuned......

Darrel

[preiter]

I find it amazing that the manufacturer of a product would actively embrace and evaluate a tweak like this rather than just taking the easy way out and saying "We do not endorse this and it will void your warrantee".