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ASC's New Electronic Siren, The Clarity Voice Array

Fri Sep 13, 2019 1:27 am

Saw this on Facebook a few minutes ago and figured I'd share it with everyone. We don't know what it's called at the moment, but it can go from 400 watts all the way to to 4800 watts like the original Quadren series. We knew that ASC was developing something a couple years ago when they posted some CAD drawings on their page. It is a super compact omnidirectional speaker array basically. I don't know if this is a replacement for the I-Force and E-Class lineup. It looks like ASC is wanting to really compete with Sentry for the smallest, most powerful electronic siren. Personally I would have rather them make a bigger omnidirectional siren with the guts of the T-135 AC/DC, but it's good to see new sirens on the market. I'm keen on what drives this siren. It looks like the Sentry VR with 200 watt speakers instead of 120 watt ones.

Image
Last edited by DJ2226 on Sun Sep 29, 2019 4:38 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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Re: ASC's New Electronic Siren

Fri Sep 13, 2019 1:36 am

Looks like they could be on to something here. Easy accessibility to drivers, very lightweight, compact, and modular. You could almost treat it like a Quadren and install it on walls and in corners of factories. They go up to 4800W as well. An omni T-135 would've been cool though.
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Re: ASC's New Electronic Siren

Fri Sep 13, 2019 2:52 am

This is pretty neat, looks like they literally took midrange horns meant for in concert speakers and stuck them in a box. I had an idea for a similar system a few years ago that I had posted here, I wonder if they got some "inspiration" from it. :P
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Re: ASC's New Electronic Siren, The Clarity Voice Arrays

Sun Sep 29, 2019 5:32 pm

I have a small bump here. As you can tell by the title change ASC has a name for their new product, and it's called the ASC Clarity Voice Array. After doing some research on the design I figured out what horns they are using: the JBL Selenium HM17-25. They are fairly inexpensive horns used in mainly studio monitors, car audio solutions, etc. Due to their size the performance isn't quite as high compared to something like the Atlas CJ-46. At 100 watts they produce 105 and 131 dB at one meter respectively, but the trade off is a super light and tiny siren array. To put the size of it into perspective the horn measures in at 6.3" X 5.7" X 4.1" (W X H X L).

Horn and specs: https://www.jblpro.com/www/products/sel ... tLuo#Specs

Image

There's a video of it that was posted to ASC's apparently new YouTube account. With this design we've basically witnessed the rebirth of the omnidirectional Alertronic in a more compact and high STi form. It's pretty obvious that this is meant to compete with the Sentry VR. ASC still appears to be working out the kinks in their new array, but it's shaping up to be an interesting unit. I am interested in how it performs, because watt per watt the horns take a serious hit in SPL. With the way it sounds it looks like they are still using the typical ASC gear (amps, RTU, recording gear at the shop, etc.) but swapped their standard drivers for some of JBL's titanium based drivers. If I had to guess they are using the D220 Ti driver, which is rated for 100 watts and has a frequency response of 1,000 to 21,000 Hz. How well it will hold up under pressure from the square-ish sounding waveform coming off the tone generator is kind of up in the air, since these are supposed to be used mainly for tweeters. ASC appears to also be marketing this as a voice solution, so they may not be used in typical tone based systems.

With that said, the announcer is the same guy that has done their other recordings. If you compare how this thing sounds to other systems that he has done voice messages for, a couple of those being Berry College in Rome, GA and LaPorte County, IN, the difference is night and day. It still sounds kind of rough, but the higher frequencies come through way better. I think the Sentry VR has the upper hand in clarity, but this thing is not too far off.



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Doyq9U2uwHw
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Re: ASC's New Electronic Siren, The Clarity Voice Array

Wed Feb 19, 2020 1:00 am

We really need a video at distance. But the meaningful take-away is that even for horn-loaded systems, there are differences between types of systems that are well suited to siren warning and systems that are well suited to voice announcements. Horns that are most efficient for siren warning are less efficient in the sibilance range of speech.

I think the system is probably using a phenolic diaphragm driver, and just loading it to the shorter horn. On a short horn they do produce some decent top end. Titanium drivers are less robust and if over-stressed with low frequency content, they can fail catastrophically at very cold temperatures, so they would not be my choice for reliable operation. Phenolic diaphragm drivers are more rugged and reliable at all temperature extremes.

The overall sound character of this siren (the Clarity) is tilted toward the treble, and the lower range has more pronounced distortion artifacts, due to the short horn not loading the diaphragm as efficiently at low frequencies. The tonal balance is similar to the Ultra Electronics HyperSpike MA (Sentry VR) emitters, which use arrays of cone drivers with a weather-resistant coating. But in my opinion the low range of the HyperSpike emitter sounds cleaner and more like a hi-fi speaker, probably because the cone drivers don't rely on horn loading to make them efficient in that range, and they can mechanically handle the higher cone excursions needed to make output without a horn. Maybe the overall sound will be different when all four horns are present - it looks like in this video they are just testing a single horn.
Last edited by Taterworks on Sun Feb 23, 2020 1:42 am, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: ASC's New Electronic Siren, The Clarity Voice Array

Sat Feb 22, 2020 1:22 am

And if you want, you too can also play with siren drivers. Here's one you can buy that is a phenolic-diaphragm horn midrange driver on a short horn (instead of a long one), much like the one used by ASC, although more cheaply made out of plastic instead of cast aluminum (ASC's horns - the JBL Seleniums - are also plastic, but the drivers are most likely cast). It's very affordable - less expensive than buying the Selenium or Atlas siren drivers and the horns separately.

Connect to an amp that can give you 200W at 8 ohms (400W at 4 ohms) and away you go, just don't run tones at 200W, only 100W. And wear your earmuffs.

https://www.parts-express.com/pedocs/sp ... -sheet.pdf

https://www.parts-express.com/prv-audio ... --294-2882

With 100W input, you can achieve 96 dB at 100 feet with a 1kHz tone. A second driver with a second channel also at 100 watts, pointed in the same direction and aligned with the first, will give 102dB at 100 feet. Frequency response is flat-ish (for a horn like this one) down to 500 Hz.
Last edited by Taterworks on Sat Feb 22, 2020 6:20 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: ASC's New Electronic Siren, The Clarity Voice Array

Sat Feb 22, 2020 1:16 pm

Also, a clone of the square Selenium horn, with the low cost plastic body driver. (PRV was started by former Selenium employees after Selenium was acquired by Harman)

https://www.parts-express.com/prv-audio ... --294-2797

Edit: And because I've really latched onto this topic in a major way, and I don't want to load it up with too many more posts here is the pic that was supposed to be in the first post. From ASC's press release:

Image

And:

Image

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Re: ASC's New Electronic Siren, The Clarity Voice Array

Tue Mar 03, 2020 1:28 am

Follow-up: So I purchased a couple of the PRV WGP275Ph horns, and they are okay, but the driver itself is not very robustly made - the plastic housing on one arrived damaged - causing the motor and diaphragm to fall out. I kept looking, and on eBay I found the PRV WGP270Ph (not sold at Parts Express which is a minor bummer because I like them). It is a closer cousin to the D250Ph-8 and Selenium D250-X phenolic diaphragm midrange/siren drivers, but has a simplified housing design that doesn't have the rear half, and the phase plug assembly of the driver (which is plastic on the WGP275Ph-8) is die-cast metal, making it a much more robust mechanical package. It comes with a wimpy horn that will get you making some noise, but the WGP14-25 horn from PRV or the Selenium HL14-25 are much better midrange horns, with the WGP14-25 being a better horn for voice and the HL14-25 being a better horn for siren tones. At this price you can afford to experiment.

If you do decide to use the PRV WGP14-25, they are extremely easy to cross-thread. So go slow and order extras in case you mess up the first couple of them. Ask me how I know.

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Re: ASC's New Electronic Siren, The Clarity Voice Array

Fri Mar 06, 2020 3:30 am

I honestly think the idea would be great, but for very small areas. It reminds me of the homemade siren (cue joke here) I built a decade ago. I just don’t see that functioning well unless the sales pitch is one every couple hundred feet. Perhaps that is how it’s being marketed? Idk it just seems like the company is creating all this hype for nothing. They should be focused on current customers and their needs vs. more sales imo.
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Re: ASC's New Electronic Siren, The Clarity Voice Array

Sat Mar 07, 2020 4:22 am

Josh_S wrote:
Fri Mar 06, 2020 3:30 am
I honestly think the idea would be great, but for very small areas. It reminds me of the homemade siren (cue joke here) I built a decade ago. I just don’t see that functioning well unless the sales pitch is one every couple hundred feet. Perhaps that is how it’s being marketed? Idk it just seems like the company is creating all this hype for nothing. They should be focused on current customers and their needs vs. more sales imo.
It should be possible to space these about a mile apart, with 70dB coverage being right at 1/2 mile (so that's the effective radius). 3/4 mile apart would be better still. I expect they won't have the grunt for low siren tones. If they stacked six or eight modules on top of one another it would get interesting.

If you're into running your own electronic siren, download the Hyperspike app by Ultra Electronics on your phone. It can be used as a signal generator or sound file playback controller when plugged into a set of amplifiers driving speakers.

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