For some years now the audio market has been subject to shortages. A common refrains from suppliers are “it’s on the shipping container due in any day”. “New stock due in whenever which is then normally followed up with new due in dates”. “Don’t worry about ordering extra as we have plenty in the pipeline followed up by out of stock AGAIN”!
At least once a year and often twice this is what happens to me with DE-120 drivers. There are not many that will fit in the restricted spaces Klipsch has for tweeters. The DE-120 fits and sounds really good which basically has placed it at the head of the pack for consideration in use with my SMAHL’s.
At least it did until now where I am faced with unhappy customers whose orders I can’t fill because B&C seemingly does not care to produce what their customers would like to buy. It is not just B&C either as this has become the standard operating procedure for other outfits too like Emminence and Dayton and Faital. Even silly old resistors I use for L-Pads run out and stay out for well over a month.
I have had people tell me about the new Celestion CDX1-1412 driver for a while now and actually had a set with curves run on them to compare to the DE-120. They are not just close but almost dead on and those who have had both say either will do just fine. The CDX1 driver gets a little more extension to 20kHz where the DE-120 goes to 18kHz.
I guess I knew I was eventually going down this path as about a month ago I started cutting all clamp plates to allow for the CDX1 driver and discontinued the hole set for the B&C DE-110 driver of which I never had a request for. With the CDX1 drivers I was getting interest. I did have a set of CDX1 drivers for testing a few months back and sold those on to an SMAHL buyer and he was well pleased with them. I have two buyers right now who want them and are waiting for them to be back in stock too. Yeah that’s right, those are out right now with stock due in possible in two or three weeks.
I am working on getting the CDX1-1412 drivers as an option for my customers so one way or another I can sell MAHL’s to them without these pesky twice a year interruptions. All indications are these CDX1 drivers are an admirable alternative to the venerable DE-120.
One of the two purposes for this post today is to see about interest in these from readers and potential buyers. The other is to announce that this is going to happen just not sure when but within a month. Hopefully at that time these silly outages will end. I can say that at least with the CDX1’s there is stock stateside but also a healthy minimum OEM order which I can’t afford right this minute. Once I jump this hurdle driver outages for the SMAHL should be a thing of the past.
Any comments on the CDX1 or hands on experience I would love to hear from you.
Machined Audio Horn Lens 
I too use these diapraghms and my monitors came with the carvin 16ohm Horn. I have kept several in stock for years but have had a run of bad luck with Monitor engineers,,, NOT. and I need to replace my stock of this driver.
I case you’re wondering Yes Carvin put the B and C Diaphragms in their boxes.
Carvin is the best know secret in the industry. I have been involved with their products for over 30 years.
The DE-120 driver was a real stock problem earlier this year for me. I placed orders for 137 of them which came in about a month ago. I never intend to run too low again before reorder and intend to also start stocking the CDX1 drivers. I have no idea about Carvin and all I deal with right now are Klipsch speakers. So, are you just an entertainment outfit or are you actively involved in speaker repair alterations or OEM retrofits?
I own and operate Absolute Entertainment and Productions Services in Mobile Alabama. I have six of the old Carvin TCS115s that I have used for almost thirty years now. I do live sound and production out of Mobile Alabama.
I am basically my community tech, or professional Tinker. I fix broke things, and Audio is my specialty as I have been doing live sound since I was 15, 43+ years of chasing buzzes, hisses and pops!
I am on the hunt just for one at this point so if I blow a horn, I have a replacement on hand.
This one slipped through the cracks on my reply, sorry. If you are looking for just a driver Parts Express would be where you need to go. I have 21 coming in sometime early October and do not have any to spare right now. When the others come in and if you read this and still need one I can take care of you.