beyond the ariel,
Lynn, i am also in the same league as Joshua,with no DIY experience and zero knowledge of technical details,and i understand there must be many others like us,who have no understanding of DIY,but still i assume that many will like the sound of the speakers developed by you and also i am very thrilled and excited by this development of top class speakers.
Thanks for devoting your time to help people like us.
Lynn, i am also in the same league as Joshua,with no DIY experience and zero knowledge of technical details,and i understand there must be many others like us,who have no understanding of DIY,but still i assume that many will like the sound of the speakers developed by you and also i am very thrilled and excited by this development of top class speakers.
Thanks for devoting your time to help people like us.
Lot's of development of audio equipment fall into the loop of comparing against other systems. This means interpretation of music is limited to one's experience with these systems. I wonder what people really enjoy about the music.
Lots of emotion and skill is involved with each performance. I sometimes,watch these singing competition shows and try to feel the emotion and techniques. I try to guess who is going to win. This is like a training process for me to be able to detect what a system can reveal.
Lots of emotion and skill is involved with each performance. I sometimes,watch these singing competition shows and try to feel the emotion and techniques. I try to guess who is going to win. This is like a training process for me to be able to detect what a system can reveal.
I'm not a developer, only a consumer.
My reference is live concerts (classical music) and operas – not any particular existing sound system.
No sound system I heard comes any close to 'the real thing'. I doubt if there is any sound system in the world, at any price, that comes even little close to 'the real thing'. By that I mean that bringing an experienced listener blindfolded to a place, that listener may think one is in a concert hall, listening to live concert – not to reproduced music in a living room.
Thus, the ideal is unattainable, possibly it would never be attainable, at least not in my lifetime.
What I'm left with is a 'sense of music' – a sensation of enjoying listening to music.
This 'sense of music' has a lot to do with the degree of realism the system is reproducing music. That degree of realism is determined by the technical aspects of the various links in the chain of the system. Most probably, the degree of realism, from the technical view point, isn't found in the conventional, widely accepted, measurements – or not in measurements which aren't complemented by subjective listening evaluations.
So, what I expect from a sound system is the highest degree of realism possible (within the limits of my budget). To put it in other words, I'm looking for a sound system that will give me the strongest 'sense of music', or the greatest possible joy when listening to reproduced music.
Hi Lynn,
Respectfully I disagree about horn bandwidth
I think it is possible to get past 1 decade.
I think the old western electric did it.
If it can be done once, it can be done again.
We just have to relearn how.
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I started out as a consumer, and I understand that different people will make selections based on how they enjoy music. Some lots may not strive for realism either.
One example I experienced when I asked someone to audition two different interconnect designs that measured pretty similar but had a different center conductor. The auditor admitted one to sound more realistic, but he preferred the other. Selection of final design was hard because his preference was the exact reason why I looked for other opinions. I loved the sonic signature of his preferred interconnect, man, it was seducing. But then I felt I could hear more problems in the total system with the other interconnect. So it was a decision of love and being true. The final decision was being true. I am sure other designers may choose love. But no matter whether DIY or commercial endeavors, there are choices to be made, which is what consumers will do as well. To I think a designers should just go ahead and try to accomplish what they hope for using all the knowledge they can acquire, and forget about nitpicking other products. It is more useful to have the ability to pick up what other products are doing right, and accumulate the knowledge as a stepping stone to get closer to accomplishing their ideals.
Here's some first-time hints for Joshua_G and mekr. Please forgive if they are very obvious. I've had trouble with first-time builders not getting these right, and yes, they made all of the mistakes mentioned below. It's a lot easier to measure twice, cut once, than measure once, and cut twice.
The cabinet must be as tightly sealed as possible; all drivers will use an air-tight, compliant gasket, and all wood-to-wood interfaces are glued, not screwed or nailed. The only purpose of screwing is to pull panels together so the glue sets better ... although clamping over 24 hours works better.
I use internal struts with about 5~8" (125~200mm) spacing. You can be creative here, and use struts across the largest free panel areas. Diagonal struts are not as effective as struts parallel to the long dimension of a panel. Struts need to glued into matching pre-cut grooves, or rebates, to provide adequate rigidity for an exterior panel. If they are merely screwed, or worse, nailed, the panel will buzz. Interior forces in a bass cabinet can be surprisingly high.
Struts work better if they are made with plywood; MDF is an acceptable (but not ideal) exterior material, but not a good choice for struts, which need to be rigid in compression and tension. Steel or aluminum L-brackets would be sufficiently rigid, but gluing them to the exterior panel becomes a problem.
Never, ever use silicone as a speaker gasket. Ever. Once it sets, it is extremely difficult to remove the driver without damaging the frame. There are plenty of non-setting caulks, or better, foam gaskets that do a better job.
Never, ever use slotted or Philips wood screws to attach the driver. Ever. Use T-nuts on the inside of the cabinet, and matching bolt threads with hex drive on the bolt heads. Never get a screwdriver anywhere close to a speaker cone; use a hex drive, or hex key to hand-tighten the bolts in an alternating pattern. Torque-measuring drives are not a bad idea.
Keep speaker drivers out of the woodshop; wood dust does them no favors, and tiny particles of iron/steel dust are strongly attracted to the inside of the voice-coil gap, where they cause rubbing and buzzing.
I have not had good luck with foam damping. I recommend UltraTouch recycled cotton or loose wool that has been moth-proofed. I loosely attach the damping to about 2~3" (50~75mm) thickness to all internal enclosure walls, use more on the bottom of the enclosure, while keeping the damping 1~2" (25~50mm) away from the back of the cone.
I always use external crossovers, with parts mounted on peg board, which is electrically and magnetically neutral. I do not recommend putting the crossover in a metal box. Plexiglass/acrylic, wood, or glass enclosures are fine. Capacitors are somewhat microphonic, which is a good reason to keep the crossover board out of the speaker enclosure, and use foam, rubber, cork or similar mechanical isolators to raise the crossover off the floor.
Air-core inductors need to be at least 3~6" (75~150mm) apart from each other, and the cores at 90-degree angles from each other. Iron-core inductors and autoformers also have stray fields, although not as large as air-cores.
Circuit boards are electrically inferior to point-to-point wiring, which allows nearly any wire-gauge size. Air is a much better dielectric than circuit-board material, and the pegboard mentioned above can accept much heavier inductors and capacitors.
I avoid alligator clips except for very quick measurements of the crossover. Use high-quality Kester (or similar) eutectic solder; if it's good enough for aerospace, it's good enough for audio. Avoid EU RoHS-compliant solders; these compromise reliability, and require a higher working temperature for the soldering iron. (The EU exempts medical and aerospace electronics from RoHS requirements, which might tell you something.)
The cabinet must be as tightly sealed as possible; all drivers will use an air-tight, compliant gasket, and all wood-to-wood interfaces are glued, not screwed or nailed. The only purpose of screwing is to pull panels together so the glue sets better ... although clamping over 24 hours works better.
I use internal struts with about 5~8" (125~200mm) spacing. You can be creative here, and use struts across the largest free panel areas. Diagonal struts are not as effective as struts parallel to the long dimension of a panel. Struts need to glued into matching pre-cut grooves, or rebates, to provide adequate rigidity for an exterior panel. If they are merely screwed, or worse, nailed, the panel will buzz. Interior forces in a bass cabinet can be surprisingly high.
Struts work better if they are made with plywood; MDF is an acceptable (but not ideal) exterior material, but not a good choice for struts, which need to be rigid in compression and tension. Steel or aluminum L-brackets would be sufficiently rigid, but gluing them to the exterior panel becomes a problem.
Never, ever use silicone as a speaker gasket. Ever. Once it sets, it is extremely difficult to remove the driver without damaging the frame. There are plenty of non-setting caulks, or better, foam gaskets that do a better job.
Never, ever use slotted or Philips wood screws to attach the driver. Ever. Use T-nuts on the inside of the cabinet, and matching bolt threads with hex drive on the bolt heads. Never get a screwdriver anywhere close to a speaker cone; use a hex drive, or hex key to hand-tighten the bolts in an alternating pattern. Torque-measuring drives are not a bad idea.
Keep speaker drivers out of the woodshop; wood dust does them no favors, and tiny particles of iron/steel dust are strongly attracted to the inside of the voice-coil gap, where they cause rubbing and buzzing.
I have not had good luck with foam damping. I recommend UltraTouch recycled cotton or loose wool that has been moth-proofed. I loosely attach the damping to about 2~3" (50~75mm) thickness to all internal enclosure walls, use more on the bottom of the enclosure, while keeping the damping 1~2" (25~50mm) away from the back of the cone.
I always use external crossovers, with parts mounted on peg board, which is electrically and magnetically neutral. I do not recommend putting the crossover in a metal box. Plexiglass/acrylic, wood, or glass enclosures are fine. Capacitors are somewhat microphonic, which is a good reason to keep the crossover board out of the speaker enclosure, and use foam, rubber, cork or similar mechanical isolators to raise the crossover off the floor.
Air-core inductors need to be at least 3~6" (75~150mm) apart from each other, and the cores at 90-degree angles from each other. Iron-core inductors and autoformers also have stray fields, although not as large as air-cores.
Circuit boards are electrically inferior to point-to-point wiring, which allows nearly any wire-gauge size. Air is a much better dielectric than circuit-board material, and the pegboard mentioned above can accept much heavier inductors and capacitors.
I avoid alligator clips except for very quick measurements of the crossover. Use high-quality Kester (or similar) eutectic solder; if it's good enough for aerospace, it's good enough for audio. Avoid EU RoHS-compliant solders; these compromise reliability, and require a higher working temperature for the soldering iron. (The EU exempts medical and aerospace electronics from RoHS requirements, which might tell you something.)
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I have seen this claimed very often, but for the life of me I can't understand why it is necessary. A small leak is actually desirable to neutralize the static air pressure, and will have no major acoustic effect.
I use cross bracing (one side across to the other side) with well damped glue joints and pieces of oak cut from floor boards (cheap). Oak is just about as rigid as it gets and the cross bracing, all joined in the middle, prevents the major displacements of the side and back panels. The damping helps to dissipate all vibrations. This is trivially easy to do and I find that it is extremely effective. I use CLD on the major surfaces of course and this helps as well, but the cross bracing is key to overall rigidity.
I have to agree with Earl on sealed enclosures. Temperature variation will cause air to change volume. A factory here did some work for a US factory for waterproof speakers, the speaker would fail in water leakages tests because the speaker generated heat causing air to expand. They actually had to put very small holes in the enclosure to pass the test.
For ported enclosures, I think it is good practice to make good seals.
For ported enclosures, I think it is good practice to make good seals.
beyond the ariel
since last 5 years ,i have been researching on the net,for a lifelike sound,which i had heard from a lowther based full range driver commercial offering,but the harshness in the sound ,put me off from lowthers,then i built my first DIY OB with 8 inches FR alinico driver from Rulitt and the sound is relaxed musical and lifelike with image near the speakers.But now i am eager to jump into "beyond the Ariel" and also planning to move to DHT amp from my current leben tube amplifier,which i can mate with my living Voice speakers.
Regarding DAC, i have read about the sound of DDAC,from denmark built on NOS platform.
Lynn,
since last 5 years ,i have been researching on the net,for a lifelike sound,which i had heard from a lowther based full range driver commercial offering,but the harshness in the sound ,put me off from lowthers,then i built my first DIY OB with 8 inches FR alinico driver from Rulitt and the sound is relaxed musical and lifelike with image near the speakers.But now i am eager to jump into "beyond the Ariel" and also planning to move to DHT amp from my current leben tube amplifier,which i can mate with my living Voice speakers.
Regarding DAC, i have read about the sound of DDAC,from denmark built on NOS platform.
One thing i dont understand. Why on earth people still treat Lynn like TASTE ARBITER. After all this long long thread, with bunch of DEAD obvious things and bunch of nonsense like airtight enclosure, he come with speaker which will work probably good enough, but it is neither original and neither technically perfect.
Use of direct radiator with collapsing directivity horn and then add ribbon tweeter with completely different radiation pattern at top to compensate it.
Common.
Good impulse behavior? From what angle? This cannot have good impulse behavior at all. It is just non coincident 3 way with way too big CTC. It can measure good from just ONE POINT. It will have lobing all over.
I think people like Geddes or Danley must doing something very wrong from
GURU and FANCLUB point of view.
I want to say this long long time ago but never had balls to actualy did it.
Now im ready for be CRUCIFIXED.
So dont let yourself be disturbed in this fancy posh good manners club.
Use of direct radiator with collapsing directivity horn and then add ribbon tweeter with completely different radiation pattern at top to compensate it.
Common.
Good impulse behavior? From what angle? This cannot have good impulse behavior at all. It is just non coincident 3 way with way too big CTC. It can measure good from just ONE POINT. It will have lobing all over.
I think people like Geddes or Danley must doing something very wrong from
GURU and FANCLUB point of view.
I want to say this long long time ago but never had balls to actualy did it.
Now im ready for be CRUCIFIXED.
So dont let yourself be disturbed in this fancy posh good manners club.
No matter what you may believe there is no excuse for not using "good manners".
Don't worry TomTom, both Geddes and Danely have their own fanboys (for good reason). Both have achieved Guru status to many people. 
I can't speak for others, but I've met Lynn and spent some time listening with him. His abilities are remarkable. He would probably reject the term, but I'd call him a true Golden Ear. He's a smart guy with a lot of skills in audio, developed over years of work. His tastes are also the tastes of many other people -perhaps that's why they give him credit. Don't forget, Lynn has always stated that these speakers are designed for HIS taste and HIS needs, not the mass market. He has never tried to impose his tastes on others in this thread, simply stated what he prefers, and why.
I don't see anything wrong with that.
I can't speak for others, but I've met Lynn and spent some time listening with him. His abilities are remarkable. He would probably reject the term, but I'd call him a true Golden Ear. He's a smart guy with a lot of skills in audio, developed over years of work. His tastes are also the tastes of many other people -perhaps that's why they give him credit. Don't forget, Lynn has always stated that these speakers are designed for HIS taste and HIS needs, not the mass market. He has never tried to impose his tastes on others in this thread, simply stated what he prefers, and why.
I don't see anything wrong with that.
I'm amongst those who trust Lynn's taste in audio.
I feel no need to apology for it, nor to explain why. It's my own personal attitude and I don't ask anyone else to do the same. If it disturbs some other people, let it be so. I'm not going to change whom I trust in order to please some other people.
That's you guess.
As any other guess, it's but a guess.
Possibly they did a good job with you.
No crucifixion from my side.
Only a question:
Do you have a practical suggestion for DIY good-sounding speakers?
I find nothing wrong with good manners, nor with correct spelling.
Good manners never prevented me from saying anything and everything I ever wanted to say.