10F/8424 & RS225-8 FAST / WAW Ref Monitor

Interesting, is this move inspired by a deficiency in your previous XPS foam build, or is it due to differences in the absorbent properties of BB vs foam?

I've seen Troels Gravesen recommend bitumen pads for lining the interior of some of his speakers (with felt on top). One thing he seems to keep mentioning is to glue them on with additional adhesive since the stuff they come with tends to weaken with time and cause them to fall off...

Another question, if one was to substitute the 10F for another driver, which of the TS parameters would you be most worried about matching? Or do you consider the 10F critical to the success of this speaker?


That's precisely what I did. I used vinyl floor tile glue, once cured they are adhered extremely well.

I then glued on natural wool felt.
 

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That's precisely what I did. I used vinyl floor tile glue, once cured they are adhered extremely well.

I then glued on natural wool felt.

Nice work - can I see any measurements of your system? I am particularly interested in the distortion curves with all this treatment, to see what I can expect from a similar construction technque. What does a 50mm BB ply box weigh for this speaker?
 
Nice work - can I see any measurements of your system? I am particularly interested in the distortion curves with all this treatment, to see what I can expect from a similar construction technque. What does a 50mm BB ply box weigh for this speaker?

Bah! I mis-spoke yesterday, the walls are 25mm Baltic Birch, not 50mm. I'll weigh them without the baffles when I switch over to the next set of test baffles.

Mitigating distortion was the goal, generally. Basically, I can get 12mm(~1/2") 5 minutes from my house, where as 18mm(~3/4") is an hour away. So, I tend to just buy the 12mm, and laminate two pieces together.

I haven't measured those cabs yet, but will try to do some quick ones this weekend, or next week when I have a bit of time.

Cheers~
Gable
 
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If laminating 12mm, use a non-hardening glue land you get a extra dampening from mass constrained layers effect. A non-hardening sub floor adhesive like liquid nails might work, or even latex exterior caulking. Even better is to spray 3M 77 Fast-tack onto a butyl rubber pond liner sheets (2mm thick) and bond MDF panels to that as a sandwich.
 
If laminating 12mm, use a non-hardening glue land you get a extra dampening from mass constrained layers effect. A non-hardening sub floor adhesive like liquid nails might work, or even latex exterior caulking. Even better is to spray 3M 77 Fast-tack onto a butyl rubber pond liner sheets (2mm thick) and bond MDF panels to that as a sandwich.

Pond liner sheets, damn clever idea!

I used this:
http://a.co/icPfIFv

Glued to the interior walls, then 1/2" wool felt.

Constraining pond liners between laminations is a good idea, I may have to experiment with that at some point.
 
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Pond liner wasn't my idea. It was Z transform's idea from this thread. He recommends this:

The damping sheet is roofing "ice shield" commonly used here in the Northeast to stop water from backing up underneath shingles and leaking in the winter. It's made from a combination of slag, asphalt and binders with an aggressive pressure sensitive adhesive (PSA) on one side and a thin plastic "foil" on the other. It's heavy and just a little gooey- and completely dead. A roll big enough for all the hobby speakers you ever want to build costs $75.

405266d1394586071-novel-baffle-construction-techniques-tommy1-3-10-jpg


You can see it in between the MDF sandwich:
405267d1394586071-novel-baffle-construction-techniques-tommy1-4-10-jpg


But I recall there were conversations about pond liner...

Novel Open Baffle Construction Techniques

I use the exact same Noico sheets on the interior wall of my cabs. They work well but leave your fingers and whatever they touch a black yucky mess. They sound a lot like the roofing material above.
 
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Interesting developments here. Last year I built 10F/8424 in 20cm bamboo bowl cabinets:
ET Build: Ripole sub & SS 10F/8424

But, as you can never be satisfied with audio, I am thinking of adding 22W/8543 I own to take care of midbass and crossing the Ripole subs lower. The enclosure for them would be added to the current towers, in form of 4x 28cm bamboo bowl cabinets stacked on eachother. Internal volume of 1 sphere is about 9l, but as the spheres are joined I expect to lose about 2l per bowl and end up with volume about 28l for the woofer cabinet.
 
I tried it a while back, but might as well tinker a bit with the crossover again. Overall been very happy with the system. My room has massive room mode problems being both small and having solid concrete walls, but the Ripole subs with Dirac help a lot.

Only thing that is lacking imo is some "chest" to vocals. My singer friend commented in this when she was visiting and gave a bit of a reference sample on how real voices sound like. After that the speakers have sounded a bit anemic. Hope that adding a midwoof between 0F and Ripoles will fix that. Will physically time align the 22W and 10F with 1st order XO, transient perfect.
 
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excuse me X the K15 has its first dip starting around 200Hz. so do you think moving the dip to 300Hz would improve things? I notice the Xki has its first dip after 300Hz

Wrong thread, there is no K aperture going on here. :)

I can’t say about a dip at 200Hz or 300Hz being preferable. Usually there is a good floor bounce dip near 150Hz or 200Hz so we are all “used” to hearing it and it sounds natural. Maybe a dip on top of usual floor bounce is less noticeable than a new one at 300Hz.
 
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Finally, real wood speakers

My 10F/RS225 FAST speakers arrived today and they look beautiful in satin blonde sides and crinkle Duratex baffle.

Here are some photos installation of the sound dampening material, crossovers, and the drivers.

Noico liner on most surfaces to deaden the ring of 3/4in BB ply:
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Here is a detail of the Dagger back chamber, it is also covered with Noico liner (inside is stuffed with fiberglass, and periphery around cutout is lined with felt):
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Here is the inside now covered with acoustic foam on some walls and crossover mounted:
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Completed speaker:
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Detail of baffle (Duratex finish):
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Backside with gold binding posts:
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X,

Those look very nice and well constructed. The ply is beautiful with many layers, and the construction is using lap joints - so they should be very strong. First time we are seeing a "dagger" cabinet in plywood?

The Duratex finish on the baffle is looking good, and Perceval is right - the 10F need black screws! :)

A stone baffle should be done some time... Perceval, black granite maybe? ;)
 
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Thanks, guys. If it was just me, I would keep listening to my XPS foam boxes, but these are going to be the showroom models for my shop - like my Pocket Class A headphone amps, I will sell these on XRKaudio as well.

After taking the drivers out of them it’s still amazing to me how light weight they are - like air. They have worked well for over 2 years and any design that lasts that long in the speaker lab deserves a better looking (and sounding) box. I am quite sure that this will reduce some of the wall rattle distortion from the older ones. The flush rebate mounts should reduce diffraction. A stiffer cabinet should increase midbass and bass articulation and accuracy. They sound great but haven’t had a chance to measure them yet.

I ordered a bag of the slightly too large #6 black screws. I guess I needed #4 so will take a while before the order gets here. I still have to build the second box. These things take so much more time than one anticipates.

I have some orange sports pylon cones that someone recommend - they would in fact, be perfect. I may use those on the other test baffles. But I figure that for a showroom speaker, an all plywood Dagger would be best. It needs the Noico sound dampener sheets. That’s one thing nice about foam core - very acoustically absorbent (not reflective). This speaker has a removable baffle and I have a quiver of spare baffles made up. One with a cutout for SB23NXRS45-8, another for the B80, and another for variants of the 10F like TC9FD, TG9FD, etc.

I will need to fix those portrait mode images. They don’t show correctly on the phone’s browser. Are you guys seeing it sideways too?
 
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