I do high end audio for a living. a year or 2 back a client upgraded from YG Acoustics Anat 2's to Anat 3's. YG did not want the drivers or crossovers back so I inherited a set of 5 ( surround sound system ) of these. They have the single bass module..
So..
I carefully measured the interior and exterior dimensions, especially the midwoof boxes and driver spacing both up/down and depth.
I have recreated these in 3/4 MDF with a ton of screws and adhesive to make the box as solid as possible and of course acoustically inert.
SO all is well with the building so far. However I have a question. The YG Acoustics dont have any dampening material in the box behind the mid-woof. I found this rather crazy, but nope none. The Anat 3 upgrade tho did have some blocks of 1" or so material you put in there.
My question is, should I use some form of dampening material ? Ive got some 1/2" Sonic Barrier foam I could use. Im just concerned with all the mid energy in that box. I also dont really understand the choice to use NO dampening material.
I have the crossovers, which is where the magic is, and im thinking the crossovers might take into account the lack of dampening ?
I can always play later, but it would be easier to put the foam in now..
A current vid showing the project.. Ive been putting on the Sonic Barrier Lightweight Vinyl Sound Dampening sheets.. These are awesome in how they dampen the wood..
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mNO7XChJ5iM
These are the mid-woofs http://www.scan-speak.dk/datasheet/pdf/15w-8531k00.pdf
So..
I carefully measured the interior and exterior dimensions, especially the midwoof boxes and driver spacing both up/down and depth.
I have recreated these in 3/4 MDF with a ton of screws and adhesive to make the box as solid as possible and of course acoustically inert.
SO all is well with the building so far. However I have a question. The YG Acoustics dont have any dampening material in the box behind the mid-woof. I found this rather crazy, but nope none. The Anat 3 upgrade tho did have some blocks of 1" or so material you put in there.
My question is, should I use some form of dampening material ? Ive got some 1/2" Sonic Barrier foam I could use. Im just concerned with all the mid energy in that box. I also dont really understand the choice to use NO dampening material.
I have the crossovers, which is where the magic is, and im thinking the crossovers might take into account the lack of dampening ?
I can always play later, but it would be easier to put the foam in now..
A current vid showing the project.. Ive been putting on the Sonic Barrier Lightweight Vinyl Sound Dampening sheets.. These are awesome in how they dampen the wood..
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mNO7XChJ5iM
These are the mid-woofs http://www.scan-speak.dk/datasheet/pdf/15w-8531k00.pdf
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Lucky I was indeed..
So. To dampen or not to dampen ? I figured a crossover, if really carefully done, could notch out a cavity resonace. So the crossover could be compensating, somewhat, for a lack of dampening. Of course ringing is a whole different matter. The crossover has a lot of parts. I have not done a schematic and worked out whats going on, but it does not look normal. Seperate boards for mid-woof and tweeter. Prob 15 parts, very good parts with very low tollerances, on both boards. So there is like 30 parts for a 2-way crossover.
So besides the dampen/no dampen question, I now have another one. The corners of the inside of the mid-woof box. I think I read someplace that its bad to have them be a sharp 90 degree. Its best to have them rounded ?
I hope some of you guru's can shed some light on these questions, I would like to put the final cabinet together tonight/tomorrow.
Also im going to use Wireworld Mini Eclispe 7 as my speaker wire.
I have to say, building a speaker cabinet has been one of the most challanging projects ive ever done. Its quite a lot of labor and design. I admit its great fun.
As far as the metal YG Acoustics cabinet goes. It does sound good. The client just got the Sonja's recently and yea they sound pretty crazy. However im also a fan of wood based speakers. Like The big Wilsons. I dont think one is better then the other. They are different both with pluses and minuses. So I think doing these drivers and xover in a wood cabinet is indeed going to be interesting.
The thing that just boggles my mind tho is the complete lack of and dampening material in the boxed from YG. The bass modules are bare metal inside. NOTHING else. The mid-woof boxes on the Anat 2's are bare metal inside. The Anat 3's added a 1" think foam panel on each side of the box. This also came with a metal cone mid-woof. So maybe the metal mid-woof was just too much metal and it needed some de-ringing..
Yea great fun project. I can see playing with this sort of thing as a hobby for the rest of my life !..
So... Dampen/no-dampen ---- Round out interior corners of mid-woof box ?
So. To dampen or not to dampen ? I figured a crossover, if really carefully done, could notch out a cavity resonace. So the crossover could be compensating, somewhat, for a lack of dampening. Of course ringing is a whole different matter. The crossover has a lot of parts. I have not done a schematic and worked out whats going on, but it does not look normal. Seperate boards for mid-woof and tweeter. Prob 15 parts, very good parts with very low tollerances, on both boards. So there is like 30 parts for a 2-way crossover.
So besides the dampen/no dampen question, I now have another one. The corners of the inside of the mid-woof box. I think I read someplace that its bad to have them be a sharp 90 degree. Its best to have them rounded ?
I hope some of you guru's can shed some light on these questions, I would like to put the final cabinet together tonight/tomorrow.
Also im going to use Wireworld Mini Eclispe 7 as my speaker wire.
I have to say, building a speaker cabinet has been one of the most challanging projects ive ever done. Its quite a lot of labor and design. I admit its great fun.
As far as the metal YG Acoustics cabinet goes. It does sound good. The client just got the Sonja's recently and yea they sound pretty crazy. However im also a fan of wood based speakers. Like The big Wilsons. I dont think one is better then the other. They are different both with pluses and minuses. So I think doing these drivers and xover in a wood cabinet is indeed going to be interesting.
The thing that just boggles my mind tho is the complete lack of and dampening material in the boxed from YG. The bass modules are bare metal inside. NOTHING else. The mid-woof boxes on the Anat 2's are bare metal inside. The Anat 3's added a 1" think foam panel on each side of the box. This also came with a metal cone mid-woof. So maybe the metal mid-woof was just too much metal and it needed some de-ringing..
Yea great fun project. I can see playing with this sort of thing as a hobby for the rest of my life !..
So... Dampen/no-dampen ---- Round out interior corners of mid-woof box ?
XYM,
I would say that there was probably an analysis done by someone doing a review that mentioned a panel resonance and that is why they are now adding the damping material. You need to remember that the stiffness of the aluminum is much higher than any mdf can ever attain. The transmission of panel vibrations will be very different but the overall sound will be determined by the drivers and the crossover. There are many designers that I have met over the years who do not use any absorptive material inside the enclosure, that is more of a preference. You can easily add bracing to any walls that you think need stiffening or to tune a panel to a higher resonant frequency. If you copied the dimensions and the shape of the original cabinet exactly you should be fine, the crossovers should have any baffle correction already added for the shape. If there was any cavity resonances that were addressed in the original crossover due to resonance they would be nearly identical in your instance, only the through panel transmission would change.
I would say that there was probably an analysis done by someone doing a review that mentioned a panel resonance and that is why they are now adding the damping material. You need to remember that the stiffness of the aluminum is much higher than any mdf can ever attain. The transmission of panel vibrations will be very different but the overall sound will be determined by the drivers and the crossover. There are many designers that I have met over the years who do not use any absorptive material inside the enclosure, that is more of a preference. You can easily add bracing to any walls that you think need stiffening or to tune a panel to a higher resonant frequency. If you copied the dimensions and the shape of the original cabinet exactly you should be fine, the crossovers should have any baffle correction already added for the shape. If there was any cavity resonances that were addressed in the original crossover due to resonance they would be nearly identical in your instance, only the through panel transmission would change.
Kindhornman, Thanks. Yes I copied the mid-woof box so it sounds like all should be good. Interesting about not using dampening. Im going to leave in the 1/2" dampening in the back of the box that I have for now and seal things up and start playing. I admit im fairly excited. I can see myself playing around for years with this stuff. Im already looking at the scan speak store going "oOooOo". I will go ahead and seal some stuff up and start playing. I am awaiting some more of that vinyl cabinet dampening material so I can only do one speaker this weekend. But one will allow me to do a sweep and see freq response and maybe some impulse responses.. and the fun continues.. BTW... Im still cleaning up the router MDF powder.. Man no one should sell a router without a shop vac attachment ! and whew those bits get hot quick in MDF.
Studio Au,
No matter what you do you will always have sound bouncing around inside an enclosure. There is no shape that will be effective at all wavelength to keep that from happening. Any and every shape will have modal functions, a sphere or a box or trapezoid will have have something happening at specific frequencies. Yes we can dampen some of these but usually only in a very narrow band of frequencies, never over the entire frequency range. A port is a tuned resonant filter that splits the resonant frequency of the driver and lowers the peaks and has nothing to do with what happens inside the enclosure, not in the effect of stopping waves bouncing around inside. I assume that the designer felt that the stiffness of the aluminum walls was so great compared to wood that this was not an issue, but I will say that every material no matter the stiffness will have a natural resonant frequency at some points depending on the construction and constraints. Even granite will ring given the right circumstances.
No matter what you do you will always have sound bouncing around inside an enclosure. There is no shape that will be effective at all wavelength to keep that from happening. Any and every shape will have modal functions, a sphere or a box or trapezoid will have have something happening at specific frequencies. Yes we can dampen some of these but usually only in a very narrow band of frequencies, never over the entire frequency range. A port is a tuned resonant filter that splits the resonant frequency of the driver and lowers the peaks and has nothing to do with what happens inside the enclosure, not in the effect of stopping waves bouncing around inside. I assume that the designer felt that the stiffness of the aluminum walls was so great compared to wood that this was not an issue, but I will say that every material no matter the stiffness will have a natural resonant frequency at some points depending on the construction and constraints. Even granite will ring given the right circumstances.
Yea see... Thats whats bugging me.. I KNOW there must be ringing. I have not looked at the impulse response of the YG Anat 3's but you would think its near perfect listening to them. Its a very weird thing that has me "baffled".. hahaha..
You open a wilson mid-woof and its lined with 1" foam.
So this is confuzing and why im sure i will play with this.. Im going to start off close to what they did and then listen and later add a bunch in and see what happens.
The other thing these materials do is alter the apperent size of the box. The cushyness of the foam looks like a bigger box which can change fundamental things, so its a balancing act. I dont like the idea of mids reflecting around inside that mid-woof box.. That bothers me..
I had some others things I had to do today, so I wont have sound till tomorrow as Silicone is drying around the wires in the holes in the cabinet.. That mid-woof box is damn airtight.
Tomorrow will be fun... BUT only one speaker, as I was short of that vinyl deadening material and I was also short on the Wireworld wire. I am bi-amping. The crossover is 2 PC boards designed for bi amping.
You open a wilson mid-woof and its lined with 1" foam.
So this is confuzing and why im sure i will play with this.. Im going to start off close to what they did and then listen and later add a bunch in and see what happens.
The other thing these materials do is alter the apperent size of the box. The cushyness of the foam looks like a bigger box which can change fundamental things, so its a balancing act. I dont like the idea of mids reflecting around inside that mid-woof box.. That bothers me..
I had some others things I had to do today, so I wont have sound till tomorrow as Silicone is drying around the wires in the holes in the cabinet.. That mid-woof box is damn airtight.
Tomorrow will be fun... BUT only one speaker, as I was short of that vinyl deadening material and I was also short on the Wireworld wire. I am bi-amping. The crossover is 2 PC boards designed for bi amping.
Kindhornman, we posted at the same time...
Yes this will be much fun playing with this...
The YG's are actually a hard to see sandwich on the exterior pieces. Its got some black deadening material between 2 serious plates of aluminum. So this truly is a stiff and deadened material.. I dont have a huge CNC mill so no aluminum for me.
The Sonja's are truly remarkable. Ive spent time listening to those and they dont seem to have any coloration or impulse response issues at all. YG does know what he is doing.
Yes this will be much fun playing with this...
The YG's are actually a hard to see sandwich on the exterior pieces. Its got some black deadening material between 2 serious plates of aluminum. So this truly is a stiff and deadened material.. I dont have a huge CNC mill so no aluminum for me.
The Sonja's are truly remarkable. Ive spent time listening to those and they dont seem to have any coloration or impulse response issues at all. YG does know what he is doing.
I would expect the aluminum panels to have a rather high resonant frequency. Perhaps they have cleverly chosen the panel sizes and attachments so that the resonant frequency is higher than the mid-range tuning? The only thing to think about with all that sound bouncing around inside the enclosure is what will come through the actual cone itself. Anything else shouldn't have much effect except to excite a panel vibration in a sealed box. Don't believe all that is said in the marketing of these speakers, I remember them making a big deal about the fact the cone is machined from solid billet, this has no inherent advantage except for marketing over a formed aluminum cone that has gone through the annealing process and re-hardened to relieve any stress risers. Done every day on aircraft panels and machined and formed parts.
So it is a constrained damped layer construction material then. That answers you question why no internal damping material was needed.
So it is a constrained damped layer construction material then. That answers you question why no internal damping material was needed.
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Yea.... Solid billit... hehehe... waste of material.. IMHO..
I have a vid of the newest mid-woof.. AT THE TIME the Scan-Speak Illuminator series was not out yet and so I was pretty impressed with the driver. But it does show the unique cone.. I was overly impressed actually..
Im getting these mixed up. This is a Anat 3 and I was upgrading Anat 2's. I have the Anat 2 drivers & crossover im using for my project.
YG Acoustics Reference 3 mid-bass driver - YouTube
I have a vid of the newest mid-woof.. AT THE TIME the Scan-Speak Illuminator series was not out yet and so I was pretty impressed with the driver. But it does show the unique cone.. I was overly impressed actually..
Im getting these mixed up. This is a Anat 3 and I was upgrading Anat 2's. I have the Anat 2 drivers & crossover im using for my project.
YG Acoustics Reference 3 mid-bass driver - YouTube
I guess when you are charging that kind of money you have to do something that looks impressive even if it has no real inherent value like machining a cone from one piece. I am not even a fan of metal cones so that wouldn't work for me. Not saying they don't sound good but I still don't like the idea of a metal cone.
Yea, im with you there. Strangely tho they dont sound metal at all. But yea, I hear ya. If metal was so great all the top speaker makers would use it. I have heard some weird things that made no sense sound good, and ive heard things that made sense sound bad, sooooo,,, I never say never on things like this drive cone being made of one billit. It might well matter. I would have to direct A/B Both formed and extruded.
The Wilson XLF's sound really nice. Very musical. Very classical in their design. The YG Sonja's are mezmorizing in thier detail and nuance, but the Wilson's are breathtaking in their musicality and lack of listening fatigue. Both have appealing aspects. IMHO there is no "best" speaker, its all personal tastes and very subjective for each person. Also of course your source gear matters, like if your using tubes, then things change for what speakers get used..
While ive been dealing with super high end systems for 20 years I have never owned my own stuff as its just all too expensive. Im a Electronic Engineer and love making electronics, but speakers are new to me
So im looking forward to hearing the scan speak speakers with the YG crossover in a wood box. While not as stiff as aluminum, I think there are other things at play besides stiffness. If only I had the amp's like my clients. All I have is a Proceed Amp-5. Im using 4 channels for bi-amping. Really short wire runs.
The Wilson XLF's sound really nice. Very musical. Very classical in their design. The YG Sonja's are mezmorizing in thier detail and nuance, but the Wilson's are breathtaking in their musicality and lack of listening fatigue. Both have appealing aspects. IMHO there is no "best" speaker, its all personal tastes and very subjective for each person. Also of course your source gear matters, like if your using tubes, then things change for what speakers get used..
While ive been dealing with super high end systems for 20 years I have never owned my own stuff as its just all too expensive. Im a Electronic Engineer and love making electronics, but speakers are new to me
So im looking forward to hearing the scan speak speakers with the YG crossover in a wood box. While not as stiff as aluminum, I think there are other things at play besides stiffness. If only I had the amp's like my clients. All I have is a Proceed Amp-5. Im using 4 channels for bi-amping. Really short wire runs.
well the first speaker is a awesome success. It measures flat and has good impulse response. Its sounds killer. That YG crossover is awesome. I spend hours listening to just one speaker !. hahahaha... By mid week I will have the stuff to finish the second one. Then it will get really interesting. Imaging !
Sorry to bring this up, but ... where are the bass drivers?
I know the Main Module of the ANAT are intended as stand alone, but I have a hard time believing those drivers and produce any significant bass with those tiny chamber behind them.
I also notice the YG Acoustics website is not real forth-coming with specifications on their speakers. Not a single mention that I can find for Frequency Response or crossover frequencies.
I have no doubt these are great sounding speakers, but I can't see them functioning in any fashion other that front/side/rear Satellite speakers in a surround sound system. Though I'm willing to be corrected in that belief.
Still, it is a super find coming across those drivers, and I am very eager to see how the project goes.
Steve/bluewizard
I know the Main Module of the ANAT are intended as stand alone, but I have a hard time believing those drivers and produce any significant bass with those tiny chamber behind them.
I also notice the YG Acoustics website is not real forth-coming with specifications on their speakers. Not a single mention that I can find for Frequency Response or crossover frequencies.
I have no doubt these are great sounding speakers, but I can't see them functioning in any fashion other that front/side/rear Satellite speakers in a surround sound system. Though I'm willing to be corrected in that belief.
Still, it is a super find coming across those drivers, and I am very eager to see how the project goes.
Steve/bluewizard
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