There is a similarity as the Nessie type boxes tend to be tuned very low. Not speaking Japanese, it's pure conjecture, but I suspect the originals at any rate were 1/2 wavelength tuned with the fold at ~1/3 length.
Just re-read that original post of Chris's. If that whole damned thing's finished with urushi laquer, inside & out, I don't think I want to know the cost.
I want a pair though. I don't care what they sound like; I just want them as a piece of design. One of these days, I'm going to get vengence... I'm going to strip a Lowther, replace the voice-coil with a hand-wound 800ohm version and the phase plug with one of my own design made of solid holly. This I shall coat with a varnish incorporating birch-sap, hand tapped & triple refined. The driver will then go into a Voigt style horn made from solid native Elm and Scots Pine, coated on all surfaces with a dozen hand-rubbed layers of the aforementioned varnish, polished with pure heather-beeswax, and strategically damped with high-quality long-hair wool. All materials will be from small local independant suppliers in the Scottish borders.
Scottmoose said:
If that whole damned thing's finished with urushi laquer, inside & out, I don't think I want to know the cost.
When you place your order, be sure and order a urushi laquered handmade pen for folks to sign the audition guest list with, for surely, if you can afford the speakers, you can afford the accessories at a mere fraction of the cost
: http://web.archive.org/web/20040611115520/http://www.nakaya.org/eproduct.htmlGM
GM said:When you place your order, be sure and order a urushi laquered handmade pen for folks to sign the audition guest list with, for surely, if you can afford the speakers, you can afford the accessories at a mere fraction of the cost
GM
Right, I'm off to rob a bank. And that's just for the pen.
A few interesting facts on urushi lacquer in general and the enclosures shown above in particular:
Urushi goes through several stages of curing. Typically, it becomes quite strong and solid after about two months, but it will actually continue to gradually gain in strength and hardness for the next 20 years or so.
Mr. Teramoto tells me that excavated wooden lacquerware items from several thousand years ago have had the wood decay so that it was no longer what you could call wood anymore, but the lacquer itself was still in very good shape.
Mr. Makoto Tanaka, the creator of the above enclosures, will, along with any urushi craftsman worthy of the name, continue to maintain urushi lacquer ware from previous centuries. (The basic idea with urushi is that it is designed to last for centuries.)
The tree from which urushi comes will typically yield about 250ml of sap per year. A tree will typically have a useful life of about 10 or 20 years.
In Japan, the typical method for calculating the cost of an urushi lacquerware item is to take the price of the urushi lacquer material used in production and multiply it by 100. This reflects the amount of labor that goes into the production.
The above enclosures are lacquered inside and out; to do the inside it is necessary to apply the lacquer to each piece before assembly. The outside is, of course done after assembly.
A tremendous amount of work goes into preparing the surface. Each layer of urushi involves a lot of work, and an item like this has had 20 layers of urushi lacquer applied. (Lacquerware that conceals the grain of the wood is even thicker, involving the application of many more layers.)
The wood pieces in this enclosure are so large that it was not possible to do them with the usual approach, which calls for a single continuous stroke of the brush from one end of the item to the other. This time it was necessary to do it in two strokes. But Mr. Tanaka has done such a masterful job of application that even he can't tell where the strokes were joined together.
Mr. Tanaka will be at RMAF so interested parties can ask him more questions. (An interpreter will be available.)
-- Chris
Urushi goes through several stages of curing. Typically, it becomes quite strong and solid after about two months, but it will actually continue to gradually gain in strength and hardness for the next 20 years or so.
Mr. Teramoto tells me that excavated wooden lacquerware items from several thousand years ago have had the wood decay so that it was no longer what you could call wood anymore, but the lacquer itself was still in very good shape.
Mr. Makoto Tanaka, the creator of the above enclosures, will, along with any urushi craftsman worthy of the name, continue to maintain urushi lacquer ware from previous centuries. (The basic idea with urushi is that it is designed to last for centuries.)
The tree from which urushi comes will typically yield about 250ml of sap per year. A tree will typically have a useful life of about 10 or 20 years.
In Japan, the typical method for calculating the cost of an urushi lacquerware item is to take the price of the urushi lacquer material used in production and multiply it by 100. This reflects the amount of labor that goes into the production.
The above enclosures are lacquered inside and out; to do the inside it is necessary to apply the lacquer to each piece before assembly. The outside is, of course done after assembly.
A tremendous amount of work goes into preparing the surface. Each layer of urushi involves a lot of work, and an item like this has had 20 layers of urushi lacquer applied. (Lacquerware that conceals the grain of the wood is even thicker, involving the application of many more layers.)
The wood pieces in this enclosure are so large that it was not possible to do them with the usual approach, which calls for a single continuous stroke of the brush from one end of the item to the other. This time it was necessary to do it in two strokes. But Mr. Tanaka has done such a masterful job of application that even he can't tell where the strokes were joined together.
Mr. Tanaka will be at RMAF so interested parties can ask him more questions. (An interpreter will be available.)
-- Chris
Here is another shot of the urushi enclosures:
-- Chris
An externally hosted image should be here but it was not working when we last tested it.
-- Chris
Boxes good
The boxes look so good...
What about the driver numbers?
How long can I get along without the basics?
Is there a great reason to not publish... the specs?
I have no desire to shoot myself in the foot...
Nor stick my neck out of a speeding train...
My time is short and saw blades are getting dull as I whine.
In my home live... 4 Feastrex Drivers... a pair of 5Dnf's and a pair of 9Dnf's.
And I want to order others... but
Phil
Santa Fe
The boxes look so good...
What about the driver numbers?
How long can I get along without the basics?
Is there a great reason to not publish... the specs?
I have no desire to shoot myself in the foot...
Nor stick my neck out of a speeding train...
My time is short and saw blades are getting dull as I whine.
In my home live... 4 Feastrex Drivers... a pair of 5Dnf's and a pair of 9Dnf's.
And I want to order others... but
Phil
Santa Fe
I gather they've run into a slight problem, accidentally deleting WT2's registration file. Hopefully this will be resolved soon, as it's going to cost them sales.
Re the name, it's not English, but how about naming them for a dinosaur? I vote for Plesiosaurus, as it was aquatic, and this is clearly a Nessie variation.
Re the name, it's not English, but how about naming them for a dinosaur? I vote for Plesiosaurus, as it was aquatic, and this is clearly a Nessie variation.
Bunpei said:
How about "Zakuro"? (It's the Japanese word for pomegranate.) It's not an English word, but all the elements of this speaker are Japanese, so it seems appropriate to use a Japanese name. Japanese words (especially names) are becoming more popular outside Japan these days.
Also, these speakers are similiar in color to a pomegranate.
Mike
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