I'm new here and have a special project

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Hi everyone. My Name is Doug Ingram in Lorette, Manitoba, Canada. I'm happy to have found this forum and think that its a great pace to pose this query.

I have a special project that I am at the early stages of planning. I am quite take with the early 1960's Claritone Project G. They are very beautiful examples of mid century modern design. My son and I would like to each build one for ourselves, two sot that we don't have to fight to the death when he eventually moves out...

The electronics are yet to be decided, the cabinet work will be the easy part as I am a full time woodworker. I feel that the speaker will be the most immediately challenging part.

This is what I have to work with. The speakers are built into 18" globes, mounted on arms situating them on either side of the cabinet. The globes are two hemispheres, the back is solid and hold all the guts, the front is basically a decorative grill. Originally the front hemisphere consists of two perforated, spun aluminum pieces, an inner "silver" one and an outer anodized black one. The original speaker driver was a Warfdale Super 10. I don't have any info on how it was utilized.

I don't feel any great loyalty to the original speaker design or electronics. The only requirement from me is that the whole thing needs to fit within the 18" diameter of the globe.

If anyone is not familiar with the Clairtone you can find out more here:

Welcome to Clairtone

Any thoughts or suggestions?
 

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Hi Douglas,

I think this is absolutely great idea :) it keeps the creative juices flowing.

Dave, I don't think the enclosure is sphere, more like a half sphere, and the front grill is creating the other half.

Douglas, if you plan on having sphere enclosures like this
eye-speakers.jpg

then I think the best way is to get hold of styrofoam balls in the needed diameter, and fiberglass it.Well the best way for me :)
I'm doing the same, just going home from business trip to get hold of some sheets :)
If its only half sphere enclosure, there are other methods, and I'm sure as a woodworker you know your way around the saw :)

Best of luck, looking forward to see pictures

Danny

P.S.: internal volume of sphere = 3,1415 X 1.3333333333333 X r3
internal diameter of 18" gives 28,7L volume
 
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Thanks everyone for the quick replies and not thinking that this is crazy!

I am not being slavish to the original, but I do want to be faithful to the spirit and the "look" of the design. The cabinet, stand, and globes, will have the same look. I am flexible with the internals and the speaker construction.

I can adjust the actual globe dimensions at this point, whether the internal or external dimension is 18" doesn't matter. Right now its just a theoretical line. I can make the structure anyway that I want, let the imaginations run wild here.

I can push the speaker enclosure to the front of the, or not. The front of the globe is the limit. I've been toying with the idea of putting a driver close to the front and using a folded concentric cone using the outer surface of the back globe as the final turn.

Something like this sketch. Its nothing serious just putting down an idea I had while laying in bed the other night. The bottom right circle, seen in profile.
 

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Doug, I don;t think that will be necessary.There are many drivers that work well in closed boxes/enclosures. Just ask the right person for opinion :)
I personally will go probably with the Fostex 168E Sigma in closed 14L, 30cm diameter sphere-ish enclosure. I have to figure out hot to construct the last shaped part :)

Will be monitoring this, looks interesting

danny
 
An externally hosted image should be here but it was not working when we last tested it.


http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/multi-way/80899-voodoo-vibration-loudspeakers-7.html

TNT's Ikea metal bowls would look really nice perched on a shiny stainless steel frame , i think there only 36cms in diameter though. With a good 8" full range driver, matched with some good woodwork for the cabinet could look spectacular.

Unless your using valve amps or subwoofers in the cabinet, won't it be a large empty box? Looks just right for some vinyl storage?
 
Thanks for the replies and the advice.

"Just ask the right person for the opinion"! That's it right there, gotta know the right person to ask. I thought that I'd start here.

I read through the IKEA bowl speaker thread, interesting and cool looking. From what I gather those are being used as a subwoofer, no? The IKEA bowls look great, but are too small.

I expect that I'll be making my bowls for the speaker globes.

Don't anybody hold there breath on this project, its going to be a long term build, and I've got a TON of other obligations on the go. I do believe in getting an early start, and that's what I'm doing now.
 
Forgot to add that the original cabinet had a turntable and space to hold vinyl, too. The top access to the electronics, storage, and turntable is under a tambour roll top lid.

Would adding a subwoofer into the cabinet cause undue vibrations to the turntable?
 

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Doug, I don;t think that will be necessary.There are many drivers that work well in closed boxes/enclosures.

Nanko beat me to saying that... you will very likely have room to accomodate a woofer or 2 in the main cabinet so that gives more versatility.

You want to push the driver out to the front of the sphere as much as possible, a half sphere with a driver on the front face is really bad for diffraction effects, on the surface of a sphere very good.

My 1st thot goes to the Mark Audio drivers... besides sounding good they have a very nice basket for mounting in a sphere.

dave
 
Adding one subwoofer to the cabinet would cause excess vibrations. I expect if you really turned it up, you could get the needle to jump.

Mounting two, on opposite sides of the box, wired in phase, would cancel the vibrations, as shown with the ikea thread. This would be fine for use near a turntable. I use mine on top of my sub (uses the vibration cancelling mounting), with no adverse effects.

Chris
 
vibration control...

well I think a lot of the vibration control ideas forget one thing. The stylus on a turntable can be excited by very small vibrations. Also a suspension under the TT may also be excited by said "minor" vibrations. One option might be is to use the entire console as a sub enclosure and build a matching equipment stand that could be wall mounted and away from most of the vibrations.

Another interesting idea may be to create the loudspeakers so that they are free standing. I think I like this idea, rather than having the speakers attached. There will be some flexibility in speaker placement. Either wooden bowl or metal ones pressed into service would definitely have the "cool" factor in spades.

Vibration control is much less of an issue if no turntable is to be used. mid-cent console.png
 
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