Most appropriate driver/enclosure/design for full orchestra source material?

[soongsc]

Thanks for the comments and the mitre-joint link.

BTW, Soongsc, I'd be interested in more details of your vented enclosure for the JX125. My sealed enclosure was calculated to give a Q are 0.74 but rolls off a little higher than I'd prefer.

Colin

The design is currently patent pending, final design is yet to be released. I am currently listening to enclosures originally used to assess the feasibility of an idea. Basically, what we tried to do is lower the resonace without introducing an additional impedance peak. The XO is a series crossover. During testing we noticed some things that looked like battle diffraction, and are trying to figure out how to eliminate it without changing the whole design concept (unless we discover one we like better).

 

[DMD]

I concur with Nardis, Colin, in thinking that your hexagonal prism cabs are elegant. I'd like to see what you come up with next.

One question: Do you have these near or even in a corner? And how far apart are they?

Greetings Nardis,

The angled cuts all come off a table saw set at 20 degrees from the vertical, so once it's set and checked you don't need to keep altering it. The side and rear panels are produced from a larger piece by a single cut.

Love it.

I used 18mm MDF. Assembly was trial and error, but I've learned enough from it to do it properly next time out of a better material. I've been promised some iroko (teak) recycled from old school laboratory workbenches and planed to 20mm. It will be interesting to hear how it sounds, as it's much denser than ply or MDF. Anyone have experience of using it or similar?

I'm not familiar with iroko, but some quick essentials about teak for however much the two are similar:

1.VERY low expansion-contraction coefficient, generally doesn't crack, twist, or warp, and remains stable in tropical, desert, freezing, and, of course, marine environments. (The teak on the decks of the Titanic is said to be as good today as before it sank.)

2. It is delightful to work using hand (and, I'm told, machine) tools, with one caveat: The high silica content dulls your tools really fast. The dust is also an important consideration on that account; wear your mask.

3. Actually one more combined virtue/caveat: Along with its stability, teak's high natural-oils and silica content make finishing unnecessary in many applications, but on this same account, gluing can be tricky; you need to apply the glue (and what finishes you do use) to freshly exposed surfaces to insure success.

If your recycled iroko teak is basically a subsitute for Tectona grandis teak, your source/find is a real treasure; purchased unused, as I'm sure you know, T. grandis is exceedingly expensive and rare, 80% of the world's supply coming from Myanmar/Burma, where it still is—and probably will be and should be in the future—harvested by elephants! (...not by the elephants alone; I think they have drivers )

BTW, if one happens to have a teak tree in the back yard, its silica-laden leaves make excellent sandpaper!

 

[Colin]

>I concur with Nardis, Colin, in thinking that your hexagonal prism cabs are elegant. I'd like to see what you come up with next. One question: Do you have these near or even in a corner? And how far apart are they?

Thanks for the comment. I'm aware of making one or two compromises in building these enclosures so may have a second go now I have a clearer aim in mind. I particularly want to be able to hide the l/s connections in the base. I usually veneer cabinets as a good way of hiding screw holes etc so I've yet to try painting an enclosure.

The enclosures are about 12 feet apart, against one wall. I listen about 8 feet back from that wall. The left enclosure is in a corner, which sometimes makes it sound fractionally louder. Room re-arrangement coming up sometime soon.

Colin

 

[northernsky]

Hi,
after 5 years (see previous message date) do you have answers to the question in thread title?

Summary of the eleven pages of the thread.

1-Opinion of Mr. Pass and many others: in case of very complex music signal such as orchestral music one driver is not sufficient.

2-Many diyers proposed the Jordan JX92S in MLTL enclosure.

I built the last speakers; I am enjoying them a lot in Jazz and small acoustic ensemble music (may be just a little bit of lack of details when compared with more expensive drivers) but I found them not completely satisfying in the reproduction of large orchestra.

Can you propose some alternatives?

Could OBs with a large woofer be a possibility? My room is 6.2m X 4.7m x 2.8m (20' X 15' X 9'), but unlikely I have not the space for a very large OB.

Thank you

Renato

Unli

 

[soongsc]

I think you are asking for a speaker that I have never experienced regardless the price. Also, depending on what seating in a real hall, the reproduction is subject to interpretation. To make things more complicated, recording, mixing and mastering process may have made it absolutely impossible. Finally, and probably mentioned many times in many occasions and publications, the amount of power may not be suffecient.

Now, if you were planning on building a new listening room and everthing from ground up, here is something that will give you an idea what magnitude of engineering effort is involved minumum.
20,000 Watt Home Hi-Fi System

 

[northernsky]

Hi Soongsc,

thank you for your reply.
I would say that your point of view is very near the one of my wife. In some way she is even more radical: "Why are you waisting time, just buy a cheap boom box because anyway home music reproduction is far fom being similar to the concert we listened to in the concert hall."

Renato

 

[soongsc]

It's really a difficult decision. Most manufacturers will not publish all the necessary information to make a sound judgement. It took me over a year to figure out how important CSD is in performing closer to real dynamics level. Normally, you get to a certain volume level, then drivers own sound becomes annoying, this is really the first limitation. If this is overcome to the maximum SPL you desire to play at, then the next limit will probably be the amplifier power. However, with the Jordan drivers, it's possible to clean up the CSD some more, which will make it more appealing for all kinds of music. Please look through the original ENABL thread where I posted some quick trials. Unfortunately, I did not take it further. If there is enough interest among the Jordan users, I guess I could put some efforts into it.