Very nice looking wires. By the way, it looks like cross bars and structure are machined from fiberglass epoxy laminated, am I right? And what is the dark wide row at the bottom of the picture, is it supporting the film? By the way, as I understand, your wires are supported at 10". If so, how have you achieved so straight wires across so long sections?
Regards,
Lukas.
Bazukaz, Your right on the cross bars, they were a lot of work, drilled over 800 holes so far, the rods were very straight, could have spaced them further but wanted the stability. 8 bars per unit 520 holes drilled. Comes apart in 3 sections, nothing glued but diaphram. The dark wide strip is the base board on the wall, very transparent.
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Update 2/21/15:
This morning I finished wiring up the resistor networks, got the new segmented panels installed in my old beam splitter cabs, and I'm now ready to start EQ'ing and tuning the panels.
The Soviet military rotary switches I bought off Ebay have still not arrived from Belarus so I can't yet switch the resistor network in and out to make the dispersion pattern selectable, as planned. At this time I have the network wired in for wide dispersion mode.
I will have to wait until next week to start tuning, as I spend the weekends with my GF. However, I did play the panels for a few minutes this morning just to make sure there were no arcing problems.
At first play I can tell that, unlike my old non-segmented flat panels, these new panels have NO pronounced sweet spot. Right now they sound bass heavy, as the EQ'ing is still setup for my old non-segmented panels which are very bright.
I will update again next week after some tuning and tweaking.
For now, here are some pics:
This morning I finished wiring up the resistor networks, got the new segmented panels installed in my old beam splitter cabs, and I'm now ready to start EQ'ing and tuning the panels.
The Soviet military rotary switches I bought off Ebay have still not arrived from Belarus so I can't yet switch the resistor network in and out to make the dispersion pattern selectable, as planned. At this time I have the network wired in for wide dispersion mode.
I will have to wait until next week to start tuning, as I spend the weekends with my GF. However, I did play the panels for a few minutes this morning just to make sure there were no arcing problems.
At first play I can tell that, unlike my old non-segmented flat panels, these new panels have NO pronounced sweet spot. Right now they sound bass heavy, as the EQ'ing is still setup for my old non-segmented panels which are very bright.
I will update again next week after some tuning and tweaking.
For now, here are some pics:
Wow, impressive. Wouldn't mind having a listening of those
Do you use both the transmission line and ripole woofers with the ESL's? What XO freqs do you use?
Yes, the system is tri-ampd using a Behringer DCX2496 digital crossover feeding (3) Carver TFM-25 stereo amps. The crossover frequencies/filter slopes are 50Hz/48db and 218Hz/48db.
I opted for eleven physical segments (12-welding rods in each segment) driven as six electrical segments (center wire group + 5 L/R wire group pairs).
I used Bolserst's Segmented ESL Calculator to define the resistor network and layout.
Charlie! Looks sharp! I look forward to your listening experiences. What could be more valuable and valid...your room, your equipment, and recordings you know well. Interested especially to know if the segmented approach loses anything in resolving power, the nuances, etc. Thanks for sharing with us all.
Hi,
the little Padawan .. a master he becomes
jauu
Calvin
Thanks but it feels more like a blind man groping around in a brothel.
Looks Great Charlie!!!
Good job on that resistor board!!!
Yes, I canimagine that they are not as bright now due to the EQ settings.
You can try shorting just the very First series resistor and this will brighten them up and you should be able to use your treble shelving control to adjust it to were you like it and still have the wide dispersion characteristics.
This is what I had tried to explain earlier and how I plan to implement my system.
The only reason I have not finished my new little panels is because I don't yet have the resistors and I already know just how they will sound without them, as they are exactly the same size as my previous designs.
From what everybody's has been reporting about their system's using this technique, I really can't what to finally get mine running again, and, for the First time with the new panels!!
I can't what to hear what you think about your new setup now!!
jer
Good job on that resistor board!!!
Yes, I canimagine that they are not as bright now due to the EQ settings.
You can try shorting just the very First series resistor and this will brighten them up and you should be able to use your treble shelving control to adjust it to were you like it and still have the wide dispersion characteristics.
This is what I had tried to explain earlier and how I plan to implement my system.
The only reason I have not finished my new little panels is because I don't yet have the resistors and I already know just how they will sound without them, as they are exactly the same size as my previous designs.
From what everybody's has been reporting about their system's using this technique, I really can't what to finally get mine running again, and, for the First time with the new panels!!
I can't what to hear what you think about your new setup now!!
jer
I got those lovely resistor boards from Syborg. He designed them and had some extras from the min-buy for his speakers.
I got the mids and treble sounding pretty good now-- I had two 1-ohm resistors in front of the transformers but I took one of those out today, and then did some tuning with the Behringer.
The problem now is that I hear the diaphragm resonance, which is quite bothersome. Tomorrow I will try increasing the crossover filter slope from 24db to 48db/octave and, if need be, raise the x-over frequency from 218 to 250Hz to mitigate exciting the resonance. Also contributing, I suspect, are the higher diaphragm tension (raised the resonance frequency) and the wire stators' greater open area provides less damping as compared to my old 40% open perf panels.
I think these new panels will sound nice when I get the resonance tamped down. I sure hope those Soviet military rotary switches I bought on Ebay show up soon so I can compare the wide/narrow modes.
I confess that I built these panels out of curiosity mostly, having a preconceived belief that segmented panels could not possibly sound as good at the focal point as my old 'head-in-a-vise' perf panels. I still think that will hold true when the tuning' done, but I'm already amazed that these segmented flat panels really do disperse the highs smoothly like my old flat perf panels never could.
Jazz
I got the mids and treble sounding pretty good now-- I had two 1-ohm resistors in front of the transformers but I took one of those out today, and then did some tuning with the Behringer.
The problem now is that I hear the diaphragm resonance, which is quite bothersome. Tomorrow I will try increasing the crossover filter slope from 24db to 48db/octave and, if need be, raise the x-over frequency from 218 to 250Hz to mitigate exciting the resonance. Also contributing, I suspect, are the higher diaphragm tension (raised the resonance frequency) and the wire stators' greater open area provides less damping as compared to my old 40% open perf panels.
I think these new panels will sound nice when I get the resonance tamped down. I sure hope those Soviet military rotary switches I bought on Ebay show up soon so I can compare the wide/narrow modes.
I confess that I built these panels out of curiosity mostly, having a preconceived belief that segmented panels could not possibly sound as good at the focal point as my old 'head-in-a-vise' perf panels. I still think that will hold true when the tuning' done, but I'm already amazed that these segmented flat panels really do disperse the highs smoothly like my old flat perf panels never could.
Jazz
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HI Charlie
Congrats!
You should find the sweet spot is still there and the imaging unchanged, you just don't have to hold your head fixed to get the best of it.
Re resonance - try stretching some light spandex or similar over the back face of the panel - that should make a difference - but probably not enough - depends on the resonant frequency and the width of your panel. If the cloth does have close to the correct resistance to get the Q right, you might find that you can adjust the stretch to get the damping you want - the resistance in each hole in the cloth scales as 1/r^4 so it is quite sensitive the to amount of stretch. The best cloth is non-stretch monofilament mesh (ensures uniformity of resistance) like screen printing mesh and that requires some care to select the right thread count.
regards
Rod
Congrats!
You should find the sweet spot is still there and the imaging unchanged, you just don't have to hold your head fixed to get the best of it.
Re resonance - try stretching some light spandex or similar over the back face of the panel - that should make a difference - but probably not enough - depends on the resonant frequency and the width of your panel. If the cloth does have close to the correct resistance to get the Q right, you might find that you can adjust the stretch to get the damping you want - the resistance in each hole in the cloth scales as 1/r^4 so it is quite sensitive the to amount of stretch. The best cloth is non-stretch monofilament mesh (ensures uniformity of resistance) like screen printing mesh and that requires some care to select the right thread count.
regards
Rod
Hi Charlie,
As everyone confirms here you have done an outstanding job.
I am happy for you it payed off in terms of dispersion and I like to tell you about my experience with conventional speakers (tweeter) which might be useful in your current project.
We made a tweeter radiating 360 degrees and since such configuration obviously needs much more energy compared to a conventional ( pointed to the listener ) setup, we had to correct the power input of the tweeter A LOT.
It is very much worth the trouble, the result is great, now you have succeeded in making a wider dispersion you have a comparable situation. Depending on how much better dispersion you have now I will not be surprised if you need something like 4 dB/octave UP . With this approach you might get it all, sounding as good as before and a wider dispersion.
Regards
Edmund
As everyone confirms here you have done an outstanding job.
I am happy for you it payed off in terms of dispersion and I like to tell you about my experience with conventional speakers (tweeter) which might be useful in your current project.
We made a tweeter radiating 360 degrees and since such configuration obviously needs much more energy compared to a conventional ( pointed to the listener ) setup, we had to correct the power input of the tweeter A LOT.
It is very much worth the trouble, the result is great, now you have succeeded in making a wider dispersion you have a comparable situation. Depending on how much better dispersion you have now I will not be surprised if you need something like 4 dB/octave UP . With this approach you might get it all, sounding as good as before and a wider dispersion.
Regards
Edmund
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