Uber cheap, yet amazingly good.

[sfdoddsy]

I'll fix the rip when I do a final baffle .

The other pictures, especially the link to the high rez ones give you a better idea.

I'm in Australia and picked up the stuff from my local rubber shop, but I would imagine it would be available over there.

BTW, how did you post that picture. I can never make it work.

Steve

 

[JoeBob]

jag, I'd reccomend the W3-871S, I've heard that it's better than the other 3" TB drivers, and while I can't compare it to the others, I can only say good things about it.

I too was originally going to go with a sealed box, but then I read about open baffles at linkwitz and on this forum (again, when I was bored) and decided to give it a try (cheap wood, hardly any time to build) and I'm very pleased with the results, I'd say give it a go. Only thing is I wouldn't go with a passive speaker level crossover, when crossing over that low you'd need huge values...

 

[halojoy]

I'll fix the rip when I do a final baffle .
The other pictures, especially the link to the high rez ones give you a better idea.
BTW, how did you post that picture. I can never make it work.
Steve

First I used my freeware program: XnView SuperGraphicTool
I downloaded the BIG version of a picture from your nice pics collection.
THen I did Cut Out and saved a piece of that Captured Image.
Then I only made an attachment of that rubber.jpg
There is a box where you can Attach files, like you do in emails.
/halo - XnView Lover! takes 360 formats of images

 

[jag]

jag, I'd reccomend the W3-871S,

I already got a pair of 594S and I was impressed with them when I put them in some cheap plastic boxes... The advantage of 594S is that it is very easy to make them flush with baffle.

Only thing is I wouldn't go with a passive speaker level crossover, when crossing over that low you'd need huge values...

This is what has been holding me back so far, do they play loud enough for you (without the crossover)?

 

[halojoy]

Rotated with XnView

I see you use SEAS Excel elements
JAMO Concert 8 and 11 uses them, too. GREAT reviews!
Jamo Concert 11 is the Big Floorstanding model.
"JAMO Consert 8 was appointed European Speaker of the Year, and received the prestigious EISA Award in 1997."
Here is the new version, called:
Jamo D 830

Here is about Jamo Concert 11 and Consert 8 - at TNT-Audio
http://www.tnt-audio.com/casse/jamo8e.html
--------------------

in this case I should have Rotated before save
to save some of the space in this Thread
like this

 

[planet10]

This is what has been holding me back so far, do they play loud enough for you (without the crossover)?

With a woofer as efficient as the MCM you mention you have to go active... no point (or sanity) in padding the woofer down 9 dB.

dave

 

[jag]

With a woofer as efficient as the MCM you mention you have to go active... no point (or sanity) in padding the woofer down 9 dB.

dave

I was thinking that the open baffle will make the woofer less effective when compared to the TB and hopefully I will not have to pad it down the whole 9dB. Or the other option that I was thinking about was this Vifa . In which case the Stryke mentioned above is not a bad choice either (The MCM and Vifa are easier to make flush with baffle).

 

[BrianGT]

After seeing the w3-871s on an open baffle, I got bored today, and threw together a quick pair of open baffle w3-871s speakers. I bought a bunch of the w3-871s drivers to build them in a ported enclosure (6.5"x10.5"x9", based on Jim Griffin's elf 1.5 design). They sound pretty good on the open baffle.

Here are some pictures:

--
Brian

 

[BrianGT]

I had then mdf pieces that I cut before to build a sealed tempest subwoofer to compare to my ported tempest, but I never go around to build it. They are just the internal brace pieces for it. I was amazed that they happened to fit perfectly next to both sides of my television.

--
Brian

 

[BrianGT]

They make much better television speakers. I have driven them with both a gainclone and my leach amp. They get fairly loud with both. When up too loud, they really distort on bass notes, but this is much higher then my average listening volume.

The top speaker is run full range, and the bottom speakers is in series with a 4 ohm resistor and a 1.5mH aircore inductor in series. I just used some packing tape to secure the components to the back of the baffle.

All of the wiring is just 18ga teflon insulated silver coated copper hookup wire, running straight from the drivers to the amp.

--
Brian

 

[BrianGT]

They took me a couple of hours to build total, since I already had the wood cut. I used a jasper circle cutting jig with my plunge router, and countersinked the drivers flush. I also used a straight cutting bit to give the drivers room to breath by cutting the holes larger away from the mounting holes. This really helps the performance of these speakers.

Overall, this is just $50 in parts for 2 speakers. They sound quite good for the highs and mids, but need a subwoofer to fill in the lower bass region. I am satisified, and will compare these to the ported box with the same drivers.

--
Brian

 

[halojoy]

The Tangband Open Baffle Club

Great BrianGT

I long to join the Tangband Open Baffle Club now

Sorry there is no dealer in Sweden selling Tandband, yet.
I read on a homepage, a swedish guy had order from Canada.

/halo

 

[BrianGT]

Re: The Tangband Open Baffle Club

Great BrianGT

I long to join the Tangband Open Baffle Club now

Sorry there is no dealer in Sweden selling Tandband, yet.
I read on a homepage, a swedish guy had order from Canada.

/halo

Thanks...

a swedish guy ordering from canada? I would imagine that with the shipping and customs charges, they must have cost as much as higher quality drivers available in that region.

My roommate and I ordered a total of 24 of these (each making 3 pairs of speakers), and they cost $10 each from http://www.nuera-acoustic.ca/products.html

--
Brian

 

[planet10]

Re: Re: The Tangband Open Baffle Club

and they cost $10 each from http://www.nuera-acoustic.ca/products.html

I can recommend Bob Reimer as a source as well at Creative Sound in Abbotsford BC (same place your Jordan JX92s from). Bob posts here from time-to-time.

dave

 

[JoeBob]

I reccomend creative sound solutions as well, they shipped mine on the 24th, and shipping only cost me $6 cnd. Great service in my book.

 

[BrianGT]

I reccomend creative sound solutions as well, they shipped mine on the 24th, and shipping only cost me $6 cnd. Great service in my book.

Creative Sound Solutions seems to be a lot better on shipping costs and delivery times than Nuera Acoustics. My roommate ordered the TB drivers and it took them almost 2 weeks to get the drivers here. We ordered 24 of them, and 16 shipped from canada, and 8 shipped from california. They are in different boxes with different serial numbers, but look identical. It shouldn't make a difference, since 8 of them are for 2 pairs for his father, 1 pair for him and I am using 12 for myself. One strange thing about the different drivers, is that the 16 from canada state 8 ohms on them, and the ones from california state 6.6 ohms (dcr value?)...

The price of a driver, including shipping and handling costs was $11.83 each shipped.

On a side note, I have been having problems with Parts Express lately. I placed 3 orders lately, and 2 weren't packed correctly. The first one, they gave me the wrong value capacitors, and skipped 2 of my inductors (for another design). On the second order, I ordered some speaker terminals, and they gave me the totally wrong part. They were apologized on the phone and shipped out the correct parts, which I hopefully should receive soon. If you order from Parts Express, check your shipment carefully when you get it to make sure you get all the items.

Also.. Amazon has taken forever to get me my table saw that I ordered on Dec. 26th...

--
Brian

 

[seangoesbonk]

...the ones from california state 6.6 ohms (dcr value?)...

I got a pair of TB w4-657s (8 ohms) last summer and they had 6 ohms stamped on them. I talked to Thingyness about this, and he said that was a "quality control" issue. Apparently, every once in a while TB accidently stamps their drivers with the DC resistance.

 

[Ignite]

Wow, $10 for the W3-871s...

I've wanted to try building a line array.. and with this driver it'd be dirt cheap, I wouldn't even need an x/o.

If I used many drivers (e.g. 10 per speaker) I'm still only in for $300CDN + wood and would have ridiculous sensitivity... Enough to use maybe a <5W/channel amp.. then I'd have an excuse to attempt such a project.

My difficulty in this is figuring out how to get an OK impedance. The way I see it I can get 4 or 16 ohm from 8 drivers, but thats about the only good option.

Thoughts?

 

[Ignite]

Better yet, pair them with a set of Antique Sound Lab Wave 8 monoblocks which I want an excuse to purchase, and a good subwoofer to fill in the bottom end.

Yes, I like this idea.

 

[planet10]

I've wanted to try building a line array.. and with this driver it'd be dirt cheap, I wouldn't even need an x/o.

By all the rules you need to get down to something like 1.5" spacing before you get no comb filtering and can avoid an XO. Still worth a try IME.

My difficulty in this is figuring out how to get an OK impedance. The way I see it I can get 4 or 16 ohm from 8 drivers, but thats about the only good option.

If you use 9 drivers per side you can wire them back up as 8 ohms. 8 3" is pretty short for a line array, i'd think that at least 16, and more like 24 or 32 per side would get the height you need.

dave