Bit of Ceramic Tube FR Fun

[optic]

I was sitting down in my basement listening to a Music DVD with my semi diy setup. Under my TV i have a wine rack made out of Ceramic Tubes. (Old sewer pipes).

I decided to utilise a few of the pipes with a full range 100mm no name speaker i had found in the garage. (I do commercial sound installs, think they are fire evac speakers).

I stuck the 100 mm speaker to the end of a 350mm pipe with some builders putty and stuffed the tube with my wifes pillow.

I had created a wonderful centre speaker in about 20 mins.

If i get such excitment in 20 mins of audio DIY. I wonder how much i would get if i did my whole system.

Gonna start working on this....

Cheers

Excited Optic

[sfreak]

Sounds very good. If I think I know what your talking about, ceramic type terracotta pipes? Seen a few in different thinks (coffee tables etc) glazed and polished and look great.

And would make an ideal pipe. Very solid piece of material. Got any pictures of your setup with the pipes? I used to much around with PVC pipe (not the same stuff, but easy to make a nice twisty line with joiners and the like).

Imagine... a whole system made of old sewer pipes lol. Goodluck with it all optic!

[tburman]

Those pipes also make nice bookshelf stands with a slab of marble on top.

[Geoff H]

In Ausland we used to have Ag pipes. Terra Cotta like yours, 10" dia and about 3'6" long, or high. I had some 10" Richard Allens in them for a while, tuned as BR with a down firing port. I wish I had tried the Walsh driver concept in them.

They were quite heavy, and I was concerned about my children pulling them over. Wouldn't do a child much good.

All that plumbing is done in plastic these days. If I see any being replaced, two are going in the back of the wagon.

Geoff.

[phase_accurate]

Them being sewage pipes I fully understand why you use your WIFE's pillow for stuffing !!

Regards

Charles

[Geoff H]

Yep, and by the time he does the whole system, he may run out of wife and kids, or they run out on him.

[peterbrorsson]

They would be perfect for Stranglers "Down in the sewer"

Cheers
Peter

[optic]

Them being sewage pipes I fully understand why you use your WIFE's pillow for stuffing !!

Hehe, good thing she has not found it yet.

I have heaps of these Terra Cotta pipes around the house. Some over a meter long. Gonna use them for sats. I will just need a good base for them to sit on. The kids wont be a problem knocking them over. However, i cant say the dog wont.

Any way the do sound a little like a speaker on the end of a pipe. Bit hollow, i guess i need to look at better stuffing etc to help this out. Suprised with the low end. These speakers are ATC5003 (Audio Telex)

Optic

[BWRX]

Originally posted by optic
Suprised with the low end.

I've done the same thing with little ~2" speakers in a very stiff (~0.25" thick wall) meter long cardboard tube. The bass was unbelieveable for a 2" driver because the quarter wave pipe resonance was around 85Hz. Corner loaded made it sound as if the little guy could go down to about 40Hz! Not at deafening levels of course, but you wouldn't have believed what was making the noise.

[Geoff H]

Optic, time for experiments. Try the speaker upside down. The sound will radiate off the back of the cone, into the listening area, not at the ceiling. No BSC needed.

Good old silasitic will bond the pipe to mdf or ply for the base. Scottmoose may be able to come up with a port size if you have T/S parameters, or the larger pipes may be OK left sealed, and some tontine to control the internal reflections.

Little speakers in 1/4 wave pipes are very cheeky. Big sound stage.

Cheers,
Geoff