mMar-Kel70 vs Mar-Kel70

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I now have a pair of new EL-70's on the shelf :D


I also have some Onken style boxes (a.k.a. derived from planet10 Fonken) which are very close to the mMar-Kel70 enclosures - mine are 6l with ports that are the same length but larger in area (I can reduce the area accordingly). Seems an easy path forward.

But I have enough of these boxes that I can combine them (with some surgery) to make a pair of larger boxes which have a volume just a couple of litres more than the bigger Mar-kel70.

Question: how would you contrast these two designs in terms of sound ?
 
Dave,

Thanks for the rapid response !

Let me ask - do you think this character is related to the restricted volume ? - I'll have 6 litres on tap which gives me more room in this case if re-use the existing boxes.

OR do you think this character is related to the room around the driver ? - I'll have 15.1cm of width between side walls where the driver sits, the mMar-kel70 has 14.3cm. I combine some boxes to get a larger volume this wouldn't change ?
 
I suspected as much - I can see now from the drawings for the mMar-kel70. Well that's going to be a bit of extra work to figure out. In the meantime I want to know whether these drivers make a sound :p

I did enough surgery to the driver magnet brace to allow me to install the drivers and connect the boxes up to my tube amp. The tuning is way off, I still need to reduce the area of the ports. And the tube amp is wired up for an 8Ohm load not a 4Ohm load. But it allows me to put some noise into the drivers.

I can already tell that a) there is waaay more bass than the FE127. b) the shrill of the 7kHz peak from the 127E is not present, c) the box tuning is off and d) the drivers need time to break-in.

The mounting screw holes don't line up with the old drivers. Fortunately the old holes don't go all the way through. If I like them the boxes will escape the bonfire and I'll probably take some time to refinish them - the veneer has not survived the test of time and needs to be removed. I'm tempted to spray paint the boxes.

Too early to say more.
 

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Yes, when you rebuild them proper :D

The 12mm chipboard probably wouldn't survive

dave

I'm not sure if i will rebuild them proper. Maybe if my dad has lots of spare time in his semester i may ask him if we should have a go at it.

I was more thinking about finding something that is 6mm thick and mount it on the outside of the baffle. And then sand it into a custom shape or something. Might end up quite cool if i do it like egg-shaped and a hole in it for the driver. What do you think? Wouldn't that be good for baffle diffraction stuff?
 
I am now using the EL-70's in my 6 litre boxes as my main speakers, driven with a SE tube amp. That should tell you I'm lazy (not much progress) but also that I like the sound :D

I do get the sense though, that a larger box would be worth the effort. Mind you, I'm not entirely sure that I have the ports tuned right yet, I think I have them tuned too high which means I'm losing something on the low end - but a larger box feels very tempting.
 
I am now using the EL-70's in my 6 litre boxes as my main speakers, driven with a SE tube amp. That should tell you I'm lazy (not much progress) but also that I like the sound :D

I do get the sense though, that a larger box would be worth the effort. Mind you, I'm not entirely sure that I have the ports tuned right yet, I think I have them tuned too high which means I'm losing something on the low end - but a larger box feels very tempting.


as I think more than a couple of other builders will attest, the MarKel70 box works like a charm - when built per the plans
 
I have four of the 6 litre boxes, it would be relatively simple to stack two of them on top of each other (with large hole between them and some wood glue) to create a pair of larger 12 litre enclosures. These would then be of similar design to the MarKel70. This is tempting but I'm not sure of the aesthetics, they will be quite tall (twice as tall actually !).

jeff - problem is, I'm also itching to build some other stuff so not sure whether these EL-70's will stay in my main system or migrate to my office. I can see myself wanting to change the in and out from time to time just to enjoy their different sounds. What do you fella's do with all the speakers you build ?
 
To my ears, there's quite a difference - the EL-70's have more bass, they don't run out of steam so quickly (twice the cone area), they are 'cleaner' sounding in the mid range. I need to run them through the same amp to make a proper comparison in the treble though but I don't doubt which one would 'win'. The only reason to pick the FR88EX over the EL-70 would be box size - the FR88EX will work well in a much smaller box (it's Vas is only a tad over a litre).
 
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