I want to spend money!

[pbullblue]

I would like to purchase plans for the Valiant and the Silbury. I can't seem to make contact through the Woden Design website. Could someone help me out?

Thanks,
Bradley

[chrisb]

Originally Posted by pbullblue

I would like to purchase plans for the Valiant and the Silbury. I can't seem to make contact through the Woden Design website. Could someone help me out?

Thanks,
Bradley

e-mail Dave via Planet10 commercial site

Have you decided for sure on the driver? I assume you're aware the named enclosures follow the same basic topology, but are optimized for the Fostex FE126En ( Valiant) and Mark Audio Alpair10. (Silbury), the latter enclosure being larger in all three dimensions.

These drivers definitely each have their merits, but sounding alike the other is not among them


Having heard each of them in a range of enclosures (but not a direct comparison between the Valiant / Silbury), I can opine that provided you have the extra few watts and free space to accommodate the Alpair. it will not disappoint in terms of bass extension, soundstage and smoother upper mids than the Fostex.

[pbullblue]

I have both drivers. The Fostex in BK12s and the Alpairs are new.

[Scottmoose]

My apologies for the contact problems. I confess I often all but forget about the site, since it's not advertised and generally sits quietly in the background for people to find, or not find, as the case may be. Be that as it may though, the mail gets checked several times daily in conjunction with my other, unrelated email addresses, & I can confirm I haven't recieved anything, so something must be awry somewhere. I'll have to look into that. In the meantime, as Chris says, probably best to go through Dave.

Scott

[chrisb]

Originally Posted by pbullblue

I have both drivers. The Fostex in BK12s and the Alpairs are new.

how to put this diplomatically (?) - the BK12 is cute enough little enclosure for what it is, but the same driver in the Valiant is transformed substantially

The Alpairs work very well in an MLTL or the MarKens ; I can only imagine / extrapolate how they'd perform in the Silbury - but I do have a vivid imagination

[pbullblue]

Originally Posted by chrisb

how to put this diplomatically (?) - the BK12 is cute enough little enclosure for what it is, but the same driver in the Valiant is transformed substantially

That's what i was thinking. Swapping my 126ens into a better enclosure. I am also considering the Kongo, for no other reason than I like the look of the front mouthed horns.

[chrisb]

Originally Posted by pbullblue

That's what i was thinking. Swapping my 126ens into a better enclosure. I am also considering the Kongo, for no other reason than I like the look of the front mouthed horns.

I've a fair range of enclosures in this general "family"

Perhaps it's a personal / subjective thing, but between "smaller / single mouth" designs (BK12, Buschhorn MKII , Ron Clarke A126, Frugal Horn FH3) or larger dual mouth designs ( Harvey BVR, Aiko, Saburo, Maeshowe/Valiant, Victor), I've preferred the rear mouth designs every time.

Each format has its own room placement / or listening distance considerations, but when situated correctly, there's something about the bloom of lowest octaves and soundstage dimensions of the rear mouth designs that I find more appealing. No hard science about it I guess ....

[Scottmoose]

No hard science about it I guess

Not necessarily Chris. Assuming they are boundary loaded as designed / intended, the rear-mouth boxes are typically impedance matched to a lower frequency than the front-mouth boxes. In the case of, say, FH3 or Valiant, they're pretty much impedance matched down to cutoff. That's a big difference. Likewise the fact that the in-room power-response / interactions change with the different terminus locations. YMMV on that one.

If you wanted to try a 'little' experiment at some point, I could knock out a couple of very simple 1/2 space back horn variations for whatever drivers Dave has a surplus of, where the only difference would be the terminus location. Then you could back-to-back compare & see if your preference remains for the rear-firing terminus. My bet is it would, but possibly interesting. Possibly.

[chrisb]

Originally Posted by Scottmoose

Not necessarily Chris. Assuming they are boundary loaded as designed / intended, the rear-mouth boxes are typically impedance matched to a lower frequency than the front-mouth boxes. In the case of, say, FH3 or Valiant, they're pretty much impedance matched down to cutoff. That's a big difference. Likewise the fact that the in-room power-response / interactions change with the different terminus locations. YMMV on that one.

I should have been more clear (random obfuscation is my middle name) - "no hard science" refers to the dearth of proven facts to buttress my sonic preferences (or sloth on my part to research and quote such as might exist in the literature)


or it could have been a crafty method to get someone else to make my point

I'm not sure

If you wanted to try a 'little' experiment at some point, I could knock out a couple of very simple 1/2 space back horn variations for whatever drivers Dave has a surplus of, where the only difference would be the terminus location. Then you could back-to-back compare & see if your preference remains for the rear-firing terminus. My bet is it would, but possibly interesting. Possibly.

in our spare time before August 24th - sure why the hell not - Dave, fire up the CAD!