Try boat builders suppliers. It's available in 6mm and thicker. Used as a core material in fibreglass boat building.
Tech ingredients posted a new video. The title is a bit linkbaity, as is en vogue on youtube, but there's some nice new experimenting going on. He discovered acoustic ceiling panels are very good material, and those are pretty cheap and readily available.
World’s Best Speakers! - YouTube
World’s Best Speakers! - YouTube
Thanks for that link. This guys has basically done the hard work for this thread in his videos! Skip to 28 min in his vide for summary plots followed by sound clips. I have to say that they sound amazingly natural - never would have guessed acosutic ceiling tile works. Although is -10dB less sensitive than XPS.
The title pic on the vid says worlds best speaker for $115.00.
Other then use a different material like ceiling tiles (which has been done before) he did not add anything new to improve on the panels sound in itself. In fact he disregarded what he stressed so much in his first video about using counter weights.
The only reason it sounded better was because he used a better mic and instead of using only a pair of panels with only one exciter attached to each panel he used 4 pairs with a total of 8 exciters for increased bass response.
I agree i really dont know what the fuzz is about, he also measures up to 10khz...... erm something that is easy to reach with every material except concrete....XPS would suck all over above 10khz. and the way heavy ceiling tile even more. also it drops like 9 db compared to teh other materials. and as well the title is misleading as ****** i did watched his first one and was rather interested but by the looks of it he had to make a second video since it was a succes. bu the second one did not bring much to be honest.. ah well its free so i wont complain. its just that i did not learn anything that most of the people here did not know already.
getting midrange out of materials is not that hard
Last edited:
I think you guys are being too critical - it’s an excellent study and a lot of work to do what he did. Have you ever set up 8 speakers side by side and swapped out 15 combinations of rounding, sanding, materials, weights, locations of exciters? You have no appreciation for the level of work involved to do this. It’s not all obvious like you think. Go to 28min. He said it’s easier to pick materials that natively sound good as weights only move the dips around but can’t get rid of them. I think the sweep goes to 20kHz, the guy running REW only set it up to display 10kHz. If a speaker can cover up 12kHz it’s considered full range.
He said its easier and more effective to pick and choose the panel with least amount of peaks and troughs and combine panels together in a single output. That is his reasoning for not utilizing the counter weights. The problem with that is that the average sized room is too small to have 8 huge panels hanging from the ceilings as its not practical. Its more practical to use only a pair of panels utilizing the counter weights. In his first video he kept it simple probably because he is utilizing Rich's design on P.E. Project Gallery....In his second vid he is using his own method which just complicates it into total chaos making it worse.
He thinks that using multiple panels (in his case 4) and combining different types of materials, exciters, placements and out puts together will produce the most coherent and or best sound. Its like trying to build a line array using all different drivers. LOL Or the old school method of buying 4 different brand of speakers and combining all of them together thinking it will fill in the gaps that each individual pair of speakers alone lack.
Why should I appreciate the level of work he did? He didn't do it for me and everything he said in the video I already knew. In DIY there is always a level of work that comes with the territory. If you don't want to put in any work its best to just buy ready made gear instead of building it.....I myself have spent that last 3-4 years perfecting my DML panel design so I know the level of work, time, and money that's involved.
Last edited:
He went to the trouble of testing different materials, different shape and sizes, spent all this time setting up all that stuff for all to see and share, even offered something more than the usual "I think this sounds better" on most YT videos and MEASURED the output of each panels, and SHARED the results.
I do appreciate the effort that was put in that video.
And it might push me to finally venture into the DML trials and errors world.
I do appreciate his work, although he (almost) lives of this.... one thing using multiple panels the exciters especially in the high frequencies act like a point source, by combining multiple panels you create multiple sources.. not so good. if not filtered. (and i cant remember if he did) to make a line source they should be closer together
anyhow. i made allot of videos which where allot of work to. although i dont make any cash on those and i still make them fun and games !
anyhow. i made allot of videos which where allot of work to. although i dont make any cash on those
and i still make them fun and games !
Last edited:
He went to the trouble of testing different materials, different shape and sizes, spent all this time setting up all that stuff for all to see and share, even offered something more than the usual "I think this sounds better" on most YT videos and MEASURED the output of each panels, and SHARED the results.
I do appreciate the effort that was put in that video.
And it might push me to finally venture into the DML trials and errors world.
I do give him props for his effort but it seems like some are implying that if one puts in a lot of time and effort into his work that we are not allowed to criticize his work, which is so ironic coming from a forum where majority of there members are super critical of every ones posts regardless of how much work they put into it.
So what's the state of the art in DML materials? Is it his previous approach of XPS or acoustic ceiling panels, with small weights added to even out the response?
He's using the Dayton Audio DAEX32EP-4 and the Dayton Audio DAEX25FHE-4, would you recommend those as well?
He sticks the exciters to the panels using 3M double sided ultra sticky tape, that seems convenient, but would that last for the significant amount of hours that exciter is shaking around? What attachment technique are you guys using?
He's using the Dayton Audio DAEX32EP-4 and the Dayton Audio DAEX25FHE-4, would you recommend those as well?
He sticks the exciters to the panels using 3M double sided ultra sticky tape, that seems convenient, but would that last for the significant amount of hours that exciter is shaking around? What attachment technique are you guys using?
well first few things
the best material is a light laminate with honeycomb, there is a reason why NXT and all major DML products have it you can make the panels thicker and thus stiffer without adding major weight. secondly the tape 3m is funny, since i thought i read VHB 3M in the video,,,, that is a very elastic pliable tape that does not at all have high stickiness/tack at start, just after a while, as well it damps the crap out of anything..... its like adding a silicone layer in between the exciter and the panel... not good. i even used it for makin EAP membranes , you can stretch it 4 times the size
or so if he was planing on ever measure above 10khz
i recon use a more solid permanent way of adding the exciter since it wont reach it with a bunch of VHB in between. and then to bad but hard materials do high frequencies best, at the same time it dampens nothing so there is always some sort of butterzone. at least you want stiff. then some sort of in the midle to still reach high and damp as much as you can. the use of weights as he did will screw up extension. it does work somehwat but usually what you do uis change the problem to another frequency. using weird shapes does help like not a square but maybe rectangular etc. just look for nothing parallel. then termination of the edges changes allot to, leaving it free air will create a nice resonance at all edges. soooo loooooaaads of trail and error.here is one from my staple with my own made exciter as well. crossed at 350 Hz
have been 2 years ago sooo....https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ONOxc1p0XBI&t=10s
even a dutch song specially for you
and i was in the middle of a move so dont mind the ... well stuff all over
Last edited:
Nice song choice Very funky looking setup you had there! I looked at some more videos, seems you went pretty all in on planar speakers, planar speakers are the same thing as DML right?
So I did some reading, and it seems people say that NXT planar speakers never took off because they lack stereo imaging, arguing that you need a point source. Did you experience that as well?
Very funky looking setup you had there! I looked at some more videos, seems you went pretty all in on planar speakers, planar speakers are the same thing as DML right?So I did some reading, and it seems people say that NXT planar speakers never took off because they lack stereo imaging, arguing that you need a point source. Did you experience that as well?
Honey comb material seems to be the state of the art in DML materials as a lot of the high end speaker companies use it. Nomex seems to be the Honeycomb material of choice but there are other Honeycomb materials like aluminum, paper and some other rare combos. I cant comment on it personally as this is one of the materials I have not tried due to cost.
Those are good exciters but the Thruster has been known to have some reliability issues.
Epoxy glue.
Nice song choice
So I did some reading, and it seems people say that NXT planar speakers never took off because they lack stereo imaging, arguing that you need a point source. Did you experience that as well?
IMO, DML speakers have a huge sound stage with great imaging. Meaning they have a very huge sweet spot as I can move from one end of the couch and the sound does not change.
One of the strong points of DML panels IMO is voice intelligibility. Even from far away you can still hear it fairly clearly.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q0hTamed0-k
Combine that with almost no mic feed back makes it great for live bands announcements and karaoke. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_KI5NJCqnPc
One can also combine DML aka Bending wave technology with the conventional cone drivers like the super high end Goebel speakers. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YOy4XmVICRw&t=266s
Shelly Katz who worked on the newer Podium speakers even wrote this short article about combining conventional cone speakers with DML speakers for the best sound of both worlds. http://layeredsound.com/layeredsound.php
DML technology has great potential that not many people realize and the design possibilities are endless.
I'm steering away from my current 2-way project, but I am still looking something to make. DMLs look interesting, and it would be a lot cheaper.
Has anyone put them in a box, with stuffings/foam to take care of the back reflections? Or would that be detrimental to the frequency response (bass, sensitivity, etc.)? Dayton Audio specs their exciters' freq. response with infinite baffles, hence the curiosity.
I am planing on making it ~1 sq.m, but I haven't locked in on a material yet.
Has anyone put them in a box, with stuffings/foam to take care of the back reflections? Or would that be detrimental to the frequency response (bass, sensitivity, etc.)? Dayton Audio specs their exciters' freq. response with infinite baffles, hence the curiosity.
I am planing on making it ~1 sq.m, but I haven't locked in on a material yet.
I’m just going to throw this into this thread as I have just ordered a pair of ‘exciters’, and I’m interested in spherical speakers.
Has anyone tried attaching one to a polystyrene sphere, perhaps 40cm diameter?
(available on eBay) Surface area equal to a 100 x 50 cm sheet. Not really a DML but.....
Has anyone tried attaching one to a polystyrene sphere, perhaps 40cm diameter?
(available on eBay) Surface area equal to a 100 x 50 cm sheet. Not really a DML but.....