Whew! I thought I was missing out on something! Though I read up a bit after thinking about it and read somewhere about 1mW driving some headphones. Seems incredible, but in these days of massive output power, my little 6BM8 amp at 1.5W would probably seem similarly absurd to a lot of people.
I've built a number of tube amps with power around the 2.5 to 3W mark. Main and every day amp is a SE 300B at 5.8W This drives 87db efficient 2-ways to quite loud.
Also a comment about the TDA amps. A friend, who has built quite a few very nice SS high power amps, built one of these. Believe it or not it sounded best on a SMPS but after saying that I really didn't like the sound of the amp. To me it lacked any hifi ability. But too make speaker and amp systems so compact as has been posted here they are perfect and very cheap to make. But being predominantly a tube guy I guess I'm always going to be a bit biased. Though I have built some excellent sounding chip (3875) amps.
Hi all, thank you so much for the positive comment,
Yes definitely, please do give it a try. you won't regret it. It'll be the best $10 bucks you spend on amp. get it from SURE.
I was thinking on combining the Tube & TPA3110 for portable sound. since TPA3110 has no volume control, use the tube as a buffer & volume control.
Tube amp used is a hybrid headphone amp (under $25), got it of Fredfred. just modified abit.
Yes definitely, please do give it a try. you won't regret it. It'll be the best $10 bucks you spend on amp. get it from SURE.
I was thinking on combining the Tube & TPA3110 for portable sound. since TPA3110 has no volume control, use the tube as a buffer & volume control.
Tube amp used is a hybrid headphone amp (under $25), got it of Fredfred. just modified abit.
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You could use an Oatley K272C preamp as a front-end for a bit of tube sound.
these are my laid back whites
used the tang band W3-315E 3 inch
boxes are 10mm ply sides and i bent and glued 3mm mdf over the curved edges
then glued reenforcing on the inside
inside is a sure 25W X2 the pump to a nice voume put a led push buttin in one
for power switch on
so far the have been my favorite to listen to at reasonable levels nice mid and bass for speaker size and wattage
used the tang band W3-315E 3 inch
boxes are 10mm ply sides and i bent and glued 3mm mdf over the curved edges
then glued reenforcing on the inside
inside is a sure 25W X2 the pump to a nice voume put a led push buttin in one
for power switch on
so far the have been my favorite to listen to at reasonable levels nice mid and bass for speaker size and wattage
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Wow, impressive, Goodlagger! For the front and back, is that epoxy lamination or just thin ply with a thin MDF veneer glued and fixed to the sides? I suppose with a 3" driver, you could get away with a pretty simple structure. I've thought a lot recently about doing some ply lamination b/c I found it remarkably easy when building my cedar strip canoe. Hmmmm. And what prompted that particular curve?
Laid back whites
The structure is ply sides top and bottom then 3 mm MMF bent over that front and back then a bunch of 10x10 glued across to give extra strength prob didn't need it once the MMF is bent it doesn't move I sanded it smooth then primed and painted with acrylic 5 coats and hand polished to get a semi gloss finish I know the material used is thin but with all the tight bent wood they become a solid unit as for the shape I just like it its different I know a lot of people will disagree but apart from sounding goog they have to look good a talking pice in a room ect
The structure is ply sides top and bottom then 3 mm MMF bent over that front and back then a bunch of 10x10 glued across to give extra strength prob didn't need it once the MMF is bent it doesn't move I sanded it smooth then primed and painted with acrylic 5 coats and hand polished to get a semi gloss finish I know the material used is thin but with all the tight bent wood they become a solid unit as for the shape I just like it its different I know a lot of people will disagree but apart from sounding goog they have to look good a talking pice in a room ect
Here are my first speakers. I built them out of ABS pipe and used a pair of TangBand W3-871S drivers. I've actually had these drivers sitting around for about 7 years but last month I realized the fit perfectly inside a 3" ABS pipe. This is a sealed design and has just over a liter in volume.
There's a noticeable flaw in the paint job so I repainted them after I took this photo.
There's a noticeable flaw in the paint job so I repainted them after I took this photo.
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Good work I Likey much, much. I have some TangBands which I have had for 7 years also. I think mine are the 5" drivers. Bay be some old drain pipes could make some rustic boxes for them.
I agree with mhouston they do look professionally made!
I'm listening to: Continuum by Continuum
Thetubeguy1954 (Tom Scata)
So I've decided to make an addition to them. They don't sound bad but just as I expected from my pre-modeling, they really need more volume. I'm going to add a 24" section of pipe between the "T" and the top cap. After compensating for the overlap I figure this will take my volume from a little over 1 liter to a little over 5 liters.
If you do this and keep both ends closed, you might have some 1/2-wave resonance going on. Opening the far end will result in 1/4-wave resonance. Either way, the behavior will deviate from a more boxy sealed enclosure. You can use MJK's workseets or Hornresp to get a better idea what this will result in. Hornresp is free and can now model stuffing, which might be something that could be useful here.
What was the simulated Qtc for your current sealed volume?
So I've attached an image showing the modeling within WinISD. Current setup is the blue line (1.25 L enclosure with a Qtc of 1.115. My planned arrangement is the yellow line (5.25 L enclosure with a Qtc of 0.881. I do plan to fill the extension tubes with polyfill.
Speaker building is fairly new to me (these were my first speakers) and I suck at wood working so my options are limited. I also don't have any way to really monitor the speakers after I build them so I'm just going by "ear".
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Yep, sure does look like it might want a bit more volume. When using stuffing inside a sealed enclosure, you can raise the apparent volume by ~25% over the physical Vb, until the point where adding more stuffing starts to actually reduce the volume. Your planned 5.25L might look like ~6.5L if you add a fair stuffing density all over. If this is then larger than you want, adding enough pipe to raise Vb to 4.2L and stuffing would result in ~5.25L apparent volume. I would not advise going to too low a Qtc with a small driver with a high f3, as it will risk sounding anemic, unless you use a helper or sub-woofer. That new Qtc of ~0.88 looks decent to me, high enough to keep some liveliness to the mid/upper bass and the extra power below ~160Hz will definitely make a difference.
Everyone sucks at woodworking when they've never done it or only begun, don't let it discourage you. Conversely, don't let that stop you from exploring alternative enclosures such as the pipes here.
Once you've settled on a volume and stuffing density you like, make sure to use ABS glue on the pipe caps to give it a good seal.
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