Works for me. The few pipe horns I did were triangle shaped to fit the corner and went all the way up, so obviously, its top was sloped to allow tipping it into place. Mine were all limited BW though with XOs in the 300-500 Hz BW.
In the same vein, one of the more interesting DIY speakers I auditioned back in '66 was a long cardboard tube with some cheap, small, car audio 'FR' drivers loaded at each end near the floor/ceiling and a horn (super) tweeter at its midpoint. This got me to rethinking TL apps in general and an easy way to have a ~Klipschhorn's LF performance without so much time consuming/tedious woodworking. Most folks back then weren't interested enough to pay extra even if they had the corners, so never fully developed it.
To my way of thinking then, the BIB concept comes up a bit short in most 'FR' apps, so when (if?) I build some they will be a true ceiling loader (and maybe floor too with a different folding) to potentially not need a corner or 'rumble' filter to protect the driver in a typical music app.
GM
In the same vein, one of the more interesting DIY speakers I auditioned back in '66 was a long cardboard tube with some cheap, small, car audio 'FR' drivers loaded at each end near the floor/ceiling and a horn (super) tweeter at its midpoint. This got me to rethinking TL apps in general and an easy way to have a ~Klipschhorn's LF performance without so much time consuming/tedious woodworking. Most folks back then weren't interested enough to pay extra even if they had the corners, so never fully developed it.
To my way of thinking then, the BIB concept comes up a bit short in most 'FR' apps, so when (if?) I build some they will be a true ceiling loader (and maybe floor too with a different folding) to potentially not need a corner or 'rumble' filter to protect the driver in a typical music app.
GM
sedge - wavelengths. Good idea, but the wavelengths involved won´t even notice that size of deflector.
Having the perfect room would mean having a perfect bank account...
Ah, OK, are you saying the shock waves are formed by the interface of the terminus to the room air ? (IE the mouth of the bottle)
And the corner placement helps reduce ripple anyway by having less interface area than a free space mouth exit ?
In order for a deflector to work at 40Hz it would need to be >10m away from the top of the speaker !
I'm still learning, only just coming to terms with the woodwork part of building speakers, the theory is even harder.
Thanks for the reply
I'll go back to sniffing wood glue now.Sedge.
sedge - in German we call it the mirror soundsource principle - no idea if there is such an English word.
Hang your boxes into free space - the sound energy will radiate into a sphere.
Put them on the floor - half sphere.
Floor and a wall in the back - 1/4 sphere.
Corner - 1/8 sphere.
It only works in bass, a mids or highs waveguide is much smaller - but it can get you the few more dB at 40Hz.
Hang your boxes into free space - the sound energy will radiate into a sphere.
Put them on the floor - half sphere.
Floor and a wall in the back - 1/4 sphere.
Corner - 1/8 sphere.
It only works in bass, a mids or highs waveguide is much smaller - but it can get you the few more dB at 40Hz.
I know this has been touched on before in this thread, I haven't been able to find anything conclusive, so here goes.
I have a set of 126's that I want to put in a BIB, but looking at the recommended caps I'm a bit confused.
The speaker placement in the upwards firing BIB is way to low, so I was planning on making the cab that much taller and filling the bottom with small sandbags. That would make for easy tuning, improved stability and acoustic deadness, while at the same time allowing the driver to be higher.
But, and here is my problem, I have 275cm to the ceiling. If I extent the speaker to say 160cm, that still leaves 115cm to the ceiling. Isn't that too much to really use the room coupling too full effect? Would I be better off doing a floor firing version, even though the path of the sound is less ideal because it is obfuscated by furniture on the floor?
I guess in short my question is: Considering the hight of my room, should I try to stretch the top firing design to about 160cm, or should I just do an inverted BIB?
I have a set of 126's that I want to put in a BIB, but looking at the recommended caps I'm a bit confused.
The speaker placement in the upwards firing BIB is way to low, so I was planning on making the cab that much taller and filling the bottom with small sandbags. That would make for easy tuning, improved stability and acoustic deadness, while at the same time allowing the driver to be higher.
But, and here is my problem, I have 275cm to the ceiling. If I extent the speaker to say 160cm, that still leaves 115cm to the ceiling. Isn't that too much to really use the room coupling too full effect? Would I be better off doing a floor firing version, even though the path of the sound is less ideal because it is obfuscated by furniture on the floor?
I guess in short my question is: Considering the hight of my room, should I try to stretch the top firing design to about 160cm, or should I just do an inverted BIB?
G'day Sedge and Pit,
Have a read of my EnABL room corner treatment, then try it for yourself when you stop laughing. If your results are similar to mine, then it will change the way you think about how big things have to be to have an effect on low frequencies.
I copied the following posts from the EnABL - Listening Impressions and Techniques thread here to make it easier to read.
UPDATE - EnABL Room Treatment
YOU'VE GOT TO TRY THIS!!!
I added the EnABL wall strips to the back corners of my listening room tonight.
Also put a strip on the wall on each side of the two archways.
I'm blown away by this!
Results
I should have learned from last time, but I was so amazed I couldn't wait.
- more clarity in the soundstage
- more dynamic range across all frequencies
- bass is noticeably tighter, fuller, more open and more detailed
Even my 11 y.o son (who thinks I'm nuts BTW - yeah I know, smart lad) commented on the difference.
Usually he is completely disinterested in anything audio
Application Details
Block size: 4 cm x 2 cm
Block Material: Norton 'All Weather Tape' (clear)
Strip Material: Clear Contact self-adhesive book covering
Strip Height: 60cm
An externally hosted image should be here but it was not working when we last tested it.
Here is the picture I posted earlier.
An externally hosted image should be here but it was not working when we last tested it.
I had to hold a very bright lamp directly over to show the blocks in this photo.
It is pretty much invisible normally.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
My Listening Room
I feel obliged to provide some details about my listening room.
It's nothing special and there is no acoustic treatment at all.
An externally hosted image should be here but it was not working when we last tested it.
Size:
3.3m x 4.7m x 2.4m (W x L x H)
Floor:
Concrete slab on ground with carpet.
Walls:
Timber stud frame, gyprock (drywall)
Furnishings:
- there is an archway at both ends (both are the same size)
- the other archway (not pictured) leads into a hallway with tiled floor
- curtain on one side wall over a window
- leather lounge on the other side wall
- two leather recliners side by side ay the listening end of the room
- you can see the speakers and the cupboard I referred to in earlier posts.
That's it for now.
I'm far too distracted by all this to say much more now.
I'll wait a day and see what happens when the tape settles in.
Optimum distance between horn mouth and ceiling/floor
Hi GM
Could you please clarify what you are saying above for me. I am planning for a pair of BIBs, using fostex fe164's. Actual measured: fs=58Hz, Qts=0.35 and Vas=28.8Ltrs. Tuning to fs(ie.58Hz) gives me line length of 295cm and height of 147cm. Tuning to fs*0.707(ie. 41Hz) gives me line length of 417cm and height of 208cm(!)-and then there is everything in between the abovementioned line lengths. My ceiling height is 270cm. BIBs wil be up against wall but not in corners. So, from the above, the horn mouth can/will/should/could be between ~60 and 120 cm from the ceiling.
What should I consider in order to, hopefully, get good/optimum results without having to rebuild, thereby saving time and money.
Any advice from the BIB gods(won't mention names-you/we know you are!) will be highly appreciated by this speaker-building/full-range rookie.
Happy holidays and a happy new year to all.
Thanks
Peter
Hi GM
Could you please clarify what you are saying above for me. I am planning for a pair of BIBs, using fostex fe164's. Actual measured: fs=58Hz, Qts=0.35 and Vas=28.8Ltrs. Tuning to fs(ie.58Hz) gives me line length of 295cm and height of 147cm. Tuning to fs*0.707(ie. 41Hz) gives me line length of 417cm and height of 208cm(!)-and then there is everything in between the abovementioned line lengths. My ceiling height is 270cm. BIBs wil be up against wall but not in corners. So, from the above, the horn mouth can/will/should/could be between ~60 and 120 cm from the ceiling.
What should I consider in order to, hopefully, get good/optimum results without having to rebuild, thereby saving time and money.
Any advice from the BIB gods(won't mention names-you/we know you are!) will be highly appreciated by this speaker-building/full-range rookie.
Happy holidays and a happy new year to all.
Thanks
Peter
Howdy Folks,
First time here(a LOT of reading!) Anyway I can see that this is all fullrange,so I would just hear if a two way design would be a naughty suggestion?
I would need help,but can see that there´s a lot of a helpfull folks here (non mentioned-non forgotten!)
The driver in question is the CIARE HW161N I´ve got 2 set of specs:
Ciare own and from the german"Klang &Ton" Ciare on the left
Fs 47,4Hz 55,0Hz
Qms 2,01 2,42
Qes 0,46 0,62
Qts 0,37 0,49
Mms 14g 13,25g
Vas 20ltrs. 16,5ltrs
Xmax +/- 3mm.
Re 6,1 ohm 6,2 ohm
Le 0,69mH 0,66mH
Sd 137sq.cm.
Fairly large spread on the Fs ,but the K&T driver is fairly "virgin" (24 hour burn in) Unless off-course Ciare is the Lowther of Italy!
I realise I might be stepping on sacred ground here but any help would be highly appreciated,as I´ve got these pictures in my head that won´t go away.
Happy new year to yáll Mikael.
First time here(a LOT of reading!) Anyway I can see that this is all fullrange,so I would just hear if a two way design would be a naughty suggestion?
I would need help,but can see that there´s a lot of a helpfull folks here (non mentioned-non forgotten!)
The driver in question is the CIARE HW161N I´ve got 2 set of specs:
Ciare own and from the german"Klang &Ton" Ciare on the left
Fs 47,4Hz 55,0Hz
Qms 2,01 2,42
Qes 0,46 0,62
Qts 0,37 0,49
Mms 14g 13,25g
Vas 20ltrs. 16,5ltrs
Xmax +/- 3mm.
Re 6,1 ohm 6,2 ohm
Le 0,69mH 0,66mH
Sd 137sq.cm.
Fairly large spread on the Fs ,but the K&T driver is fairly "virgin" (24 hour burn in) Unless off-course Ciare is the Lowther of Italy!
I realise I might be stepping on sacred ground here but any help would be highly appreciated,as I´ve got these pictures in my head that won´t go away.
Happy new year to yáll Mikael.
Ooooops! 
Just found the calc-sheet on Godzilla´s page and did calculation.It doesn´t look bad size-wise so I might give it a go.However it would be highly appreciated if one of the resident oracles would cast a glance at the unit.
With regard to the Fs should I just go for the midle ground (ie.51Hz) or what?
Of course the right way would be a proper burn-in and then checking the Fs ,however I haven`t got any meassuring equipment.
Saw the Dayton meas.-gear was on sale--is that any good?
Brgds. Mikael.
Just found the calc-sheet on Godzilla´s page and did calculation.It doesn´t look bad size-wise so I might give it a go.However it would be highly appreciated if one of the resident oracles would cast a glance at the unit.
With regard to the Fs should I just go for the midle ground (ie.51Hz) or what?
Of course the right way would be a proper burn-in and then checking the Fs ,however I haven`t got any meassuring equipment.
Saw the Dayton meas.-gear was on sale--is that any good?
Brgds. Mikael.
Hi folks, my wife and I finally finished up a set of BiB's. We used values from the BiB calculator because MJK's BiB worksheet was not available at the time we started (about a year ago!)
In a previous iteration of the BiB calculator, the FE166ES-R was among the drives listed. We used the dimensions provided (very handy having the board sizes calculated). I noticed at the time that the dimensions for various 6" Fostex were very close.
Anyway, with the FE166ES-R, bass was a bit lacking. But those drivers were destined to go into some Austins built by Mssr. Serenechaos. I was going to get a pair of FE167E's to try, but then remembered that the gurus here have said that the FE167E is a drop-in replacement for the FE164 (pretty much) and I had a pair of those in the garage.
What a difference. The FE164's have gobs of bass -- nothing is lacking, and in fact it might be a bit too much. Just by chance, MJK did a white paper on a BiB of nearly identical dims using the FE167E:
General Speaker Related Articles (last article)
Of course we should have simulated before gluing up, but the wood was already cut, and we just wanted to finish them already. So now that they're done, I'll simulate and see about perhaps flattening the bass response. But I'm not complaining about having thunderous bass!
These are easily the best "bang for the buck / amount of effort" I've ever encountered. The size is just about right at about 6 feet tall in a room with 8 foot ceilings, the Z-driver is actually much lower than the Austins. The bass in the Austins is clearer (no surprise there) but the BiB's can rock the house and they are a really fun speaker to listen to.
Old Miles Davis tracks typically have very weak bass on many speakers, but on the BiB's everything sounds right. And on modern recordings, the bass is just tremendous. I wonder what an 8" BiB could do...
One thing I noticed is that the BiB does not really damp the back of the cone as well as the Austin. Soo presumably the BiB's would have a bit more distortion than the Austins(?) But the Austin is not such an easy build (definitely beyond my woodworking skills) whereas the BiB is something that literally anyone can build.
Much thanks to Scottmoose, GM, MJK, RonC (where are you Ron?), Godzila, Zayne742, my very patient co-builder (my wife!) and of course Mssrs. Serenechaos and Phil Townsend.
In a previous iteration of the BiB calculator, the FE166ES-R was among the drives listed. We used the dimensions provided (very handy having the board sizes calculated). I noticed at the time that the dimensions for various 6" Fostex were very close.
Anyway, with the FE166ES-R, bass was a bit lacking. But those drivers were destined to go into some Austins built by Mssr. Serenechaos. I was going to get a pair of FE167E's to try, but then remembered that the gurus here have said that the FE167E is a drop-in replacement for the FE164 (pretty much) and I had a pair of those in the garage.
What a difference. The FE164's have gobs of bass -- nothing is lacking, and in fact it might be a bit too much. Just by chance, MJK did a white paper on a BiB of nearly identical dims using the FE167E:
General Speaker Related Articles (last article)
Of course we should have simulated before gluing up, but the wood was already cut, and we just wanted to finish them already. So now that they're done, I'll simulate and see about perhaps flattening the bass response. But I'm not complaining about having thunderous bass!
These are easily the best "bang for the buck / amount of effort" I've ever encountered. The size is just about right at about 6 feet tall in a room with 8 foot ceilings, the Z-driver is actually much lower than the Austins. The bass in the Austins is clearer (no surprise there) but the BiB's can rock the house and they are a really fun speaker to listen to.
Old Miles Davis tracks typically have very weak bass on many speakers, but on the BiB's everything sounds right. And on modern recordings, the bass is just tremendous. I wonder what an 8" BiB could do...
One thing I noticed is that the BiB does not really damp the back of the cone as well as the Austin. Soo presumably the BiB's would have a bit more distortion than the Austins(?) But the Austin is not such an easy build (definitely beyond my woodworking skills) whereas the BiB is something that literally anyone can build.
Much thanks to Scottmoose, GM, MJK, RonC (where are you Ron?), Godzila, Zayne742, my very patient co-builder (my wife!) and of course Mssrs. Serenechaos and Phil Townsend.
Last edited:
Sounds like you may now have the same affliction the rest of us have, an addiction to DIY!
Please post some pictures!
Also, just out of curiosity, did you find any errors in the cut calculations of the spreadsheet?
Hi Zayne742,
Your diagnosis is correct Thank you for calculating the board sizes! I could barely have managed without that. I did not find any errors whatsoever. I did have two extremely minor, but ultimately inconsequential, issues.
I remain slightly perplexed as to _precisely_ how to calculate the theoretical ABC. Specifically, does ABC intersect at _exactly_ the bottom midpoint of the divider? Or does it go to each /edge/ of the divider? Or should A be a teensy bit smaller than B because of the expansion and divider thickness? Of course now I realize it doesn't matter -- the design is tolerant of those minor details as Scottmoose once noted in passing.
The only other thing I ran into was the sheet's protection. I just wanted to eyeball the formulas and input a couple oddball drivers. Excel didn't let me do that (probably I didn't try hard enough but a Linux spreadsheet program (Gnumeric) did.
It will be fun to sim different variations in MJK's new-ish BiB worksheet which takes corners into account. That's a whole different level of customization.
Regarding stuffing, to my surprise, it was easy to get right. I used polyester batting (the stuff that goes inside quilts) which is easy to measure (by area since it's like a cloth, no need to measure by weight). I just folded it like a blanket and a few iterations nailed it. (The front was only held on by clamps at the time -- probably should have left off one of the sides instead.)
Thank you again for the calculator and its board measurements -- without it, I don't think I'd have gotten it built
Your diagnosis is correct
Thank you for calculating the board sizes! I could barely have managed without that. I did not find any errors whatsoever. I did have two extremely minor, but ultimately inconsequential, issues.I remain slightly perplexed as to _precisely_ how to calculate the theoretical ABC. Specifically, does ABC intersect at _exactly_ the bottom midpoint of the divider? Or does it go to each /edge/ of the divider? Or should A be a teensy bit smaller than B because of the expansion and divider thickness? Of course now I realize it doesn't matter -- the design is tolerant of those minor details as Scottmoose once noted in passing.
The only other thing I ran into was the sheet's protection. I just wanted to eyeball the formulas and input a couple oddball drivers. Excel didn't let me do that (probably I didn't try hard enough
but a Linux spreadsheet program (Gnumeric) did.It will be fun to sim different variations in MJK's new-ish BiB worksheet which takes corners into account. That's a whole different level of customization.
Regarding stuffing, to my surprise, it was easy to get right. I used polyester batting (the stuff that goes inside quilts) which is easy to measure (by area since it's like a cloth, no need to measure by weight). I just folded it like a blanket and a few iterations nailed it. (The front was only held on by clamps at the time -- probably should have left off one of the sides instead.)
Thank you again for the calculator and its board measurements -- without it, I don't think I'd have gotten it built
No need to quit if you're just frightened by the calculations. Take a look at a couple posts below your original post here from rjbond3rd. That build goes together with a free calculator available from zillaspeak.com The calc runs in anything as rj notes and I can say it runs in Open Office Calc too.
You have to know how to cut a circle by one means or another: I started with hole cutters which work for the 4 in size Fostex drivers. The cuts are simple and can be roughed in at your favorite wood supplier or cut to
exact measurement.
Some have been in the hobby for decades and longer.
Make a simple build to get the hang of it and see how it sounds.
Last edited: