DIY Waveguide loudspeaker kit

[gedlee]

Originally posted by kstrain
Perhaps consider a menu?
a) Baffle, b) crossover, c) drivers, d) box panels; buyer chooses from list.

I hope you are not in the end disappointed by the number of orders that emerge from this (or more positively: good luck!)

Ken

Thats a good idea, makes sense.

One thing that is very obvious to me is that people need to hear what a really good waveguide can do and how impressive they can be. When this happens there will be no going back. I have long had this goal, but the higher priced more complete systems were just not right for the market - which is dying fast. So in the end I hope its not the audio community that is disappointed at not being able to hear what progress through research can bring. (That's REAL research in acoustics and not Bose style research; in marketing.)

[Rybaudio]

Personally I'm only interested in the waveguide/foam, and not the 10" (at least right now)... the 15" or even better a 17-18" mouth. I have the drivers, can build the boxes, and use DSP for the crossover. If I have to cut it off of a baffle that's ok. You had these available for $250 each previously but at the moment that was too much for me. I've been looking into having a mold machined so I can pull off an indefinite number of fiberglass replicas (and then buy the foam from you) but if I can avoid this I would like to.

From what I can tell there are others out there like me, so I guess the point is that this might be a good "step" of the kit to have available.

[JoshK]

I think the baffle is the hardest part, that most DIY'ers can't produce themselves. This is the key element. Having the option to choose the flat kit for the cabinet will probably result in more potential customers.

Curious, what woofer do you use in the 10" design?

[gedlee]

Originally posted by Rybaudio
Personally I'm only interested in the waveguide/foam, and not the 10" (at least right now)... the 15" or even better a 17-18" mouth. ... I've been looking into having a mold machined so I can pull off an indefinite number of fiberglass replicas (and then buy the foam from you) but if I can avoid this I would like to.

I think that it will be awhile before these larger waveguide are available from me, larger just has limited appeal.

I am not sure if I would sell foam plugs for waveguides that are not my own, especially if I have waveguides available. The USPTO has not issued my "plug" patent yet, but I am confident that they will because there simply is no prior art out there on this application. If I do sell the plugs seperately they would not be cheap unless we worked on some agreement on long term licensing.

The "carret" in all of this, for me, has got to be the foam plug patent. I'm not likely to let that technology out without my being part of the game.

If I had a firm order for a number of the larger waveguides I could do them without a problem, but I'm not going to invest the time and money into making the tooling on a "hope" that they will sell.

[badman]

Originally posted by gedlee


I think that it will be awhile before these larger waveguide are available from me, larger just has limited appeal.

I am not sure if I would sell foam plugs for waveguides that are not my own, especially if I have waveguides available. The USPTO has not issued my "plug" patent yet, but I am confident that they will because there simply is no prior art out there on this application. If I do sell the plugs seperately they would not be cheap unless we worked on some agreement on long term licensing.

The "carret" in all of this, for me, has got to be the foam plug patent. I'm not likely to let that technology out without my being part of the game.

If I had a firm order for a number of the larger waveguides I could do them without a problem, but I'm not going to invest the time and money into making the tooling on a "hope" that they will sell.

Good thinking. You would never recoup machining costs selling to DIYers, the real merit of your waveguide/plug tech (from a revenue perspective) would be licensing.

[gedlee]

Originally posted by JoshK
I think the baffle is the hardest part, that most DIY'ers can produce themselves. This is the key element. Having the option to choose the flat kit for the cabinet will probably result in more potential customers.

Curious, what woofer do you use in the 10" design?

Is there a typo in your first sentence?

I use the 10ps26 - a good driver. B&C know how to make units that take a lot of power without failing. The reliability is very good. For home use this may be overkill and maybe down the road I might use a lower cost driver pair, but for now I am going to use what I know. These speakers would be perfect for sound reinforcement where large size in not desirable. They can also be arrayed because they are so small. Using the higher power driver option yields a much wider application base.

[gedlee]

Originally posted by badman


Good thinking. You would never recoup machining costs selling to DIYers, the real merit of your waveguide/plug tech (from a revenue perspective) would be licensing.

Licensing has always been my goal. I don't want to be a manufacturer! I want to do research, not manufacturing, but you have to sell that research to be able to keep doing it.

[Rybaudio]

Originally posted by gedlee
I am not sure if I would sell foam plugs for waveguides that are not my own, especially if I have waveguides available. The USPTO has not issued my "plug" patent yet, but I am confident that they will because there simply is no prior art out there on this application. If I do sell the plugs seperately they would not be cheap unless we worked on some agreement on long term licensing.

What kind of price are we talking here?... $50/ea? $100/ea? more? I would only need 2 now and at most 7 in the forseeable future. The reason I want the ability to make an indefinite number of waveguides is so I could build them into speakers and not have to worry about cutting them out every time I make a new box... the foam plugs could be transferred. I'm not sure how liscensing comes into that. I might sell some waveguides to other DIYers but this is no serious business venture... at least I hadn't planned it that way.

[gedlee]

Originally posted by Rybaudio


What kind of price are we talking here?... $50/ea? $100/ea? more? I would only need 2 now and at most 7 in the forseeable future. The reason I want the ability to make an indefinite number of waveguides is so I could build them into speakers and not have to worry about cutting them out every time I make a new box... the foam plugs could be transferred. I'm not sure how liscensing comes into that. I might sell some waveguides to other DIYers but this is no serious business venture... at least I hadn't planned it that way.

This is not how I saw the situation from your previous post. Although what you say doesn't make a lot of sense. Why not just attach the waveguides in a removable manner?

The foam plugs do tend to deteriorate with removal unless a weak adhesive is used, but then they don't want to stay in place very well. You aren't likely to get a half dozen transfers out of them the way that I attach them.

If your volumes are this low and you don't sell them I don't see a problem. But selling them without a license would be a patent violation. Your selling your waveguides with my foam plugs would not likely be acceptable to me, at least not without some financial considerations. Otherwise what's the point of getting a patent?

[Rybaudio]

Let me elaborate since this wasn't clear before.

- I want to make or have made a mold from which I can make fiberglass OS waveguides of 1" entry and 15-18" mouth
- If I do make such a mold, I may sell some of the waveguides (no foam) to other DIYers
- If I do end up doing this, I may want to purchase a few foam plugs from you for my own usage

None of this constitutes a patent violation since the OS waveguide isn't patented (as per your own words in the Beyond the Ariel thread) and I'm not selling foam.

As for why I don't want to attach them in a removable manner,

- on the outside of the box I want to smooth them into the front baffle with some sort of bondo/wood putty so when I paint or finish the enclosure its smooth.

- on the inside I want to very rigidly attach them to the enclosure, meaning most likely fiberglass them into the box.

They aren't big deals really and if I end up buying waveguides I'll have to figure out some way to get around them. The practical info on transfering the foam plugs does answer a concern of mine... thanks. I may have to just bite the bullet and buy a pair of the 15" waveguides w/ foam if you still have them available.