another waveguide thread, sort of, general speaker bable, etc...

[critofur]

I started writing this reply to this: Seas 27tdfc + waveguide and Peerless 830870 project thread, but was mostly off topic, so decided to make a new thread...

I listened to gobs of speakers over the past 10 years or so and haven't liked ANY better than my super cheap 1977 2 way bookshelf paper cone tweeter/8 inch paper woofer "db" brand speakers, which were first poked out by a dumb curious girl who stuck her finger in my tweeter, then lost in a move.

I don't think they nesc. super or anything, just liked the sound of them with my Dyna tube amp and vinyl records.

These days, when I listen to modern speakers with digital music such as CDs I just get a headache and don't find the music enjoyable, something unsmooth and un-natural sounding, more fatiguing than pleasant.

Having been without decent speakers since around 1992 I'm starting to get desperate again and thinking to build something like the OP's speakers here.

I'm itching to try simple series crossover with just a cap in parallel with the woofer and inductor in parallel with the tweeter and I think this design would lend itself to that very well.

The problems (that something like this poster's design with it's nice woofer + waveguided tweeter this overcomes) are finding woofers with smooth enough roll-offs and nice inexpensive tweeters that can cross low enough.

I'm a little skeptical, however, thinking that after listening to some quasi-omnidirectional (up to about 2Khz anyway) Ohm "Walsh" type speakers and hearing how they can reproduce the "you are THERE" sense of the original space that the recording was made in, I don't think "standard" front firing woofer speakers will do that. Speakers without reflections are basically big headphones that just happen to not be ON your head, don't sound very "natural", I noticed that Linkwitz recently added rear firing tweeters to his "Orion" design and thinks it's an improvement.

The one pair of commerical speakers that I enjoyed listening to very much recently (in a shop in Manhattan) are the Madrigal Revel Salons. Too bad I didn't have an extra $20,000 to blow on those.

Zaph's TMM waveguid design really got me interested, but, the only drivers I have to work with are a half dozen Peerless 830378 6.5" Nomex ~ I think they'll do OK as a substitute, but I'd have to design the crossover from scratch.

Anybody seen a tutorial on how to do a series crossover w/Soundeasy or LspCAD or Speaker Workshop?

I've finally just recently gotten a test mic working. I've got a few of those Panasonic electret capsules and soldiered up a couple of them into very simple mics, but then a while back I found a Berhinger EMC8000 for less than $30 new! Had to add a phantom power supply, I found out later, now I just need one more mic cable and a stand and I'll be ready to do speaker measuring again.

I've asked several times over the past couple years, but so far haven't had any luck: could someone send me a "project" file for recent speakers they've built so I could play with it? I wish Zaph would post those files along with the speaker plans he puts on his website... I've started to go through the SoundEasy tutorials some, so maybe I'll finally learn it, but it'd be nice to have files like that to play with along the way.

In addition to the Peerless 830388 drivers I have one pair of Audax 6.5" carbon fiber drivers, a dozen or so Audax 3/4" textile dome tweeters which I like (I bought a bunch 'cause they've been discontinued), a case (6) 8" Tang Band Neo subwoofers, and (sadly) only ONE Audax 5.25" Aerogel woofer with the phase plug, that one is very nice, I wonder why it's discontinued.

I feel like anytime I find a driver I really like at a decent price it always gets discontinued...

I don't have any spare cash for buying speaker parts these days, I might talk my wife into letting me spend $100 - $200 as a christmas present, so the Tang Band w5-704s are looking very appealing as a SUPER value in decent speakers.

I've got a full garage setup with a nice big drill press, nice heavy big table saw, mitre saw, work benches, bunch of other little tools and a couple shelves full of capacitors etc... I'm itching to get out in the garage and build speakers again...

I was thinking I might actually build a mold with the waveguide built in. My uncle has a CNC machine, if I made the plans up maybe he'd let me use it to make the molds. I haven't thought of exactly how to make them and what processes to use once I've got them? Maybe something that I pour some liquid epoxy fillled with chopped fibers & bits of some kind of damping material?

Maybe a mold to press clay into would be better? Then line the clay with that bitumen based aluminum roof repair tape after it's kiln fired...

Wish I could find someone in Ohio who would be interested in doing a project like this and selling them in small quantities... I'd just like to make enough money to be able to keep building more speakers basically

[critofur]

Has anybody ever heard a speaker that, when playing say, a cello solo, you actually wouldn't be able to tell the difference between that and a real cello playing right there in the room? I don't think any commercial speakers exist that can pass that test, though, I have only listened to about a dozen or so different ones in the more than $5,000 category.

I don't know how low freq. a cello's output goes, but I do know that you can FEEL it playing, you can feel the vibrations in the ground, in the arms of the chair that you're sitting in, you can feel it on your skin, and in your gut. Yet, it's not painfully loud that it hurts your ears.

The only place that I've been able to get some sort of "feeling the sound" like that is in a car with good speakers and a nice subwoofer. Doesn't have to be a big sub, just a 10" sealed sub is plenty... But, in order to get that sort of same feeling, the music has to be so loud that it must surely be damaging to your hearing

[Magnetar]

Originally posted by critofur
I started writing this reply to this: Seas 27tdfc + waveguide and Peerless 830870 project thread, but was mostly off topic, so decided to make a new thread...

I listened to gobs of speakers over the past 10 years or so and haven't liked ANY better than my super cheap 1977 2 way bookshelf paper cone tweeter/8 inch paper woofer "db" brand speakers, which were first poked out by a dumb curious girl who stuck her finger in my tweeter, then lost in a move.

I don't think they nesc. super or anything, just liked the sound of them with my Dyna tube amp and vinyl records.

These days, when I listen to modern speakers with digital music such as CDs I just get a headache and don't find the music enjoyable, something unsmooth and un-natural sounding, more fatiguing than pleasant.


Wish I could find someone in Ohio who would be interested in doing a project like this and selling them in small quantities... I'd just like to make enough money to be able to keep building more speakers basically

Where do you live in Ohio?

[MaVo]

Originally posted by critofur
Has anybody ever heard a speaker that, when playing say, a cello solo, you actually wouldn't be able to tell the difference between that and a real cello playing right there in the room?

Having a friend who plays acoustic guitar, i once recorded his playing and replayed it through my speakers. shortly after that i got onto another "find me a good speaker design" journey. it was as you described, even when i played it louder than the original sound, it never sounded so alive, all tangible feeling was lost. same goes for professionally recorded sounds, so it was not my nonexistant studio engineer skills.

I hope high efficiency horn speakers will be better in this aspect.

[freddi]

for what little its worth I thought Altec 604 in original Karlson 15 did some good things with Gary Karr's Koussevitzky cd

[critofur]

RE: "where in ohio do you live?" I live in Columbus, OH.

RE: Other posts...

Well, sure, most all of us have listened to music at one time or another on speakers and really enjoyed it, or, we probably wouldn't know about this website, much less participate in the forum...

I've had those times when listening to music makes me feel all tingly and sometimes even get chills down my spine/hairs stand on end, etc... But not much recently.

I think when music is recorded and played back the dynamic range must be fairly compressed. I also think that passive crossovers do something ugly to music, but I can't explain it well. I also find, generally, that I don't enjoy listening to CDs as much as I had enjoyed listening to records in the past.

When I first listened to a prototype of an omnidirectional speaker that I had been working on back in 2002, I put in a Miles Davis CD, and, for a few minutes I was blow away by the sensation that it actually sounded like a real trumpet playing, like it was right there in front of me, if I closed my eyes. It had that "energy" that always seems to be missing.

I know how this speaker could be made, but, I don't have the resources to complete the design. So, I'll be stuck trying to build some speakers that I like using conventional cheap drivers.