What about a SLOB (Pass diy OB) with say, two 15" woofers per side? Or, even better, 4 x 15" woofers per side. I just guess that they will be able to provide a lot of slam while looking elegant (the wife won't be staring at four 15"-ers) because on the front its just the long and narrow slot... (No pun intended) 
I think the SLOB would be the perfect solution for balancing aesthetics with sound. They could be made to look very nice with some nice veneer.
I went with a U shape with a singe 18 for 40-150Hz. 21" front and 18" depth. Effortless big sound. Not a lot of excursion at normal listening levels sitting about 7 feet away. They preform an amazing disappearing act. A 10" on its own 12" baffle does the mids. Probably not state of the art, but I find myself to be satisfied. I can imagine how good 2x18" would be.
You would need to be creative to get the mids and hi at ear level. The 18" takes up some real estate. Maybe the 18"s top and bottom around an MTM. Not easy to put in a room.
I went with a U shape with a singe 18 for 40-150Hz. 21" front and 18" depth. Effortless big sound. Not a lot of excursion at normal listening levels sitting about 7 feet away. They preform an amazing disappearing act. A 10" on its own 12" baffle does the mids. Probably not state of the art, but I find myself to be satisfied. I can imagine how good 2x18" would be.
You would need to be creative to get the mids and hi at ear level. The 18" takes up some real estate. Maybe the 18"s top and bottom around an MTM. Not easy to put in a room.
Bushmeister,
Nice build and experience/perspective you bring!!
I've been meaning to write for a while. Our systems share a number of similarities, but you have a lot more experience building speakers.
I'm also on an active 4-way system, with sealed subs below 65Hz, 18" baffleless midbasses on a swing up to 275Hz (I agree the swing does not transmit vibrations to the holding structure), lately twin 8" in OB MTM up to 1600Hz, and a Beyma TPL-150H with open back and a DIY waveguide to achieve dipole pattern (which works well up to about 7kHz).
It's still a prototype in development. Earlier I had the naked 18" going up to 400Hz because a single naked 8" (also on a swing) didn't like going lower. Folks with a lot more experience on OB recommended bringing the 18" xo lower (a naked 18" dipole peak is at 350Hz) and I added a baffle for mids and a 2nd 8" and in fact added wings around the lower 8" (plan is to make it a 0.5 config with an inductor in between). This allowed me to limit the 18" to 275Hz, which I find sounds much better.
You might want to consider testing a woofer in between your 15" and the existing midrange? The naked 15" dipole peak is likely lower than where your xo is at, and the 15" is probably "heavy" at those frequencies. Maybe a passive xo between Neo 6 and 3, and use the channel/amp for a smaller woofer?
BTW, I guess the steel frame implies the validation that magnetic fields of the drivers aren't affected by it. I remember years ago on Audiogon having discussions about whether steel bolts holding drivers to the box impacted sonics. I've been using wood for my frames, but maybe I should consider steel.
Regards!
Sounds like you are onto a complex and impressive build Lewinski!
Funnily enough those frames are oak sprayed black - they were a prototype to see if I liked open baffle. So not metal at all!
I simply cannot get over how good these open baffles are. I am going to have to come up with a more impressive housing for them!
Thinking of swapping out my monopole subs for some DIY clamshell oriented subs like the celestion 6000 subs.....
Regarding the deltalite being well behaved up to 800hz, our very own Charlie Laub was using them up to 1600hz and handing over to dipole tweeters in this build so they should be fine to 800hz and certainly measure so!
Open baffle only... Public Group | Facebook
Funnily enough those frames are oak sprayed black - they were a prototype to see if I liked open baffle. So not metal at all!
I simply cannot get over how good these open baffles are. I am going to have to come up with a more impressive housing for them!
Thinking of swapping out my monopole subs for some DIY clamshell oriented subs like the celestion 6000 subs.....
Regarding the deltalite being well behaved up to 800hz, our very own Charlie Laub was using them up to 1600hz and handing over to dipole tweeters in this build so they should be fine to 800hz and certainly measure so!
Open baffle only... Public Group | Facebook
Frequency response is of course super important. But only tells part of the story. Here's mine, where you can see it's well behaved far beyond 400Hz.
Nevertheless my speaker sounds better crossing the 18" at 275Hz. Probably the mids play 275-400Hz nicer than the 18".
To me that looks more driver specific than dipole related?
In my monopoles the 100-600 range is played by the satori MW19P sealed and I have to be honest the deltalite doesn't seem to loose out to it playing 100-800hz.
But perhaps I will give it a go. At the moment, honestly i am just blown away by these things!
In my monopoles the 100-600 range is played by the satori MW19P sealed and I have to be honest the deltalite doesn't seem to loose out to it playing 100-800hz.
But perhaps I will give it a go. At the moment, honestly i am just blown away by these things!
my 2way OB with ribbon helper, hopefully this is the final iteration. use harsch xo @240Hz
source : dell optiplex playing loseless with foobar2000 or deezer hifi, vlc player for bluray collection
- AD1865 dac with dcb1 preamp
- minidsp 2x4HD to : aragon2004 for 21" woofer and mauropenasa gainclone drives PRV 5mr450-ndy + beston rt002 ribbon tweeter with 3.3uf filter
- behringer nu3000dsp get mono signal from summing opamp after dcb1, then drives 2 dual-opposed sealed subwoofer 4th order @40Hz
in my relatively big room 5x6m with 3.3m concrete ceiling, eventhough my 21" subwoofer have 7mm xmax, it still can't fill the room especially for deep bass. that's where the subwoofer really help, it's mandatory during bluray movie
OB woofer + multiple sealed subwoofer :
my wide lens phone is not good enough, bad vignette can be noticed easily
Gadut, very nice baffles and diffraction wall behind
Very nice!
Could you upload pictures from the side to understand the construction behind the baffle?
As I said FA253&FA502, there is no any acoustic treatment so response is achieved only by EQ (and OB of course) and I suppose only at measurement position and close proximity. There is one more sub behind but it is not integrate well yet. I should try MSO but not enough time and too much good music to listen again
Attachments
Thank you for posting those. Interested in the way you attached the mids to the baffle. I also have MTM with AMT tweeter.
Your mids aren't screwed to the baffle, right? You have the white metal pieces that are screwed to the back of the baffle and pressure the driver against the baffle. Correct?
Your mids aren't screwed to the baffle, right? You have the white metal pieces that are screwed to the back of the baffle and pressure the driver against the baffle. Correct?
They sound really natural I think. Like with all loudspeakers, you need blend them, wasn't too hard to do either.
Nice solution and woodworking!
I also like the looks of mounting from back, but I'm dealing with midranges with minimal baffle so it's challenging to find where to anchor. I'm still in development phase, though, so scouting for approaches.