My first Open Baffle Speaker

[SimontY]

Phase plugs for tweeters probably have to be very carefully designed, so I'm not too surprised it didn't work. It's good to try all these ideas though, great work!

[audiojoy]

This timbrel and tonal warmth thing has been bugging me a lot. Peakiness in the treble and a thinness to the mids especially with voices was still not perfect. Things are now gonna get a little crazy.

I have made a BREAKTHROUGH

Initial impressions are very favourable.

WOOL WOOL WOOL.

I stuffed intially the inner perimeter of the cones using the phase plug as support and found this helped flesh out the tones. Too little and it remained lean and shouty, too much and the air and details would go. Get just the right amount and you can start to feel the emotion in the voices with the increased tonal variation and timbres. I then stuffed some inside each gap in the chassis of each speaker. Too much and you got wonderful focus but leanness,(presume this is due to the pressure effect against cone movement), too little and the benefit is minimal, however just a gentle stuffing covering the entire cone but with minimal pressure on the cone movement and i was geting close to what I have been looking for.

See photo. messy business, but works, now i am getting closer to the timbrel qualities I missed from my electrostatics and boxed speakers. With NO obvious effect on transparency, dynamics or details !!!!!!!See the photos.

[Russell Dawkins]

I think this may be why someone invented grill cloth!

This reminds me of some experiments I did years ago with damping dome tweeters by the simple expedient of touching the dome lightly with my finger tip. I did this out of curiosity after trying to imagine what happened to the energy put into the dome around its periphery by the voice coil. Obviously it traveled across the surface toward the middle, but what then? I imagined a chaotic meeting in the middle and that it might benefit from being damped.

Well it seemed to! The result was not subtle and sounded like a distinct benefit to me, but I didn't have any means to measure the result.

[audiojoy]

still not right....... listening to two stringed instruments at the same time still highlighted to me that their timbral differences were not sufficiently clear to demonstrate that there were two clearly different instruments contributing to the overall sound and tune. Although seperation was the best i have ever heard on this savanna cd.

???time for the tone tubby's

This is now getting irritating, as alive as it sounds, I cannot fully appreciate the emotion and interplay between the instrumentalists without the right tonal variations. Where next??

[Russell Dawkins]

Have you tried using 8 screws instead of 4 to hold the driver against the baffle?

[audiojoy]

I can add the max. no. of screws possible for securing the speakers to the plywood, but feel certain this will not resolve the situation. It is a more profound effect i am after. One that I believe physically mimics the instruments themselves in getting their harmonic structures right. Like Nelson hinted the sound of an instrument e.g like a guitar is related to the enclosure being present which will resonate. I willl either try the tone tubby's as they are supposed to be the 'kings of tone', or put semi rear enclosed boxes around the midrange drivers, but my woodwork skills are crap.

Or I will totally abandon the idea and go for the Anthony Gallo Reference speakers that achieve the same phenomena but utilise some form of spherical metal enclosure that allows some form of interaction between the drivers and a 'box'.

With all due respect to all you diy guys out there but due to the lack of description of the music that is heard from your diy jobs, I never really get to understand what it is that you are hearing subjectively. So i am never sure from hardly any of the projects exactly what you understand from the term 'real sounding'. Yes lots of lovely graphs ad measurements, but in most audiophile magazines measurements and the subjective sound quality do not always go hand in hand. Even more concerning is whether there is a consideration for and understanding of the subtleties of harmonics timbre and tone. Speak to an audiophile and they will go on and on about these ideas and observations as these are some of the prime elements that contribute to the emotion in the music. Yes yes yes listening to music is an incredibly subjective thing and we can claim that we all have our own preferences to what brings enjoyment to our ears and inherently there will be no worldwide standardisation and therefore we can argue about this till we are blue in the face.

However , in my search for musical nirvana, how come the electrostaics can do these tonality thingys so well??? Large surface area mimics surface area of a large enclosure??????

[mige0]

Originally Posted by audiojoy

I can add the max. no. of screws possible for securing the speakers to the plywood, but feel certain this will not resolve the situation. It is a more profound effect i am after. ...

Not thinking I'm as picky at tonal perfectness then you, I'd nevertheless suggest to try some miracle medicine and "swing the speaker".

Just cut the baffle slightly bigger than the outer diameter of the basket and hang the the speaker at a rope or stranded steel wires or a chain - whatever you feel like - so that it can move freely in the OB hole.

Sounds strange at a first glance, but I'm pretty sure you will get the last (lost) quantum of resolution you are looking for.


Michael

[audiojoy]

Interesting,I think, but I will play it safe. I will go for those guitar speakers which prize themselves for use in open back baffles, huge Qmax, and tons of tone.Not sure which one would be best for general audiophile use. I know eminence make ceramic magnet hemp cone speakers , I think these will be the ones for value versus quality. Tone Tubby's might not necessarily be worth the price.

Will order four of these then report back.

Also not certain active subwoofers is the way to go either. Powerful single amp for all the drivers and a passive crossover might add to the cohesiveness and filling of upper bass loss that tends to occur in my baffle projects, without truncating the signal any further.

[mige0]

Originally Posted by audiojoy

This timbrel and tonal warmth thing has been bugging me a lot. Peakiness in the treble and a thinness to the mids especially with voices was still not perfect. Things are now gonna get a little crazy.

I have made a BREAKTHROUGH

Initial impressions are very favourable.

WOOL WOOL WOOL.

I stuffed intially the inner perimeter of the cones using the phase plug as support and found this helped flesh out the tones.

If you are after a little bit of "boxiness" with OB - have you tried to add some wings ?

Michael

[mige0]

Originally Posted by audiojoy

Interesting,I think, but I will play it safe....

LOL - did you have a look at the pictures of your "treated" speaker ?


Michael