open baffle?

[Ilianh]

ok, well i made those lil satelites using 4" cambridge drivers and 1" tweeters, and i havnt put the back part of the enclosures yet, i wanted to try what will happen if i put damping material and leave em open from behind.

as the first test i just runned some Diana Krall... and i was like "whoa, that sounds GREAT!!!!!!!"

im really impressed,
then i tested some other musics, and found out that the open baffle makes the mids REALLY clear and it goes very well on latin/jazz, but really sucks on hip hop..

then made another test, closed the second satelite (it has a vent)as it was calculated.

and made the same test again, and i really think the open baffle one sounds GREAT on some musics way better than the vented one..... sucks on others like hip hop (not that i listen to that too much...)

made another test, left the enclosure open, but whitout damping material, and it was awful, too much echo (room acoustics?)

actualy, vented has more bass less mids
open baffle has really clear mids, no bass

(i have a subwoofer taking care of the bass)

is this pure luck? or what?

i'll post pictures tomorow.

 

[sfdoddsy]

I've found the same thing. I did a test open baffle over the weekend with some spare drivers I had and was extremely pleased with the quality of the sound. You won't get bass unless you EQ the low end, but the pure quality is very very good.

Steve

 

[halojoy]

Open baffle search

I searched for info on open baffle for DIY.
Linkwitz Lab recommends open baffle dipole.

A lot of good to discover regarding Speakers, with starting point from this page:

http://links.epanorama.net/links/audiospeakers.html

This guy Steve has a real advanced open baffle project
with lots of photos:

http://sho.mystarband.net/

 

[Ilianh]

thx for the replies
I tried to find a simulation program of some kind to calculate open baffle speakers, didnt find any

hum...maybe triyng stuff until i get it right and try to make some kind of conclusion out of that ?

after all... its all a matter of personal taste
heh
my mom listens to some old clock/radio that sounds like crap.. and she likes it.... shes lucky...i have to pay big money for drivers and all in order to enjoy my music.. and shes happy with a 10$ clock/radio!

 

[sfdoddsy]

You may find that a simple box with the back off makes the enclosure too deep and hence the echo. My test baffles are 3/4 inch mdf with two inch side panels.

Steve

 

[Ilianh]

Well... i just add some poly fill for pillows and theres no more echo... just perfect mids and highs out of relativly cheap tweeters and somehow good mid drivers

sorry i didnt post pics today, still waiting for this varnish to dry before remounting the drivers

 

[Nicke]

I tried to find a simulation program of some kind to calculate open baffle speakers, didnt find any

Start by reading this :
Design models for dipoles

Actually,read all at Linkwitzlab if you are going for dipoles.

Nicke

 

[sfdoddsy]

You might want to check this page and its links for dipole susb as well, there are a couple of spreadsheets there.

http://www.diysubwoofers.org/dipole/

Steve

 

[Ilianh]

ok, sorry for the delay, heres the pics...

 

[Ilianh]

another one

 

[Ilianh]

as it is now.. with that level of damping, when its on open baffle.. the sound is awsome

 

[sfdoddsy]

If you download the dipole XLS file at the link I posted above, you'll find a spreadsheet to calculate what is happening with your bass response.

From the looks of it (assuming 12 inch total baffle width) you'd be getting a 6dB per octave roll off below 400Hz or so. Hence3 no bass.

Steve

 

[Ilianh]

i guess it looks bigger than it really is...

the box is around 10x5x5
anyway, im not really trying to make bass out of a 4" driver...
i'll leave this part to the subwoofer...

im going to change the tweeter too... this one is lame...
i spotted some nice mb quarts