Onken, anyone?

[cyclotronguy]

I've an interest in building an "Onken" style reflex enclosure, anyone have any technical information they can share. Thanks in advance.

Kent

[ding]

Kent,

I personally know nothing about the Onkon loudspeaker design but here's a link to a spreadsheet program which calculates the parameters.

http://melhuish.org/audio/ONKEN_CALC.xls


Dan

[AuroraB]

While working to finish my home workshop ( sometime late summer I guess), I am gathering ideas for projects.......
For some time I have been looking at Onken bass systems, but find very litle conclusive information. ( I do have the referred calculator..)
Anyone using an Onken bass, or have any further info or links ???

[kelticwizard]

Here is a thread on Onkens right here.
External ports?

By the way, Roscoe Primrose, who made such a beautiful set of Onkens, is now a member here. Email him if you wish, or ask the mods to pass a message if his Email is not enabled.

[Roscoe Primrose]

Originally posted by kelticwizard

By the way, Roscoe Primrose, who made such a beautiful set of Onkens, is now a member here. Email him if you wish, or ask the mods to pass a message if his Email is not enabled.

I didn't build them, I bought them. Nothing I build ever looks that good

However, they're just your basic Onken cabs, no mods to the original design. Sound is quite good with 515Bs or 604s. I think the sound was actually a bit better on the homebuilt Onken style cabs I built.

Peace

[Alidore]

The family of Onken cabinets depicted at the http://www.studiomaudio.com/onken.html site are described as sharing these characteristics:

Box volume of 13,300 cubic inches
Total duct area of 134 square inches
Duct length of 8 inches

Analyzing this as a reflex enclosure, I come up with a box tuning frequency of about 50 Hz.

Does this sound right?

It seems to me the elegance of the Onken configuration lies in the killing of two birds with one stone: The large vertical slots combine large-area ports with excellent mechanical stiffening of the enclosure walls.

[AuroraB]

It is the theory behind these calc's I am looking for. From what I have been able to find sofar, the Onken is supposed to give very fast and clean bass transients,- with an F3 a lot lower than a closed box.
I read somewhere that the Onken aproach is to be treated like a reflex enclosure with a system Q of appx. 0.5. My current system is a reflex enclosure tuned in accordance with an SC4 alignment, about .65, and this gives a conciderably tighter bass than the usual QB3 "boomers".
The calculator uses variables like "Onken factor" and "Koizumi factor". The numbers for "Onken factor" looks like 10*Q, but otherwise I don't have the foggiest idea..???

[planet10]

Originally posted by Alidore
It seems to me the elegance of the Onken configuration lies in the killing of two birds with one stone: The large vertical slots combine large-area ports with excellent mechanical stiffening of the enclosure walls.

And it makes them look so cool.

dave

[Timn8ter]

Just came back from a visit to Adire Audio. They have a bunch of stuff sitting around including a Onken style Shiva sonosub. It has a smaller tube inside the larger one. The spacers between the tubes also serve as the legs for this downfiring design. I didn't get the tube lengths. I could ask and let you know.

[fdegrove]

Hi,

If these are still the same bass-reflex enclosures as 15 years ago
then I should have all possible details at the office.

Most of the time the woofer used was either an old Altec or a Focal Audiom Alnico.

I had the chance to listen to them on several occasions and one thing really stood out; you never had the impression of listening to a woofer that's boxed in, if you know what I mean.

Very fast and clean bass although not the deepest I ever heard, whatever came out was impressively fast in starting and stopping with the music. Absolutely no overhang whatsoever.

In case I can help with a scan of an article I'd happy to oblige.
Be warned though, everything I have regarding the Onkens is written in French...
If it's just figures you need that wouldn't be a big deal anyway.

Cheers,