I would imagine that building a copy of a speaker such as this would be fraught with immense difficulty. The amount of prototypes involved, and the cost involved with machining those prototypes before arriving at a good sounding product must have been staggering for MBL. The internal(air) and external driver resonances are totally unpredictable and would ultimately come down to hit or miss. Not only that, but Mbls are extremely inefficient. I couldn't imagine how inefficient these (beautiful looking!)DIY jobs must have been..
You see guys making electrostatics from scratch and you know that as long as they follow the well established rules, they will have a relatively good sounding, predictable product. But when making copies of drive units based on looks alone without any established and published (proprietary to MBL) rules? Ouch!
You see guys making electrostatics from scratch and you know that as long as they follow the well established rules, they will have a relatively good sounding, predictable product. But when making copies of drive units based on looks alone without any established and published (proprietary to MBL) rules? Ouch!
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I appreciate your hard to make your own copys as many of us do on this site. Its one way to save money and get a dose of satisfaction that money can,t buy
I hope it all works out for this interesting design!
I would like to know what temperature does to this design. Those petals must expand and contract and affect other parameters as well?
Listening enviroments are fairly stable but not always!
Regards
David
I hope it all works out for this interesting design!
I would like to know what temperature does to this design. Those petals must expand and contract and affect other parameters as well?
Listening enviroments are fairly stable but not always!
Regards
David
Making an accurate clone of a speaker system with preexisting, off the shelf drive units is profoundly different from an engineering standpoint, than making accurate clones of the drive units themselves. An almost impossible task in this situation.That's probably why his posts ended abruptly 2 years ago. I have to say though that they are stunning visual copies..
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This is the only way MBL aluminum petals can be made..
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Die_(manufacturing)
The manufacturing of the die used to make these petals involves an extremely expensive process..
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Die_(manufacturing)
The manufacturing of the die used to make these petals involves an extremely expensive process..
I guarantee you its not theres some mistakes that I can spot after ogling at the mbl for months they do however seem pretty darn close I wonder how he got the lamellas so damn close to the real thing in terms of curvature and length if you google areczek mbl 101 you can find more post but in a different language
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There is a very good shot of raw MBL petals on this page..
Ecoutez Voir - Approche système MBL 101E - Ecoutez Voir : une autre approche du son et de l'image (hifi, audio, vidéo, photo, musique)
And another..
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2321/2465314336_e286030578_b.jpg
They look the same to me...
Ecoutez Voir - Approche système MBL 101E - Ecoutez Voir : une autre approche du son et de l'image (hifi, audio, vidéo, photo, musique)
And another..
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2321/2465314336_e286030578_b.jpg
They look the same to me...
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I do have to add this that there is one other way to make these. After the basic petal shape has been cut, it can be put through a "corrugating" rolling press that will also naturally impart a consistent curve (If done correctly) at the same time. I have to admit that this would be much easier (but still very difficult) to accomplish..
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That something is 'Extraordinary' is down to the mindset of the person who finds something hard to believe.. In the quote, both are only extraordinary to that particular individual. Imagine if you time-warped someone from the middle ages to today and showed them this average, boring, everyday, 7 year old laptop.
Running a 4-minute mile was thought impossible and extraordinary. Yet after it was achieved and people then knew for sure that it could be done, suddenly others found they could do it too and more and more broke that 4 minute barrier.
Within a couple of years of the first, hundreds of runners then ran a 4 minute mile which begs the question as to why they couldn't beforehand ! It is down to belief and how that limits your abilities.
Fortunately I don't have the training/conditioning that leads me to believe these petals are impossible to make without some extraordinary process. I don't know why they couldn't be shaped and curved by the right mangle type rolling press. All you would need are two opposite shaped rolling pin things, each of which you could turn on a lathe.. No?
Running a 4-minute mile was thought impossible and extraordinary. Yet after it was achieved and people then knew for sure that it could be done, suddenly others found they could do it too and more and more broke that 4 minute barrier.
Within a couple of years of the first, hundreds of runners then ran a 4 minute mile which begs the question as to why they couldn't beforehand ! It is down to belief and how that limits your abilities.
Fortunately I don't have the training/conditioning that leads me to believe these petals are impossible to make without some extraordinary process. I don't know why they couldn't be shaped and curved by the right mangle type rolling press. All you would need are two opposite shaped rolling pin things, each of which you could turn on a lathe.. No?
You may need to read more of the posts in this thread. I already mentioned a corrugating rolling press as a possibility. If I were to make something like this, I would at least have the decency to show the construction method, to prove the ingeniousness and show the expense of what I did. After all, this is a DIY website! He shows nothing! NOTHING!! A diy guy making a scanspeak driver clone from scratch without any proof other than individual driver parts would not only make the engineers at Scanspeak roll with laughter, it would make everyone else laugh too. Think about that. Hundreds of prototypes and millions of dollars invested in a technology from a company and a diy guy is naive enough to think he can do a 'one off' that works? I don't think anyone is THAT naive. Like I said before, Driver clones are impossible to make. Unless of course, you have 'acquired' the authentic driver components to begin with. That's why you never see anyone ever making them. Except by maybe Roger Bannister?
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The last review of these mentioned a reformulation of the alu and a 2 day cooling period?for the big pedals. The BS flag went up immediately but then again they might be using an O designation on aluminum to form them and heat treating afterwards to bring it up to T3 or whatever they use (2024-T3' 6061,7075 etc.)
Listening to these at Newport high end show here this June weekend at the Hilton was quite enjoyable. They need space from the walls to really sing properly and was easily one of the best sounds there if only maybe a little light weighted in projection in that room
Very interesting different design that has real merit.
Regards
David
Listening to these at Newport high end show here this June weekend at the Hilton was quite enjoyable. They need space from the walls to really sing properly and was easily one of the best sounds there if only maybe a little light weighted in projection in that room
Very interesting different design that has real merit.
Regards
David
I went to the Newport show on Saturday. Huge and crowded. The MBL room was outstanding. What totally blew me away though was the Voxativ Ampeggio room. How can a speaker that measures so badly http://www.stereophile.com/content/voxativ-ampeggio-loudspeaker-measurements
(compared to multi driver speakers), sound so much better than almost anything else at the show? Everyone in the room was muttering "holy s--t!" under their breath. This is actually one of the speaker systems that inspired me to use the Neo 10 in an almost full range configuration..
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The real question is did you get to hear any of your own material that you are familiar with? I ask because every single time I've ever heard full-range driver set-ups with my own test selections, they have failed miserably. If they are only demoing carefully selected pieces, then that is not really a fair test. I guess if one primarily listens to lighter music with no real bass content or upper treble, then full-range can be OK, but give them something of serious sonic content to chew on and that's a lot of $ to spend on a one trick pony.
Agreed about the MBL far from the walls in a big room. It can be spooky how good they sound.
Greg
The first odd thing that caught my attention was that Stereophile awarded the Voxativ 'Product of the year' <I>Stereophile</I>'s Products of 2011 PRODUCT OF THE YEAR | Stereophile.com
Being a primarily measurements based magazine, that was a very atypical thing for Stereophile to do. This all makes me wonder how a Neo 10 would sound (with DSP eq) in the same rear horn based configuration..
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Another strange thing is that the driver in the Voxativ was designed completely by a woman..
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