Definitely the most expensive, not even close to the most effective.
That costs $22000 - $26000 for one unit installed and does approximately 115 db WITH room gain in a smallish room. It's bandwidth is approximately 3 - 30 hz, so more than half the frequencies where it's actually good at what it does would be wasted in this application and you would still need another sub system to cover from 30 hz up to wherever the mains cross in.
For $25000 you can get approximately 100 sheets of baltic birch, 20 high excursion 18 inch driver (30+ mm xmax) and 10 amps (14000 watts each), all delivered to your door shipping included (there might be some tax on that though). And that's at retail prices, you could probably expect a hefty discount for buying in bulk. And I GUARANTEE you this amount of gear would absolutely slaughter a little fan sub.
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Hee! As I looked at this thing I kept wondering, how does he reverse that motor so quickly! At some point it slowly occurred to me - it's the blade pitch swiveling back and forth... < face palm > That is doggone ingenious, and must be absolutely frightening to experience. Not that there's anything wrong with that, of course.
-- Jim
That thing looks pretty good.
Allen Organ MIDI Products - Speakers
Do y'all mean to opine the dB chart is not dB as in a correct measurement (1W@1M) but is a marketing graph? I ask because I don't really know much except that few subs have an advertised response like that. There is no mention of power handling on the page. That is more suspicious than anything else, but maybe the organs have ratings and that ought be looked at.
From what I heard and felt (and I was in the sanctuary too, not just outside), I think it's probably actually tuned the way they claim.
I wonder if the trade-off with this design is poor group delay, or transient response? (Sorry, not sure which term is correct, if either.) Those passives must have a lot of mass, so maybe this box works really well for its intended purpose, making organ-pipe sounds (which take a looong time to develop), but not so much for bass guitar or train collisions?
-- Jim
Hi opcom,
The SR1 response chart looks quite normal (for what it is), compare it to the one I posted in Post #5 (the BR, light grey).
As an aside for PR systems, they like at least twice the cone area for the PRs than for the active driver, and often that does not seem enough (you need to look at the excursion @ Xmax). Below 20 Hz we are rapidly running out tuning room. Maybe, take a look at Jeff Bagby's Woofer Designer for MS Excel:
Loudspeaker Design Software
Regards,
The SR1 response chart looks quite normal (for what it is), compare it to the one I posted in Post #5 (the BR, light grey).
As an aside for PR systems, they like at least twice the cone area for the PRs than for the active driver, and often that does not seem enough (you need to look at the excursion @ Xmax). Below 20 Hz we are rapidly running out tuning room. Maybe, take a look at Jeff Bagby's Woofer Designer for MS Excel:
Loudspeaker Design Software
Regards,
Absolutely it's tainted. Where do you think the massive resonant peaks that make the note come from. And imo,there's nothing wrong with that.
I brought this up because numerous people suggested sealed boxes with massive boost down low are "untainted" by port resonance. In my opinion, port resonance is only as bad a sin as the massive eq needed to flatten response in a sealed enclosure (unless you use linear phase eq, which will add significant delay across the entire pasband). This was my point. The ported enclosure also provides the benefit of adding an excursion minima at tuning (at the expense of box size basically)
Just a guy mentions that the pipe organ itself is a resonant system, so it doesn't make sense to avoid resonant enclosures for reproduction of the signal it produces. I agree 100%.
A couple posts above be mentions low organ notes "take a long time to develop". Likely because the group delay is all jacked up due to the characteristics of of the resonant pipe system.
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Btw.. if 85db sensitivity down to 15hz is what you are shooting for... it shouldnt be to difficult. any low fs (mid teens to 20hz) moderately low qts driver will do that in an appropriately sized vented enclosure
They are frightening. There's videos online showing it in action. It's extremely loud as you might expect and when the blades pitch hard it looks and sounds like the thing is going to blow apart. I wouldn't even go into a room with one of those things running.
You don't see or hear any of that in the listening room though, due to the several meter cubed well stuffed tunnel that's required to cut down on the horrendous operating noise.
These things are big, dangerous and the stuffed tunnel takes a ridiculous amount of room for what is essentially an IB installation. They are extremely expensive and really not very good performers compared to conventional methods of bass production. They have extremely limited frequency response and are not energy efficient; the 1/3 hp motor is running all the time to spin the blades whether there is bass playing or not. For the average movie there is approximately 30 seconds of 3 - 30 hz content but the 1/3 hp motor is always running full tilt, which is kind of the opposite of efficient operation.
They are more efficient as frequency decreases though, so they have one thing going for them.
Oh well, interesting concept at least. I guess the moral of the story here is how well the traditional cone-type loudspeaker design continues to prevail over these various contenders.
-- Jim
It's not a bad idea, the main problem is cost.
But you can save $8000 - $12000 if you install it yourself. According to the website, this fee covers a consulting engineer (which is completely unnecessary) flying employee(s) to your house (which is completely unnecessary), where they call a local contractor to install it for them (which is completely unnecessary unless you are really lazy). This is just stupid, but it does give you grounds and someone to sue if the thing flies apart and cuts your toddler's head off. Oh, but they also do a frequency response measurement for you, which you could do yourself with a $100 mic calibrated to 5 hz. And if you do it yourself you get to keep the mic.
The unit itself should sell at around $1500 which would be a fair price for a fan with some custom pitching parts, not $13000. And they want $450 for a "motor controller", which sounds like a dimmer switch to me, and another $1050 for an amp to pitch the blades and a crossover. IIRC the blade pitch amp is only around 200 watts, and a $150 plate amp would do the amplification and crossover duties just fine.
So basically you pay $25000 instead of $1500 so they can demonstrate in person how greedy and incompetent they are. IMO of course.
The secondary problem is the space required for the massive stuffed tunnel to control operating noise, and the spare room you have to keep locked up to keep your kids and pets away from this domestic death machine.
But it is a neat idea, and it does get more efficient as frequency decreases which is kind of a big deal if you want to reproduce single digit frequencies. Conventional drivers get less efficient as frequency decreases, but for $25000 you can buy a truckload of them and beat the snot out of a fan sub.
But you can save $8000 - $12000 if you install it yourself. According to the website, this fee covers a consulting engineer (which is completely unnecessary) flying employee(s) to your house (which is completely unnecessary), where they call a local contractor to install it for them (which is completely unnecessary unless you are really lazy). This is just stupid, but it does give you grounds and someone to sue if the thing flies apart and cuts your toddler's head off. Oh, but they also do a frequency response measurement for you, which you could do yourself with a $100 mic calibrated to 5 hz. And if you do it yourself you get to keep the mic.
The unit itself should sell at around $1500 which would be a fair price for a fan with some custom pitching parts, not $13000. And they want $450 for a "motor controller", which sounds like a dimmer switch to me, and another $1050 for an amp to pitch the blades and a crossover. IIRC the blade pitch amp is only around 200 watts, and a $150 plate amp would do the amplification and crossover duties just fine.
So basically you pay $25000 instead of $1500 so they can demonstrate in person how greedy and incompetent they are. IMO of course.
The secondary problem is the space required for the massive stuffed tunnel to control operating noise, and the spare room you have to keep locked up to keep your kids and pets away from this domestic death machine.
But it is a neat idea, and it does get more efficient as frequency decreases which is kind of a big deal if you want to reproduce single digit frequencies. Conventional drivers get less efficient as frequency decreases, but for $25000 you can buy a truckload of them and beat the snot out of a fan sub.
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E7Bkrypxzs4
Would you want that in your house? Near the end of the video the guy actually says "I wouldn't stand there if I was you man, that thing is gonna come apart and kill you." It's only 52 seconds long, click it.
Would you want that in your house? Near the end of the video the guy actually says "I wouldn't stand there if I was you man, that thing is gonna come apart and kill you." It's only 52 seconds long, click it.
Yeah, that's always been the thing that bugged me about the TRW..A good drill press is $500 and a good rc helicopter blade pitch assembly is what, maybe a grand..why is it that together they're $12,900? I realize that's a little facile and the blade pitch assembly is probably a little more robust, but come on.
I've been hoping since the first time I saw that thing that someone would come up with a diy version, or a realistically priced one. I'm actually a bit surprised that none of the guys in the exotics section have tried.
Edit: Starting with something like this: http://www.scaleflying.com/Super-Scale-Five-Blade-Rotor-Head-700-Size_p_2609.html
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I did but I was into it for $160, realized I was going to have to spend another $100 - $200 + regular maintenance fees, thought that was too much and abandoned the project right before it was fully completed.
I grabbed an old 1/2 hp motor 1750 rpm motor (which is just about right for this) and a 15 inch sub driver that were sitting unused.
Then I commissioned an extension for the motor to hold the blades and moving parts, this cost $60 from a local shop.
An externally hosted image should be here but it was not working when we last tested it.
Then I bought a helicopter rotor assembly. These things don't look like much but if you look for videos of helis in action these things can take a ferocious beating. $100.
An externally hosted image should be here but it was not working when we last tested it.
And here a couple of shots with all the pieces together.
An externally hosted image should be here but it was not working when we last tested it.
An externally hosted image should be here but it was not working when we last tested it.
The plan was to cut the cone out of the driver and leave the rest of the basket so the blades would run right inside the frame edge where the surround would usually be, this would make the assembly super easy to mount, just like a regular driver.
An externally hosted image should be here but it was not working when we last tested it.
I added some little plastic blades and tested the unit by manually moving the swashplate back and forth. It worked really well. But at that point I noticed the old motor ran way too hot, it was defective and would need to be replaced for a cost of $100 - $200. I also noticed the pitch arms were made of some type of plastic with ball joints on each end, and those balls wear out over time and would need to be regularly maintained.
I thought THAT was too expensive and abandoned the project.
The only things left to do were cut the driver cone out, bolt the driver and motor together and attach the voice coil to the swash plate. And maybe design, cut and attach some better blades.
There is at least one guy with a working diy model, there's an hour and a half video on youtube about it.
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No, you can't.
Exactly!
And what about R&D?
It is not a dimmer switch.
Really? Basically you are paying for the patented idea, resulting in a working subwoofer. Why didn't you patent it before Mr. Thigpen and offer it free to a DIY community?
Yes, and you need a truckload of space for them. And prepare a pile of money for the electricity bill.
They won't let you install it yourself? There's a guy on this forum that has one and he says he installed it himself. At least he constructed it all.
What about mass production? A fair price would be $1500.
It controls motor speed, no? So like a dimmer switch but technically not exactly a dimmer switch.
The DIY community doesn't need a patent, they can build whatever they like for personal use and experimentation completely unrestricted by patents. That patent is going to run out and others will make this product for a reasonable $1500 and Mr Thigpen's gravy train of people with more money than brains will be over.
I could easily install 20 high excursion 18 inch drivers in about 1/10 of the space of a fan sub. A simple IB manifold allows four 18 inch drivers on a 20 inch cube. The fan sub stuffed tunnel has to be massive and as the video shows, it essentially uses an entire room for the backside that you can't use for anything else because it's extremely noisy (at high frequencies, not just bass) and it's a death machine.
The electricity bill will be a LOT cheaper for the conventional subs. That big 1/3 hp motor is spinning at full speed ALWAYS whether there's bass in the media or not. Like I said, there's about 30 seconds of bass in a regular movie, so that huge motor is spinning at full speed for 2 hours to produce 30 seconds of bass. A conventional driver amp is idling at milliwatt level for the 2 hours and only uses significant power for the 30 seconds that the media requires it. There's not much low bass at all in music either, so that massive motor just spins away all the time producing nothing but a massive electrical bill. Remember, this thing only does 3 - 30 hz, most media content is well above that and this thing isn't doing much of anything useful MOST of the time except spinning at full speed running up the electric bill and being a potential killing machine if you get too close. Kids are gonna wanna touch that thing.
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In short then, you'll need three more speakers just like it except designed around a ~14-16 Hz Fs driver/tuning or equivalent 1/4 WL tuned [closed] pipe system.
GM
I honestly didn't know a patent COULD be renewed, I though it was 20 years and done.
I really try not to know as much as possible about patents and the patenting system. The system is so broken it makes me sad. There's a patent for swinging on a swing. Not sure if it's still valid but I'm pretty sure I've seen two patents for swinging, one was for swinging the regular way and one was for swinging side to side. IIRC. I try really hard not to remember things like that.
Patents are a rich man's game. If you don't have at least a million dollars to defend a patent it's best not to get one at all. And no matter what you do, a rich man is probably going to steal your idea and patent it regardless of whether you have a patent or not. The whole system is broken the one with the most money wins.
I really try not to know as much as possible about patents and the patenting system. The system is so broken it makes me sad. There's a patent for swinging on a swing. Not sure if it's still valid but I'm pretty sure I've seen two patents for swinging, one was for swinging the regular way and one was for swinging side to side. IIRC. I try really hard not to remember things like that.
Patents are a rich man's game. If you don't have at least a million dollars to defend a patent it's best not to get one at all. And no matter what you do, a rich man is probably going to steal your idea and patent it regardless of whether you have a patent or not. The whole system is broken the one with the most money wins.
Patent US6368227 - Method of swinging on a swing - Google Patents
That's the side to side one, it was a valid patent but the patent holder didn't pay his "maintenance fees" so now everyone in the world is free to swing side to side. June 6 2006 was the happy day the patent expired and all children across the world were no longer breaking the law for doing what they do naturally.
This isn't even covering an invention, it's covering a method. How can you regulate a method for something that everyone does naturally?
I'm pretty sure the story behind this one was at least partly a joke too - he just wanted to see if he could get something really stupid patented.
And now you can patent life too.
So broken.
So sad.
That's the side to side one, it was a valid patent but the patent holder didn't pay his "maintenance fees" so now everyone in the world is free to swing side to side. June 6 2006 was the happy day the patent expired and all children across the world were no longer breaking the law for doing what they do naturally.
This isn't even covering an invention, it's covering a method. How can you regulate a method for something that everyone does naturally?
I'm pretty sure the story behind this one was at least partly a joke too - he just wanted to see if he could get something really stupid patented.
And now you can patent life too.
So broken.
So sad.
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