Omega Mini Me clone help needed.

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Drjay

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Joined 2016
#1
Hi Guys,

I am having lots of fun researching and building small full range speakers, having built Chris Roemers Neo Picos and a pair of .15 CF box Tang Band 1320 Bamboo single driver speakers. I plan on building the Whetstones and the Bandits in the near future, but have come across several references to a commercial design by Omega Speaker Systems called the Mini Me which fascinates me. It appears to be based on the Tang Band W4 1052 SD like the Whetstones, but is in a .35CF cabinet and uses a 2" diameter port of unknown length. The promotional ads at the time it was manufactured (2005 - 2007) emphasize that there is no crossover, but it is unknown if there was a filter. The speaker got a couple of quite good reviews in the audiophile press but has been superceeded in the Omega Speaker systems line by other single driver models.
I have the Tang Band 1052 SD drivers on hand and am itching to go with building some Mini Me clones. Any info on what filter, if any, the best 2" port length for that size cabinet and any additional data regarding this very interesting speaker would be greatly appreciated.

Best,
​Jay
 
#2
Hi Drjay,

I have the same W4 drivers, and I put them in my TABAQs. They are quite good in that enclosure, and need only two little notches to sound their best.

In my TABAQs, they need a -4dB at 2,800Hz, Q=1.6 and a -2 dB at 10,000Hz, Q=4.

With those two notches, they are almost perfectly flat and sound wonderful. It also goes down to 40-45 Hz.. not bad for that little 4" driver.
 
#3
Drjay said:
Any info on what filter, if any, the best 2" port length for that size cabinet and any additional data regarding this very interesting speaker would be greatly appreciated.
Click to expand...

As these are well out of production, maybe Louis will give you the info if you ask him.

Using the QB3 alignment in WinISD, a 2" port would be somewhere around 5.25-5.50" long, which is getting pretty close to the back of the box.

jeff
 
#5
update

Hi Guys,

Well, I called the company. The owner answered the call and was super helpful and friendly. The key info he provided is that the port diameter was actually 1.375", no filter was used and all the interior walls except the baffle were lined with 1/2" foam carpet underlayment. Talk about a simple design to build!
Unfortunately, he could not remember the port length and I'm not yet equipped to determine the best port length for a 1.375 diameter port in a .35CF cabinet. If someone can give me a suggested length I will have everything I need to complete the project. I will report back when they are finished. Based on reviews of the original Mini Me s, I think these could be very nice and perhaps even compare quite well with the Whestones and Bandits. Time will tell.

Best,
​Jay
 
#6
Jay - next time you're talking to Louis ask him if he's still playing my Dead Can Dance Spirit Chaser CD - inadvertently left behind in his VSAC demo room in 2003😉

His Super3 bipoles ( Fostex drivers at the time) were stupidly good

v9.jpg
 
#7
Drjay said:
Unfortunately, he could not remember the port length and I'm not yet equipped to determine the best port length for a 1.375 diameter port in a .35CF cabinet. If someone can give me a suggested length I will have everything I need to complete the project. I will report back when they are finished.
Click to expand...

Based on some simple comparison with images on the internet, I believe the port inside diameter to be 1.75", not 1.375". I used the known bezel diameter (116mm) of the TB 1052SD as my reference. So using the previous box tuning of 60Hz, and a port diameter of 1.75", we get a length of 3.85". Lets call it 4" for convenience. If we model the box with a 1.375 diameter port, it would be just over 2" long, which it is clearly not, looking at pictures of the Mini Me.

It would be really nice if someone had a pair of these speakers that they could measure to confirm my theory.

jeff
 
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#8
I hope someone who has Mini Me s will give us that port info. Louis said that the port he used was an adjustable one fastened with 4 screws and the only ones that PE sells which fit that description are either 2" or 1 3/8". An odd thing though, all the photos of the Mini Me s I have seen appear to have ports with flared ends which are not retained by screws.

Cheers,
Jay
 
#10
I found a close up picture of a Mini Me driver and port and was able to use calipers comparing them on the computer screen and it appears that the port is actually the standard PE 1 3/4" flared port. I'm about ready to start building using this port at a 4" length using the original exact cabinet dimensions and sound damping material. I have the components on hand to add the filter used in the Whetstones, but given the very positive past reviews of the Mini Me s am thinking I should skip the filter. There may have been some special synergy going on in the original design. Any thoughts regarding this would be appreciated.

Cheers,
Jay
 
#12
I am not sure if it is a notch filter, but I think it is not The actual recommended filter is a 1.5 Mh inductor in parallel with a 9.1 Ohm resistor and a 1.0 uf capacitor. The capacitor was not part of the original filter but was suggested as a way to "get some top end sparkle". So, what would a filter like this do?
 
#13
It's a low-pass shelving filter intended to compensate for baffle step losses; the cap limits the BW it covers somewhat, reducing HF attenuation. One word of warning -watch it with filters like this. They can often go too far. Nominally the losses are -6dB below the step frequency, but that assumes free-space positioning. In practice, you don't often need as much as that (if any) if the speakers are anywhere near a boundary.
 
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