Whoa - some great ideas here!
Building a on-wall speaker using a horn construction is an idea I have not seen before.
Have to read up on the different options, but please add more of you have something to suggest or share.
I’m also looking into small to medium bookshelf speakers with closed box or ports with front ports, that might be a viable option to a design only for on-wall.
I have B&W SCM’s in my cinema room, and she seems to like that design - so something in that direction might be an option.
Building a on-wall speaker using a horn construction is an idea I have not seen before.
Have to read up on the different options, but please add more of you have something to suggest or share.
I’m also looking into small to medium bookshelf speakers with closed box or ports with front ports, that might be a viable option to a design only for on-wall.
I have B&W SCM’s in my cinema room, and she seems to like that design - so something in that direction might be an option.
Two very different design approaches here so far.. complementary wall reflections and mixed up ones.
Does the SCM lend itself to either approach?
Does the SCM lend itself to either approach?
I stumbled upon this Tectonic-TEBM65C20F-8-3-1-2-BMR-Full-Range-Speaker-297-2156 at Parts Express. 3.5", supposed to have "extended frequency response and wide dispersion compared to that of a conventional drive unit". Apparently these things you can turn 90 deg off axis and still hear everything.
I dont know what would happen if you did that 90 degree trick up against a wall. Thinking a long skinny hanging baffle, such that the backwave of the driver doesnt go bam, right up against the back of a flat-ish enclosure. For $12 a pop, they supposedly cover 60 Hz to 20k, have 4.5 stars across 56 reviews - perhaps there's something to the "new" technology for this application.
I dont know what would happen if you did that 90 degree trick up against a wall. Thinking a long skinny hanging baffle, such that the backwave of the driver doesnt go bam, right up against the back of a flat-ish enclosure. For $12 a pop, they supposedly cover 60 Hz to 20k, have 4.5 stars across 56 reviews - perhaps there's something to the "new" technology for this application.
The Overnight Sensations are not really on wall designs, but Carmody had the bookshelf in mind with this ones. I think he incorporated some baffle step correction and because the enclosure is fairly deep and the units have about zero directivity the use on wall won't be perfect. These are no disco speakers of course. And you could change the cabinet a bit indeed.
Perhaps you will find some inspiration here.
First build: Slim wall speakers. Some startup questions
First build: Slim wall speakers. Some startup questions
You might want to look at Jeff Bagby's Continuum II for this application up against the wall. It's fully sealed and modelled after the famous BBC LS3/5a studio monitor. Fairly small. Only 8.5" deep. Great reviews and very reasonable kit price at Meniscus Audio.
Here is the write up:
https://meniscus.lightningbasehosted.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/Continuum-Writeup.pdf
What is more interesting to know is what parameters do we have to aim for when designing loudspeakers for on-wall or against the wall placement.
How predictable is the bass gain in a given room or in any room but just taken wall placement into account? . For example if I design a freestanding loudspeaker with an Fs of 30Hz and a Q of 0.7 how does that translate to a on-wall design? Is is just enough to design for a lower Q factor like 0.3~0.5 or do we have to aim at a higher roll-off frequency as well?
How predictable is the bass gain in a given room or in any room but just taken wall placement into account? . For example if I design a freestanding loudspeaker with an Fs of 30Hz and a Q of 0.7 how does that translate to a on-wall design? Is is just enough to design for a lower Q factor like 0.3~0.5 or do we have to aim at a higher roll-off frequency as well?
As has been said before the question is not about the bass, but about the almost complete absence of the baffle step when addressing in- or onwall speakers. That baffle step usually occurs somewhere around 700-800Hz (almost an octave above grand C on the piano). So the discussion isn't about bass tuning, it's about bass and mid tuning (or maybe high tuning?). The fine apps The Edge and Basta! from Tolvan can simulate this fairly simple.
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Well, I'm not so sure about that. When I put a couple of bass cabinets against the wall, without any baffle step correction there is simply a lot of room gain in the lower registers. In fact I had to apply something like an inverse baffle step to them in the form of a lowshelf filter of -8dB starting at around 200Hz. The total difference in output at 40Hz was about 14dB higher compared to freestanding. So it's not only about the absence of baffle step. Take for instance the boundary woofers from Lyngdorf. They are very small closed box designs that have no lowbass output to speake off when used in open space bt only work because of corner coupling. Another example is the Dutch and Dutch 8C. This one also relies on wall coupling. I have heard them freespace and they severerly lack low-bass then. Against a wall they do fine. Now the question is, what parameters do we design for when designing on-wall / against the wall loudspeakers. This is not very good documented anywhere I believe, or at least not that I know off. It would be very interesting to many people who want to place there loudspekers against a wall.
Canada company M3 On-Wall Speakers | Axiom Audio
The M3 may give some design ideas with a little searching around their website.
The M3 may give some design ideas with a little searching around their website.
An externally hosted image should be here but it was not working when we last tested it.
pretty, but not anything really different from stuff discussed already.
The immediate differences with wall mount is that the transition from 2π to 4π radiation (ie baffle step). The nature of this changes. If the speaker has a sufficiently small depth with relation to its width there is no tranistion and one gets too much bass with a speaker designed to be pulled out from the wall. If that is not true there is a transition zone where radiation goes from 2π to 4π and back to 2π with some “bipole/on-wall” dip.
dave
what happens if i also sit close to the wall behind me, the increased gain should that be compensated for too? (in the loudspeaker design)
Matt,
While pushing a loudspeaker onto a wall one does excite greater modes, but that in no way means one will get one note bass, that is just bad design.
dave
While pushing a loudspeaker onto a wall one does excite greater modes, but that in no way means one will get one note bass, that is just bad design.
dave
Not very. If you look at the plots that planet10 posted you can see just how little separation from the wall is needed before the direct and reflected sound get out of step, and show modal behaviour. If you were to extend those plots to show the case for more common speaker box depths, the modal effects would be the main apparent difference.
Some of these wont be equalisable, successfully. It becomes apparent that once you get this close to a wall, there is a benefit to doing a specific on-wall type of design. There will be considerations across the spectrum.