Yeah, most likely an artifact of their low rez pics.
They looked pretty normal watching any of the youtube videos.
jeff
It's the standard production dome assembly; the differences are suspension & motor related.
Can you summarize what are the differences between your project and the previous one posted by @Hondasnl ? A note about the impact of each type of the damping material as well as its amount on the sound would be very helpful to fine tune other individual projects too.
Hi qbas, I have determined the dimensions very precisely by means of many photographs of the original Sibelius. Furthermore, the measurements show that after application of a measured amount of damping material, the Voight pipe is exactly tuned to the 10.2 driver.
Hi!
Yer, I just watched the Sterephile YouTube from Axpona…
Harley seems to get good reviews.. probably the first time for a lot of Americans to hear his speakers..( they are not easily available to listen to in Australia 🇦🇺 either)
Have any of you DIY guys had a chance to listen to them, and are they much better than your diy speakers?
I see his price has gone up to $9000 USD… ouch 😓!
Yer, I just watched the Sterephile YouTube from Axpona…
Harley seems to get good reviews.. probably the first time for a lot of Americans to hear his speakers..( they are not easily available to listen to in Australia 🇦🇺 either)
Have any of you DIY guys had a chance to listen to them, and are they much better than your diy speakers?
I see his price has gone up to $9000 USD… ouch 😓!
Hi JohnnyDee, i have heard the original sibelius speakers in the listening room in belgium and i hear no difference with my diy speakers. the sound is really fantastic and these are 100% definitely my end game speakers.
hi Wil_NL!
Great work and great result! And thanks for sharing your design and details!
Have you had the opportunity to hear if there is a difference in sound between the Birch ply and solid Oak boxes?
I’m guessing that as the material is so thick, that the difference is minimal?
Great work and great result! And thanks for sharing your design and details!
Have you had the opportunity to hear if there is a difference in sound between the Birch ply and solid Oak boxes?
I’m guessing that as the material is so thick, that the difference is minimal?
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Lol whoa, these things are 9k? I need to get into the business of scamming people like God damn. How do ppl fall for this stuff still?
Hi JohnnyDee, a friend has build the Sibelius with birch ply and there is no difference in sound. the point is simply that the cabinet itself is dead.
@wafflesomd, the Sibelius is made of solid oak planks of A-quality, without knots and such. They leave these in their workshop for a long time to prevent warping. then they are made by hand under miter to a super tight cabinet. That may cost a bit! This year the price has been increased, because they want to enter the American market and spend a lot on promotion. and the Sibelius sounds better than super expensive speakers (with lots of drivers and expensive filter component) that cost many times as much!
@wafflesomd, the Sibelius is made of solid oak planks of A-quality, without knots and such. They leave these in their workshop for a long time to prevent warping. then they are made by hand under miter to a super tight cabinet. That may cost a bit! This year the price has been increased, because they want to enter the American market and spend a lot on promotion. and the Sibelius sounds better than super expensive speakers (with lots of drivers and expensive filter component) that cost many times as much!
To be fair, it was a brave move making speaker with a known driver that you can (could*) buy for £150 and was available to the DIY community. You could do some maths on how much the cabinet costs, labour, shipping, finishing, boxing shipping, add some profit some more shipping, double the price for dealer margins, tax, tariffs, import export fees etc. Then factor in promotion, shows, adverts, reviews etc...
£9k feels like a lot, but he is still in business. You could build something similar in 24mm ply for £600? People that can pay £9k for a pair of speakers are probably not going to want to diy.
It's definitely not a scam, but I bet his margins are better than most producers as the volumes are likely very low.
It's just overpriced non-sense like anything at that price really. You can buy state of the art monitors and room treatment for that price. Just a total rip off in every sense. Just because your business sells doesn't mean the product doesn't take advantage of it's consumers. Lets be honest, people buying a full range driver speaker for 9k are not going be educated in audio in really any way, just need some ignorant customers, good marketing, and flowery language and you can separate dumb dumbs from their money pretty easily.
I like that Harley has always encouraged people to build their own. This is an end product of much testing and tweaking.
He was on the forums long before the sibelius was a retail thing.
I see no reason not to make it out of 3/4” Baltic birch……….
I think it is a wonderful overall design using the driver’s boosted bass making up for baffle step (I think).
I think a lot is coming out of the opening.
Any measurements of what is coming out of it ?
He was on the forums long before the sibelius was a retail thing.
I see no reason not to make it out of 3/4” Baltic birch……….
I think it is a wonderful overall design using the driver’s boosted bass making up for baffle step (I think).
I think a lot is coming out of the opening.
Any measurements of what is coming out of it ?
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@norman bates
one reason is that the driver Harley uses is proprietary....similar to a Mark Audio Alpair unit... but not the same. and the 10.2/ 3 units are end of line and hard to get
therefore choose a current or available driver and build a purpose-designed enclosure for that driver by Dave and Scott who typically specify baltic birch. there are frugel horns, pencils and configurations pretty similar to the Sibelius.
one reason is that the driver Harley uses is proprietary....similar to a Mark Audio Alpair unit... but not the same. and the 10.2/ 3 units are end of line and hard to get
therefore choose a current or available driver and build a purpose-designed enclosure for that driver by Dave and Scott who typically specify baltic birch. there are frugel horns, pencils and configurations pretty similar to the Sibelius.
Id do great, if I had no conscience. There's basically a playbook one can follow to rip people off, it's all in the marketing. Create cult of personality around the designer, use lots of marketing buzzwords you can copy and paste from other rip off speaker companies, keep parts costs low and msrp sky high since humans have reptile brains that think higher cost is better. Make sure to market your boutique xover parts and construction process with fancy pictures. There, youve got a modern rip off speaker company. You barely even have to try just, just capitalize on people's insecurities. Its easy. Make sure to say stuff like "sounds like the musician is in the room with you".
Almost embarrassed to associate myself with this hobby.
I have visited many audio fairs including DIY meetings and was always disappointed until I heard the Sibelius at an audio fair in the Netherlands. Finally a speaker that sounded natural to me as if the musician was sitting in front of me. No exaggerated highs and lows like all those unaffordable brand speakers with super expensive drivers and filter components. If you deliver that quality and also a beautiful design of solid oak, 9K is a bargain compared to all those expensive brand speakers. So please stop shouting that the Sibelius is a scam. First go and listen before you shout something about the price of the driver and such, which you cannot know by the way, because it is produced separately for Pearl Acoustics. For me personally the price was unfortunately too high and I chose to make the best possible copy with the Alpair 10.2 driver. That is what this thread is about and not whether the original speaker is too expensive, which I do not think by the way.
Probably most of us are here, because “ Shop bought Hifi” is Expensive and we get more satisfaction from building our own and Saving money!
I don’t see Harley as a Bandit… he’s not forcing you to buy his gear!!
I Believe Wil_NL said that Harley told him what material he uses for his internal speaker box piece… Harley obviously doesn’t mind if people build clones of his speakers!
Personally, I think 🤔 that Harley has done the Hifi world a service, in showing that a well designed Single driver speaker can compete with Multi driver speakers… this seems evident from the Axpona Hifi show.
Sadly, I haven’t heard his gear or spoken to him.. ( Australia 🇦🇺 is a long way from anywhere!,)
Before I was aware of the Sibelius speaker, I started developing a speaker of similar design using an 8 inch driver… it took 10 boxes of different construction and dimensions to get something that I was proud of! And then it was time to work on getting a better driver! …. Once I saw Harley’s speakers, I was encouraged to keep developing them!
I looked at making a little backyard hobby/ business selling my speakers and decided that it wasn’t going to work.
So, good for Harley, for not giving up,!
I’m guessing Harley wasted a lot of time developing his speaker. That costs something!
The Cube Audio boys claim that it took them 2 years of Zero income to develop their first driver that they were happy with… apparently someone has to pay for that, they are eye wateringly expensive!
My 2 cents… Keep making stuff and enjoying it!
In Hifi,
I don’t see Harley as a Bandit… he’s not forcing you to buy his gear!!
I Believe Wil_NL said that Harley told him what material he uses for his internal speaker box piece… Harley obviously doesn’t mind if people build clones of his speakers!
Personally, I think 🤔 that Harley has done the Hifi world a service, in showing that a well designed Single driver speaker can compete with Multi driver speakers… this seems evident from the Axpona Hifi show.
Sadly, I haven’t heard his gear or spoken to him.. ( Australia 🇦🇺 is a long way from anywhere!,)
Before I was aware of the Sibelius speaker, I started developing a speaker of similar design using an 8 inch driver… it took 10 boxes of different construction and dimensions to get something that I was proud of! And then it was time to work on getting a better driver! …. Once I saw Harley’s speakers, I was encouraged to keep developing them!
I looked at making a little backyard hobby/ business selling my speakers and decided that it wasn’t going to work.
So, good for Harley, for not giving up,!
I’m guessing Harley wasted a lot of time developing his speaker. That costs something!
The Cube Audio boys claim that it took them 2 years of Zero income to develop their first driver that they were happy with… apparently someone has to pay for that, they are eye wateringly expensive!
My 2 cents… Keep making stuff and enjoying it!
In Hifi,