if i understand well a good option could be sandwiching a stiff material with a damping one ? like what is asked to a woofer cone ?
again i see many challenges This is the most challenging task in building a speaker and it is not talked about very much
High end manufacturers propose hugely expensive options If to achieve the goal costs so much this provide a measure of the challenge
like going to the moon
and this i could very well understand But after this discussion if someone's goal is to built a great cabinet and choose MDF only i would be suspicious Then i agree that is cheap and easy to work with But very far from ideal
i would accept it only for cheap speakers Not more elaborate one
i see And what about panzerholz ? i am joking It must be more expensive than metal Impressive dead material against vibes anyway
i have seen it used for turntable bases Impressive I do not know nothing of its stiffness
hi honestly i am more impressed by the price My lead loaded speakers are about that weight each I think we weighted them about 20kg
i am willing to accept and heavy speaker It will be tough to place but then it will not move for years
i called it subwooder wrongly
It will be bass way of a sat plus bass system like the one in the following picture
the concept to follow is the speaker above I have already some small 2 ways that could fit above the bass box
the woofer is not a problem of course The woofer box is the only very challenging issue It will make or break the entire speaker
the sat in comparison is a joke
yes i agree with you But i have the feeling that even with a cost object approach some solutions could provide very satisfactory results
Fwiu the cabinet construction represent a good portion of some high end louspeakers cost Maybe i am wrong
Hi Randy thank you very much for the kind and valuable advice
If i had to choose a direction i would use plywood with some kind of metal internal bracing bolt to the wood
Strange that metal bracing and bolts are not more popular That kind of bracing would be super stiff
sorry to repeat myself but this has struck my immagination
If i had to choose a direction i would use plywood with some kind of metal internal bracing bolt to the wood
Strange that metal bracing and bolts are not more popular That kind of bracing would be super stiff
sorry to repeat myself but this has struck my immagination
You'll drive me crazy! 😛
May be, maybe someone has already done "sandwiching" (indeed, certainly) and had excellent results, who knows? 😉
IF?!? 🙄🙄🙄
It took him 35 years to gain such an experience that few can have.
When do you think you'll start? 😳
Okay, but yet you talked about a 15" woofer or I'm wrong?
Will it be easy to cross it with that little woofer up there? 🤔
However, the picture it's a nice system, I like it. 👍
But in my opinion it's not a joke to even build a small box, even more audible resonances may result from a cabinet not perfectly done. IMO
you mean that a 15" cant reach 300 Hz ? ok lets say 12 " to be sure of that
I hate one piece tall speakers like towers I would cut them all in the middle sure that the result will be much better
it is a little like with amps Bass need brute force amps Mids and highs need more finesse
I read that some old PA systems used solid state on woofers and tubes on horns
I believe everything has its own way to do it well (Horatius said: "Est modus in rebus"), so it may even be possible to do it but between a 15" woofer and a mid-woofer I guess the distance is maybe a bit excessive for an optimal result
I think this happens because tubes generally have a rather warm bass, while solid state (generally more powerful too) is more punchy and tight, but even here it's difficult to generalize.
My dispassionate opinion?
The possible combinations of amplifiers, sources, speakers, DACs and everything else is such that, just like with PCs, no two configurations are the same.
So, at this point, thinking about it, what's the point of theorizing so much?
One starts with what he has (I think I've already said this), then goes through the desire to change something to improve everything.
And from then on, it never stops.
But this is my view.
So, we are eagerly awaiting your own practical view... 👍
I think this happens because tubes generally have a rather warm bass, while solid state (generally more powerful too) is more punchy and tight, but even here it's difficult to generalize.
My dispassionate opinion?
The possible combinations of amplifiers, sources, speakers, DACs and everything else is such that, just like with PCs, no two configurations are the same.
So, at this point, thinking about it, what's the point of theorizing so much?
One starts with what he has (I think I've already said this), then goes through the desire to change something to improve everything.
And from then on, it never stops.
But this is my view.
So, we are eagerly awaiting your own practical view... 👍
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So many ways to build a good cabinet.
Commercial speakers typically cut corners or get away with clever bracing.
Sadly high quality birch ply is getting difficult to get in EU. I personally think that is the best wood for speakers.
In my experience push push woofer absolutely runs corner with subwoofer with only one driver. Also woofers don’t have to be mounted closed to each other or bolted together to benefit from the princip.
Commercial speakers typically cut corners or get away with clever bracing.
Sadly high quality birch ply is getting difficult to get in EU. I personally think that is the best wood for speakers.
In my experience push push woofer absolutely runs corner with subwoofer with only one driver. Also woofers don’t have to be mounted closed to each other or bolted together to benefit from the princip.
I think @planet10 is master at bracing techniques and gave good advise on page one.
In the clever bracing, I could elaborate that we often see they add only one bracing between tweeter and woofer. On reviews that analyze panel vibrations, we see often a resonance at 500-600. Is this bad? I guess it depends. You could use several more braces and then maybe end with resonances in the 1000-3000 hz area which I would say is worse.
IME I find glueing bitumen on inner walls of cabinet with relative decent thickness ie 18 mm, complete waste of time and material. It is different story with thin material. Like car door of backplate of tweeter. Very effective.
For common enclosure with not big woofers I think Company Lindemanns idea with 9 mm ply, 4 mm cork, non hard glue, 9 mm ply to be a very nice CLC concept.
It is all compromises.
You could build fine cabinet from MDF, but I think life is too short to build from that dusty material.
In the clever bracing, I could elaborate that we often see they add only one bracing between tweeter and woofer. On reviews that analyze panel vibrations, we see often a resonance at 500-600. Is this bad? I guess it depends. You could use several more braces and then maybe end with resonances in the 1000-3000 hz area which I would say is worse.
IME I find glueing bitumen on inner walls of cabinet with relative decent thickness ie 18 mm, complete waste of time and material. It is different story with thin material. Like car door of backplate of tweeter. Very effective.
For common enclosure with not big woofers I think Company Lindemanns idea with 9 mm ply, 4 mm cork, non hard glue, 9 mm ply to be a very nice CLC concept.
It is all compromises.
You could build fine cabinet from MDF, but I think life is too short to build from that dusty material.
hi thank you very much for your valuable advice
after all the discussion i would really stay away from fiberboard for a bass box
Instead thick HDF could be a very valid opion for satellites working lets say from 300Hz up because the resonances will be moved below the sat working range
Also sats with metal box could work very fine even without internal filling maybe
the first time i saw this solution was in the AR9 and then AR93 In this case even a single box solution could work
more recently i saw the concept applied on a strange active speaker
moreover i read that at low frequencies dispersion is spherical
still wonder at how low frequencies Up to 300 Hz ? less ?
this is a reason why the woofer should have its own box fwiu
car doors are made out of metal
yes for extreme stiffness also honeycomb structure could work Not common, hard to work with, very good and so very expensive
HDF is really dense, stiffer MDF. I used it before switching to good ply. If you want to make a floppy cabinet to push resonances down, far from the best material.
The BBC did the work, i would follow that path if that i the way you are going to go.
dave
Depends on the driver & the box, but if you look at some of the radiation diagrams, somewhere around 500 Hz.
dave
Hi thanks a lot again Ok i have to ask now What could be the best and easiest to work with material to push resonances down outside the sat range ? if the answer is MDF it would be a great news indeed
i will look for BBC papers then But if mdf is fine i am done I bought for little money a pair of speakers with broken Focal tweeter The woofers have a 1" coil and i do not like this I prefer 2" coils even for the mids
they are 100% mdf and quite heavy They could work as sat with the right parts
The BBC work is well worth reading, and readily available online. Just put 'BBC loudspeaker research' or something similar into a search engine. Here's a link to one of the most interesting papers: http://downloads.bbc.co.uk/rd/pubs/reports/1977-03.pdf
The principal author was Dudley Harwood, founder of Harbeth.
Be prepared for the fact that the results are quite different from much of what is asserted on this forum about cabinets. For example, the application of damping material does not appear to lower the frequency of resonances noticeably. Anyway, plenty of interesting reading there.
(PS mdf isn't mentioned in that BBC paper as it wasn't a thing back then. Hardboard is mentioned and is similar, but it was only available in very thin panels.)
The principal author was Dudley Harwood, founder of Harbeth.
Be prepared for the fact that the results are quite different from much of what is asserted on this forum about cabinets. For example, the application of damping material does not appear to lower the frequency of resonances noticeably. Anyway, plenty of interesting reading there.
(PS mdf isn't mentioned in that BBC paper as it wasn't a thing back then. Hardboard is mentioned and is similar, but it was only available in very thin panels.)