Zenith 360° Omni Speakers Remember 'Em ?

[Wavewhipper]

Do any of you remember these Zenith Omni speakers ? I haven't seen them or any technology like them anywhere since the 70's. I'm thinking of making something like them with a decent concentrically configured 3 way coaxial and up-firing it into a cone. But I suppose the curve of the cone is beyond my enthusiasm to go through the modeling to get it best. I could get it but it looks like a lot of work.

Now I am also wondering if there is a way to evenly blend separate drivers through a wave tube to a 180° cone section and make a 180° front only configuration.
Both look complicated to blend the full spectrum into a full 180° dispersion.

 

[studiotech]

I had those exact speakers! I removed the original driver and added a decent coax. Used them for several years as surrounds.

For 180, look at the recent B&O designs.

http://www.bang-olufsen.com/en/sound/loudspeakers/beolab-5

or Sausalito Audio Works

http://www.moultonlabs.com/dave_more/what_happens_when_our_willing_suspension/

Greg

 

[Pano]

I remember those! And the Empire version, too.

 

[planet10]

I've had at least a dozen variations of that concept. Electrohome was big into these.

dave

 

[Pano]

Hurray Electrohome!

 

[Juhazi]

Duevel Bella Luna speakers are today's top omnis Duevel high-end loudspeakers

We have many omni threads and projects here like this http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/full-range/181131-diffusor-cone-profile.html

 

[Wavewhipper]

Now I find many designs of them because I searched with omni speakers this time. Maybe only the mid and highs need dispersed. Bass gets the lowly treatment again. And what do you know, someone DID something close to the sonic tube feed.

 

[jplesset]

I remember, back in the '60s, a Tannoy that looked rather similar. Sounded pretty good, too. You might want to look at the Linkwitz "Pluto" PLUTO-2.1 omni-directional loudspeaker

 

[Wavewhipper]

Thanks but I'd rather stick with the Zenith design. Plenty of good info there, and at a glance it looks like he goes to the effort to get the phase corrected with a delay brigade. This is the stuff I was looking for. I do not know sonics well enough, yet.

 

[Face]

I picked up a pair for $10 not too long ago. I am going to put Tannoy 6.5" coax drivers in them and see how they sound.

 

[Wavewhipper]

Here comes my dislike, not to be insulting, I had been holding off to say it, and now that money is being spent, I start blowing the air instead of before.

The bass those Zenith Omni's had as I remember, has a sort of muted boomy sound I call the department store speaker sound, or otherwise, a 3 beer speaker.

 

[jmsent]

My dorm roommate had one of those "Circle of Sound" Zenith systems with the exact same speakers. It was worse than terrible.

 

[Wavewhipper]

Except for the dispersion right ? I have some RCA Linaeum Pro LX-550's and it's sort of like the sound comes from somewhere but is difficult to pinpoint. Still the stereo imaging is correct. And the generation of tweeters that came with them has plenty of extended highs. I can't hear much difference between them and the Nano Fine 40khz polycarb domes in Sony SS B1000's I have. The Nano's do have a slightly better ring, excellent 180° dispersion but stand anywhere with a Linaeum and you get direct highs. Both, maybe due to the recording engineer or my Zenith dvd player show some hash on a cymbal crash.

I can listen to this sort of speaker much longer than a beamer.

 

[jmsent]

They were just so fundamentally "wrong" that the dispersion aspect was moot. I'm not saying there isn't some potential to the idea, but you'd never be able to prove it by this design.

 

[phivates]

so you mean bad mean bad?

 

[Wavewhipper]

I guess Pioneer and some others made an improved version. CS-07 is one, even found some plots on it.

 

[phivates]

The Pioneer is a different animal, a 2 or 3 way with multiple mids and/or tweets with only the bass driver firing into a conical omnifusor...spellcheck disapproves...so your Zenith is in a class with my Philco and who knows how many FR + cone Yorx class gems.

 

[Wavewhipper]

Yea Zenith had the idea but didn't go the full route of engineering.

I guess a properly configured 180° dispersion system is good enough now. Those semi-dome poly carb tweeters do an excellent job of dispersion with the lens. And that's where most of the beaming came from. I haven't been able to hear a good soft dome tweeter yet, if better than a semi-dome/lens tweet then wow.

 

[hitsware]

An externally hosted image should be here but it was not working when we last tested it.

These work pretty good ..............

 

[phivates]

My shop landlord has a pair of those. Guess I'll hook em and see, or hear. The drivers don't look terrible.