A discussion was had between Scottmoose and I over wood selection for building horn speakers. Different types of finishes were also discussed. Obviously like anything else in audio, preferences and bias will depend on personal preference & thy ear taste buds. It seems the subject might make a nice discussion thread.
Here is a little of my experience with diff woods and Spawn designs...... This should get the thread started...
I've built three pair of Saburo's and two Sachiko's. One pair of Nagoaka D90's and a pair of Derek Walton inspired voigt pipes from solid pine.
All of them I've built from different wood and used different finishes.
My first Saburo was constructed from 3/4" Maple Ply. The front and sides were covered with Maple veneer to hide the ply edges. I then coated them with a water based General Finishes Polycrylic, which is recommended for Maple as it stays clear and does not yellow like some oil based poly is prone to.
The second set was made from Cherry ply with no veneer. Stained and then coated with the same polycrylic. (easy to work with and clean up)
Both were in my listening room at the same time. (photo below) To this day I still feel the Maple ply had a "livlier" sound. Perhaps quicker sounding? The Cherry had a deeper, robust sound.
One Sachiko was built from Birch ply and the other from Maple ply. A close friend of mine had my original birch ply pair that were painted black. (Photo on the Frugal-Horn splash page) He requested I build another for him from Maple and veneer the front with Mahogany to better match his room. When we swapped out the drivers and fired up the new cabinets, we immediately noticed that the new Maple cabinets had that lively sound I mentioned before.
I have a pair of Maple Saburo's about 3/4ths complete. Perhaps some Mono experiments are in order with one finished and one with no finish??
Would be happy to hear your thoughts and observations regarding wood species and finishes.
Photo below is of the Maple speakers and Cherry ones in my listening room at the same time.
Here is a little of my experience with diff woods and Spawn designs...... This should get the thread started...
I've built three pair of Saburo's and two Sachiko's. One pair of Nagoaka D90's and a pair of Derek Walton inspired voigt pipes from solid pine.
All of them I've built from different wood and used different finishes.
My first Saburo was constructed from 3/4" Maple Ply. The front and sides were covered with Maple veneer to hide the ply edges. I then coated them with a water based General Finishes Polycrylic, which is recommended for Maple as it stays clear and does not yellow like some oil based poly is prone to.
The second set was made from Cherry ply with no veneer. Stained and then coated with the same polycrylic. (easy to work with and clean up)
Both were in my listening room at the same time. (photo below) To this day I still feel the Maple ply had a "livlier" sound. Perhaps quicker sounding? The Cherry had a deeper, robust sound.
One Sachiko was built from Birch ply and the other from Maple ply. A close friend of mine had my original birch ply pair that were painted black. (Photo on the Frugal-Horn splash page) He requested I build another for him from Maple and veneer the front with Mahogany to better match his room. When we swapped out the drivers and fired up the new cabinets, we immediately noticed that the new Maple cabinets had that lively sound I mentioned before.
I have a pair of Maple Saburo's about 3/4ths complete. Perhaps some Mono experiments are in order with one finished and one with no finish??
Would be happy to hear your thoughts and observations regarding wood species and finishes.
Photo below is of the Maple speakers and Cherry ones in my listening room at the same time.
Attachments
Hi Derek -good to see you starting a dedicated thread on this. Usually material threads tend to focus on MDF vs BB arguments, so a broader ranging one could be very useful.
I think key to this are the resonant properties of different materials, their MOE / stiffness - density / weight etc. To say nothing of how they've been treated. All materials behave differently, and in an ideal world need treating differently to control their natural resonant behaviour as desired -either to push it to a frequency where it's unlikely to be excited, or to use their different character to subtly add some coloration.
Personally, I don't want my own speakers to add any of their own colorations to the sound -I'd love to build something out of 10 - 14ga CRS if I could, which would push natural resonance modes way up, out of the cabinet's operating BW. GM has mentioned this idea too.
Reducing audible resonances to ~inaudibility is to all tastes though -some people feel that allowing a natural wood material (solid wood or ply or whatever) to resonate in the cabinet's BW gives a more realistic tonality to the sound of recorded acoustic instruments. Here's a couple of old posts by the late Terry Cain that sets out this alternative take:
And discussing this later...
YMMV, as always. It's not a subject I know much about & there are some very knowledgeable people here, so hopefully we'll see a productive discussion with lots of useful information.
I like the picture of the two pairs of Saburo's BTW.
I think key to this are the resonant properties of different materials, their MOE / stiffness - density / weight etc. To say nothing of how they've been treated. All materials behave differently, and in an ideal world need treating differently to control their natural resonant behaviour as desired -either to push it to a frequency where it's unlikely to be excited, or to use their different character to subtly add some coloration.
Personally, I don't want my own speakers to add any of their own colorations to the sound -I'd love to build something out of 10 - 14ga CRS if I could, which would push natural resonance modes way up, out of the cabinet's operating BW. GM has mentioned this idea too.
Reducing audible resonances to ~inaudibility is to all tastes though -some people feel that allowing a natural wood material (solid wood or ply or whatever) to resonate in the cabinet's BW gives a more realistic tonality to the sound of recorded acoustic instruments. Here's a couple of old posts by the late Terry Cain that sets out this alternative take:
And discussing this later...
YMMV, as always. It's not a subject I know much about & there are some very knowledgeable people here, so hopefully we'll see a productive discussion with lots of useful information.
I like the picture of the two pairs of Saburo's BTW.
The loudspeaker should be viewed as a fine musical instrument. I wish more manufacturers would put the same emphasis on design and fine tuning as do musical instrument makers of violins, cellos, guitars, etc. There is a lot of math using the golden ratio in making a violin and few designs take advantage of tone woods like sitka spruce or maple. I have yet to see many DIY designs using real wood. Perhaps this is because it is significantly more difficult and expensive to build with real wood due to having to account for movement. Yet few expensive commercial designs use real wood. One exception that comes to mind is Sonus Faber and they are absolutely beautiful. Unfortunately, they are very expensive.
Given a larger room, I would love to hear this design. Even at $3,000, I imagine it would be better than most commercial designs costing significantly more.
http://www.linkwitzlab.com/orion_us.htm
Given a larger room, I would love to hear this design. Even at $3,000, I imagine it would be better than most commercial designs costing significantly more.
http://www.linkwitzlab.com/orion_us.htm
Well, it's certainly one view.
However, the riposte is that a loudspeaker is not a musical instrument. A musical instrument produces sound. A loudspeaker reproduces the sound of instruments that have already produced the aforementioned sound & which has been recorded.
So if you design a speaker to resonate like a viola, it's probably going to sound rather good when reproducing a viola, but what happens when you feed it with a signal containing, say, a bassoon? Answer: you get a speaker that produces unnatural colouration.
However, the riposte is that a loudspeaker is not a musical instrument. A musical instrument produces sound. A loudspeaker reproduces the sound of instruments that have already produced the aforementioned sound & which has been recorded.
So if you design a speaker to resonate like a viola, it's probably going to sound rather good when reproducing a viola, but what happens when you feed it with a signal containing, say, a bassoon? Answer: you get a speaker that produces unnatural colouration.
I think this is a very interesting discussion. One side says the cabinet should be dead, the other side says the cabinet should be musical. I have several Victrola's and a Brunswick record player. These are the kinds that do not have any amplification, only mechanical amplification, anyway, no electricity whatsoever.
The Brusnwick horn is all wood, the Victrolas have some kind of metal horn at least at the small end. The Brunswick sounds much better than the Victrola. Of course there are many more viarables, the needles, the diaphragms, the tone-arms, a great deal of variables.
I have to say though that on the boards discussing these things, the wooden horns are much more respected for thier tonality, and the sound reproduction of sounds. I guess the wood resonates in a more natural way? I can say with my small collection that it seems the hardwood horn sounds better to me.
The Brusnwick horn is all wood, the Victrolas have some kind of metal horn at least at the small end. The Brunswick sounds much better than the Victrola. Of course there are many more viarables, the needles, the diaphragms, the tone-arms, a great deal of variables.
I have to say though that on the boards discussing these things, the wooden horns are much more respected for thier tonality, and the sound reproduction of sounds. I guess the wood resonates in a more natural way? I can say with my small collection that it seems the hardwood horn sounds better to me.
I'd be careful about introducing terms like 'one side thinks a cabinet should sound "dead" the other side thinks it should sound "musical" ', because it's very easy to misinterpret.
I do not believe a loudspeaker should sound 'dead.' That implies its over-damped. All I'm stating is that IMO, a loudspeaker is not an instrument. It's a loudspeaker, and therefore, it's task is to accurately reproduce a signal fed into it, not produce tones etc. of its own devising.
That's not to say that a cabinet designed to add a little of its own character to things will sound bad though. Sometimes, it can even help make a duff recording sound good. It's a bit of a shotgun approach though.
I do not believe a loudspeaker should sound 'dead.' That implies its over-damped. All I'm stating is that IMO, a loudspeaker is not an instrument. It's a loudspeaker, and therefore, it's task is to accurately reproduce a signal fed into it, not produce tones etc. of its own devising.
That's not to say that a cabinet designed to add a little of its own character to things will sound bad though.
Sometimes, it can even help make a duff recording sound good. It's a bit of a shotgun approach though.
I think it's safe to say, and I'm unanimous in this (grin), that the recording process removes some information. No matter how good your recording process is, some information is removed. Also the physics of speaker driver design simply does not allow you to exactly reproduce every sound, A speaker is not a human throat, nor is it an oboe, or a violin. It's absolutely amazing that the driver does such a wonderful job.
Therefore, if the recording process (and of course any signal processing and amplification chain) removes some information, and the driver cannot exactly reproduce all the sounds recorded anyway, I think it's fair to say than any school of thought that allows some 'coloration' as you say to inject some of the original quality back in...is meritorious. (Was that a run on sentence?)
Over damped and underdamped? Really the best solution would be to have a specific speaker design for each musical instrument, make the recording of each instrument separate, and then reproduce them in your home with your 50 or 60 different speakers...problem solved. Looks like you have some work to do. I'll just leave you alone.
Therefore, if the recording process (and of course any signal processing and amplification chain) removes some information, and the driver cannot exactly reproduce all the sounds recorded anyway, I think it's fair to say than any school of thought that allows some 'coloration' as you say to inject some of the original quality back in...is meritorious. (Was that a run on sentence?)
Over damped and underdamped? Really the best solution would be to have a specific speaker design for each musical instrument, make the recording of each instrument separate, and then reproduce them in your home with your 50 or 60 different speakers...problem solved. Looks like you have some work to do. I'll just leave you alone.
When I say a loudspeaker should have the same design consideration as a musical instrument, I mean the same level of craftsmanship, attention to detail, and knowledge of acoustics which raises the bar considerably. Speaker enclosures should not resonate with the sound like a violin, but can make the driver more efficiently couple with the air and mechanically compensate for deficiencies in driver response (i.e., back loaded horn). No loudspeaker system should be designed to introduce anything beyond the original recording. Maybe it is a difference of semantics here.
I think the cabinet should definately add something. I think it should make the music reach out and grab. I think it should make me feel like I'm there. Whether it does this by efficently coupling with the air or resonating like a violin...I'm sure is a matter of taste. Baskin robins has 31 different flavors because not everyone has the same taste. If everyone was normal, like me, then baskin robins would only carry chocholate.
I'm sure there are enough speakers out there for everyone!
Some people like to put "buds" in their ears. I for one, like to move a lot of air! I want a big speaker that will vibrate your beer mug off the top. I want there to be so much music coming out of them that it makes people become spontaneously incontinent when I turn them up! I'll let you guys pick your own speakers, out however. As long as we all agree that we like speakers!
I'm sure there are enough speakers out there for everyone!
Some people like to put "buds" in their ears. I for one, like to move a lot of air! I want a big speaker that will vibrate your beer mug off the top. I want there to be so much music coming out of them that it makes people become spontaneously incontinent when I turn them up! I'll let you guys pick your own speakers, out however. As long as we all agree that we like speakers!
schn0354 said:
No, perhaps just a slight lack clarity (?
) -your first post did appear to suggest you were talking about 'tone woods.' Anyway, I agree in principle that there should be a similar level of design consideration / craftsmanship in both.However, back onto the subject of materials, which is what this thread is about. So, here's one to get things moving: I've got an increasing liking for pine, assuming it's dried / sealed properly. It's light, quite stiff & seems to be very effective for some applications I've used it for, providing you And if an audibly resonant cabinet was wanted, it also seems to add a nice mellow tone to some instruments.
There are many guitar fora and sites around on the net about building guitars.
I suggest you check these out for recommendations on the tones of wood. As a guitar has pickups strapped to the wood, the signal from which is then amplified much more so than in many Hi-Fi's, any tonal impact of the wood will be emphasised even more so.
From the top of my head, Mahogany tends to have a deeper sound that can be interpretted as muddy by some unless the pickups and amp are brighter. Mahogany is a favourite for Les Paul like guitars. Maple and Alder tend to be the opposite and used in Strats - ala Gilmour, Hendrix and Van Halen.
Alternatively, some guys sampled the frequency response of multiple bits of wood then digitalised them and stuck them to a piece of standard wood - calling it the Variax.
I suggest you check these out for recommendations on the tones of wood. As a guitar has pickups strapped to the wood, the signal from which is then amplified much more so than in many Hi-Fi's, any tonal impact of the wood will be emphasised even more so.
From the top of my head, Mahogany tends to have a deeper sound that can be interpretted as muddy by some unless the pickups and amp are brighter. Mahogany is a favourite for Les Paul like guitars. Maple and Alder tend to be the opposite and used in Strats - ala Gilmour, Hendrix and Van Halen.
Alternatively, some guys sampled the frequency response of multiple bits of wood then digitalised them and stuck them to a piece of standard wood - calling it the Variax.
Did all kinds of experimenting when I had the Fostex in it, but they sat neglected and driverless until picking up a pair of Pioneer drivers. With those in it, I've done very little experimenting as I had built the Sachiko by that time. I still have them and perhaps I'll put them back in my system and play around with them a bit more, but I'm just not a big fan of the Pioneer B20. I built them so the bottom deflector could be removed. I also played with various amounts of stuffing. Should I try choking off the vent at the bottom a bit more?
I haven't time to run a full MathCAD sim on it just now, but FWIW, I'd probably blank the whole thing off & try them with a 3in x 4in circular port (WxD). I was just wondering about the throat (i.e. the top) as from your picuture, it doesn't appear to come to a point as per the original, but seems slightly trunkated, as was popular a few years back. Or is that just than angle of the photograph fooling me?
Yes, it is slightly truncated at the top. I have some acoustic fill in the top, above the driver now, but it is removable. Here are the rough dimensions of what I used and what inspired my first single driver build.
http://www.iol.ie/~waltonaudio/voigt.html
http://www.iol.ie/~waltonaudio/voigt.html
I think there can be an emotional attachment involved in the materials when you are working with real wood rather than from MDF or chipboard. I know when I use MDF, it feels a little like paint by numbers instead of doing an original drawing. I try and separate this from what I feel when I hear the final loudspeaker but it's sometimes hard to be objective about it.
Peter J. Comeau, currenly editor of HiFi World and ex-MD of Heybrook loudspeakers, has been running articles in the magazine about enclosure materials. His suggestion is for a composite of chipboard and thin MDF, veneered with oak. (Yes, he says the veneer alters the sound.) Interesting reading - some of the articles are on the HiFi World website. When I last looked, it hadn't caught up with the dead tree edition.
Meanwhile, at Computer Audiophile there is an article on violin woods and sound properties.
All good stuff and more rewarding than the usual Birch Ply vs MDF debate.
Peter J. Comeau, currenly editor of HiFi World and ex-MD of Heybrook loudspeakers, has been running articles in the magazine about enclosure materials. His suggestion is for a composite of chipboard and thin MDF, veneered with oak. (Yes, he says the veneer alters the sound.) Interesting reading - some of the articles are on the HiFi World website. When I last looked, it hadn't caught up with the dead tree edition.
Meanwhile, at Computer Audiophile there is an article on violin woods and sound properties.
All good stuff and more rewarding than the usual Birch Ply vs MDF debate.