As others have commented, these speakers seems beautiful and different from other horns. I did think they were "Hedlund-ish" and was thinking of building the Hedlunds. I have FE206EN's (Qts .19) so I am intrigued by your design. The Acousta Horns look slightly simpler to build. In the video they are setup in free space so there is no corner loading and because they're hanging no floor contact. It's hard to discern the bass response...
Can you suggest how to modify the Fostex so that the back end of the magnet can exist outside the cabinet. How did you seal the back of the Lowther? Any other details would great.
BTW, when I tried to copy the image I got a picture of you come up....
Can you suggest how to modify the Fostex so that the back end of the magnet can exist outside the cabinet. How did you seal the back of the Lowther? Any other details would great.
BTW, when I tried to copy the image I got a picture of you come up....
Hi, here my design, Zen Acousta.
Back loading horn with field coil Lowther drive.
My apologies for such a late entry. The speakers at BAF were extraordinarily
imaginative and beautiful.
As others have commented, these speakers seems beautiful and different from other horns. I did think they were "Hedlund-ish" and was thinking of building the Hedlunds. I have FE206EN's (Qts .19) so I am intrigued by your design. The Acousta Horns look slightly simpler to build. In the video they are setup in free space so there is no corner loading and because they're hanging no floor contact. It's hard to discern the bass response...
Can you suggest how to modify the Fostex so that the back end of the magnet can exist outside the cabinet. How did you seal the back of the Lowther? Any other details would great.
BTW, when I tried to copy the image I got a picture of you come up....
Hi Faithintruth
My Zen Acousta just combine with Hedlund horn and Lowther Acousta, the bass are deeper, faster and less coloration.
As the picture, my field coil magnet are huge, 5'1/2inch wide, I made a wood adaptor and use blanket to seal the gap.
For other driver, you may make a wood box to cover the magnet, like Lowther Acousta as picture show.
Thank for watching!
KoHo
Attachments
My apologies for such a late entry. The speakers at BAF were extraordinarily
imaginative and beautiful.
Thank you very much Nelson!!!
Are those wood phase plug working OK with your field coil magnet?
Thinking about suspending 'em ?Very interesting simple testing about hanging a soundboards.
Finger tap, hanging are more frequency response than sitting on the floor.
Which is different than hanging
( which is different also from a person holding something )
hint: 10 rubber bands per side , 5 at the top and 5 at the bottom , all attached to a frame may be bouncing a little ...
I should try the gum strips which are used for replacing the weights ( for bodybuilding...) in the stretch exercises .
Hello Koho,
Thanks for explaining things a little more. I'm a little stuck on how the FE206EN will be stuck out the back. It's probably my inexperience, but the sound off the back of a speaker is important. Is the air coming off the back of the cone more important/useful...this part of your field coil is contained within the "compression chamber" area of the horn.
Thanks for the diagram from the original acousta horn. It clearly shows the magnet has an escape hatch below it which seems to indicate something valuable.
Still, I'd like to try this! If anyone out there has tried it with the FE206en please share!
Thanks, Sean
Thanks for explaining things a little more. I'm a little stuck on how the FE206EN will be stuck out the back. It's probably my inexperience, but the sound off the back of a speaker is important. Is the air coming off the back of the cone more important/useful...this part of your field coil is contained within the "compression chamber" area of the horn.
Thanks for the diagram from the original acousta horn. It clearly shows the magnet has an escape hatch below it which seems to indicate something valuable.
Still, I'd like to try this! If anyone out there has tried it with the FE206en please share!
Thanks, Sean
Hello Koho,
Thanks for explaining things a little more. I'm a little stuck on how the FE206EN will be stuck out the back. It's probably my inexperience, but the sound off the back of a speaker is important. Is the air coming off the back of the cone more important/useful...this part of your field coil is contained within the "compression chamber" area of the horn.
Thanks for the diagram from the original acousta horn. It clearly shows the magnet has an escape hatch below it which seems to indicate something valuable.
Still, I'd like to try this! If anyone out there has tried it with the FE206en please share!
Thanks, Sean
Hi
The depth of FE206En is 3"1/2
And the depth of Zen Acousta throat area is total 3"3/4 (drive section).
Look like just make a one piece of 1/2 ply to cover the magnet area hole.
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any fr response measurements?
Just my ear😊
Would like to know any equipment for measuring.
Thank!
Use a $2 Panasonic wm61a mic capsule, wire according to this
John Conover: Using the Panasonic WM61A as a Measurement Microphone
Download Holmimpulse software here
HOLM Acoustics
It's not absolute calibrated, but not necessary for speaker designing or building. Wm61a is very flat out of the box and Holmimpulse even has default calibration file.
John Conover: Using the Panasonic WM61A as a Measurement Microphone
Download Holmimpulse software here
HOLM Acoustics
It's not absolute calibrated, but not necessary for speaker designing or building. Wm61a is very flat out of the box and Holmimpulse even has default calibration file.
highly recommend holm, been using it for a long time, I do not do any speaker without it
Audio Pages: HOLM Acoustics
with behringer microphone, its more expensive, but not that much, and its often on sale
Behringer ECM8000 Measurement Microphone 248-625
Audio Pages: HOLM Acoustics
with behringer microphone, its more expensive, but not that much, and its often on sale
Behringer ECM8000 Measurement Microphone 248-625
I'll bet the Behringer mic uses the wm61a capsules inside Just a note for the budget minded user, the Behringer is an XLR mic with phantom power requirement. So you can't just plug it into the mic input of your laptop sound card. A similar mic with built in USB pre-amp is available somewhere as I recall for about the same price. So that may make sense too.
Btw, the wm61a's are reaching end-of-life and Panasonic will be discontinuing them. You may want to order a dozen so to have for a rainy day...
Btw, the wm61a's are reaching end-of-life and Panasonic will be discontinuing them. You may want to order a dozen so to have for a rainy day...
Zen Acousta improvement plan
Here the improvement plans, longer horn and smoother curve.
Horn wide 13.5"(inside).
Thanks
Here the improvement plans, longer horn and smoother curve.
Horn wide 13.5"(inside).
Thanks
Attachments
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Simulation of Zen Acousta 2 in AkAbak
KoHo,
This is a very beautiful design. I just modeled it in AkAbak using the detailed geometry you provided for a variety of typical drivers that you would consider: Lowther DX4, Fostex FE206E, Tang Band W8-1772. The design has excellent bass gain but according to the sims, will have a deep dip the frequency response from about 150 Hz to 350 Hz. From the impulse response, which shows a very long tail of ringing - will have a sound quality that reverberates quite a lot - like echoes in a Gothic cathedral.
The first sets of frequency response (SPL vs Freq) are for the speaker very far away from walls with 2.83V input with mic at 1 m away. The black curve is the overall output of the direct driver radiation plus the horn output. The red line is the driver direct radiation. The green line is the horn mouth output alone. Notice that there are a lot of horn harmonics leaking out as the curves are smooth and there are no sharp turns to act as low-pass acoustical filters. I have actually added stuffing to try to damp this down (stuffing from closed end up to driver).
Fostex FE206E
Tang Band W8-1772
Lowther DX4
I think I like the response of the Lowther, although the Tang Band is pretty nice too. Now, I place the speaker in a room with the back wall 60 in away (from back of speaker cabinet) with the DX4 as the driver.
SPL vs Freq (the bass shelf is flattened out with reinforcement from the back wall)
Impedance
Driver Cone Excursion (don't drive more than a few watts!)
Impulse Response
KoHo,
This is a very beautiful design. I just modeled it in AkAbak using the detailed geometry you provided for a variety of typical drivers that you would consider: Lowther DX4, Fostex FE206E, Tang Band W8-1772. The design has excellent bass gain but according to the sims, will have a deep dip the frequency response from about 150 Hz to 350 Hz. From the impulse response, which shows a very long tail of ringing - will have a sound quality that reverberates quite a lot - like echoes in a Gothic cathedral.
The first sets of frequency response (SPL vs Freq) are for the speaker very far away from walls with 2.83V input with mic at 1 m away. The black curve is the overall output of the direct driver radiation plus the horn output. The red line is the driver direct radiation. The green line is the horn mouth output alone. Notice that there are a lot of horn harmonics leaking out as the curves are smooth and there are no sharp turns to act as low-pass acoustical filters. I have actually added stuffing to try to damp this down (stuffing from closed end up to driver).
Fostex FE206E
Tang Band W8-1772
Lowther DX4
I think I like the response of the Lowther, although the Tang Band is pretty nice too. Now, I place the speaker in a room with the back wall 60 in away (from back of speaker cabinet) with the DX4 as the driver.
SPL vs Freq (the bass shelf is flattened out with reinforcement from the back wall)
Impedance
Driver Cone Excursion (don't drive more than a few watts!)
Impulse Response
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