A DIY Ribbon Speaker of a different Kind

Paul Paddock or Aero

Does anyone know how to get in touch with Paul Paddock or Aero Loudspeakers.
I've emailed Aero but never heard back and there is no phone number listed.
I heard the large Airfoils when they were at the CES and they were impressive.
I emailed a guy on Audiogon who says he has the Airfoils but no reply.
Jim
 
Hi
The electromagnet idea would be
interesting to experiment with
although the concept in the patent
does not seem to be ideal for a
long Bobbin voice coil as in the
DIY French design. Still a few cups
of coffee and some meditation may
yield fresh ideas for a nice full
range wave bender with electromagnets!
Also Moray James was mentioning the silk in tweeters
as I mentioned the Doped Silk in the
best Linaeum ET7 designs.
Getting doped Silk to work consistantly for near full range
wave bending speakers might be a lot of
work. The Linaeums tweeters from RS were using plastic
mylar, I think. Anyone seen or heard the Nearfield
Acoustics Linaeum type tweeters used in their S5 and
S7 models? What is their magic and what material is
used for their membranes?

Regards
AnthonyPT

PS. Paul Pattock is a trombone player so you
might find him via his other profession.
 
not mylar...

take a look at post # 40 above. none of the Lineaum tweeters dipole or monopole that I ever saw/heard were mylar. Fine mesh silk screen material (remember that is polyester (mylar)) could ve very easily damped with a thin layer of silicon fluid it would be simple to apply with a silk screen squeegy on a glass surface. Fabric is alredy very lossy as the fibers can rub when it moves add a little viscose fluid and you will eat up even more energy. You could probably even apply a patern of silicon and I doubt it would migrate much if the viscosity was right. The fluid will want to stay in the voids inbetween the fibers.
Wax paper might also be an interesting diaphragm material. There would be some construction issues to overcome but it would be light rigid and well damped. Fine perferations could ease possible mass issues. The wax could be very useful if you wanted to incorporate ridges in the diaphragm to increase strength with zero weight gain. The wax paper could be pressed against a warm form and left to cool so the wax would keep the crease in place perminently. Crease patterns could be utilised to direct energy within the diaphragm into lossy areas at the edges. Wax paper is available in all manner of weights and paper types. Wax is easily disolved in solvents and can be applied to dry paper with a mister bottle so when the solvent off gasses you are left with an even layer of wax throughout the paper. Wax is available in a multitude of qualtities and types with a wide range of melting points. Just some food for thought.
PS in one of the other threads here on this type of driver I listed most of Paddocks patent numbers or you can use google patent to search yourself.
 
Hi Mr James

Surprised that none you heard were mylar!
I think you might find that many believe
that the Radio Shack 40-1389
(ET6) tweeters had a Mylar (R) ribbon/membrane
Duponts name for Polyester ribbon as you say!
More research may be needed to confirm
this but mine look like polyester. They are
certainly film not mesh.

Quote:http://www.aurasound.com/
Urizen09-23-2007, 08:18 AM
The original lineaum tweeter
used a silk ribbon and the R/S
version used mylar, IIRC.

Quote:
Linaeum Speakers ? - AudioKarma.org
Discussion ForumsLinaeum makes their
own di-pole tweeters. The Radio Shack
and RCA licenced versions used mylar
instead of silk, which Linaeum uses. ...
www.audiokarma.org/forums/showthread.
php?t=94644 - 64k - Cached - Similar pages.

Audio Asylum Thread Printerbut was'nt
that impressed about the highs from the
Linaeum tweeters that sit on ....
The linauem tweeter uses a mylar sheet
which forms two semicircles when ...
db.audioasylum.com/cgi/t.mpl?f=general&m=378751
- 27k - Cached - Similar pages

http://www.74181.com/dipolar_speakers.htm
=============================================
I would like to try some of my 8 Linaeums with
alternative materials just have to measure them
and find the "dogs" and to replace the membranes
in them to seek some improvements.


Regards

AnthonyPT

...
 
Many may well but not me...

None of the RS tweeters I have heard or owned had mylar diaphragms. I have a diaphragm from a RS tweeter here on my desk as I type and it is not mylar. I have handled a lot of different plastic films over the years in my business. I have a good idea what the different kinds of mylar feel like and these diaphragms are not polyester of any kind. People use words and they stick mylar is a Du Pont brand name for polyested film. Most people recognize the name mylar but do not know that it is polyester film. I am sure that you could buy some mylar (I would guess about 150 gage thickness) and I am sure that it will work but it is harder than what Paddock used. I am just trying to discuss ideas and exchange information. In this type of design you want a soft internally lossy material that will disipate energy to prevent structural resonance so softer is better and a woven fabric is going to loose way more energy compared to a solid film. Why don't you knock a couple up and compare different films to see how they sound. ESL fans have complained over the years that they have a plastic credit card sound because mylar is a relitively hard plastic and that is under tension. Mylar also gets used for drum skins, some of which are double layer and damped with fluid to soften the sound. Polyesters crinkle when you crush them in your hand, Paddocks diaphragms don't.
 
Hi
Well! Well! It maybe a conspiracy to
make us all think they are made of Polyester
when some other material was used.
Wonder why so many sources assume its "mylar"
Could it be related to "PETF"? Thats if we are
looking at brand names.
Certainly whatever it is, itmine are some sort of
film not woven. Maybe Mr P Pattock would stop
practicing for the Philharmonic and let us know what the Malays
were allowed to make the RS Lineaums out of.

Yes, in OZ we have Plastic money that survives the
washer. They also printed a lot of flawed $5
bills and did a recall. These ended up in
Relm worm farms, I recall. Good design too.
With enough worms you could make Worm Oil
which is a very good lubricant! Some say
better than Whale Oil but thats a bit
of a hot potato down there in the Southern
Ocean at the moment! Maybe the patterns on the
$100 OZ bill would make for a great membrane??
Anyway there are a lots of different polyester & polmer films.

Anyone checK out those Nearfield S5s Yet?

Regards

Anthony
 
Re: Many may well but not me...

moray james said:
None of the RS tweeters I have heard or owned had mylar diaphragms. I have a diaphragm from a RS tweeter here on my desk as I type and it is not mylar. I have handled a lot of different plastic films over the years in my business. I have a good idea what the different kinds of mylar feel like and these diaphragms are not polyester of any kind. People use words and they stick mylar is a Du Pont brand name for polyested film. Most people recognize the name mylar but do not know that it is polyester film. I am sure that you could buy some mylar (I would guess about 150 gage thickness) and I am sure that it will work but it is harder than what Paddock used. I am just trying to discuss ideas and exchange information. In this type of design you want a soft internally lossy material that will disipate energy to prevent structural resonance so softer is better and a woven fabric is going to loose way more energy compared to a solid film. Why don't you knock a couple up and compare different films to see how they sound. ESL fans have complained over the years that they have a plastic credit card sound because mylar is a relitively hard plastic and that is under tension. Mylar also gets used for drum skins, some of which are double layer and damped with fluid to soften the sound. Polyesters crinkle when you crush them in your hand, Paddocks diaphragms don't.


Well, I have two RS tweeters and four of their two way speakers that use the Linium tweeter. And in all six of them it sure looks and feels like mylar.
 
you are right ....

it is really hard to tell by just looking and touching. Prior to taking mine apart I thought that the diaphragms were probably polyester film but if you check it out it is clear to see that is not the case. The diaphragms are a clear plastic with a mat black layer on the back side. The mat black coating can be scraped off with a sharp edge. This black layer is very thin and I would guess that it is paint.
I built a commercial planar speaker that used Du Pont Mylar HS (heat shrink) film for the diaphragms. This is the only HS Mylar that Du Pont make. There is no physical comparrison between Du Pont's HS Mylar and the diaphragm material used in the RS units that I have here. These units (diaphragms) are not made of Mylar.
Do you have any comments on the use of polyester screen material for diaphragms?If you were going to build a set with all new materials what woud you use for the diaphragms? Have you read Paddocks patents? There are some good ideas in them. Do you like the sound of the Linaeum units? Is there a chance for a discussion here?
 
Hi
Whatever the material the RS membranes
are made of I wonder what limited
the consistency of these wave benders.
Was it the suspension or the membrane or
something else? Certainly the RS units
with their bipolar caps benefited from
better caps and other crossover mods. The
French Lineaum derivate used paper which
might be acceptable but until a pair of
Linnys are dissembled and an easy method of
changing the membranes used we will not fully find out
what Mr Pattock discovered and applied in
the Airfoils and the Aero prototypes.

The Aero's Sort of Half U-bend design may require
film/or laminated membrane with special features
which we could benefit by knowing what those
characteristics are. I still believe that maybe
the membranes in the Nearfield S5 and S7 speakers
might lead us to a better solutions when doing
a DIY big Wave bender or just getting the most
out of RS or AURA Linaeums we come across.


Regards

AnthonyPT
 
there is an easy way...

get a couple of inexpensive one inch dome tweeters. Remove the dome with a sharp point razor knife. You can apply some real wool felt to overlay the tweeter faceplate suspension and even the pole piece. Now you have a driver platform on which to experiment with all the diaphragm materials you want. Ues your imagination to adapt what ever suitabel materials you have on hand to fashion a diaphragm clamp to fit onto the voice coil and go. I would suggest avoiding having diaphrams which direct energy toward the ceiling/floor try to minimize your room interaction and keep things to the horizontal plane.
 
Ues Google Patent Search...

Search under Paul W. Paddock for patent info onthe Linaeum design. You could use a standard dome tweeter with the dome cut off to drive a set of foils in a similar fashion to the drawing shown on one of the pages on the forum thread you attached. This would be the easiest and least expensive way to build some working models. I have mentioned this before, you could also experiment with using a woven fabric rather than paper or solid plastic foil. I have used silk screen material which is polyester. This works well and you can use open mesh with no loss of high frequency. The mesh material has excellent internal loss qualities. You might want to look into a lower mass material like polypropylene as polyester is a rather dense material. Have fun.
 
have a look...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Screen-printing
Take a look at AudioXpress Nov.2002 pages 34 and 36 for a simple way to make what you are after. A 1.5 inch mid dome tweeter would work just as well. The lighter the mass/density of the fabric the wider the response and the better the efficiency. A fabric (woven) screen material used for the diaphragm will have far fewer internal structural resonance issues as compared to a solid plastic diaphragm material. Do not be concerned with pourosity of the material it is not an issue. To obtain even grater internal damping and structural loss you can apply silicon fluid to the fabric diaphragm. This will of course be at the expense of some efficiency. The weaveof the fabric permits the fibers to rub against one another which disapates the (resonant) energy as heat due to friction.