Topic: More watts aren't necessarily better

[Tim]

there is nothing like a flea watt SET amp running into a pair of horns... pure bliss.

[mfrench]

most cabinets are sealed, with some only sporting a small hole for a port.
You cannot get a speaker of any size into a finished cabinet of most designs. So they have to be mounted outside of the cabinet, as its physically impossible to get them into the cabinet.

[mfrench]

as a resonant blending design,.... it might be helpful to have the speakers deeper in the cabinet, for the floor opening output.  I can see where would the cabinets open interior, floor venting output and curving design act as a horn to a degree (i'm an artist and abstract thinking works for me,... try to follow my curved outlook here). If I were to do my own version of the speakers, they would probably come out more like a horn than a resonant cabinet, at least in the floor/bottom venting projection.
These theories are my own brain fart, and are not from the designer - his theories might be totally different.
But, like i said,... I'd probably build a more substantial skirting leg, almost to a horn design, but thats one weird tweakers fantasy amongst a million.

frugalhorn.something-or-other (i'll find the url)
thats where I've been looking lately, beyond just a simple propped up open baffle.

[Church-Audio]

treble probably isn't too slowed down by that 3/8" offset.
Look at the abundance of front-loaded horns burying the driver 2' or more within a horn,.. just saying, but I doubt that little 3/8" offset is going to do anything.

I agree and mentioned the legs - they're not my favorite feature. But the bottom of the cabinet is open, and assuming the legs help keep the bottom unobstructed as possible.

HUH?  because the wave length of high frequency's is short how that tweeter is mounted is critical to dispersion and distortion. Time alignment is critical to good  sound. this box just proves that any donkey can make a box and put speakers in it. But since we are no longer "living in the 60"s" we now know a lot more about speaker design thank god.


Chris

[mfrench]

http://www.methe-family.de/schallwand.htm

german site with more open baffle and resonant speaker designs

[mfrench]

more resonant design - this time with the speaker outside the cabinet for our out-of-the-box in-the-box thinkers

http://www.auditorium-23.de/Speakers/Rondo.html

[mfrench]

the mother lode of resonant cab designs:
http://www.6moons.com/industryfeatures/rondo/rondo.html

speakers mounted on either side in different designs  ::shrugs::

too much huff and puff over minutiae of detail.

[Gutbucket]

An even response off-axis is the potential problem with that tweeter mounting in particular, and any design in general. If the goal is acurate reporduction, then science trumps art, and clearly points to the underlying fundamentals.  The challenge then is how best to realize them, given the real world contstraints.  The science becomes more and more refined, just as costs of construction genrally continue to increase and the general level of craftsmanship has droped.  Nothing wrong with beautiful craftsmanship, but the progress of our scientific understanding of how acoutics works is irrefutable.

From what I understand, most of the new research design headway is focued on power response - how evenly sound is dispersed form a speaker in all directions.  It seems that a speaker's radiation 'polar pattern' should be smooth (regardless of it's overall shape) and ideally have the same balanced frequency response at all angles, so that it illuminates the room with the same spectrum in all directions, even if it is radiating far less energy in some directions. Doing so becomes particulary challenging at the crossover regions. An even power response is cetainly not found in many traditional or high dollar speakers, but strong preference for it is confirmed by the recent and extensive blind listener testing.  I have a copy of Floyd Toole's recent book Sound Reproduction, (National Research Council of Canada, current Harmon acoustic research head scientist) which emphasises this point strongly but haven't cracked it yet. His testing has been conducted with far more rigor than any other I've ever heard of.  No audiofile wiggyness influnce there (seems they save that for the marketing dept).  Sean Olive's (head of acoustic research at Harman) blog is a good place to check out their current testing proceedures.

edit- I haven't had a chance to check the resonat speaker links M0k3 posted, but any speaker with a port is technically a resonant design, which is almost all of them these days. When is the last time you saw a new design with a sealed box? There rare a few, but not many.

[mfrench]

science (and computers) also gave us mp3's, and CD that rot in 25 years.

[Gutbucket]

science (and computers) also gave us mp3's

Sure, and mp3 is highly effective at achieving the designer's goal of maximal sound in minimum data size.  I don't value that goal as highly as many do, but I can appreciate the extensive research and testing behind it.

I'm not sure I see your point.  Should we all go back to banging bones and singing, because science gave us both sound reproduction technology and nuclear weapons?

[Gutbucket]

Without the tool of science, we would have no speakers, record players or any sound reproduction equipment at all.

[mfrench]

science is part of it.
How many beautiful old objects of audio art came from the early era?
big wooden flowers for horns; sculpted features that were never intended to be seen; Gussets that look like doilies, but can hold up machinery. Thats the art in science and engineering that is sadly lost.

[mfrench]

is it not possible to see around the speaker hole, and like I do, see a jig saw in its future to enlarge it? or is that the DIY'r coming out?
I can see spending a half an hour and building a jig and routing a flush mount out of the kit - with that kit saving me dozens of hours of build time(?)
To me, that makes natural sense, and is a first thought with damn near everything I buy it seems; but then I look at everything for ways to tweak it (or fuck it up).
I saw the kit, and, immediately started thinking about ways to mount the WBA drivers into it - not that the legs were funky (though as stated, you could do way better, and the designer admits it), not that the the speakers were back in the box a whopping 3/8"
So, to me 3/8" is like trying to carefully straddle a hair on the floor so I don't trip over it. Silly stuff to work beyond, and certainly not something to blow a 'roid over.

[Church-Audio]

is it not possible to see around the speaker hole, and like I do, see a jig saw in its future to enlarge it? or is that the DIY'r coming out?
I can see spending a half an hour and building a jig and routing a flush mount out of the kit - with that kit saving me dozens of hours of build time(?)
To me, that makes natural sense, and is a first thought with damn near everything I buy it seems; but then I look at everything for ways to tweak it (or fuck it up).
I saw the kit, and, immediately started thinking about ways to mount the WBA drivers into it - not that the legs were funky (though as stated, you could do way better, and the designer admits it), not that the the speakers were back in the box a whopping 3/8"
So, to me 3/8" is like trying to carefully straddle a hair on the floor so I don't trip over it. Silly stuff to work beyond, and certainly not something to blow a 'roid over.

The best way to mount a tweeter is on a flat baffle where there is nothing around the tweeter to influence dispersion. Unless you are trying to make a horn.. But horns are anything but musical.. They are a necessary evil in live sound and in applications where you need high spl and controlled dispersion at the sacrifice of higher distortion. The area around the tweeter should be smooth and free of screws ect anything sticking out above the tweeter will effect the response of the tweeter and polar pattern and frequency response in the case of mounting it on the other side of the baffle you will have adverse effects on frequency response but the benefit would be more of a directional dispersion.

[mfrench]

that's a massive generalization; horns are anything but musical.
Yes, maybe some giant black creaky plywood cabinet on the side of a stage, that put out death metal for its whole life; But hardly in the world of the home enthusiast.
Case in point: Old JBL's, Klipschorns, Western Electric home audio, Altec, Bozak(? horn - don't recall), to name just a few - these are all amazing old school horns that will leave spin drift in their wake, still; that is if you can mange to wrangle them away from their owners.
Then you get into the DIY side of building and the world opens up wide with design.
Me,... I'm buying two sheets of 3/4" birch finish plywood, some piano hinges, and a couple of drivers, and building an open baffle speaker pair. I'll let Home Depot cut the wood for me, and be done with it after I cut two round holes, seal it, and mount two speakers.
Then I'll sell my Sol.speaks for a pretty penny, and pocket the rest, as the open baffles will probably set me back about $300, and about a half day effort.
When I move, I'll fold em up and take em away.