NeonDriver
Well-Known Member
Hawthorne uses Eminence drivers also for their Silver Iris.
Open Baffle Epiphany!
- Thread starter cptnCanada
- Start date
Poultrygeist
Lunatic Member
Yes Zu and Tekton use 10 inch Eminence drivers. I had a pair of Zu Omens but sold them as every pair of OB's I've built with bass support sounded better. I liked the Zu's but couldn't justify keeping them. Their foot print was larger than my OB's and twice as heavy.
As Linkwitz says "it's hard to screw up an open baffle speaker to where it sounds worse than a box speaker".
Poultrygeist
Lunatic Member
I salvaged these 17" woofers from some big Sansui XP's left on the curb. They had FR stamped on the magnet and are good performers in OB. I've used them to provide bass support for small full range single driver box speakers. I believe many of those big Japanese Kabuki woofers would work well in OB. Think big woofers stuffed into shallow boxes.
cptnCanada
Active Member
Any comments on how they sound?
Poultrygeist
Lunatic Member
I hang out on the Audio Circle OB forum and the Eminence Alpha 15A is by far the most popular woofer for open baffles. The Qts is over 1.0 and they'll move some air.
the eminence 15as or the speakers overall? the whole setup is by far my best sounding rig.
i can pop in different 8" full range drivers for the top end. i have different FR drivers mounted on boards that i can rotate into the baffle. i use an active crossover (bought on BT) to split the signal between top and bottom end. the bottom end is amplified with a vintage technics SS amp. on the top i use a bunch of single ended tube amps. my favorite is a tom mcnally built clementine darling amp. .75 wpc!
right now i have 3 different fr drivers for the top end: wild burro labs betsys, visaton b200 with phase plugs, and audio nirvana classic 8 (cast frame).
nice open sound. very alive! detailed...
biggest issue is my small room. the right speaker benefits from a corner while the left speaker has a window behind it with venetian blinds that must act as diffusers. i have boosted the left channel and close the blinds for careful listening. not the best room, but what can you do?
i can pop in different 8" full range drivers for the top end. i have different FR drivers mounted on boards that i can rotate into the baffle. i use an active crossover (bought on BT) to split the signal between top and bottom end. the bottom end is amplified with a vintage technics SS amp. on the top i use a bunch of single ended tube amps. my favorite is a tom mcnally built clementine darling amp. .75 wpc!
right now i have 3 different fr drivers for the top end: wild burro labs betsys, visaton b200 with phase plugs, and audio nirvana classic 8 (cast frame).
nice open sound. very alive! detailed...
biggest issue is my small room. the right speaker benefits from a corner while the left speaker has a window behind it with venetian blinds that must act as diffusers. i have boosted the left channel and close the blinds for careful listening. not the best room, but what can you do?
Keep pourin' drinks. :yes:
I read that as well.
Actually that quote is what pushed me into actually cutting a couple of holes in some plywood and filling them with some drivers.
I had bought my drivers several months earlier but hadn't gotten around to doing anything with them.
During that period I passed on a pair of Isophon Orchesters at a very good price because I wasn'sure I would like open baffles.
I could kick myself now.
Art
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You might try putting a piece of MDF or plywood in your window when you're doing some serious listening.
Doesn't have to cover the entire window.
You can take it out of the window and stash it behind or under something when not in use.
It would go a long way towards balancing the sound.
Art
Poultrygeist
Lunatic Member
No baffles can also sound pretty good.
Poultrygeist
Lunatic Member
Some of you have probably already seen the Kick Start Project otherwise here's Open Baffles as art objects ( high WAF ).
http://urbanfidelity.com/collections/all
http://urbanfidelity.com/collections/all
The route I've taken, after experimenting with a number of different drivers and designs, is to stack identical multiple drivers. I do this for mains using 8" drivers, which I run full range and for bass.
For bass, here is a economical driver that works very well OB....
http://www.parts-express.com/goldwood-gw-410d-10-poly-dvc-subwoofer--290-362
A set of 4 of these per side on a 20" or so wide board do a great job down low. How high you run them depends on what you use for mains. They seem to do fine up to 250-300hz or so. The lower the cross, the better I think. To keep the crossover out of the way, not necessarily because of the driver.
$80 a side plus a 20" wide by 48" tall piece of wood seems economical to me. Then you can do mains seperately.
For mains, I've tried the replacement BOFU drivers, didn't work.
http://www.parts-express.com/grs-8fr-8-full-range-8-speaker-pioneer-type-b20fu20-51fw--292-430
To much of a cheap cardboard sound for me. But at about $50 a side for 4 drivers, I had to try due to all the buzz about the original BUFO's.
I tried those, because I kind of liked first these....
http://www.parts-express.com/goldwood-gw-8003-8-8-full-range-driver-w-whizzer--290-379
Again, 4 in a stack on about 20" width and for $80 a side, you make nice music. For the money this are pretty amazing. They do very good bass.....good enough some might not miss if you didn't bother with the bass stack, but they do lack a bit at highs. Most would want to augment these up above about 14k with something. I'd suggest a small rear facing horn driver, to get the efficiency high enough, and roll it in with a simple cap.
Ultimately, what I've done for mains is go to the Tang Band 1808's, which miss on your request for economical. They do the highs nice and do pretty good almost full range but once you augment the lows with the woofer stack, you don't give up much to many speakers to a pretty darn high price point!
The reason to do a stack of drivers, both mains and woofs, is the dynamics and the lower distortion. You listen to a single driver and it's ok. Do two and you readily hear less distortion. Go to four and you about wouldn't know your listening to the same driver as the single. And the dynamics...they just pop. This is what is missing from many of the single driver configurations I've heard running OB. Stack 'em and you get a really amazing sound for such simple construction!
All of these drivers I've mentioned get you enough efficiency to use about any amp power including very low power ones. You just have to work at setting up for a reasonable load. While I've avoided that as a problem with a current source amp, I've also tried running with a number of different voltage source amps including tube.
OB is amazing...I don't see me ever going back!
EV3
EV3,
some cool ideas. i'd love to score some of the tang bands on the cheap!
pictures?
some cool ideas. i'd love to score some of the tang bands on the cheap!
pictures?
mhardy6647
Lunatic Member
comb filtering :-( Line arrays are tricky to get right - the "image" is often bizarre at best -- although they can be fine from 50 feet or so away.
WRT using the line source of 10" Goldwoods for LF support....is comb filtering as much of a concern in the first few octaves as it would be for all content above that?
Pretty tough to find TB's cheap. To easy to like I think. All in all, they aren't terribly expensive. Just don't fall to the cheap class though!
Here is running three Tang Band 1808's and four of the Goldwood's. The TB's run unfiltered in any way. And LF is rolled in with a line level crossover around 70hz or so.
[URL=http://s926.photobucket.com/user/evsentry3/media/3TBsplus410s.jpg.html]
[/URL]I've enjoyed listening enough to not want to take them down long enough to pull the drivers and apply any finish. My bad....
Here is a longer ago project... 12" Audio Nirvana in an OB I did with quick change enterchangable mounts to easily change drivers. A cutout for LF and a smaller one for HF. Here only with the AN running by itself.
[URL=http://s926.photobucket.com/user/evsentry3/media/AudioNirvanaOBs_zps58d74774.jpg.html]
[/URL]Here is making 6 8" cutouts for the Goldwood 8's. It was with double thickness fronts which is why so many cutouts....
[URL=http://s926.photobucket.com/user/evsentry3/media/SixStraightEights.png.html]
[/URL]They have side supports at angles too so they are more like about 24" wide. The bass from those economical 8" Goldwoods in a OB line is really nice!
EV3
I thought that would be the case too. Actually I don't find that to be true in OB at all.
I can hear a something when within a couple feet or so, but back at normal listening distance...nothing! Not at all. With a meter, you can detect some change in frequency response distribution but probably more going forward and back than up or down.
Raising and lowering beyond normal in my listening chair, nothing. Moving around the room a to change music or something, not then either. I'd call the seperation between drivers on these less sensative by a lot from the integration on my EV Sentry3's. Of course, integration is a bit different from comb filtering...just sayin'....
All in all, simple doesn't turn out to be an issue.
EV3
I've had a pretty knowledgable and experienced audio friend compare the sound of these to Maggie's....only better.
Have you heard of comb filtering with Martin Logans or Maggie's? Stereophile measurements also on the ML's showed a pattern that is probably related to HF launch from more than a point source, but you tend to not hear it that way.
OB in a short line source....It works!
EV3
