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Author Topic: Back to Speakers... Again! (Dirt Cheap Open Baffle Speaker Project)  (Read 17364 times)

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Marvey

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Back to Speakers... Again! (Dirt Cheap Open Baffle Speaker Project)
« on: February 09, 2014, 07:40:46 PM »
Donald North (for those who do not know, he's made some awesome DNA speakers) advised me that I needed to make some open baffle speakers; and that once I did, I would never go back to box speakers. He was right.



More later...
  • BTW, I'm hauling this project up to the Bay Area Meet. There will be a dedicated speaker room set away from the headphone rooms.
  • Yes, those are the 8" Moth Cicada drivers up top. Those drivers, based on their TS parameters, were practically designed for OB.
  • Based on the sound quality, my wife approves of the mess - most of which scattered around the house and not seen in the photo.
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Maxvla

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Re: Back to Speakers... Again! (Dirt Cheap Open Baffle Speaker Project)
« Reply #1 on: February 09, 2014, 07:45:32 PM »
Those look fun. Also they look easier to make. I might think about trying a pair if we can get specs/plans.
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Marvey

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Re: Back to Speakers... Again! (Dirt Cheap Open Baffle Speaker Project)
« Reply #2 on: February 09, 2014, 07:51:09 PM »
That's the idea. To eventually come up an easy plan(s).

They are supremely easy to make. I probably made things much more difficult by first building a frame and then detachable pieces so I could experiment. Just cutting a 4x8 sheet in half would get you almost right there.

I'm integrating the woofers right now. They are the Eminence Betas. The extremely high Qts of the Alphas scared me away. A suitable replacement for the 8" wide band driver could be found with Fostex. An alternative would be a separate 8" mid + tweeter.

So far I've only heard the Cicada drivers augmented by the subs. Surprisingly / scary good. OB speakers are like the equivalent of open headphones. All box speakers sound like closed headphones. That's a pretty big difference. I was also surprised at the speed and resolution of the Moth driver. My wife said this was the best sounding speaker I've ever made, and I hadn't integrated the woofers yet. There's a slight recess in the mid-bass with only the Moth drivers.

This is probably the easiest speaker I've ever made too. The OB woofers will be run through the cheapy Behringer DCX2496 for X-over and EQ below ~200Hz. The Moth driver will use only one capacitor in the signal path for high pass x-over.
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Kirosia

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Re: Back to Speakers... Again! (Dirt Cheap Open Baffle Speaker Project)
« Reply #3 on: February 09, 2014, 08:10:36 PM »
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MuppetFace

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Re: Back to Speakers... Again! (Dirt Cheap Open Baffle Speaker Project)
« Reply #4 on: February 09, 2014, 08:57:37 PM »
LOL @ Kirosia

Don't take any of the nice looking food from Purrin's table, or his speakers will wake up and eat you.

But yeah... speakers are awesome. I'm getting into speakers this year, myself.
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Deep Funk

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Re: Back to Speakers... Again! (Dirt Cheap Open Baffle Speaker Project)
« Reply #5 on: February 09, 2014, 09:20:50 PM »
Looks good. Is the size of these speakers an indication of their range?

The speakers look large enough to fill a decent sized living room for music and movies.
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donunus

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Re: Back to Speakers... Again! (Dirt Cheap Open Baffle Speaker Project)
« Reply #6 on: February 09, 2014, 09:39:10 PM »
Ive heard Vintage open Baffle Altecs and they were pretty nice already
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OJneg

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Re: Back to Speakers... Again! (Dirt Cheap Open Baffle Speaker Project)
« Reply #7 on: February 09, 2014, 10:49:54 PM »
Damn damn damn! Purrin beats me to it again! If I hadn't been swamped with classes this quarter I would have had my own OB built by now. At this point I'm looking at first order filters + software PEQ to touch things up, similar to what you have I imagine. Still going to use that Alpha 15A driver myself.

Give me a few more weeks and it'll be ready. I promise it'll be even dirtier and cheaper than yours  :)p1
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Marvey

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Re: Back to Speakers... Again! (Dirt Cheap Open Baffle Speaker Project)
« Reply #8 on: February 10, 2014, 12:07:43 AM »
Quote from: Kirosia on February 09, 2014, 08:10:36 PM
Quote from: purrin on February 09, 2014, 07:40:46 PM




Couldn't help it.

Dang, don't give me any ideas. I could might draw something like that on the boards.
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Marvey

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Re: Back to Speakers... Again! (Dirt Cheap Open Baffle Speaker Project)
« Reply #9 on: February 10, 2014, 12:16:59 AM »
Quote from: Deep Funk on February 09, 2014, 09:20:50 PM
Looks good. Is the size of these speakers an indication of their range?

The speakers look large enough to fill a decent sized living room for music and movies.

Pretty much. The problem with OB speakers is bass roll off depending upon the drivers used. The wide baffles help to extend that. The 15" Betas have a Fs of 35Hz and fairly high Qts. I think I'm getting extension down to 40Hz. Everything, x-overs, EQ, etc. so far has been done by ear, so I'm not totally sure about that. I'm hoping not to have to resort to a sub. I do know that I have quite a lot of headroom to probably squeeze another 5-10Hz of bass extension using EQ.

Regardless of OB design or not, I'm a huge advocate of BIG drivers for bass, even mid or high bass. There's nothing like 15" or 18" woofers producing bass. Just an effortless, very refined, and fast explosive quality to it. And likewise 8" drivers producing mids. It's nice not seeing the drivers move or just barely move. Lower distortion. Probably also has something to do with keeping the magnetic field on the voice coil in the most linear range of its motion. Or maybe it's something like that old adage for car engines: there's no replacement for displacement. This is why most $50,000 "audiophile" speakers at events like THE SHOW suck. Many of these designs have been compromised by the WAF - thin skinny "attractive" things.

Just do the math. How many 8 inch "woofers" does it take to equal the cone area of one 15 inch woofer used here.
« Last Edit: February 10, 2014, 12:23:13 AM by purrin »
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