another project

Here is a project that has been taking up most of my extra time. This speaker has had several revisions, but this is the final design. This is a very high-end open baffle "hybrid" two-way design. Open baffle part is an 8" fullrange driver, there is also a 12" sub in a sealed down firing cabinet. The sonic characteristics of this design, after alot of experimenting and modeling, is incredible. The sound stage is massive. Much wider and deeper than the speakers are placed. The stage is also very focused and dimensional. It has layered depth like very few systems I have ever heard. These speakers make the room itself disappear. I have heard many people describe a speakers sound by saying "it brings the performance into your room". The difference with these speakers is it sounds more like taking you to the performance. If the venue is huge then the room sounds huge. If the recording is in a small studio, then the room sounds small. Also if you close your eyes you couldn't point out the speakers locations if you had to. After all that is the point, for all the gear to disappear and leave only the music.

I'm sorry to ramble on, but I am extremely excited about this project.


Here is a 3D model of the finished product.







Onto the construction.

A pile of CNC cut parts to be assembled.


First the sub. It is made up of 3/4"MDF layers. The wall thickness of the cabinet ranges from 1"-3 1/2" thick. Very STOUT.

Now for gluing, stacking, and clamping......





Here is the sub cabinet.....minus the two layers that will make up the top.



Same process for the tower.



Here is one sub and one tower glued together and ready for sanding then fiberglass.



Here with the insert in place. The insert will eventually have an exotic veneer applied.



Now for the sanding......





And some fiberglass.







Next is some filler to make sure these are smoooooooth. After all they are going to be painted a high gloss black.



Starting to get a flat surface.




Here is the fit on the insert.





And the sub insert.

Here is a close-up shot of the Bosse veneers grain.



Applying the veneer.

tower.....



sub......



Here are the pieces trimmed and ready for a lot of clear to get a mirror finish.







Finally attached the base for the tower.





Here is the base for the sub cabinet. It has an extra "ring" to allow more room for the sub to load on the floor. Both the sub and the tower have spikes as well.



Here is one sub/tower ready for paint. The other soon to follow.



Notice the sub doesn't contact the tower anywhere. This is to prevent any vibration that the sub cabinet might have from being transmitted to the tower.

That is some serious audio design and manufacturing there. I'm very intrigued by the design and construction of those units. Are you an employee or owner of this company? Either way I'm blown away by them!

Daaaaamn dude!

Where are you going with this? Trying to get it manufactured? Not sure posting it on the internet is a good idea. I'm on an RC forum, and there's been a couple times where a guy has come up with a cool new idea, only to see the Chinese nab it and have it in production a few months later. Bad people are watching.

It would be difficult to copy. Angles, dimensions, driver mods, x-over design and components are all critical with this design. You can't just slap any fullrange with any sub using whatever xover is laying around and get positive results. We are already on the path of production though. This is just the first "finished" proof of concept and finish sample.
Once everything is in place I will spill the beans on the details.

Nice work. Crossover ~220Hz?

This is f**king awesome - wow

Wow! I am speechless. the amount of work that i see is mind bending.I hope you have a bunch of little helpers...

Holy shit dude, you must be a sound engineer or something! From your description of the performance, these look as good as they sound!

I think I just came!

Fantastic work scott, you are obviously a very talented guy. Your creations are beautiful, can't wait to see the interior of the Riv!

Very nice

May I ask how you did the math modeling of the speaker performance, how you decided how tall to make the tubes, and how you decided on MDF versus say a hybrid stack of alternatign MDF/homasote layers?

Thanks

Albertj

Here is one of the speaker mods I don't mind showing, simply because it will be visible in the finished product.

This is a "guide" if you will, for the rear of the speaker to help stabilize the energy emitting from the back of the cone. In this type of design the sound coming from the back of the speaker is just as important as the sound coming from the front. This will help reduce distortion especially in higher frequencies and in turn gain clarity, accuracy, and transparency.

This is just roughed in. It will be painted along with the rest of the speaker. Once in production this piece will be made of aluminum.

,,,and this is how everything on this planet should be designed.With lots of thought and passion.
Well done.

well, it's been a while but I will be delivering these to the painter this week. We are going to do some samples first to make sure of the colors and finish. I think I have decided to go mirror high gloss finish on the wood inserts and black with a satin finish on everything else. I will post more pics as things progress.

beautiful work.

scott,that's it,i am sending you tomorrow my dash to fiberglass it and look just like that picture,like a piano.I love it.Seriously bro,if a dashboard gets a few layers of fiberglass probably will stay and look pro.
Awesome work!

I would think that the "open" design of the full range would make it very efficient compared to a sealed box. Is that correct.

Yes. This set up is very efficient and dynamic. Most or our testing was done on a 25 watt per channel amplifier and that was plenty of power to make it uncomfortably loud.

I decided to take things a step further. While the speakers are getting painted I will be building an amplifier for them. I bought a "class D audio" amp kit a while back and have never put it together. figured this would be the perfect application for it. The chassis will be made of aluminum. Here are a couple of pics of the wood mockup I made first in order to get the look and dimensions right.......plus wood is cheaper to experiment with than aluminum. There will be two amplifiers, one for each speaker.

Sqrivi my man,you got some interesting stuff going on over there!

I know its been a bit, but the parts are finally being painted. I should have them back in a week or two. I'll post pics of the paint progress.

sqrivi wrote:

I know its been a bit, but the parts are finally being painted. I should have them back in a week or two. I'll post pics of the paint progress.

You mean to tell me you don't paint ?!?!? Damn, I thought you could do might near anything !!!

outboard xovers.

First coat of filler primer. They are looking very smooth. Now for some blocking, another coat of primer, then some paint.

Those caps and coils are purdy. Surprised you're not using active filtering and separate channels for each driver.