[ramendik]

Hello!

I am in Ireland, though originally from Russia. Male, 42, working in IT (technical writer).

I am looking to experiment with DIY Open Baffle. I got very different opinions about whether OB can ever work in my room with my needs, and i want to dip my toes in carefully, without spending too much at first. So I was looking for where the OB aficionados hang out, and found this place.

I am new to DIY audio, except for a brief period when I was 10/12 - this was thirty years ago in the USSR! The speaker I got to play with most was open-baffle, so I guess a part of my reasoning is nostalgic.

[FullRangeMan]

Welcome 
Do you want direct Full Range OB or two ways with xover?

[Jazzman53]

Welcome to the AC!

[bladesmith]

Welcome

[Wind Chaser]

Welcome to Audio Circle. 

If you want to get your toes wet then you might want to start here...

http://www.caintuckaudio.com/

Randy is a good guy. Call him up and you’ll have a great conversation. He might even be able to provide you with just the drivers so all you’d have to do is cut the baffles.

[ramendik]

Welcome 
Do you want direct Full Range OB or two ways with xover?

Thanks! I'm far less cool than that yet. I am looking to make a 45-200 Hz range midbass/a-bit-of-bass speaker to use with my AV Receiver's subwoofer output (the range is fixed by the AVR; I was already told that this range is not the range of a real subwoofer; I am not interested in upgrading the entire system right now).

The speaker is intended for near field listening (<1 m) and must provide quiet clear "crisp" sound in its range while *not* "exciting the room" and *very definitely not* creating noise in the room above, separated by a partially hollow ceiling/floor. As far as I could work out, this task is well into OB territory. I'll create a topic for this project soon; I have a few ideas so far. The success is quite uncertain so the budget is limited, the space is limited too, so we're talking 8 or 10 inch woofer(s).

If this succeeds, I'll be looking at replacing the satellites with OB next, I'll be looking at full-range in this case, there's probably a few of those good from 200 Hz up. I want to avoid making crossovers in the near future, relying on the AVR for frequency separation.

The far future is uncertain, of course. I'd love to have a full valve system with a steampunk look, but I can't afford that now

Welcome to Audio Circle. 

If you want to get your toes wet then you might want to start here...

http://www.caintuckaudio.com/

Randy is a good guy. Call him up and you’ll have a great conversation. He might even be able to provide you with just the drivers so all you’d have to do is cut the baffles.

Thanks! However, as I am in Ireland, I would expect postage from the US to be a deal killer here. Besides my current needs might be below this level. I'm starting small.

[FullRangeMan]

In view of your low noise circuntances do you had considered headphones?

[ramendik]

In view of your low noise circuntances do you had considered headphones?

I have my trusty Sennheiser HD 270, vintage 2001. I actually like the sound. But it's less relaxing in headphones and some genres (notably stage musicals) really don't sound right in them at all.

I did try the spatializer/crosstalk processing in VLC. Meh.

[Phil A]

Welcome!

[ramendik]

Welcome!

Thanks!

Context-free photos for a laugh. (Yes, I made this today)

[FullRangeMan]

What is the QTS?
How it sound?

[ArthurDent]

Greetings & Welcome to AC ramendik   

[ramendik]

What is the QTS?
How it sound?

QTS is not yet known this speaker was originally in the subwoofer. The speaker model is Pioneer A14LU75-53D and I could not find anything about it online. I have ordered a set of resistors so I can test it. But while I wait, I decided to make this thing - I guess it's a "mockup". After all, I spend no money on it and this is fun.

Sound is "meh" but I don't expect good sound from just any random 6 inch woofer in a makeshift cardboard OB. This was really made just to test whether OB works as a concept for my aims.

The main takeaway so far was that vibration of the enclosure, passed to something else, is likely the key problem. When this thing is set on a drawer chest, my son in the room above hears the bass noise. When this same thing is in my hand, he does not. I later thought of hanging it by a rope but had no chance to test this yes.

Also when I hold the original subwoofer in my extended arms, instead of letting it rest on a heavy block on the floor (it was worse without that block), my son does not hear the bass noise. But in preliminary testing the subwoofer, when held like that, seems to lose all its bass power and to sound worse than the OB (provided the listener is directly in front of the OB speaker, the OB sound really gets worse if you veer to the side). I did not yet compete rigorous testing, though, so this part might be wrong.

I'm in heavy "look before you leap" mode right now. Trying not to get concentrated on just OB, to evaluate all workable options. One possible idea is a sealed box, the advantage here is, if I can find the right combination of small(ish) box and 6-8 inch woofer, I could try making the box very very heavy and rigid, so as to avoid any transfer of vibration anywhere.

[ramendik]

Advice requested!

At this moment I have grave doubts the OB project is going to work for my case, following experimentation with the cardboard mockup. It works well but is direction-sensitive, while I can't really place a proper speaker anywhere where it will face the right direction *and* not have a wall too close behind it.

I would like to start a topic describing the specific requirements, experimentation results, and the directions of exploration/suggested projects that I have so far. There are three, of which one is OB.

What subforum can I put this into? Not the OB one as only one option is OB and I am really not sure it's gonna work (worse, if it does not work, high-Q drivers apparently can not be used elsewhere). The single-driver one seems intended for wide bandwidth. Is The Lab ok with greenhorns, or is there a better place?

[FullRangeMan]

his speaker was originally in the subwoofer.
Seems low QTS and may nor perform well in OB.

[ramendik]

Well I did not expect this speaker to perform well in OB. This is a mockup, not an actual project It was intended to work out how an OB dipole would sound in different positions in the room.

I need to decide what project I do first. Then I get the right speaker drivers for it. By the way: could you please enlighten me why high Qts is essentiam for OB? I see this statement all the time but can't find the explanation anywhere.

Also, I just realized I might be in trouble with all the possible projects. I have just learned about the inductive resistance spike at low frequencies that nearly all speakers have. This Pioneer speaker likely has it too. But the subwoofer box contains no correction circuit; the driver is wired straight to the AV receiver.

Does this mean that the receiver already has a built-in impedance correction circuit for this particular speaker? And therefore attaching any other speaker to the subwoofer output might produce unpredictable results, as the correction circuit won't suit the driver?

The AV receiver in question is Pioneer SX-315. The manual does not contain a warning about not using any other subwoofer. So I'm really confused now.

[FullRangeMan]

Qts is essentiam for OB? I see this statement all the time but can't find the explanation anywhere.
Low QTS woofers need a box to made bass, in OB its bass under 300Hz disappear.

the inductive resistance spike at low frequencies that nearly all speakers have. This Pioneer speaker likely has it too. But the subwoofer box contains no correction circuit; the driver is wired straight to the AV receiver.
If you are referring to the suspension impedance peak it need no correction and a correction circuit is not used.