[drphoto]

Thanks dweekie....that makes me feel a bit better. I'm going to try slapping some MDF panels around the current setup to make an H frame, just to see what happens.

I guess I wished it all worked exactly as wanted out of the box...no pun intended. But I suppose all this fooling around and testing is part of the fun. 

[dewar]

What you guys think of using these servo drivers in a ripole setup, two drivers per channel, facing each other. I just built these using Eminence Beta 15A's and do like them, but am wondering what improvements servo control might bring.

Cheers
B

[dweekie]

Thanks dweekie....that makes me feel a bit better. I'm going to try slapping some MDF panels around the current setup to make an H frame, just to see what happens.

I guess I wished it all worked exactly as wanted out of the box...no pun intended. But I suppose all this fooling around and testing is part of the fun. 

I ran some 15" Hawthorne Augies bare with no baffles as a test for a while.  It was a long test since it actually performed fairly well.  Now they're in a sonotube type arrangement, but has a bit of that enclosure sound to it.  I also find a bigger flat baffle to have less of that type of sound than a H and U frame arrangement.  Good luck finding the best combination for your own use

[dweekie]

What you guys think of using these servo drivers in a ripole setup, two drivers per channel, facing each other. I just built these using Eminence Beta 15A's and do like them, but am wondering what improvements servo control might bring.

Cheers
B

Hmm, I haven't seen any real comparative reviews for Danny's OB drivers yet.  Jlharden is one that did run OB Augies on top with servo box subs 28hz down.  He did state that they were the only box subs that could keep up with the OB drivers for pushing the lower frequencies.  I assume he still preferred the OB over the box servo since that's what he ran within its freq limits.... Whether or not servo translates into improved performance in OB settings remains to be seen, but I'm not sure why it wouldn't.  I really want to hear some of these drivers as well.  I think the first reviews we'll see are from those new to OB bass since this is the first of the OB bass designs he's released, but hopefully some adventurous regular OB people will jump on these drivers as well. 

[drphoto]

dweekie, I cut out some baffle extensions from foamcore and it seems to work as well as the carboard box H frame experiment without all the buzzing. Hmmm....maybe foamcore has special audio properties. Nah....just less stuff to rattle. Thanks for the tip.

The frustrating ...I mean fun part....is that with every variable change, you have to fiddle w/ the crossover/slope, loudness and phase adjustment on the amp.

The good thing is you can, as far as I can tell so far, run these way up higher (frequency wise) to get that mid bass slam than you can w/ a 'conventional' sub.

[Bob in St. Louis]

I also find a bigger flat baffle to have less of that type of sound than a H and U frame arrangement.  Good luck finding the best combination for your own use

Ditto from myself on both of those counts.
Doctor, have you tried larger flat baffles? (the cardboard style)

Regarding what was said earlier about driver count versus the level of slam you feel, yes absolutely 100% without a doubt, the more drivers you have the more of that tactile percussive feeling in the chest you'll receive. A couple more drivers (if you've got the space) won't hurt a thing. Put them on the same baffle of course. The "double wide" baffle will also help as reinforcement.

Glad to hear you're happy with the OB bass. Always great to have another convert. 
Enjoy the ride. 

Bob

[drphoto]

Well Bob, I'm glad you chimed in, because I have you to blame.....err I mean thank for this. 

I quess I didn't look closely enough at those pics you posted of your early L baffles to see how large they were compared to the driver.

So anyway...I went w/ the OBs, but I passed on that Saab.

[Bob in St. Louis]

The baffle size I found that works the best (with the 15" Augies, anyway) have all been 22" X 22" with no extra reinforcement but the floor. No "H", no "U", no other letters of the alphabet. Just a plain 'ol baffle. I've tried "boxing them in" to various degrees, but found that nothing sounded better than a flat baffle. The more they're boxed in, the more 'thump' they have, but at the cost of sound quality (thereby defeating the point of OB bass). Looks like yous may be 16" or 16.5"? If you've got a couple 24" wood clamps, you could temporarily attach some two or three or four inch "additions" to the each side and see what that sounds like. When I say "additions", I mean to the actual sides making the width larger, not wings in the typical sense of OB wings.
Also, not sure how much difference it makes in the FR, but mine have "feet/legs" as opposed to your (rather large) plywood lower platform. Somebody wiser than I can tell you what differences that may makes, if any when placed over carpet.

Regarding if being my 'fault' you've found yourself on the dark side of lower frequency reproduction: Well, I have broad shoulders. I can take the heat. So far I've not made any enemies with my recommendations. Maybe a little resentment at the outlay of cash...But no complaints with the final outcome. 

No problem on the Saab. I'm here for 'ya if you find another used GM to purchase.

Bob

[Telstar]

Anybody (with space constraints) tried the new beta 12-A2?

[dmiller]

Could somebody remind me who makes "Augies"? Thanks.

[tubamark]

Could somebody remind me who makes "Augies"? Thanks.

http://www.hawthorneaudio.com/
http://www.hawthorneaudio.com/drivers.htm  scroll down for Augie(s)
http://www.hawthorneaudio.com/forums/

[drphoto]

Hey Bob, I plan to add spikes at some point. I'm going to cut down the size of the base plate a bit too. Yeah, the easiest thing to do at this point is just add a larger face plate to the existing baffle.

BTW: I read a bunch of owner reviews on that 9-5. Everyone said they loved everything about it, except something always broke. I just couldn't take the chance, even if I got it for the $4K I was going to offer. It's too bad....it's a beautiful design IMHO. On the upside for GM, Buick just surpassed Lexus in the JD Power reliability survey!

[Bob in St. Louis]

Isn't your room on a loft in a studio type structure?
Not sure, but spikes may help transmit vibration to the ceiling of the room below (which may or may not be a problem for you anyway).
A quick and easy experiment would cost you less than $5.
Get yourself four of those 'L' shaped shelf brackets and try those for legs instead of the big piece of plywood and the sandbag. It would be better from a visual perspective, not sure about the audible perspective.
Mine are just sitting on carpet (over concrete) with no spikes.

As a GM fanboy, that's great news to hear about Buick.
But honestly, I'm not sure if Buick is doing anything better than they were. I think what caused the tables to turn is the fact that Lexus has taken a solid uppercut to the chin having to fix all of their "birth defects". As it stands right now, it's costing them something around $2,200 per car to fix numerous poor designs. Either that, or Buick has "upped their game" since they've seen half of their siblings heads laying on the chopping block and they're scared shitless. 

Doctor, I fear we may be at the risk of taking your (wonderful) thread off topic with too much car talk.

Bob

[drphoto]

Hey, I can hijack my own thread if I want. 

[Bob in St. Louis]

Ok then, bring it on. 

[drphoto]

Ok then, back to audio. I guess I'm off to the Depot this weekend to get some MDF and start fooling around w/ both a larger baffle w/ shelf bracket feet, and maybe try converting my existing  L frames to an H, just to see the difference. I'd love to get two more drivers eventually.

I'm really hoping....and I think it will....give the quality of mid bass used to get from my old Magnepans with some slam and real low end. Maggies....at least the smaller ones, can't do 'slam', but man they get a stand up bass right.

Well, one more car... specifically GM thing. All the car mags said Chevy finally got it right w/ the new Malibu...that is as good as anything in it's class.  C&D praised the perfomance of the Colbalt SS (while slaming its chintzy interior finish) I personally think their design team has really done a bang up job on their current full size trucks.

On yet another hijack of my own thread. Bob did I see somewhere that you posted your wife wanted to get a cat, and you wern't real happy about it? (or am I hallucinating again?) Well, a few years ago, I was trying to gain favor w/ a young lady who begged me to take in this extra cat she had. (feel free to insert cat synonym joke here) Now I had no particular hatred toward felines, I'd just never given them much thought. Well, I was really suprised. They can be delightful little creatures to have around. They're far more affectionate than you'd think. And they cause no problems other than shedding. I ended up w/ another one from yet another ex girlfiend. Yeah, you can't take 'em to the park and play fetch, but they'll sit next to you on the sofa and keep you company, while soaking up the glorious sounds of OB (at least mine do...I think they like music). See....I brought it back to audio. Of course....I don't have a wife to keep me company while listening to music, so maybe you've alrealy got that covered.....and a cat is overkill!

[Bob in St. Louis]

Get enough MDF to build large enough baffles to house two drivers on each side.
Trust me Doctor. You're going to end up doing it anyway, just get it over with.     aa


Off Topic:
Yea, I'm the guy that's lived with cats for 32(ish) of my 39 years on this planet. Everyone of them I've taken to have put out of my...out of their misery after being forced to tolerate piss and spray throughout the house for a few months before I had finally had enough. After the last elderly feline "went", I put my foot down soon after building a new house. I told the wife "No fuzzy animals" any longer. Being allergic to them and having to deal with that for the vast majority of my life I was done with them. Well guess what?..... We've got a damn cat. I was overruled 3:1.
Apparently the kids and her where overcome with the box of cute little kitties (said sarcastically) sitting in a box outside Walmart.
We now have a cat.
I guess I didn't put my foot down hard enough. 
With no uncertain term I explained the cat can stay if my rules are followed (and there's a lot of them). If they're broken, even once, the cat will be gone.
This morning there was a suspicious wet spot on top of the baster bedroom blanket (yea, ok...you can giggle) and the cat was laying right next to it. This is the point in time when I felt my blood boil. Calmly and gently I moved the cat out of the way so I could sniff the spot. Being all too familiar with "that" smell, I was convinced I knew what it was going to smell like. Much to my suprise, it had a strong minty smell. Not sure what that is, maybe the cat ate a piece of candy that had gotten dropped and puked up the liquid. Not sure, but we keep a pretty clean house and the chances of finding candy (or anything minty for that matter) laying around is pretty slim. I gave the wife and son "that look" when I notified them there's an unidentifyable wet spot on the bed right next to the cat. The looks on their faces was sheer horror as they knew what was going to happen if their worst fears came true and it turned out to be kitty pee.

I like the new Malibu. But the unwritten "safe" rule of not buying the first model year would still apply. I left the Chevy dealer just before they came out, so my knowledge of them is about as close to zero as it could be. Sexy as Hell, but in the grand scheme that doesn't carry much weight if they're not reliable. Every couple months several Chevy guys and I go have a beer at our favorite Italian eatery and talk about the industry and vent about the things that piss us off about it. Not once has the new Malibu been mentioned, so I'd probably take that as a good sign. 

Bob

[drphoto]

Well, maybe I just got lucky. Both my cats are very well behaved. They only do their 'business' in their boxes, they don't scratch stuff or bite or do anything really annoying. Hell, they even come when called.

Ok, back to OB bass. See, I thought bass wavelenghs were so long that a baffle of say 22" wouldn't make much of a difference over my exising one that is 14". I thought somehow the speaker design compensated for the lack of a box. What is the difference between the OB servo vs, box version of the driver?

[Bob in St. Louis]

I can't give you a scientific reason a larger baffle helps to 'load' a driver, but from personal experience it REALLY REALLY makes a difference. The smaller the baffle, the weaker the output, and the sooner you'll run out of excursion. I tried to place the Augies "baffleless", propped on the floor. They sounded great, but had no balls. The voice coil smacked the back plate a few times with medium volume, and relatively low HZ content. After putting them in the 22"² baffles, I could then crank them very loud with very low content. Yea, it's make a heckuva difference.

You have a 14" baffle? I thought you had 15" drivers? 
Ok then, you must have 12" drivers. Please pardon my poor memory, and laziness for not looking back at the beginning of the thread. 

With baffle size and wings, you're not really "guiding" the waves. An impossibility since some of these waves are longer than your room. What you're doing is twofold; 1: You're increasing the distance the front and rear waves travel before they meet each other, and 2: You're decreasing the ability of the air to "get out" from the rear (or front in the case of an "H" baffle) thereby loading the cone. The more resistance the cone has placed against it, the more 'balls' it will have. Take a look at a sub with a port. Lot's of resistance, lots of output. In an extreme case, look at a sealed sub.

Again, the smarter guys can explain that more eloquently. 

OT:
The cats I've lived with in the past all got old and senile. For some reason they thought it was a good idea to stop using the litter box after 15(ish) years and start using every inside 90 degree corner in every room of the house. It gets in the carpet, the pad, the wood sub-floor underneath, the wood baseboard, and the drywall.
You can't clean that. That's when the cat goes away. Pee smell lasts an eternity as an unpleasant reminded of YOUR cute little kitty.
I was doing my best to avoid that in this house. Guess I failed.

Bob

[Viridian]

The baffle size I found that works the best (with the 15" Augies, anyway) have all been 22" X 22" with no extra reinforcement but the floor. No "H", no "U", no other letters of the alphabet. Just a plain 'ol baffle.
A couple more drivers (if you've got the space) won't hurt a thing. Put them on the same baffle of course. The "double wide" baffle will also help as reinforcement.
Bob

Bob, thanks for that! From watching your system evolve over time I had come to think that you always had your Auggies mounted in individual baffles and that it was for a reason. Now you recommend 2 drivers per baffle. Could you please comment?

Thanks,
Erik