[el`Ol]

Found a manufacturer of wire cloth that delivers in small quantities:
http://www.diedrahtweber.de/
And I still have these Rohacell boards for comparison.
I have severe doubts that one can judge about the neutralitiy of amplifiers with any kind of hard foam panels.

[cologner]

IMHO speakers and amps always make a good partnership in case you made your decision what kind of music you want to play... basically a late 70ies amp with late 70ies speakers, listening to the music of these days - is the very best you can get.
We are here to experiment with panels, amps and performance, which is new. So everyone should be open to find new combinations, it´s DIY, and it´s never ready-made to be taken from the shelf, and that´s all the fun and 56 pages so far.

Zygadr, great to hear you will post some pictures of yours
I´ll do the same next time, still some work to do right now

(If I have a speaker that doesn´t sound good with my personal Top3, it probably won´t sound with anything else  ... )
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tn27IcAapPI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-aPnFTFrg5k
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VdM3NHDU7Mk

[zygadr]

el'OL................don't make the panels with any kind of hard foam.....they're crap................use rusty solid steel plate veneered in Brazillian coconut husks.........2 inches thick should do it.

cologner, with that taste in music, you're gonna LUV these panels!

[el`Ol]

The wires have a diameter of 0.125mm.

[cologner]

cologner, with that taste in music, you're gonna LUV these panels!

Nice to hear, very curious now what my final "construction" will/can do...
Apart from my Top3 this the first to be played on the panels when ready. It´s not just music, it´s art.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xPEt5OTR6Vc
and maybe second...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YvnywZdNl5Y

(Okay, I have a Top5 now )

Oh, it´s 7/7, I have birthday Cheers to all of you DIY´er and have fun with your projects. Don´t measure too much, just enjoy listening
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VFxMTn6hL-Y

[sedge]

Zygadr
Did you mean the steel plate should be 2ins thick or that the Brazilian coconut husk veneer should be 2ins thick? Only I would feel a bit silly ordering the wrong thing.

On a more serious note, I think ?
El ol
I was at the Shuttleworth Collection of old planes in Bedfordshire and was very interested in the way they used to stretch the cotton sheet to make the planes .
This stuff is solid when you have applied the resin coats ,like a drum but harder .
If I had an exciter and a t amp I could have tested the panels to see what the plane sounded like.
News flash .
WW 1 plane destroyed by ledzeppelin.man in custody .
Zygadr
I have made enquiries for EPS panels and am hoping they will supply me with some 30kg/cu metre 6x4x10mm and some 4x2x6mm.
I hate the waiting ,why don’t they just get it over with?

sedge

[zygadr]

The steel needs to be 2 inches thick................the coconut husk is laid as is and then given a ''Brazillian''................to shave off unwanted ''fibres''.

[sedge]

Brazillian!!!
 I'm not too sure about this Zygadr, something about it smells a bit fishy to me
sedge

[zygadr]

 

[sedge]

Zygadr
After my initial fast response for the eps panels, it seems to have gone very quiet .
Lets hope it is only because they are having trouble trying to work out the quote for  my large order. 

[cologner]

Still waiting for my panels, first cut was wrong (25 mm - too thick) but since I´m working on a pair of TML speakers I had another idea for a rigid frame along with the panel. It will be cut from chipboard or MDF (you know the stuff glued together from wood flakes) - same material I´m using for the TML cabinets. This is much more solid concerning the corners because it´s simply one piece. The chipboard panel is 19 mm thick, I´ll keep it slighty smaller than the EPS panel, and then cut out the middle of the chipboard. This will end up with a 19 mm x 20 mm solid frame. You might know this from constructing a speaker grid that you apply on the front of a speaker.

[zygadr]

cologner, sedge and all..................yes, use the solid sheet with a cut out in the middle that is approximately 1 inch or a bit less smaller than the outside dimensions of your panel material.

You can't go wrong with this. Alignment of the corners will be true and this may stop any sound anomalies arising from a warped EPS panel

[sedge]

The eps supplier has said they will send me a sample.
They originally quoted for 6x2 and 4x2 panels, but am thinking of going for the 6x2.5ft panels just to see how they perform before cutting them down.
I also asked for 6ml and 10 ml thickness ,I thought the 6ml might be better for the smaller panels ?
we shall see.
sedge

[el`Ol]

The wire cloth is not very stiff and not very well-damped, so I didn't order exciters for testing. Here is a new honeycomb material:
http://www.victrex.com/en/victrex-library/press-releases/detail/detail.php?id=499
Maybe one of you wants to try when it comes out.

[trucker]

Hi everyone..

I've got loads og parts express sound exciters. 18 to be precise. I've found a supplier of 10 mm x 600 x 1200 mm EPS board of density 33 kg/m3 - unfortunately they don't make them any bigger in 10 mm thickness. They only ship them in bundles of 50, and I need only a few, but hopefully I can get around that..

I'm planning on getting some wood to make a frame like this:
-----
   I
   I
   I
-----
The vertical support beam will hold the exciters. The panel will be fixed somehow to the ends of the two horizontal beams at the corners.


Also.. I was reading the stuff about gainclone amps, and their great synergy, and since I found a used Audiosector patek SE on the net, I was wondering if this might prove to be an equally good match and worth buying for this project? I don't know much about these gainclones at all.. Zygardr, or anyone else please? Do you reckon it would be a nice match? There's a bit of info on the audiosector website. Its a dual mono LM3875 chip amp (two boxes)...

thank you

[zygadr]

PATEK= EXCELLENT..............CAN'T GO WRONG

[Jah-Hey!]

Hi Zygadr and all who have the EPS/exciters.   
I've read the postings; still would like to ask, "what would *you do?" My EPS is 3lb 4' x 8' sheet, .5 inch.
Only one sheet for two "speakers".
Would you cut it: 2' x 6' or 2' x 7' ?
Or maybe 3' x 4' ?
Thanks...
Using 4 exciters per panel vertically & evenly spaced.

[trucker]

I'll be getting my panels soon, but unfortunately, they don't make them very large, only 1200 x 1200 mm. I'm planning to make two panels out of each, so 600 x 1200 mm is probably what I'll end up with. I'll be getting three pairs of these panels, so I might be able to experiment with rounding corners or something else. Maybe I should have one even smaller panel cut, perhaps with a single exciter, just to get a feeling for how panelsize impacts on the sound.
Got my pateks by the way, thanks Zygadr 

[Jah-Hey!]

Hi Trucker,
I've got some Wharfedale NXT panels 20" wide x 22" tall. They have a frame around a hard white material...I don't know what...when you tap it...it's a hard plastic
type coating over (again) I'm not sure what.
Anyway, there are 2 exciters per panel used in a diagonal pattern, close to the center and not evenly
spaced from one corner to the opposite one.
These panels have a complete plastic backing---different from zygadr's design (and now ours 2).
They sound pretty transparent on my computer.
But I'm going full bore w/ EPS panels.
Originally had black foam-core boards 3/8 inch thick
and really big panels 4' x 5'.  Not suitable for prime time: inefficient and woefully lacking in lower mids., not to mention any bass. That was with 2 exciters too.
 

[Jah-Hey!]

If you want to check out the Wharfedales-->
http://www.amazon.com/Wharfedale-LoudPanel-Speaker-Natural-Subwoofer/dp/B00004SY5J

I'm not using the "sub".