Raal 140, Neo10, AE Dipole 15 in the works

studiotech · « **Reply #100 on:** 8 May 2011, 08:24 pm »

Quote from: kevinh on 8 May 2011, 08:02 pm

Beautiful job with the radiused edges on the baffle. I am very jealous.

Thanks. I really wanted to see some of the bamboo layering revealed on the front as well as help a little with edge diffraction. Would have liked an even bigger radius, but did not want to shell out over $100 just for the bit.

Greg

kevinh · « **Reply #101 on:** 8 May 2011, 08:41 pm »

Are planning on doing the same radius on the rear of the baffle for the rear wave?

studiotech · « **Reply #102 on:** 8 May 2011, 09:37 pm »

Quote from: kevinh on 8 May 2011, 08:41 pm

Are planning on doing the same radius on the rear of the baffle for the rear wave?

Yes, once the final layer is glued on, it will get radiused as well. I am also going to round over the rear openings around the mid/tweeter cutout.

Russell Dawkins · « **Reply #103 on:** 9 May 2011, 01:39 am »

Quote from: studiotech on 8 May 2011, 07:54 pm

Yes, there was room.....barely, but it would have worked. I'm sure whhat happened. He even asked me if all the cuts were to the outside of the lines, but then did not set it correctly.

Greg

Then I would have thought that he was liable and should pay half if not all the cost of the bamboo.

Nyal Mellor · « **Reply #104 on:** 9 May 2011, 04:47 pm »

I like your use of Bamboo. I wonder what feeds and speeds you were using on the CNC machine? Oh and it is SO easy to make one wrong setup on the CAD to CAM software and have it destroy your bit / sheet of MDF / other wood...

I am still working on my OB, it should be going to CNC next week. Initially I'm doing it in mdf but want to do it in Alu / Bamboo once the prototypes are dialled in.

Nyal Mellor · « **Reply #105 on:** 9 May 2011, 04:55 pm »

Quote from: Russell Dawkins on 9 May 2011, 01:39 am

Then I would have thought that he was liable and should pay half if not all the cost of the bamboo.

If you paid for it then they should redo it and pay for replacement materials.

studiotech · « **Reply #106 on:** 20 May 2011, 12:54 am »

Back with more pictures. Last layer done in good quality baltic birch provided by the woodshop(woodcraft orlando). They are also giving me a $100 credit at the store or for future work. I'm just glad to have the 4th layer in hand and to be getting on with the project. One baffled glued and all roundovers completed. I guess it's thick enough when it can stand up on its own! Now I have to decide how to mount the leg. Ideally it will be removable for trips to several studios and houses for listening parties.

Greg

Ric Schultz · « **Reply #107 on:** 21 May 2011, 03:41 am »

Your baffle is state of the art. However, you do need a way for it to be absolutely immovable when playing music. Ie: no rattling on the floor. I personally would build a base for the speaker at least 3-4 inches thick and a couple of feet deep. Then I would run some heavy braces up the sides of the baffle from the base. Also, I would use a brace even thicker than your current support leg and epoxy it to the magnet of the woofer and attach it to the base. This could improve your bass transient response noticeably.

You can then use spikes or whatever under the whole thing. If you just have the baffle and a little foot in the back then it can wooble on the floor. The brace up the sides would make it even more dead too. All the extra weight of the base and braces would force the spikes deep into the floor and make it less moveable. I understand it would not be very moveable and transportable this way. Just some tweaky thoughts.

studiotech · « **Reply #108 on:** 22 May 2011, 03:16 pm »

Not planning on any base for now Ric. I did begin work on the recessed holes for the billet aluminum feet I got from AE. The rear of the support leg with have an adjustable, rubber or felt tipped foot to change the tilt of the whole baffle. I also got the 2nd baffle sanded and routed, so now it's just down to painting the back and oiling the front.

Greg

scorpion · « **Reply #109 on:** 25 May 2011, 12:49 am »

Well Greg,

Everything about your Baffles are extraordinary.

Let's hope the sound is also.

/Erling

studiotech · « **Reply #110 on:** 25 May 2011, 01:34 am »

Thanks Erling. I am pretty pleased so far and I know they'll sound great due to all of the prototyping and testing ahead of the real baffles you see here. Unfortunately, I am very busy with work out of town for a few weeks. I am so close, but far from being finished now.

Greg

Hebrew Hammer · « **Reply #111 on:** 25 May 2011, 02:04 am »

Beautiful work so far Greg... I love it...

my only gripe is that you have mid and tweeter on the same horizontal plane vs the vertical plane.. specially with the low xover point that you are using timing localization ques will hurt you...

if the xover was high.. and by that I mean above 10 to 12k with a steep slope then that would not be an issue as in that region we localize by intensity and not timing, so positioning becomes less critical..

studiotech · « **Reply #112 on:** 26 May 2011, 04:40 am »

I'm sure how I could have arranged the drivers on the baffle any better than they are now. An MTM alignment would have caused them to be quite a bit taller than I was willing to accept and would have caused much worse lobing in the verticle plane than what I'm getting in the horizontal place now. Running the Neos any higher than they are now is NOT a good choice either. Anything above 4KHz and they get near some kind of resonance at 5KHz that sounds prety harsh and sibilant.

They will be toed in quite a bit, so path difference to my ears btw the Neos and Raal is really very minimal.

Greg

Vapor Audio · « **Reply #113 on:** 26 May 2011, 05:06 am »

Hey Greg, that baffle looks great! I'd say you've put enough layers on ... I don't see any problem with your driver layout either. Of course your lobing patern is going to be asymetrical in the horizontal plane, so precise placement will be more critical than a normal tweeter above midrange confiuration.

A couple things to say, did you get the Amorphous Core RAAL? It's a significant upgrade over the standard ferrite core, more dynamic and better low level detail retreival. Also, the 140-15D has NO problem crossing over at 2500hz with a LR4 slope. I've used it as low as ~1850 with a LR4 and it was under 1% THD, 95db @ 1 meter. If you think you heard strain at 2500hz, I'd suspect something else as the issue. I even run the smaller 70-20XR at a 2250hz crossover and have never heard a hint of strain from it ... the woofer always gives up before the RAAL does.

BTW, I have another design I'm building for a customer using the Beyma TPL-150/H and an AE TD10M ... somewhat similar to what you did in the past. That Beyma is an impressive tweeter, I'm running it right now at about an 1100hz crossover.

studiotech · « **Reply #114 on:** 27 May 2011, 02:32 pm »

Yes, when I measure the set-up, the polar response has a larger dip to the outside edge than the inside edge of the baffles, so as far as the listening position goes, I'm in a good spot.

Another item that has ended up laying hand in hand with the sense of strain on the Raal is that fact that it is so damn revealing (without sounding harsh or brittle), that it highlights flaws in production technique like nothing else out there. I have found soooo many recordings that prior to the Raal/Neo combo, sounded just fine. Now I hear an overdriven preamp or overloaded ADC or poor mastering. In several cases when I thought it was the Raal, it was indeed the source material. Once the system is all back together, I will probably spend the next several months tweaking and adjusting crossover pooints and slopes, so I will certainly give a low mid to tweeter transition a chance again.

One other item though, in terms of a sense of punch and viscerally impact. So far, I have preferred the sound of a snare drums thwack through the Neo10 rather than the Raal. It just has more meat to it. I do not have the Amorphous core though. How would you compare the two?

Greg

Vapor Audio · « **Reply #115 on:** 27 May 2011, 04:00 pm »

Sounds like you're on the right track Greg ... get used to the RAAL a bit, then start playing with crossover points and slopes.

The AM core has such attack and snap to the leading edge of notes that it can be a bit shocking at first. That's the main thing you'll notice. There is more micro-detail as well. Of course the Neo10 has a LOT more radiating area, so I don't doubt that it does have more meat to it ... but I'd also expect the same signal through the RAAL to be much cleaner and more accurate to the input.

studiotech · « **Reply #116 on:** 4 Jun 2011, 07:49 pm »

Work trip was postponed, so I had a chance to do some more this week. Back and sides of both baffles are sprayed with Rustoleum textured brown finish. Support legs are also sprayed on bottom side and now have roundovers on top side. Legs are drying from first coat of Tung oil. I also found some nice, heavy rubber pucks for under the aluminum feet.

Greg

studiotech · « **Reply #117 on:** 4 Jun 2011, 07:53 pm »

The color in the pictures doesn't really do paint any justice. It has a nice even finish with little bumpy specs of brown, red and tan. Looks very nice with the bamboo. Originally I put on 2 coats of the Rustoluem Hammered Metal in Bronze, which I've used other times, but on such a large surface I did not like the effect. This textured stuff looks very even and almost like a professional sprayed.

AJinFLA · « **Reply #118 on:** 4 Jun 2011, 08:50 pm »

Looking good Greg. But could you hurry up, so I can come over for a listen?

cheers,

AJ

studiotech · « **Reply #119 on:** 4 Jun 2011, 09:36 pm »

Quote from: AJinFLA on 4 Jun 2011, 08:50 pm

Looking good Greg. But could you hurry up, so I can come over for a listen?

cheers,

AJ

I dunno, I might have to charge admission!