The cabinet walls definitely need to flex and vibrate.
Conversely, a bell with a hairline crack will sound leaden and hardly ring at all. It's the same with cabinets:
Felt Curtain detail.
The felt curtain I'm using half way in the box is 5 mm thick. Total thickness is 7 mm with the think sewn material on each side adding 1 mm to create the 7mm total. So its very light. Next trial will be to have the 'curtain' hanging on a 45 degree angle more similar to what Joe Roberts has done. But my material looks far thinner than his. I found thicker in my installation harmed the sound over the thinner 7 mm material used.
Western Electrix
Not flapping around at all. I made it slightly wider than the width of the cabinet and slightly longer than the bottom so its seated in a way against the side and bottom of the cabinet. Playing music with the back ajar shows no movement at all.Are you going to build a frame of sorts? It seems like this thin material would be flapping around inside the speaker. Not sure if that's a terrible thing, but it seems kind of odd.
Not flapping around at all. I made it slightly wider than the width of the cabinet and slightly longer than the bottom so its seated in a way against the side and bottom of the cabinet. Playing music with the back ajar shows no movement at all.
Why don't you try it if you have time and let me know what you think? There are probably better options. I just haven't heard any personally with the not exhaustive experiments I've done. The sound with this approach was fundamentally better than other approaches i tried and so i happily left it alone and moved on to other aspects of crafting the sound I'm after.
I would love to try the Kimsul and will try to track it down. Could be fantastic.
Western Electrix.
What type of caps did you get and where are they located in your equipment?new Teflon Coupling Caps burn in for a week or so more
the internal padding is interesting.
It looks like thin bed foam padding thats sounded terrible in builds where i have tried it before. Padding on all the walls like in this case has never really worked for me either.Is that foam padding?
Agree. This stuffing strategy sounded horrible in my experience... Dull, muddy and lifeless.It looks like thin bed foam padding thats sounded terrible in builds where i have tried it before. Padding on all the walls like in this case has never really worked for me either.
I like that they'd didn't brace the heck out of the cabinets. And they look gorgeous.
Western Electrix
Agree. This stuffing strategy sounded horrible in my experience... Dull, muddy and lifeless.
But I was working w 6cuft not 17 1/2cuft (by my calculation... Im terrible at math so, please correct me if I'm wrong).
So maybe the extra space in there makes a difference? I dunno??
Very hard to tell the cabinet walls thickness, but it doesn't look more then 3/4". With the large surface area's and minimal bracing, I would definitely put this in the BBC Cab Design camp. Especially w an 18" woofer! I bet those walls are singing.
Something else about this speaker that is extremely interesting is the specs on the CD and Horn.
"The 1 ¾-inch motor mounted on the 8-cell horn offers a bandwidth ranging from 600Hz to 20kHz".
So, they have basically morphed an 808 Horn (1") into a large format Horn(1.5").
Sure would be cool to get one of the aftermarket wood Altec horn makers to make this 808 derivative compatible w large format Altec drivers. If it was designed correctly, me thinks it would be much more compatible than a larger format horn (1005, 805, etc..) w a bass reflex cab. Especially if you could get down in the 6-700Hz range. Also accommodates a smaller room and closer sitting position.
And then we need to get Truextant to make Beryllium 1.5" Altec Diaphragms to get the top end. Then we DIYers could have some fun!
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Oh, got it. Well... it seems like a good idea anyway.Sorry to disappoint you, but "the 1 3/4-inch motor" is the voice coil diameter. The CD throat diameter will be 1" to fit the 808 horn.
We need to get Truextant to make Beryllium 1.5" Altec Diaphragms to get the top end. Then we DIYers could have some fun!