Has anyone looked at Earl Geddes Nathan10?

[NEO Dan]

This has caught my as I've been wanting to build something that's high sensitivity for some time now.

It's the Geddes waveguide that's got my attention, he gets $200 each for the WG baffles though(gulp)

Anyone have any input on this?

[Saurav]

Only the discussions on DIY Audio - there are some reviews of the Summas, which are the retail version, I belive. I think Brandon (augerpro) was thinking about getting a pair of those baffles/waveguides, not sure if he already did that or not. I think JoshK was planning on using those waveguides too.

I want to try an open baffle speaker, or I might have just built these. If I price out my project at retail, it's not too much below a pair of Nathan10s, and I doubt it'll sound half as good But then I wouldn't get to spend months obsessing over crossover designs, and that's part of the fun for me.

[Mark K]

I've actually been thinking of buying one just to see how good they are. They're really not that expensive when you compare them with, say 2 revelator drivers...

Maybe I can haul them to the next burning amp festival...

[A9X]

I have 5 of them in transit to me at the moment, but will not be making Nathan's out of them, rather using them in my own designs.

I also don't think they're that expensive. The only slightly comparable thing on the market is the DDS and some of the pics I saw online recently show the QC is potentially not up to scratch. Then you need to make the plugs.

[DS-21]

I think they're a fantastic value. Had they come out a year or so ago, I'd be running three up front right now.

[Dennis H]

Anyone got a link to ordering info for the waveguides and the full kits? That's another one of those zillion page threads over at diyaudio and I didn't see it on the first page or the last page so I gave up. Yeah, I'm a wimp.

Edit: nevermind, it was in Earl's sig.

http://www.gedlee.com/Summa.htm

[augerpro]

I have two of the 10" waveguides coming. I probably won't get around to any measurements, but I was going to let to Tom borrow my DE250's soon so when they come in maybe he will have some time to do some measurements. Earl is sending them out right now so expect mine to arrive any time now.

[JoshK]

I received my 12" pair of waveguides earlier last week. They look nicely done and the troat transition is carefully done. Dr. G said he uses the 12"ers done to 1khz, so about perfect for what I was after. I have a pair of DDS eng 1-90's so I thought I'd go one step bigger than the 10"s.

The price is a bit steep at $600/pr for the 12" wg, but considering it would have been really hard to reproduce anything like these myself, I think its fair.

[Jed]

Alright guys. Who wants to design us a waveguide mold? No way I'm paying $600 for a hunk of plastic.

Jed

[Saurav]

Now these are new cast WGs, right, not the ... something else ... that he used to have, that was molded into / integrated with the front baffle? What does the mouth end look like? Do you countersink a regular baffle and screw the WG in?

And you're planning on pairing these with TD15x's? Should be a really nice pair of speakers.

[JoshK]

The WG's don't have integral baffle. The mouth rounds over and then is trimmed square. I haven't thought through how I am going to fasten them to the baffle but countersunk they will be. The WG's are fiberglass by the way and are not resonant with a knucle wrap.

I do plan to pair them with TD15x's but those as woofers. I'll be using mids between. Likely a pair of JBL 2123H's I have on hand.

[ThomasW]

I received my 12" pair of waveguides earlier last week. They look nicely done and the troat transition is carefully done.

The picture is so small I can't see them...

Alright guys. Who wants to design us a waveguide mold? No way I'm paying $600 for a hunk of plastic.

Jed

It would be $600 for 2 waveguides and 2 of the foam phase plugs, so 4 hunks of plastic...

[Jed]

It would be $600 for 2 waveguides and 2 of the foam phase plugs, so 4 hunks of plastic...

Well, somebody is making a boat load of money!

[JoshK]

Yeah I know...some others have asked for pictures too. I will get on that in short order. I just packed it away for the moment so it wouldn't get covered in sawdust (the plugs mostly). They are unfinished and kinda a dull ugly grey. I'll probably paint them black.

[JoshK]

Well, somebody is making a boat load of money!

I don't know about a boatload, but yeah, Dr. G has baked in some profit on these to pay for his IP as he sees it.

[Dennis H]

No price break for not buying the baffles? The web page says $300 includes the CNC'd baffles.

[Saurav]

I do plan to pair them with TD15x's but those as woofers. I'll be using mids between. Likely a pair of JBL 2123H's I have on hand.

Interesting. I thought Geddes said something like "the dispersion of a 15" woofer at 1kHz matches perfectly with the dispersion of the WG", or something like that, and I figured you'd picked the Lambdas as the best woofer for a high crossover. But I could have totally misunderstood that. Either way, I hope you document your project as it progresses, I find this idea interesting.

The WG's are fiberglass by the way and are not resonant with a knucle wrap.

Contrast that with my XT1086, which produced a nice loud squeaky tone when I was screwing in the CD to the throat adapter. It's much better damped when mounted to a baffle; I don't think they put much thought into damping the mouth end since that was meant to be screwed onto a baffle.

It would be $600 for 2 waveguides and 2 of the foam phase plugs, so 4 hunks of plastic...

I was going to say 2 hunks, I forgot about the foam plugs

Well, somebody is making a boat load of money!

I wonder how many of them he's actually selling. And he says that the tooling costs for producing these is pretty high. I haven't really followed that discussion in too much detail, and it often gets sidetracked into various individual ego clashes.

[JoshK]

No price break for not buying the baffles? The web page says $300 includes the CNC'd baffles.

I didn't get a break.

[JoshK]

6 hunks of plastic if you include the CD mounting brackets.

[Saurav]

There you go. Now you're down to just $100/hunk.

Jed, Patrick Bateman (may not have spelled that right) on DIY Audio has some posts talking about his process for making his own WG molds. You might find that interesting if you're thinking about trying to roll your own.

[JoshK]

Saurav,

Yeah I have thought of the driver dispersion differences, just as of yet don't know what I am going to do about it. The other option is to use a Lambda TD15M for mid. The graphs shown on diyaudio look nice and the impedance is really flat. I just don't know how I feel about a 15" midrange. I heard it done with the Summas, but I couldn't help but thinking it would've been better with a smaller mid. I don't know if that will be true or not, but I'll try.

Actually though, Dr G has said that the 15" WG and a 12" woofer is the ideal match for directivity matching. So if we extrapolate, maybe the 12" wg and the 10" mid will be close enough for gov't work.

[Saurav]

Actually though, Dr G has said that the 15" WG and a 12" woofer is the ideal match for directivity matching. So if we extrapolate, maybe the 12" wg and the 10" mid will be close enough for gov't work.

Ah, that's a good point. It's the little details that make all the difference

I just don't know how I feel about a 15" midrange.

Yep. Nick says the 15" cone is better controlled than the 12" or 10". It's kinda hard to wrap my brain around that.

[JoshK]

Plus with 3 15" woofers and a 12" WG per side, it gets a bit unruly. Not to mention that that exceeds the 5' dimension of BB ply I just picked up. I will start cutting my baffles when I get my sketches done the way I want.

I'd like to make the woofer baffle seperate from the MT baffle so that I can change the MT baffle if I choose to play around with other mids, etc. The problem is how to hold it up without blocking the rear wave. I might do something like Jon & Thomas's Isiris with cross dowel knock down bolts to make the MT baffle removeable. I just have to iron out the details.

Having finally unburied my shop a month and a half ago I've been busy catching up on projects. I also picked up an MAudio Firewire solo card and SoundEasy. I've never done measurements before so I'll have to cut my teeth soon.

[Saurav]

Oh, is yours going to be an open baffle design? I hadn't caught that from the various discussions where I saw you talking about your driver choices. That makes it even more interesting

[JoshK]

Oh yes...I forgot to mention that part. Yes, it will be OB.

[augerpro]

Josh your WG's sound a bit different than what I'm expecting in mine. Earl told me they would have the baffle (that's used for the Nathan) attached. That was early on though, maybe demand for just the waveguide changed how he had them made. Also he was starting to make them out of cast polyurethane that started as hollow spheres or something. Supposedly very damped.

[JoshK]

yours likely could be different. i had asked for waveguides back before the thread started and he then had me put a deposit down and get in line.

[ThomasW]

Nathan 10's

[A9X]

Interesting. I thought Geddes said something like "the dispersion of a 15" woofer at 1kHz matches perfectly with the dispersion of the WG", or something like that, and I figured you'd picked the Lambdas as the best woofer for a high crossover. But I could have totally misunderstood that. Either way, I hope you document your project as it progresses, I find this idea interesting.

Earl's 15" WG matches up to the dispersion of his 15" WG at his xover. The 10" should match OK with the 10" WG in the 1k2-1k5 region if I'm correct.

The WG's are still in the post and the AE drivers are in Customs at present. The 2225/2123's will be in the Sides and the TD 15X and TD-10M will be in the Mains.
Pics will come as construction commences in the next few weeks.

[Jed]

I saw in a thread at another forum that Geddes will sell the waveguides separately after the kits are shipped.

[EdL]

So Thomas, ahem...

Is that a promo shot or are you in possession of the kit in the photo?

[JoshK]

I got my waveguides seperately, but I had initially inquired long before he started offering the kits so I don't know if that had anything to do with it.

[ThomasW]

So Thomas, ahem...

Is that a promo shot or are you in possession of the kit in the photo?

That's just a shot Earl posted.

I've pondered getting something from him, but I'm only interested in the parts for the largest WG and phase plug.

[JoshK]

Geddes Waveguide Picture

I forgot which thread it was that we were discussing waveguides and ThomasW asked for pictures of the waveguides. Well better late than never. Here are my 12" wg's.

P.S. you can move this post to the appropriate thread if you like.

[augerpro]

Other than the edges being a little rough they seem ok. How thick are they? What's impression of the finish and the throat/driver interface?

I just got an email from Earl two days ago that my 10"s are ready so I should be seeing them soon. Hopefully they will be the raw waveguide like yours and not just the Nathan 10 baffle for me to deal with.

[JoshK]

I don't think the rough edge with be that hard to deal with. I am not sure they are perfectly square, which may be a tiny bit more of a pain to deal with. They are about 1/4" thick, I'd guess, but really hard. They don't ring when you knuckle wrap them, fwiw.

[Dennis H]

Oh my! This is the QC from the guy who was worried about a .001" throat tolerance? :huh:

[augerpro]

Yeah it does look more hackey than I figured it would be. We'll have to see if it's tight tolerance where it counts...

[A9X]

Oh my! This is the QC from the guy who was worried about a .001" throat tolerance? :huh:

My experience is the same, only worse. I got these yesterday and took photo's this morning.

Images not available

Utter garbage. To say I feel ripped off is an understatement. I could not print the language I am using here about them.

[ThomasW]

That's terrible. The wood donut is particle board not MDF.

It's not 'wavey', it's molded that way. It's a section of a fiberglass baffle. Appears to be what I'd consider to be a reject from the Ai ESP production line.

[A9X]

That's terrible.

It's not 'wavey', it's molded that way. It appears to be what I'd consider to be a reject from the Ai ESP 10 production line.

Exactly my thoughts too.
When offered these fibreglass units in May, I refused and elected to wait until the new moulds were completed so I could get the cast units. If he'd sent pics showing this I would have revoked my deposit.

It also appears Earl packed these himself so he knew exactly what he was shipping out.

He often prattles on about intellectual rigour. We'll soon see if he applies that to his business dealings as well.

I am not going to let this sit.

[ThomasW]

I don't know about the smaller units, but the original 15" Summa had a removable fiberglass baffle cover. I saw the cover removed from a speaker at the 2005 RMAF.

Your pictures should be posted in the DIYaudio thread everyone is referencing....

Earl offered markus76 a refund in the Nathan thread.

[A9X]

Your pictures should be posted in the DIYaudio thread everyone is referencing....

They are: post 650

http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/showthread.php?postid=1586624#post1586624

Earl offered markus76 a refund in the Nathan thread.

I forgot about that. I have asked for one, or for the correct unit's to be sent to me, but Earl has refused and only offered a $US250 reduction. This is clearly unsuitable to me. So far I am out of pocket $US1000 for these abominations, $US100 for postage and $A162 for taxes and fees this end.

[---k---]

what do the fronts look like?

[A9X]

what do the fronts look like?

You can get an idea of the finish from the pics in this link.

Images not available

Some are better than others, but none are great. If you want, I'll take some more of the fronts later. I wanted to show the detail of what sort of product was being sent out.