Speaker-Camp, R&D for Modula NeoD CC speaker variants

[ThomasW]

Update 9/3/07, the official build thread for these speakers is located in the link below

https://www.htguide.com/forum/showthread.php?t=27218

Here's some guy fine tuning the CAD drawing for the front baffles....





For obvious reasons we can't show the face of the person in these photographs....and if you think these shirts are available at your local T-shirt shop, think again ..... :B



This is to show that contrary to some people's claims, no one is worshiping at his feet.....:roflmao:



Todays task, baffles masked and ready to be machined, along with cabinets ready for a few holes...



Off to make wood-dust,...........

[chasw98]

This is to show that contrary to some people's claims, no one is worshiping at his feet.....

Shouldn't there be a ball and chain around that leg? :B

[TacoD]

What is the secret password to enter the building site ? Good luck with all the projects!

[PoorboyMike]

Things must be serious there,,,,,not even one empty beer can. :lol:

[ColoradoTom]

Things must be serious there,,,,,not even one empty beer can. :lol:

I can solve that.... does camp allow Tequila or Scotch??

[cobbpa]

I figured it was a good time of that type of relaxing work happening in Colorado. Cool!

[JonMarsh]

I can solve that.... does camp allow Tequila or Scotch??

I'm more a Spanish Coffee or Keoke coffee kind of guy- been that way for decades- the caffiene helps balance the alcohol, and vice versa!


I rarely drink beer outside of Deutscheland oder die Oesterreich.


Well, we're starting to make wood dust, and have updated the Front Panel CAD drawing a skosh.

[Chris7]

Fun pictures Though for a high-end speaker guy, you deserve better headphones than those cheapie Sony yellow things.

[Hdale85]

I have to say after recently hearing the NatP's I'm pretty excited about these. Especially if they live up to all the hype from these guys! They say they will be quite a bit better then the previous 2ways in the PE cab's.

[ColoradoTom]

I'm more a Spanish Coffee or Keoke coffee kind of guy- been that way for decades- the caffiene helps balance the alcohol, and vice versa!


I rarely drink beer outside of Deutscheland oder die Oesterreich.

Like these:

Keoke Coffee
1/2 oz Kahlua® coffee liqueur
1/2 oz creme de cacao
1/2 oz Christian Brothers® brandy
4 oz coffee
1 1/2 oz whipped cream
Mix alcohols, add coffee, top with whipped cream, and serve


Spanish Coffee
1/2 oz Tia Maria® coffee liqueur
1/2 oz rum
coffee
1 1/2 oz whipped cream
Build the ingredients in a coffee mug. Top with whipped cream, and garnish with a cherry.
Serve in: Coffee Mug

Oh, how come these speakers don't have facets?? :rofl:

Tom

[chasw98]

Oh, how come these speakers don't have facets?? :rofl:

Tom

I thought Arvo's had 2 12" drivers in them? :T

Have fun making sawdust!!

[Evil Twin]

Like these:

Keoke Coffee
1/2 oz Kahlua® coffee liqueur
1/2 oz creme de cacao
1/2 oz Christian Brothers® brandy
4 oz coffee
1 1/2 oz whipped cream
Mix alcohols, add coffee, top with whipped cream, and serve


Spanish Coffee
1/2 oz Tia Maria® coffee liqueur
1/2 oz rum
coffee
1 1/2 oz whipped cream
Build the ingredients in a coffee mug. Top with whipped cream, and garnish with a cherry.
Serve in: Coffee Mug

Oh, how come these speakers don't have facets?? :rofl:

Tom

Obviously your "culinary" knowledge reveals one wise in the ways of the Farce.

Facets are reserved for more advanced builders... and those forgoing alcoholic libations during construction.

[Mazeroth]

I hope you guys get as much enjoyment designing these as we do building them and reaping the benefits from all your hard work. Seriously, you guys are fantastic and we really appreciate all you do for the community. ;x(

[Hdale85]

I hope you guys get as much enjoyment designing these as we do building them and reaping the benefits from all your hard work. Seriously, you guys are fantastic and we really appreciate all you do for the community. ;x(

Absolutely, the way I see it the reason HTG is so successful is because of the both of you. Keep up the amazing work.

[JonMarsh]

Thanks for all the kind words, guys- I hope this project lives up to everyone's expectations!

[tyler]

Thanks for the updates John and Thomas.

Good luck with the project and thanks for being so supportive to the DIY community!:T

I can't wait to see the results!

[Hdale85]

While we're thanking everyone, we should also thank Doug for creating/maintaining the site and anyone else that helps probably. If it wasn't for them the site really would not exist at all. Of course this is a little OT.

So back OT, we all love your work Jon and Thomas.

As for the WTMW it looks very promising.

[ThomasW]

The man from Brown brought our crossover parts order. Now perhaps people will understand why 3-ways are SO spendy....

2 speakers worth of caps. We've never used the Jantzen caps so this is an experiement. The big boys in the left rear are 100mfd.



This is one speaker's worth of inductors...



And a pile of power resistors for tweeking output values...



I suppose I should add that this is NOT the build thread. That comes later..

[ColoradoTom]

The man from Brown brought our crossover parts order. Now perhaps people will understand why 3-ways are SO spendy....

2 speakers worth of caps. We've never used the Jantzen caps so this is an experiement. The big boys in the left rear are 100mfd.



This is one speaker's worth of inductors...



And a pile of power resistors for tweeking output values...



I suppose I should add that this is NOT the build thread. That comes later..

I just assumed that after doing this all these years you'd have a magic drawer that already was stuffed full of leftover parts that you could use! :W :W

And I will also add my thanks to the list...... I've had a lot of fun as a direct result of your contributions. :T

Tom

PS - Let me know if you get some free time.

[ThomasW]

Saturday afternoon looks good. We'll be fine tuning the speakers, that's usually fun for people to see..

[cobbpa]

I'm curious to hear if there are any impressions of the Jantzen caps, I usually end up using either those or Daytons. I've never really been able to tell much of a difference in the few finished products I have produced; they've ended up sounding good, but I've wondered before if there would be a touch more clarity or neutrality with one or the other. I did spring for Mills resistors on a few speakers once, but have read that's also a smallish increase.

Regardless, great to hear that fine tuning is within scope!

[ColoradoTom]

Saturday afternoon looks good. We'll be fine tuning the speakers, that's usually fun for people to see..

No.... me tuning my guitars is fun(ny) to see - you tuning speakers is "educational"!! :rofl:

My avatar is my lastest addition!

Saturday soundin good to me too... I'll PM Friday.

Tom

[Hdale85]

What tweet did you guys choose for this?

[Hdale85]

Nevermind pretty sure its the D26NC55 Vifa.

[augerpro]

I wonder if Thomas has one of those huge Tesla coils in his backyard? Or maybe a giant lightning rod...and Jon screaming "It's alive. Aliiiiiiiiivvvvvvveee!"

I dunno just the picture that it's my head of the Fortified Carmudgeon Coumpound...

[kingpin]

Saturday afternoon looks good. We'll be fine tuning the speakers, that's usually fun for people to see..

Man, I would give my left leg to be able to watch you 2 guys working together on a project. ;x( It would be nice to pick up a few pointers on the fine art of speaker building.

Somebody should really try to get a Mission's Accomplished get together where guy's like Thomas, Jon, Chris D. and the rest of the designers in that thread show off their wares. I would drive to see that one.

I am sure this design will be a no-brainer as to how great it will be.

Thanks
Mike

[ThomasW]

Somebody should really try to get a Mission's Accomplished get together where guy's like Thomas, Jon, Chris D. and the rest of the designers in that thread show off their wares. I would drive to see that one.

Jon will be here for the 07 RMAF, so consideration is being given to some sort of get together that weekend...if nothing else we'll have a 'meet-n-greet' at my place.

[cjd]

Hmmmmmmm. I've been wanting to do RMAF - maybe this is the year.

C

[Dean100]

Looking at all of those crossover parts makes me wonder how I am ever going to fit them into the PE cabinet!

It was a challenge just fitting the Nat P crossover into the cabinet!

[technimac]

Wow....A photo that may or may not be of the Mysterious ET in action.

'Member when "Camp" meant swimmin' in the lake, boating, hiking and.......uhhhhh......"camp food"?

Now it's laptops, creative juices, measurement software/hardware and extremely talented guys using some kind of sorcery to turn out phenomenal speaker designs.

I'll add my thanks to the growing list of those who appreciate your generous contribution of time, talent and energy to create designs we all can enjoy.

Bruce

[Hank]

This is where the Magic happens.
They're using the right brand of masking tape.

[cobbpa]

Isn't this an ET design...?

My apologies for my poor skills & the use of paint, but I was expecting to see something more like
this:

That was Captain Needa out of uniform working at the CAD system- not my esteemed persona. In the weather experienced this time of year in Colorado, even the most advanced Imperial environmental bionics can become challenged; so I limit my exposure to unfavorable climatic conditions... ET

[Hdale85]

:rofl::rofl:He should get one of those helmets just for pictures

[ThomasW]

A few misc shots....

ET practicing his old-world-craftmanship.....



Speaker camp set up for outdoor routing...



Baffle cutting in progress.....



Note ET's knee brace, use of this is mandatory since being injured during an extraordinary rendition op.....

[catacon]

Whoa, I have that exact same workbench.

[Bent]

I have the exact same knee brace, LOL.

[JonMarsh]

Cult of the Infinite number of baffles (so it seemed)

Today was semi-mass production, 8 baffles completely routed and cut...





The "tent canopy" was something of a lifesaver, considering the warm weather.

The routing was made easy by the Workmate 400 which clamped the step in the PE baffles just fine- here one of the routed baffles.... (using the CAD drawing update dimensions- we eat our own dog food around here)



And as you can see, the drivers even fit....




Took another spin through the crossover design, this time using ThomasW's LspCAD Standard, just a few tweaks, until we have measurements in the final enclosure with diffraction control measures in place. Now I've got to figure out how to build the crossovers in a form factor that will fit in the enclosure.

This is what the working proposal for the crossover looks like at present - do NOT consider this a final design, just an idea of where development is at. No diffraction control was in place, which probably accounts for the bobbles in the tweeteer response in the 4-7 kHz range, and the data measurements made on a laptop (HF droop).

[Dennis H]

Lookin' good guys! :T

What are you going to do with 8 speakers... 4 each or 8.1 or.... ?

[JonMarsh]

Well, Thomas is getting two or three, and I'm getting the rest.... so I will have either a matched 5 channels plus a new center for the bedroom, or just the five for the HT.

[Dennis H]

Well, Thomas is getting two or three, and I'm getting the rest.... so I will have either a matched 5 channels plus a new center for the bedroom, or just the five for the HT.

Cool, Jon! I'm curious, do you have a problem with turning the speaker upright, i.e. the C-C distance between the sideways mid and tweet given the relatively high MT crossover?

[Finleyville]

There is so much copper in those crossovers that you two can probably start your own metal scrap yard!

Keep up the great work guys. We are all routing for ya! [pun intended]

[augerpro]

Any particular reason you used C5 instead of a resistor? It seems to be shaping the response and not a notch filter, so I thought it was curious...This should be a hit with people looking for a good design to build :T

[cobbpa]

I was also going to ask, would it help anything to squeeze in the woofers? I'm guessing not, since you didn't draw it that way, but in building Chris' center, he mentioned that pressing them in as close to the tweeter as possible could help sonics. Or maybe this is something to ignore until testing is done & a build thread gets going!

[JonMarsh]

Any particular reason you used C5 instead of a resistor? It seems to be shaping the response and not a notch filter, so I thought it was curious...This should be a hit with people looking for a good design to build :T

Ah, that's one of my non-patented CE notch filters. In parallel with L3 it creates a notch filter to kill the RS52 peak.

Dennis H: Cool, Jon! I'm curious, do you have a problem with turning the speaker upright, i.e. the C-C distance between the sideways mid and tweet given the relatively high MT crossover?

Well, that's a good questions, they're certainly close, about 3.5" CTC, and there's a pretty large overlap area even though the "nominal" crossover frequency is 2.5 kHz, which might dictate 5.5" CTC, but we need good integration up to 5 kHz. So, this IS a question to answer in measurement and listening.

In my case, it's a smaller listening angle, just a love seat and maybe one additional Danish recliner to cover, so I'm thinking there's a chance it works out OK. Otherwise, they'll all have to be laid down.

There ARE still things to sort out and questions to answer, but I'm still fairly optimistic about the basic premise and the quality of drivers. Especially for this size a system, I'll think we'll have nice performance as a music speaker from 40 Hz up, and of course HT with a sub shouldn't be any sweat.

Maybe I'll even have to build a sub, have lots of drivers in my storage unit, as usual time has been the big issue. And for a lot of the movies I'm into, good quality from 35Hz up is sufficient. For now. :W

Cobbpa: I was also going to ask, would it help anything to squeeze in the woofers? I'm guessing not, since you didn't draw it that way, but in building Chris' center, he mentioned that pressing them in as close to the tweeter as possible could help sonics. Or maybe this is something to ignore until testing is done & a build thread gets going!

That's a point that comes into tradeoffs- the woofer spacing is the exact same as for the NatlieP and Modula MTM, which crossover respectively at 1800 Hz and 1250 Hz. For this three way, the mid to midwoofer crossover is nominally about 800 Hz, though again some overlap is needed to 1200 Hz +.

If you look at the baffle, moving the midwoofers further in would really make for very little MDF available in the center part, and I think a problem with strength. As it is, I reinforce the back side of the Modula MTM, and this speaker too, to help with the baffle rigidity. Since this is only my second center channel project, well, maybe I've got a bit more to learn. With the other CC, which was a two way, the midwoofers were pulled as close together as possible, and it was a small form factor SS tweeter.

[augerpro]

Ah, that's one of my non-patented CE notch filters. In parallel with L3 it creates a notch filter to kill the RS52 peak.

Well I'll be...it looked so small I thought if it was a notch it must be tuned around 15K!

Now that I think about it that RS52 does have a high breakup around 12k...ops: