Ardent Speaker Camp

[JonMarsh]

Well, I don't think it is all that heavy! Why don't you weigh your towers, take a little of the heat off of me?

The front panels aren't really all that heavy, they have lots of holes, and aren't very wide. The sides are heavy.... considering!

These should be pretty solid when done, about as solid as you can hope for mostly using MDF.

[Jed]

120 pounds!!! I'll have to add a fork lift of some kind to my work shop :g> shopping list. Otherwise, I won't be able to move the speakers from the shop to my hi fi room. Maybe I'll just tell my wife that she needs to start bulking up. :T

Make sure you reinforce your living room floor joists as well. Wait, I think Jon mentioned these are going in his bedroom.

[JonMarsh]

Since I'm 6'2" and 230 lb, I think my petite little speakers that weigh less than my 25 year old 5'3" daughter shouldn't stress the floor joists TOO much... unless I do something silly like finally build my HE-15 subwoofers or my push pull BPD1203's






and put them next to the Ardents- then all bets are off on the integrity of the joists!

[Hdale85]

120 lbs isn't to bad. I don't think my current speakers are too far off that.

[Jed]

120 lbs isn't to bad. I don't think my current speakers are too far off that.

Don't forget to add the weight of the drivers and dampening materials and crossovers. I'd wager Jon's speakers are going to be another 40-60lbs heavier when all said and done.

[Brian Bunge]

My big towers, like the ones Chris has, were right around 200 lbs. They were a real b*tch to move around.

[Hdale85]

Ah I thought that was including all that

[JonMarsh]

Don't forget to add the weight of the drivers and dampening materials and crossovers. I'd wager Jon's speakers are going to be another 40-60lbs heavier when all said and done.

I hope they aren't.... but I'm not very good at estimating that. I'd rather not be moving over 150 lb ea., you know- even if I am a sort of big guy.

[---k---]

I weighed my Khanspires once. IIRC, they came in at 120 lbs, fully loaded. Heavy, but not enough to prevent me from walking them around my room by myself. And not bad at all for my wife and I to load into my truck. Any heiver, and I think it starts to become a problem. 120 lbs is a good weight!

We'll have to ask Mike -Kingpin- about how much his project overkill weighed. Those must have been ugly on the scale. Or how about these, weighing in at 450lbs: http://linnaudionh.com/services1.html (CRAZY!)

[savage25xtreme]

I weighed my Khanspires once. IIRC, they came in at 120 lbs, fully loaded. Heavy, but not enough to prevent me from walking them around my room by myself. And not bad at all for my wife and I to load into my truck. Any heiver, and I think it starts to become a problem. 120 lbs is a good weight!

We'll have to ask Mike -Kingpin- about how much his project overkill weighed. Those must have been ugly on the scale. Or how about these, weighing in at 450lbs: http://linnaudionh.com/services1.html (CRAZY!)

Looks like Statement on roids with those ribbons. If a 4 way cant get the job done you may as well quit :B

[Hdale85]

They don't look that big until the guy is standing next to them lol.

[Jed]

I hope they aren't.... but I'm not very good at estimating that. I'd rather not be moving over 150 lb ea., you know- even if I am a sort of big guy.

I was just inferring that you'll use 8gauge inductors.

[Bear]

They don't look that big until the guy is standing next to them lol.

Computer speakers they ain't! :T

[JonMarsh]

Ok- NOW you're making sense- 8 gauge inductors to go with 4" front panels, right?

You know, I have been "sweating" the inductor selection a bit... I have some stock of NorthCreek AWG 12 air core inductors, which are fairly "manly", but I've been considering some other alternatives given that the max power these guys will need or see shouldn't really be over 100W RMS (given that 50 watts in the LF region will drive levels well above 100 dB for each cabinet- see below)



So I am considering alternatives which may be less hernia inducing...

[kingpin]

I weighed my Khanspires once. IIRC, they came in at 120 lbs, fully loaded. Heavy, but not enough to prevent me from walking them around my room by myself. And not bad at all for my wife and I to load into my truck. Any heiver, and I think it starts to become a problem. 120 lbs is a good weight!

We'll have to ask Mike -Kingpin- about how much his project overkill weighed. Those must have been ugly on the scale. Or how about these, weighing in at 450lbs: http://linnaudionh.com/services1.html (CRAZY!)

I think mine weighed in at 450 to 500 lbs fully loaded.

It was something like
front baffle 75 lbs
cabinet with bracing 300 lbs
speakers, crossovers, damping material and hardware 100 lbs +

Mike

p.s. they were moved to 3 different residences that I lived in. My friends celebrated when I cut them down. LOL

[Face]

I'm a fan of Alpha Core. Low DCR, good selection of sizes, can be secured on it's bottom or side easily.

[JonMarsh]

I'm a fan of Alpha Core. Low DCR, good selection of sizes, can be secured on it's bottom or side easily.

Used Alpha Core foil inductors and Jantzen AWG 12 foil inductors in the NeoD CC, for DCR benefits. I don't know anyone besides NorthCreek doing wirewound AWG 12 inductors. Looking at more varied solutions depending on driver frequency range.

[Face]

Solen has 12ga inductors made of litz wire, which is annoying to use if you don't have a solder pot.

[Silversmoky]

Erse has 12 Ga in a few values. Pretty nice pricing on them too!

http://www.erseaudio.com/Products/XQCoils12Gauge

[JonMarsh]

Thanks for the link- will have to factor that into my shopping choices, too! The Erse prices are attractive, relative to the competition.

The only "trouble" with Solen Hepta Litz inductors is they are only available from Solen in Canada, and the usual shipping and customs hassles, unless they've established a transhipper warehouse in the US like Parts Connexion has. They make standard and Litz inductors down to AWG10. Those must be the ones Jed figures I'm using in this little puppy! Their 10 mH inductors in AWG12 are pretty similar in price to what I paid with NorthCreek...

OTOH, an 8 mH Jantzen C-Coil toroidal inductor with DCR of 0.095 ohms is about the same price as the Erse, but with 1/5 the DCR. And at the level's I'd be using, the C-Core has quite reasonable distortion, and with a toroidal core, has far less stray flux leakage. At 10 watts, they're in the range of 0.02 to 0.05%. AT 100W it's still only about 0.05%. Wish I had a woofer that clean.

[Jed]

I was thinking of Solen for the coils. You can have them send the parts via post office and you don't have the customs fees.

[---k---]

I thought Thomas had a coil winder? Won't he wind you whatever you want? You need to put him to work!

[Hdale85]

And then what do all the rest of us do when we want to build this design?

[JonMarsh]

I thought Thomas had a coil winder? Won't he wind you whatever you want? You need to put him to work!

Where do you think he got that coil winder? And who do you think is the person that can actually wind coils with it that look like they came off a machine?

Skilled labor... ET

For smaller inductance values, AWG 15 is often fine. For a three way, there will be values outside of that parameter. I'm going to try to carefully balance cost and performance, but for the most part as long as distortion can be avoided, low DCR is king, especially for a design shooting for high sensitivity .

[AlanH]

Or how about these, weighing in at 450lbs: http://linnaudionh.com/services1.html (CRAZY!)

Not to hijack the thread, but did anyone else check out the amplifiers page for the site? I can't help but wonder what components were switched out that warrant an order of magnitude increase in price... :E

[ThomasW]

I thought Thomas had a coil winder? Won't he wind you whatever you want? You need to put him to work!

There's a limit to the size of air core inductor we can wind.

[Dave Bullet]

Where do you think he got that coil winder? And who do you think is the person that can actually wind coils with it that look like they came off a machine?

Skilled labor... ET

Be careful Mr Marsh. Your words could be read to imply you are the Emperor. Hopefully ET will overlook my words and not read your thoughts...

[cjd]

Be careful Mr Marsh. Your words could be read to imply you are the Emperor. Hopefully ET will overlook my words and not read your thoughts...

You assume he is not... Palpatine has many guises...

[JonMarsh]

At least we don't have Darth Siduous visiting the board for his own nefarious manipulations and ends.... :E

[JonP]

Where do you think he got that coil winder? And who do you think is the person that can actually wind coils with it that look like they came off a machine?

I still have that 1000' roll of 10g magnet wire at work, collecting dust. Shouldn't be a problem selling it to you at market spot price... :demon:
Shipping might be fun, it weighs nearly half as much as the completed speaker, but think of the DCR!!! :B

[JonMarsh]

Warning- More Tool Porn

Last night I was going over the midrange enclosures, and getting setup for the center dado groove routing (13"/16") for the front and rear panels. (BTW, that's a Bosch 85457M bit- not easy to find; oversize from 3/4" for fitting a 3/4" MDF panel in edgewise; available from Amazon).

For this I'll use a Porter Cable 893 with a PC add on edge guide- it's a cool piece of gear, kind of looks like a space shuttle ready to lift off. The PC 893 comes with a plunge body that seems to copy a DW621- I.E., good dust collection in the base with port built into the plunge system, and a slick smooth plunge system- it's the best PC router I've tried so far. I like it better than a similar Bosch I have, which is why the Bosch is confined to a Freud router table with Woodpeck lift.



If I was to be ludicrously optimistic, I'd say that I'll be gluing up enclosures this weekend. The 50 minute epoxy I tried out on the midrange enclosures works very well, and has a very nice feel and set to it when hardened. Yeah, for us "psych" guys it's all about how it feels.... :B

It really comes down to a matter of finding time, but if I'm going to keep this project on schedule, I've gotta make it happen.

[Hdale85]

Time to switch to the 4 hours sleep night.

[JonMarsh]

Already did that- was up at 3:30 AM working today. "Work" work. Not the first time this week either, by a long shot.

[Hdale85]

Hmm well you know what they say....plenty of time for sleep when you're dead.

[Johnloudb]

Don't push him Dougie, or he may get there sooner that later. And, we're all hoping for later, much much later.

[Hdale85]

Hah I'm not It doesn't matter to me when they get done as long as they get done right. Of course with Jon's other masterpieces I don't doubt they will get done right regardless but I won't be able to build these for possibly a year. So no rush from me.

[Bear]

Hmm well you know what they say....plenty of time for sleep when you're dead.

I had a boss that used to say this, with a bit of a smirking laugh. About the fiftieth time I'd heard him say it, and after I ended up working more than 400 hours one January, I started to fear he really wasn't kidding (a good weekend involved half a day off, the January in question was simply absurd with 110+ hour weeks). I left the company shortly thereafter... 8O

[Hdale85]

Wow that's crazy!

[JonMarsh]

I had a boss that used to say this, with a bit of a smirking laugh. About the fiftieth time I'd heard him say it, and after I ended up working more than 400 hours one January, I started to fear he really wasn't kidding (a good weekend involved half a day off, the January in question was simply absurd with 110+ hour weeks). I left the company shortly thereafter... 8O

It's not at that level, but I did have a job in the early 80's for a while that involved a number of 90+ hour weeks. That's just exploitation; no other word for it. Things ebb and flow a bit here, it's also depended on the manager- at least though I sometimes work insane hours during the week, for now I'm keeping my weekends. Otherwise...

[cjd]

Time to switch to the 4 hours sleep night.

With all the work he's got going on he probably could use the extra he'd get with 4 hours!

[bigg]

Porter Cable 893 Router set-up

Hey Jon,

How much was that Porter Cable 893 Router and edge guide? It sure looks like a quality unit. :T

[JonMarsh]

The motor actually has the typical coarseness of PC routers, unfortunately, but it does get the job done- just sounds and feels a bit nasty doing it. :W

I bought it on a special sale at my Woodcraft store, don't recall the damage off the top of my head- fairly typical for a combo base router (plunge and fixed). Rockler has it in a package with that edge guide for $259.

[cjd]

That's why I like the Bosch - the plunge setup works quite well - not perfect... but the fixed base I LOVE - best I've used. And the motor is excellent.

I'm not quite up to multiple routers yet, though I did finally get a drill press - since I have to do some precision drilling (one of the tuning pegs on my violin siezed and splintered to pieces so I have to replace it) I also snagged a cross-feed table. Things are getting interesting in tool-land! A band-saw away from being able to do more serious furniture work (and for that I need to sell my second car - something I've been trying to do with only nibbles, not really surprising right now)

[Dennis H]

Bah, you guys and your fancy tools. Real manly men build speakers with a chainsaw and a pocket knife. I'm sure ET would have some words of warning for those who use tools as a crutch for the lack of proper focusing of The Force.

[chasw98]

chainsaw and a pocket knife.

Harrumph, teeth and fingernails for real men! :T :B