Speaker Concept Art

[Raptor550]

HI, this is my first thread. looking at all these designs and reading and studying about audio has made me want to get my hands dirty. However, I am currently broke. But the artist in me still wants to create! so I did... kinda. I hope you all enjoy my designs, some are more practical than others, and one rips off a piece from commercial use. The Obelisks are nearly finished being made, they look beautiful, but me and my friend are armatures so they probably don't compete with the caliber of allot of projects on here.

I will be adding finished images to this first post as I finish them for viewing convenience. In order: Statements, NapP's with the Dayton WTMW CC and RSHF Subwoofer(a variation of wkhennas cabnets), Wedges (yes I know this design is flawed), Cobba's Listening Room, BAMTM-Blackstacks, Obelisks, Columns, Eyepods (get it? ). And Yes, I did model my Amp. :-D

[Gir]

WOW! Beautiful models! I'm sure someone is bound to steal those ideas!

[speedle]

Those all look really great!

[tyler]

Very Nice! :T

[JonP]

Whoah!!! (picking jaw off floor)

Those are amazing! Took me two or three to get that they actually ARE models. Very nice!! You guys have some talent! We gotta get you gainfully employed so you have some disposable income...

Boy, when Dlneubec sees that ommni model, I bet he'll freak out... :W

BTW, what are you using to produce these?

[Hank]

Beautiful! I'm thinking about veneers for them...

[lambo_freak]

I've seen something like these before. Really cool Idea.

[Raptor550]

Thanks for all the kind words you guys, I used 3DSMax to model and render them. Im glad I was able to trick your eyes a bit, Getting realistic lighting and surfaces is super hard.

I have actually been following Dlneubec's thread and thats where I got my inspiration. I like the look of the Mirage omni's, but It would be trickier for me to replicate there pieces, and Id have to do some heaver modding of the tweeters too. (i'm less handy than I am clever)

The Omni "Columns" top is a slightly modified Sausalito Beolab 5 diffusor prototype. The modification being the bottom deflector (like the Jupiter) for the 8" RS woofer, I realized I could precisely mimic there exact specs using a front view image and "lathing" the curves, after that I could take the file to my school and "Print" a hard plastic replica for $10 on a special machine and sand it and... "Viola" I get something I shouldn't be able to afford! I was thinking a ("9 pipe could probably afford me 1.5-2cu' of airspace if cut the right length.

I wish I had a decent job and some disposible income too Jon! right now I can barely afford the drivers for the Modula's I want to build. The Eyepods were designed with modula architecture in mind. B&W I think makes some really elegant speakers. I wanted the Eyepods to mimic that grace.

Hank - the veneers on the obelisks are real wood cherry, natural light and dark red lacquer for contrast

Gir- luckily copyright laws in America are pretty darn tight. But I would love to see somebody do one of my designs (would look good on resume). -so long as i could hear it and they would help me do one for myself :-D. seriously, anyone want to try em, go ahead!

[fjhuerta]

Those speakers are *beyond* gorgeous.

[Drew]

Very nice.

Is that Pike's Place in the poster?

[engr_dave]

Raptor

Outstanding work. Simply stunning. I stared at the first image a while before I realized it was a rendering. Although you can't be too broke if you are running a $5000 software package :W .

I've been thinking about getting my son into modeling/rendering. He loves drawing stuff on the computer and I think he's ready to step up to a decent 3D package. Is 3DS Max much better than SolidWorks. Do you think that a 12-yr-old could start to grasp the fundamentals with some coaching from dad? Any other programs you would recommend?

Dave

[Raptor550]

You guys like these so much I think I'll do a few more, in the mean time, heres a few old ones from before the Obelisks where built:






We built 4 seperate chambers ito the oblisks and filled them with a ton of crappy speakers cannablized from the best of what I owned, in it is a pizo horn, an infinity kappa 2 way, a 10" JBL and room for a 7" vifa/dayton, and a 4" non-brand. Someday im going to have to put a project on these forums to "un-n00bify" the cabinets.




Drew - yes, thats pike place. I would walk past it early in the morning or late at night after a long day in the 3d lab and it looked just like that.

Engr - Well I didn't actually buy the program, It was a prize from winning a film festival. Before that I stole the program . when I was young i used simply3D and Bryce, I don't know if they are still out, but the prices have probably gone up. id encourage you to download the newest 3dsmax trial, they have tutorials for basics in the interface in the startup screen, after that go to 3dtotal.com and under there "freestuff" tabs they have dozens of amazing tutorials. your kid can get everything he would get from a college through those if he does these things and sticks with it. take him to CGtalk and conceptart.org to have his work critiqued and get him in those online communities. 3DSMax and Maya are industry standard and you would do best to get him into either (pref Maya) or both. as soon as possible. softimage XSI has a totally free version you can use its limited, but it used to be industry standard and is still good. lightwave is another good one thats allot cheaper. all of the above you can probably get a discount or scholarship because of your kids age and student status. Never heard of solid works, you can do art on anything, but max/maya/lightwave/xsi look real good on a resume.

[Gir]

Solid works is really an engineering program. We use it here at Penn State any time we need to convey a design concept. I've gotten quite fluent with it and it's great for design structures and conveying your ideas. For realy 3d art though, pretty terrible. But, the upside is that you can get it free as a student! It can do great animations for conveying a design as well, such as exploding a fully built machine and even have all the gears rotate properly and everything. As opposed to other design programs such as auto cad, it follows a more standard 3d animation style of modeling. It's entirely dimension driven and you basically take a block and cut away at it.

[Raptor550]

Huh, that sounds kinda cool actually! I want to explode robots!

[Raptor550]

I got board and did a a new set. I hope you like em. This is supposed to be for a ported set of Zaph BAMTM's. I also have them with the RS drivers to show what Nat P's would look like, for the port just imagine theres backfiring subs integrated





I included my versions of a stereotypical overkill audiophile CD player, complete with its own Tube DAC. Totally heavy on the bing factor, can you tell I like brushed metal?

[Gir]

I must say, your very good with these speaker designs! You can be the official cabinet designer for the forum :T

[joecarrow]

I especially liked the first one with the transparent mesh. Regardless of how they'd sound, it looks like you're getting quite good with rendering. I wish I still had time to work on that kind of stuff.

[Raptor550]

Well Joe, I was looking at Jon Marshs M8ta And I think I could use It on the Obelisks. When I get back into Seattle I will have to ask him about that.

Well I have designed my own concept, I don't know how well it would work, maybe some smart guys on here could tell me if It could work. SO, is basically an MTM bent at an extreme angle.
Presenting: Drumrole please............ The "Wedge" line of speakers with there flagship the Boomerang! you can thee the bookshelf "wedgies" in the TV reflection.



Its all the expensive seas stuff and then some 10-12 inch sub that can use a smallish enclosure. Peerless maybe? Daytons are always safe.



I was thinking I have seen others use drivers fully facing each other to create an omni loudspeaker, I have also seen people use a 30 degree angle to help spread out the sound wide horizontally. So I was wondering If I couldn't get a 160-180 degree spread in a really cool shape. My guess is too much loss of spl by cancellations and perhaps phasing problems, but if anybody thinks it could work, let me know!
P.S. Thats for the constant encouragement Grr!

[Gir]

Once again, good stuff! I wish I could model like that!

[Raptor550]

well the modeling wasn't too hard on this one, the hardest part was getting lighting and surfaces to look right. I was testing this scene in a itty bitty 100*70 pixel window for like two hours so it was exciting to see the image at full res when it finished. I wish one of the resident geniuses would come on here and tell me if my speaker layout is a bust or not.

[ThomasW]

I wish one of the resident geniuses would come on here and tell me if my speaker layout is a bust or not.

Okay, the severely angled front with the dual drivers is a bust. You don't want drivers firing at each other.

[Raptor550]

Thank you resident genius. I take it that in phase, off phase does not matter? Could any of these work better?

[mazurek]

Things your concepts remind me of:

Mentor project on htguide (has part one and two)
LAT on tymphany.com (maybe a datasheet or search would show you what that arrangement is good for)

[noah katz]

Beautiful stuff.

One thing though - in the very first one, the mid/woofs angled toward each other with the tweeter in the middle would be acoustically disastrous from all the early reflections.

[Raptor550]

Beautiful stuff.

One thing though - in the very first one, the mid/woofs angled toward each other with the tweeter in the middle would be acoustically disastrous from all the early reflections.

Yeah, *sigh* I know... I'm still trying to get "Outside the box". I *hate* rectangular shaped speakers but but I cant escape them! They are a tried and true solution.

any of the ideas from post #22 look promising?

mazurek - I have looked at both of those before, I really like there pioneering. B&W, avalon, and Mirage are my hero's too in that arena.

[Nathan P]

Gir- if you'd like your son to learn something pretty easy which can do animation and CAD type work, look at Rhino3D. It's not the best out there for CAD but it's still pretty amazing. I find Rhino, Solidworks and Pro Engineer type modelling much easier than AutoCAD, The whole "Take a block and remove what doesn't look like your part" really works for me.

[Gir]

Gir- if you'd like your son to learn something pretty easy which can do animation and CAD type work, look at Rhino3D. It's not the best out there for CAD but it's still pretty amazing. I find Rhino, Solidworks and Pro Engineer type modelling much easier than AutoCAD, The whole "Take a block and remove what doesn't look like your part" really works for me.

Heh, I'm not the one with the son! 8O I think that was Dave. But yes, I agree that the widdling the block concept is much easier, but it was initially very difficult for me to pick up on since I was so used to AutoCAD. It was quite counterintuitive. I think those types of programs like Solidworks are really meant for the engineers to convey designs, and AutoCAD for the guys who actually submit the working designs for production. Since starting college I've become quite fluent with Solidworks and it's really grown on me - much easier to prototype models than in AutoCAD and change dimensions on the fly.

[Raptor550]

Concept to real life

Yey! for more material right? I have had several people from HTGuide.com actually enlist my help in their DIY projects. This is a concept for redoing a basement into a Movie room par its unfinished measurements.









This Is a project I did for a friend, concept and completed project.




Additionally I have a new Pinup featuring the Dayton WTMW CC, I was brainstorming something to match the Nats I built. I have been trying to figure out if I should do a Center or Subwoofer first (once I can afford it). they will both end up costing about the same. Right now I am leaning towards a subwoofer because I don't do movies as much.

[Gir]

Okay, I'm totally freakin' jealous of your abilities. I wish I could design a HT room like that! Not mention those speakers!

On that note, once I finish up my CNC mill this summer I'll have a 3'x5' cutting area with a rotating 4th axis with a 10" diameter clearance. I'm thinking I may use my new toy to build some of your designs, so keep pumping 'em out! Great work!

[Lex]

some nice design work. Again, the first thing to consider about designs is, that not all have to be good right off the bat. sometimes, you may design one thing, and while it may be bad overall, you could incorporate some design idea out of it into another design that could be killer. So no design is ever truly BAD.

The amp you used looks considerably like a Pioneer SA-9500 amp from the 60's-70s. I can't remember all the knob layouts, and I own one, lol. Of course, a few manufacturers made designs on this line, and some has come back as retro designs from other manufacturers.

Keep this sort of work up, you could wind up gainfully employed in the industry.

[Lex]

while the angled design is not totally new, I do like this design.

[BobEllis]

Really cool stuff. I especially like the sloped tops in Raptor's last group - I will incorporate that into my next boxes to keep "someone" from putting various stuff on top of my speakers.

[Gir]

to keep "someone" from putting various stuff on top of my speakers.

Image no longer available

BRILLIANT!

[fjhuerta]

Have you ever tried designing a WMTMW? I may love trying to "borrow" some of your ideas... every design of yours is simply amazing...

[Hdale85]

I'm really digging that sectional in the theater there Have you ever actually seen anything like that?

[impala454]

I second that, I love that sectional design in the theater rendering.

My roommate in college was a graduate architecture student, and it never ceases to amaze me the stuff these guys can do with a computer and some raw talent. Raptor you seriously could have gotten away with showing us that first picture as your actual setup (aside from 20 questions about what amps you have lol!).

[Raptor550]

Lex - thanks for the encouragement. I have three main Goals with doing these. I am still learning allot about this field, the electrical engineering aspects I am still trudging through, but as I learn more I apply it to my art, like room acoustics, proper speaker placement. the most recent picture I have a foam with fabric stretched over of nebula for sound dampening and strong WAF appeal (for all you lucky men)
1. Sharpen skills in 3d art
2. Inspire all your guys, flesh out, and ferry ideas
3. Find people who would pay me
4. Some people need help making the rest of their listening environment as attractive as their $15,000 floor standers. Call me straight-guy with a good eye

Bob - Thanks, I actually find the slopes help keep even myself from setting stuff on them, It is a very nice perk. Wkenna did these and I loved the desighn, my main changes were making the angles more aggressive, used brass as a third color for embellishments, and I did some chamfering on the front top corner.

fjhuerta - Actually Right now I am working on a manifestation of the WMTMW Statements, for another guy on this site, he is a metal worker so He will be putting in burnt copper, should look awesome, I will upload those

Dougie - Yes, I actually modeled that sectional off a reference, you can buy it. ask Cobba he knows were to look. The other chairs are my own desighn, but wouldn't be too hard to build if you know how to upholster.

Impala - thanks for the kind words, again, cobba know where to get that couch.

The Amp I modeled is actually the one I use, its a Kenwood ka-7100 and the most attractive in its line IMO. It is a decently clean, 60 watts RMS amp, but its cheap to find so that why you will often see me use two in my pictures. I am a sucker for brushed metal and glass with real knobs.

[cobbpa]

Here's a link to that specific couch & some others by the same company. Hopefully my parents will actually build that room some day!

http://bassind.com/prod_gen.cfm?subcatid=1095&catid=1006

[Hdale85]

Do you have any idea what it costs?

[cobbpa]

Do a search for the specific model you like & a few stores should pop up, but when I was looking a little less than a year ago the black hexagon one was ~$4200.

[Hdale85]

Yikes....to much for me but thats a very sweet couch!

[Raptor550]

Statement of the industry

Have you ever tried designing a WMTMW? I may love trying to "borrow" some of your ideas... every design of yours is simply amazing...

For a reasonable price you too can have Raptor550 spiff up your cabinet desighn. These 3 custom designs were paid for, currently I am working out an environment for them:






The woofers are out a little further then they are supposed to be, but because of the low crossover point I think they are still within margin of error. The last iteration was modified to be a dipole for the mid/highs. and the person doing these is appearantly a skilled metal worker so thats burnt copper you are seeing. The two woofers airspace are actually connected by pipes and go into the bottom as well for an extra 1.3 cubic feet or so where the crossovers are

[Hdale85]

Are the spacing on those correct? The woofers look to far away from the MTM section.

[Gir]

Hey Raptor, I thought I'd give you the heads up your private message box is full 8O

[wettou]

Cool that's all I can say, you might want to design HT for a living!