Guest Posted January 6, 2016 Share Posted January 6, 2016 (edited) Like the dark carpet better Edit, power cable going in Nice Now for lighting. Edited January 6, 2016 by Guest Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Silent Screamer Posted January 6, 2016 Share Posted January 6, 2016 Depends if it is going to be a music room only or used as a home theatre. Just listening I would go with light colours, home theatre dark carpet dark walls. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
acg Posted January 6, 2016 Author Share Posted January 6, 2016 (edited) Like the dark carpet better Edit, power cable going in Nice Now for lighting. Well I was half stressed about the lighting for the room. I wanted surface mounted lights because of the soundproofing I have been doing and I wanted lights on the ceiling and not the walls and I did not want to be bound by my decisions at this stage because I don't know what I want. Oh the options!! I took one look at a lighting catalogue and I thought my head was going to explode...just not my thing. Anyway, my wife dragged me down to a lighting shop run by people that she knows and the guy there was fantastic...he had me summed up into about 5 seconds and set my head straight...going with four commercial rails 2m long that I can clip just about any sort of lights into and position them at will...a very good option given that I don't even know how the speakers are going to fit into the room....but I can sort it all out as the room progresses. Depends if it is going to be a music room only or used as a home theatre. Just listening I would go with light colours, home theatre dark carpet dark walls. Just a listening room at this stage. It will also be my office so I want a room that is easy to be in...I think a light room in general will work better toward those objectives. EDIT: SS - I still have not got those images ready for you that I mentioned the other day...tomorrow looks likely for them. Edited January 6, 2016 by acg Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Silent Screamer Posted January 6, 2016 Share Posted January 6, 2016 Definitely the light carpet and walls then. You want light to work by. It's a mental thing we don't work well in dimly lit rooms. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted January 6, 2016 Share Posted January 6, 2016 Lighter carpet is also better for maintenance. Rail lights will look nice and would suit the mechanical theme, stuff bolted together. Spot light heads over work station. Ideas to break up and ad texture to the walls https://www.google.com.au/search?q=timber+dado+wall+panels&espv=2&biw=1920&bih=979&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjV2Mfj9pXKAhUHjZQKHQXxApAQsAQILg&dpr=1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Newman Posted January 6, 2016 Share Posted January 6, 2016 Deluxe thickish underlay. Not OTT, just deluxe. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
acg Posted January 8, 2016 Author Share Posted January 8, 2016 RAAL Tweeter Sarcophagus mostly done... Just a bit more milling to take the parallel sides out of square, tidy up of the seams and then a paint job to finish them. At the moment they weigh 6.8kg each with the tweeter installed but some weight will be lost when I shave the sides and some weight gained when I install the 33mm diameter steel rods that will act as the supports and adjustment for this channel. For scale the empty sarcophagus is sitting on an oversised DVD case... 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
acg Posted January 14, 2016 Author Share Posted January 14, 2016 Frame Update I have been thinking about how easy my horn frame is going to be to construct with the limited resources that I have here in town. I have plenty of gear at the farm but that is two hours away and I really do not feel like "tooing and froing" to get the chassis built. Here is where I got up to with the "Square Frame". There is about 50mm of adjustment back and forth for each horn and that is enough, but if I change room and end up with a longer listening distance I will have to make longer rods to hold the horns. It is ok, I don't mind the design, but perhaps it is a bit "formal" for my liking. The cable management is not ideal but would be manageable with some holes tapped in the back of the chassis upright as required. One issue for me is welding: I am a hack, and I want these joins to be as neat as possible, so I will pass the welding to someone else. Plus the welding will distort the metal so my neatly aligned holes will move and my horns could end up sitting crooked which would mean that I should give it to a fitter and turner to bore out the sleeves to the desired direction and size after welding, which means that I really should just give it to the fitter and turner to do from the get-go. That is not my plan here, I want to build it with my own hands so I need to find a way to sidestep the welding issue in the area of the frame that the horn adjustments are made. So I got to thinking. I want it to look less "formal" which means a more fluid design; compliment the curves of the horn with some curves in the frame, plus something that I can build in town and that does not require welding or boring on specialist equipment that I don't have. This is what I came up with last night... The horn adjustment components are sandwiched in between the two curvy 16mm steel plates and will give about 80mm-90mm of adjustment. I would screw these into place with M8 machine screws and that whole side plate could be tidied up nicely with some epoxy filler before painting for a smooth surface. All those machine screws should be enough to keep any twist out of the frame that two 150mm wide panels of 16mm steel plate let through. The three lower sandwiched items are cable runners so that I can organise the speaker cables inside the frame. As you can see below I have increased the size of the rear legs...I like it! From the front... Showing the horn adjustment mechanism and top plate for the Injection channel or pot plant or other item. And lastly the cable runners... When all is setup and installed in-room and I am ready to to just listen to music rather than build and tweak, I can make up some screens to hide the internals of the sandwich using some magnetised strips and something like black grille cloth. Surprisingly, I think that this fancy curved frame will be easier for me to build than the 'square' frame I started with, mainly because after getting the steel laser cut there are only a few welds and a whole lot of countersinking, drilling and tapping threads, which I can easily do here myself in town. They will be very heavy though...which is not necessarily a bad thing...I like heavy. Thoughts? @@Romy The Cat, one question. What I need to be sure of for this curved design is the horizontal distance between the acoustic centres of the Midrange Horn and the Upperbass Horn. I am really only just making a guestimate so far and it could easily be 50mm+ (2"+) or more than the distance that I have used which means that my curvy frame could get in the way of time aligning the horns. Are you able to drop a plumb bob from somewhere on the midrange S2 and tell me the distance to the throat of the UB horn (or better yet to the front of the Fane 8M driver or to some identified point on the driver). Using your listening distance and assuming an ear height I can figure out the what I need to know and make sure that the curvy frame is not going to get in the way. For example... Cheers, Anthony 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted January 14, 2016 Share Posted January 14, 2016 Curved! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rob181 Posted January 15, 2016 Share Posted January 15, 2016 Aesthetically...a much better design...nothing like curves to get the heart racing... As for better sound reproduction... I will leave that to those with much more "tech savvy" than I have... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted January 15, 2016 Share Posted January 15, 2016 Yea curved looks better, kinder to the eye. Cool, stronger and easier, cannot go wrong. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted January 15, 2016 Share Posted January 15, 2016 Aesthetically...a much better design...nothing like curves to get the heart racing... As for better sound reproduction... I will leave that to those with much more "tech savvy" than I have... I only look at the pictures Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted January 15, 2016 Share Posted January 15, 2016 , cannot go wrong. Famous last words. Often heard around the same time as "Hold my beer and watch this" Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
acg Posted January 15, 2016 Author Share Posted January 15, 2016 Just did a rough calculation on the steel weight for these horn stands...somewhere around 100kg-110kg each I reckon. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hochopeper Posted January 15, 2016 Share Posted January 15, 2016 (edited) Just did a rough calculation on the steel weight for these horn stands...somewhere around 100kg-110kg each I reckon. And the horns? At least that again? So you're looking at close to half tonne speaker system? Easily including bass channels I would guess. Edited January 15, 2016 by hochopeper Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
acg Posted January 15, 2016 Author Share Posted January 15, 2016 (edited) I reckon that each horn stack once it is fully populated will end up at about 350kg. Then there are the bass arrays and the amplifiers. Those amps have a lot of iron in them so I can't see them being featherweights so they might push 100kg each by the time all six channels are included and I build them from steel.. We are looking at maybe a one tonne system, which according to the builder is just fine for the room. I have not intentionally aimed for a ridiculously heavy system, but I have heard the lighter made horns and how they resonate and carry on at various frequencies and really want to avoid that if I can. Plus, my aim for the Upperbass Horn(in particular) is to get as much sound radiating out the front of it as I can, and to minimise the amount of sound that makes its way through the horn or backchamber walls to places where I don't particularly want it to be, so I have gone particularly overboard with that channel...at this stage of hindsight a bit too overboard...but I am committed now. It's not like this is a commercial product where I would have to compromise the weight and scale of the system so people would want to buy it...I have purposefully not let myself be encumbered by those limitations placed on commercial speakers...if I want a top-rate horn system in my eyes it has to be big and it has to be heavy...not really any way around that unless I am willing to have the horns react to the signal they are passing and have to give up running some of those channels from old DHT's or single stage IDHT's with maybe a watt or two of output. EDIT: DHT = Directly Heated Triode - the early valves - think at least 50yo IDHT = Indirectly Heated Triode - newer tubes, but if you are lucky you only use one stage (instead of two), so as simple an amplifier circuit of which I am aware Edited January 15, 2016 by acg 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
almikel Posted January 15, 2016 Share Posted January 15, 2016 ...at this stage of hindsight a bit too overboard... Been said already in this thread multiple times - for this build - overboard is the "raison d'être" Haven't visited this thread for a long time - hugely entertaining. Can't wait to see (and hear) the final product. cheers Mike Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted January 15, 2016 Share Posted January 15, 2016 Can't wait to see (and hear) the final product. Yes I'm hoping to one day get to see this in the flesh. Or wood... ....um.... .....yeah Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Newman Posted January 15, 2016 Share Posted January 15, 2016 ...if I want a top-rate horn system in my eyes it has to be big and it has to be heavy...not really any way around that unless I am willing to have the horns react to the signal they are passing.... I used to think that way, but my learning path has taken me to a different point these days. My next horns, if ever, will be lighter, not heavier. But not all that relevant for this project! As for big, yep, no way around that without compromise. I do love your new Shorns (S-horns)! 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted January 15, 2016 Share Posted January 15, 2016 I do love your new Shorns (S-horns)! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
acg Posted January 15, 2016 Author Share Posted January 15, 2016 I can't call the speakers Shaun...that's just not right...but very witty you pair. Yes I'm hoping to one day get to see this in the flesh.Or wood.......um.... .....yeah Once these are up and running and dialled-in I have been warned by several of a steady pilgrimage of strangers to the "Temple of Shaun" (see...it's just not right is it?) but if I get sick of you buggers I will just let my wife start answering my phone and she will sort you out...haha...seriously though, would be good to meet you DVP (and others). 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted January 15, 2016 Share Posted January 15, 2016 ...seriously though, would be good to meet you DVP. You sure about that? I reckon after ten minutes of "I would have made that bigger" "probably should have countersunk that" "shame all the good welds ended up where you can't see them" "not sure about the colour" etc you'll be pretty sick of me. Then again, just start talking specs and frequencies and I'll soon be asleep in a corner drooling on your carpet. Better put a tarp down. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted January 15, 2016 Share Posted January 15, 2016 I can't call the speakers Shaun...that's just not right... Wallace and Gromit? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hochopeper Posted January 15, 2016 Share Posted January 15, 2016 I reckon that each horn stack once it is fully populated will end up at about 350kg. Then there are the bass arrays and the amplifiers. Those amps have a lot of iron in them so I can't see them being featherweights so they might push 100kg each by the time all six channels are included and I build them from steel.. We are looking at maybe a one tonne system, which according to the builder is just fine for the room. And the waste MDF and steel would have been?! Even more than what's left in the final system!? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
acg Posted January 15, 2016 Author Share Posted January 15, 2016 I used to think that way, but my learning path has taken me to a different point these days. My next horns, if ever, will be lighter, not heavier. But not all that relevant for this project! As for big, yep, no way around that without compromise. I do love your new Shorns (S-horns)! I've put my hand on circa 120Hz fibreglass horns and they shook hard enough to churn butter...not sure how you would approach that frequency range with something light, after-all mass is the essential element for soundproofing, and if sound does not get through the horn walls then they won't shake, if they don't shake they don't make their own sounds and their sensitivity (and directivity) goes up because it is all coming out the mouth of the horn rather than the sides. Damping only takes things so far, and even the best damping materials are very heavy. I would love to know what you are aiming at with lighter horns... possibly a slightly different target. Care to explain? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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