Forums https://www.decware.com/cgi-bin/yabb22/YaBB.pl AUDIO FORUMS >> Member's Systems Picture Gallery >> New Live Edge Walnut Open Baffles https://www.decware.com/cgi-bin/yabb22/YaBB.pl?num=1707601255 Message started by Geno on 02/10/24 at 21:40:55

Title: New Live Edge Walnut Open Baffles Post by Geno on 02/10/24 at 21:40:55 I finally decided to have something made that was more pleasing to the eye, than just cutting boards, made into open baffles. I found someone to make some new ones out of live edge walnut slabs. He did a fine job on them. It’s funny how changes in material, shape and driver height, affect the overall sound of open baffles. I’ve spent the last day or so adjusting placement, as well as changes in bass amp crossover and volume settings. I guess the fact that walnut is not as hard as acacia, had an impact, plus the thickness of the new ones are slightly less than the old.

Title: Re: New Live Edge Walnut Open Baffles Post by CAJames on 02/10/24 at 22:37:32 Those look awesome Geno! Quote: ...It’s funny how changes in material, shape and driver height, affect the overall sound of open baffles... Speakers, esp. open baffles, are essentially a musical instrument and from that perspective you'd be shocked if that stuff didn't have a big impact on the sound. And if yours sound half as good as they look you've got a lot of happy listening in your future.

Title: Re: New Live Edge Walnut Open Baffles Post by Geno on 02/10/24 at 23:21:03 Thanks James!

Title: Re: New Live Edge Walnut Open Baffles Post by HockessinKid on 02/10/24 at 23:31:37 Beautiful open baffles Geno. I bet they sound as good as they look. I hope they bring you many years of enjoyment. HK

Title: Re: New Live Edge Walnut Open Baffles Post by Gilf on 02/10/24 at 23:41:22 Those are beautiful, Geno. Congratulations on your new acquisition! I believe baffles are almost like tube rolling. So much character comes from the material, shape, height, etc.  Of course moving them around helps too, but the material plays such an important part of the resonance and tone. I wouldn’t worry about the walnut not being as dense as acacia- think about the body of an acoustic guitar, spruce is low density and not great structurally, but what a tone it has. The lack of density is what makes it so warm and beautiful. Tone aside, your new baffles are visually stunning.

Title: Re: New Live Edge Walnut Open Baffles Post by Dominick on 02/11/24 at 02:42:41 Hey Geno…those live edge OB’s are truly works of art.  They are beautiful!  Congratulations.  Walnut is one of my favorite woods…I built my fireplace mantel out of it.   My future project is to build my audio rack out of live edge walnut consisting of 3 shelves.  The large slabs are expensive, so it’s not something I’m going tackle right away. Dom

Title: Re: New Live Edge Walnut Open Baffles Post by Bottlehead on 02/11/24 at 04:59:27 Lookin’ good, Geno! Randy

Title: Re: New Live Edge Walnut Open Baffles Post by JBzen on 02/11/24 at 12:02:40 I liked what you did Geno. Looks rich! One concern though. Those baffles will twist and turn with seasonal weather changes. I hope the drivers were mounted with this in mind?

Title: Re: New Live Edge Walnut Open Baffles Post by Geno on 02/11/24 at 15:09:28 Quote: One concern though. Those baffles will twist and turn with seasonal weather changes. I hope the drivers were mounted with this in mind? Now you tell me!?!?  The drivers are mounted straight into the baffle. What is the worst that could happen? I could use this type of mounting. I had this as a back up, depending on how accurate dude was with his hole cuts (he used a jigsaw). I can change to these if needed. Thanks John (I think ;))

Title: Re: New Live Edge Walnut Open Baffles Post by JBzen on 02/12/24 at 12:32:35 Quote: What is the worst that could happen? Depends. If the moisture content was low in the slabs say around 10% or below and your space is climate controlled then the slabs will most likely be stable but might cup and twist enough to drive you crazy with a seasonal sound change. On the other hand with a solid driver mounting in green wood(high moisture content) the driver frame could actually distort enough creating the voice coil to rub on the core. Maybe just keep the possibility in mind and check the drivers mounting screws if your system's sound seems to be off down the road. Simply loosening the screws over time if needed to relieve stress on the drivers might be the cure all the way to a stress control mounting system with springs and washers literally suspending the driver off the wild wood slab. Hmmmm, wondering if suspending the driver from an open baffle will improve clarity, black space, and image.

Title: Re: New Live Edge Walnut Open Baffles Post by Kamran on 02/15/24 at 22:07:29 Geno, that’s friggin beautiful! I have a soft spot for walnut as well!

Title: Re: New Live Edge Walnut Open Baffles Post by 1stwattlife on 02/15/24 at 22:58:57 Wowsers those look sweet! I have thought about suspending drivers in an OB setup... just ponderings really. I don't have enough hard info in my brain to really deliberate the actual effect. The thought I ended on was that the density, shape, etc. being such important issues, for proper tonal resonances and the like, would be suffering if the driver is isolated in its mounted position. That being said I eagerly await some wiser words from deeper minds on the subject.

Title: Re: New Live Edge Walnut Open Baffles Post by JBzen on 02/18/24 at 10:43:09 Hey Phill! I believe we talked at the 2022 Decfest about your just acquired dream job and the long commute every morning. Is that you? None the wiser than most 70 year olds my thoughts: The speaker cone in an open baffle is very well isolated from the supporting frame with the spider and cone surround doing this but the frame and motor structure is attached in most cases soundly to the baffle. The sound generated with the mechanically detached voice coil, spider, cone, and surround bounces from the baffle projecting out to the listener before meeting the backwave bounce produced by the aforementioned parts at the edges of the baffle. The baffle resonates at its fundamental frequency[(s)solid natural wood will have many different resonant frequencies as compared to engineered wood] that can vary with different materials, shapes, and sizes with the sound generated by the cone et al. The baffle resonance will pass to the solid mounted frame creating slight movement of the motor structure therefore creating a mask of certain frequencies. I would also add when suspending the speaker frame from the baffle an air tight seal would be needed between the frame and baffle to eliminate the density issue you speak of. Hope this makes sense.

Title: Re: New Live Edge Walnut Open Baffles Post by Geno on 02/18/24 at 17:17:33 John, Not exactly related to your post, but this might be a good time to post this, as my results with the new walnut baffles is underwhelming, when compared to what I had previously. I’m looking for suggestions to make things better. Photos attached of what I posted to an open baffle group.

Title: Re: New Live Edge Walnut Open Baffles Post by MikeinMontana on 02/19/24 at 00:29:43 Don't know a thing about open baffle designs ..but that wood used in those is gorgeous Geno. Also my wife while looking at those speakers ( she agrees..gorgeous)  she also noticed your cd cabinets. Can you tell us where you found those? Sorry off topic on that.  ps ..love the wall of musicians too

Title: Re: New Live Edge Walnut Open Baffles Post by JBzen on 02/19/24 at 11:36:07 Geno, Hope there was a way to fix it beyond what is seen. The baffle area surrounding the P10 decreased which inturn changed the boost of certain frequencies directly related to the wavelength of those frequencies. Trying to think of a fix of increasing the area while keeping the good looks of the baffle is evading me. Anybody else?

Title: Re: New Live Edge Walnut Open Baffles Post by Gilf on 02/19/24 at 13:09:20 Hi Geno, sorry to hear your SQ went down when the beauty went up. The easiest place to start would be to take some thin plywood and make those wings on either side of the w15 go all the way up the sides of the 10’s. If you used thin enough wood you could flex it to curve with the natural edge of the slabs. From there you could experiment with a small separation wing between the drivers. On my Liionides style speakers posted in “the next project after the last one” I played with the ribs that join the top and bottom face plates extensively before cutting the final pieces from hardwood. I landed on a design that was larger on the insides than the outsides, with a gentle French curve going from bottom to top. No separation plate between the top and bottom driver. Maybe just try clamping some extension wings up the sides of the 10’s temporarily and see what happens?

Title: Re: New Live Edge Walnut Open Baffles Post by Geno on 02/19/24 at 15:33:23 John, I’m going to experiment with a ring around the PT-10, similar to what Steve uses on the Headwreckers, just to see what that does. Gilf, I went back and looked at your build. I can’t believe that I forgot about those. Awesome build! And your material is very similar to what I had before. Can you post some pictures of the sides and back of yours? That’ll give you a chance to show them off anyway. We did not see enough of them in your original post. Thanks guys, Geno

Title: Re: New Live Edge Walnut Open Baffles Post by Gilf on 02/19/24 at 16:22:04 Here’s a couple photos of the back of mine (right baffle). These were tuned to my room, with the w15s crossed over at 90hz.; the yours will likely be different. Regarding John’s comment about the wood flexing, I wonder if rear mounting your drivers would be advantageous, taking advantage of the foam ring?

Title: Re: New Live Edge Walnut Open Baffles Post by Geno on 02/19/24 at 16:47:31 Thank you, Gilf.  Very nice!  Food for thought. Please post a picture of both of them from the front! Thanks again! Geno

Title: Re: New Live Edge Walnut Open Baffles Post by Gilf on 02/19/24 at 19:30:37 Uh, gosh. Ok. Throwing a second one in that shows the Acoustic Fields carbon BDAs. The diffusion and BDAs were probably my best investments. The lower center absorber is removed in the rare event that we watch the television behind it.

Title: Re: New Live Edge Walnut Open Baffles Post by Geno on 02/19/24 at 21:45:37 Very cool!!!  I knew that we needed a better look. Many thanks, Geno

Title: Re: New Live Edge Walnut Open Baffles Post by Geno on 02/19/24 at 21:51:22 Mike, I forgot to respond to you. Thanks for the compliments - you and the Mrs. I’m sorry, but I got the CD cases roughly 25 years ago. Found them in some catalog. This was before I even had my first computer. Best, Geno

Title: Re: New Live Edge Walnut Open Baffles Post by MikeinMontana on 02/20/24 at 17:18:16 Thank you Geno. She's been looking around for similar. We have a metric ton of music in here and have overfilled all available storage place now.. She said thank you Geno [smiley=icqlite20.png]  [smiley=beer.gif]

Title: Re: New Live Edge Walnut Open Baffles Post by Geno on 03/02/24 at 19:52:13 Well, I spent the afternoon yesterday working on my baffles. It was recommended to me to add some rigidity/mass to the back, so I added horiz/vertical stiffeners, knee braces and attached the side wings to the vertical stiffeners. They are much more solid now, and I feel that the sound is better too. Also experimenting with a birch ply ring around the full-ranger, just for shits and giggles. I’ll have to go a bit bigger, to influence the sound more. I was just curious to see what effect it would have.

Title: Re: New Live Edge Walnut Open Baffles Post by Geno on 04/30/24 at 02:37:48 Sad ending to this experiment. I tried for over a month to make the live edge baffles work for me. It finally became evident that it just wasn’t going to happen. There are so many variables when it comes to the overall sound of an open baffle speaker. I think that the issue with mine was, that besides not being quite thick enough, was that the density was not uniform throughout. Anyway, since I was after a better look, I decided to get replacement tops for my old baffle setup, and used Walnut veneer over all. This was my first ever attempt at such. It turned out acceptable, but obviously could have been much better. I learned a lot about the process. One of the things I learned was, that I more than likely won’t attempt such again [smiley=icqlite27.png] The good news is that I am back to the great sound that I had before the ‘Live Edge Fiasco of 2024”

Title: Re: New Live Edge Walnut Open Baffles Post by HockessinKid on 04/30/24 at 11:10:48 Geno, Sorry to hear that your live edge OB's didn't work out as well as expected. Sometimes the audio journey throws us a curve ball. I'm glad you found a work around with a replacement top for your old baffle and wish you many happy listening sessions. BTW your old OB panels with the new top look very nice. HK

Title: Re: New Live Edge Walnut Open Baffles Post by Gilf on 04/30/24 at 11:44:52 I think the veneer looks great, Geno. Even if the walnut baffles didn’t work out for you, just think about how much more you appreciate the old ones now. One of the hardest things to accomplish in audio is having enough.

Title: Re: New Live Edge Walnut Open Baffles Post by Geno on 04/30/24 at 15:44:13 Hey HK and Gilf. Just water under the bridge. Best, Geno

Title: Re: New Live Edge Walnut Open Baffles Post by Bottlehead on 05/01/24 at 01:09:41 Hey Geno, Regarding the live edge: you scratched an itch, and now you know. I’ve found that to be a very valuable exercise (successful or not) in my audio journey. Your current setup looks great! Randy

Title: Re: New Live Edge Walnut Open Baffles Post by Geno on 05/01/24 at 03:08:42 Thanks Randy!

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