It's amazing how much "lift" we keep getting...I'm constantly thinking "this can't get *any* better without major changes" - then we find some small change that causes us to raise our eyebrows in wonder.

So....when do you want me to come by and help you move that desk out of there?  ;)  

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Do you need help with that? LOL

I'm available Saturday or Sunday around Noon (currently) if you want me to pop by for a listen...and to get my speakers.  ;)

Palo,
You know how I like putting a nice finish on speakers, I'd be more than happy to make your baffles shine.
I'm in the midst of of a transmission line sub project that promises to make the entire neighborhood pissed off at me, but there is always time to help you out.

Yeah, gloss black is like a mirror - every wave and imperfection shows up. Car guys hate doing black cars because it shows and magnifies  all the flaws.

I wouldn't say have a professional spray setup - I do have a pretty decent HVLP gun I'm learning to use though.  ;)

Unfortunately I'm not going to be using it on my speakers, but I'll be using it on the diffusers really soon. I'm going to try flat black (waterbase) on the styro ones I built, and might try an oil base on the poplar diffusers. We'll see how that turns out. It's actually pretty easy to clean, which was a big worry for me - but then I've only shot water based latex so far.  We'll see what happens when I start doing oil based finishes and the crap gets everywhere over the outside of the gun (and myself) because I'm clumsy.  LOL

I have tonight off, and I'm picking up the Omega's from the local Fed Ex depot (assuming they don't drop the ball today). So I'm going to give them a listen and get back to projects. I'll report back over the weekend.  ;)

Looks good my friend!

I also notice you pulled the pad off the top of the Ikea chair.  ;)

There are a couple Ikea Poang chairs for sale in the FB marketplace. I might pick one up and experiment with cutting and adjusting. Make it a proper audiophile chair with a tilted and adjustable headrest.  I know I talked of that before, but funding is holding me back.

~Eric~

I have been doing some A/B with the Augies and these little Goodwill buys are pretty impressive.  I think they may go lower than the Augies and possibly pull out a little more music given they are higher efficiency.

I did discover that one of them has a stain on the cone.  Probably somebody spilled a drink on them, but otherwise they are in pretty good shape.  They do have a foam surround which may be a problem some day.

Compared to the augie, the magnet is pretty dinky, so I wasn't expecting much but they are turning out to be one of my best audio bargains yet.

I will get el president over to get his impressions.  Maybe he will bring the souped up Zen...

I was planning on yard work last weekend but the weather did not cooperate.  Instead I decided to make some baffles for my Betsys and Thrift-store-find 15s.

I wanted some thing smaller and lighter because WAF is an issue at the cottage where I don't have a dedicated room.  I used 1" MDF instead of doubling up the 3/4" that El Presidente and I did for the bigger version.  I also cut these down several inches on each side (wish I would have cut them down more).  These weigh a lot less and are much easier to move around.  I may need to move them off to the side when not in use.

The larger version was over $900 for the drivers/wood.  The smaller version was around $200.  These sound very fine for what I have in to them.  The thrift store 15s will run off the plate amp.  If I get a deal, I will definitely buy another Crown.

Hmmm, worked in the preview.

No pic but there is simply a 12" foot attached to the bottom.  If you zoom in on the picture you can see 4 counter sunk screws across the bottom.  I just glued it and screwed it.  Both the weight of the foot and the magnet weight on the drivers keep it from falling forward.  It is very stable.  This is the same thing Randy does on his Betsy baffles.  He may have some additional bracing.

For xover it's in the crown amp.  I think right now it is set to 83hz.  I like it set a little lower on the Augies and a bit higher on the Betsys as I feel they need a little more of the bottom end filled in.

Well, there have been some advancement in the project so I thought I would give an update.

One of my takeaways from Decfest this year was the sound that I heard from one of Randy’s creations where he added an Air Motion Transformer to his Besty Baffle speakers.  This design utilizes his standard Besty Baffle with a whizzerless Besty driver and a Dayton Audio AMT.  

To me, this created some very smooth treble, and because he was running the AMT in dipole, it also created a very large soundstage and sense of air.  When combined with a companion Eminence woofer in a separate baffle with a crossover, I thought this provided great sound for the money and an advance on Randy’s earlier designs.

Randy was kind enough to set me up with a pair of the AMTs, caps and coils.  I chose 12K as the initial cross-over point based on where Randy was crossing his design and a peak that shows up around this point in the W8 1808 spec chart.   Randy runs his design without a coil on the whizzerless Betsy, but I felt eliminating some of that peak would be helpful on tracks that can get a bit ragged and shouty on the Tang Bands.

Initially out of the box, you realize these are pretty serious drivers.  Heavy magnets on either side and a heavy face plate give the feel of quality.  There are two pieces of a heavy wool-like insulation which can be removed from the back of each driver to allow them to operate in dipole mode.

To get my first taste, I placed them sideways, leaning up against a CD case, on top of another set of speakers set up beside my OBs.  I only used the cap on the AMT for this experiment.  Here is my first report to Randy:  


I got most of what I was looking for even with this crude setup.  Sweeter, smoother highs and a bigger overall image.  

But I decided that there was too much treble, so I did add the coil to the Tang Bands.  To me it sounds like a very smooth transition now and crossing them at 12K does indeed seem to be just about right.

I am also getting some very good information that was missing before.  More likely to hear singers breath, fingers on the strings and such. I do believe it has cut down on the rising frequency response issue as well.


These AMTs could be added to my current 1.5” mdf baffles, but the question was where to put them on the baffle and would placing them lower and beside another driver impede the sound?

So I made up some mini-baffles out of Baltic birch and mounted them to the left of the Tang Bands, but on top, like a little tab sticking up from the top of the baffle.  I’d post a picture, but I need to find another site due to photobucket restricting posting of pictures to another web site.

Well, I didn’t like the sound as much as when I just had them sitting on top of the speakers on the outside of each OB.  It seemed to restrict the sound stage width.  

So I moved them to the other side of the baffle, to the right (as you face the OB) of the Tang Bands.  This seemed to be better spacing which allowed for the wide soundstage.  Having them up top also raised the position of the vocalist and generally raised the level of the overall soundstage.  I think I will try one more position which would be directly above the Tang Band, but I need to cut my birch baffles a bit so they will fit.

The long and the short of it is that this is a great setup and helps overcome some of the issues with the single driver sound and add a great sense of air.  I enjoy a lot of live recordings and this is just the ticket for that kind of open sound.  I do feel that things are breaking in and the final sound of this setup could even be better.  I probably have about 20 hours on them now.

Once broken in, I will try to get a couple more set of ears over here to see what they think.  I might get a little crazy and break out the measurement mic.

You could argue that I had to add a cap and coil which adds more to the signal path.  But I am hearing more detail than I heard before and the treble is more pleasant.  I think I also lost a little volume and had to turn down the Crown amps running the Augies one notch to compensate and keep things balanced.  

BTW, I am also impressed with the price/performance ratio on the Auracaps that Randy recommended.  I have a pair of Mundorf ZNs that I will probably swap in, but I’ll wait till these new caps have some more hours on them.

P.S. I like to monkey around with building speakers but if you just want good sound at a very reasonable price and no sawdust: http://caintuckaudio.com/

They are also using an AMT driver in Spatial Audio's new X2 OB.  The AMT's crossover is at 800Hz and covers both the mid and upper ranges to 23kHz.  Overall sensitivity = 94dB @ 4ohms ... a very sexy looking speaker IMO.  I imagine this will sound much smoother than their other models that paired a 1" coaxial tweeter with 15" woofers.  Too bad it costs $9600 though!

alper_yilmaz wrote on 10/31/17 at 04:44:44:


I would probably go with the manufacturer's recommendation.  The closest Decware amp would be the Rachel (set as monos) or Torii Jr. and up.  The new Decware 6c33c mono blocks (when they come out) should have the wattage necessary to drive them as well.

If it were me I would probably choose the Pure Audio Project Trio 15 Heil over anything of Spatial Audio's lineup (up to the X2 that is) as I think they are designed better.  They are also a better fit for your Zen amp ...

• The impedance on the Spatial M3 Triode Masters is 16 ohms whereas the PAP Trio 15 Heil is 3.5 to 8 ohms and the little Zen amps are known to like lower impedances.

• The minimum amp wattage on the PAP Trio 15 Heil is only 3.5 watts and the Spatial is 10 watts.

• They are $400 cheaper as well.

The Spatial X2 look to be a much better speaker than all the others in his lineup (aside from the X1).  But the X2 are $9600 and Pure Audio Project has some really nice offerings in the price range as well namely the Trio 15 Voxativ with the AC-PiFe drivers and the build quality of those drivers are pretty kick a$$ as they make some of the best single driver speakers in the business IMO.

Huh, that T-shaped open baffle was exactly what I was planning on doing with my Betsy speakers! I wanted mass, but to still be open, and have a solid 3 points of contact with the floor so you could adjust the tilt with threaded feets.

I guess my imagination was on the right track.

My OB's sit straight up and down. Not because of some sort of fancy math equation, but because I'm lazy.
I did try sticking some old Hunter S. Thompson books under the front once but it didn't do anything for me. Maybe they were too existential!?
There was that other time when I put $4.29 worth of expanded foam pipe insulation under the baffles to "isolate" them from the floor, again, nothing earth shattering happened. For just a buck more I could have gotten one of those box meals at Taco Bell and had to isolate myself in my bathroom for the next day or two. I'm not too sure of what would have made a better investment.
"Yesterday's weirdness is tomorrow's reason why.”
― Hunter S. Thompson, The Curse of Lono

Ever heard this one Donnie?

"When to going gets tough, the weird turn pro"
Hunter S Thompson

I ended up moving the AMTs to just above the Tang Band and that's where they will stay.  I lose a little in soundstage width, but gain better overall continuity.

I also swapped in some Mundorf Zn's for the Audyn Caps.  Sound is richer, but I lost some air.  The Mundorfs are triple the price.  I am keping them in for now, but will switch back at some point to see which I will live with.

With a little break-in, these AMTs are really nice and I am digging the overall sound.  Great addition to the Palomino Audio Project.

I may look at other drivers to cover the lower to upper mids, but I find these Tang Bands to be pretty rich as well.

Good stuff Dave.  I have read bits and pieces of his page before and checked out his speaker designs.  I don't think I've ever read his conclusions.  Yes, El Presidente should probably give the Listening Room section a pass. Others who can't load their rooms up with sound treatments will take heart.

I stumbled into this speaker project with a little information gleaned from the Web and direction provided by Randy and Maddog but it would appear, in this fellow's opinion, I got some things right.

I also liked this statement:

It is difficult to screw up an open baffle speaker design to where it sounds worse than your typical box speaker.

I found it encouraging, but I am not sure I completely agree.  It has taken quite a bit of time and tweaking for me to get these OBs to the point where I have few reservations about them.

I also stumbled into this by just experimenting:


Placing absorbers at reflection points is the wrong approach. It only absorbs high frequencies and increases the difference between the direct sound and the delayed room response. It works against perceptually masking the room response as merely a copy of the direct sound.


I have found diffusers at the first reflection points to work better with these OBs.

I am at a very comfortable place right now with the way that my room/equipment sounds.  Yes, I have heard more detail, deeper bass, etc. from other systems.  But in a holistic sense and the pure ability to deliver an enjoyable, immersive listening experience, I am at a very good place.  

Getting the highs to a more pleasant place via the AMT and the overall image it helps project was a fairly big step.

And yet, I know there is still much more to be done, both with my equipment and my room.

For some reason, my new Mac mini does not like REW.  Once I figure that out, I will contribute some measurements to the sound treatment threads in hopes of getting some direction from those who actually understand this stuff.

I am one of the lucky people who have gotten to actually listen to Palomino's speakers in his treated room.
I will admit that my first impression was that "These guys are nuts, this is as far off of the deep end as I have ever seen". But there is a method behind the madness. Wow does Palo's speakers and room sound good, and when I say good I mean great!
The detail, the imaging, all of those fancy audiophile descriptors, all come true.
In his room even my ill conceived, poorly designed, and terribly executed OB's sounded pretty OK. Not near as good as the Palomino Project, but in the right neighborhood.
I bet that the AMT tweeter has pushed these speakers way over the top.

Does anybody have a guess as to why the AMT isn't used in a lot more speakers?  It's been around since 1972 for crying out loud and it's very efficient ... seems like tube'ophiles would be all over it.  The ESS AMT LE for instance does 98db @ 8 ohms with a freq response of 30-23k +/- 3db!

Does it have some weird crossover point, dips or bumps, etc.?

I've never heard it though ... or maybe I have in some different forms from Martin Logan and GoldenEar, etc. and just never paid much attention to it as I did not realize those brands incorporated an iteration of it in their designs.

Palomino wrote on 11/11/17 at 18:59:49:

That is very cool. I can still remember listening to music with my Dad when I was younger, seeing how it comforted and moved him and learning to feel similarly. And then later as a teen seeing a different reaction from my Dad to the music I was beginning to really appreciate. (My Dad did not know what to make of a few of my real favorites, "Miles Davis at Fillmore" and "Live/Evil").

Now, decades and decades later, I've been able to listen with my Dad again and learn a lot from him about classical music, which we are both hearing in even better fidelity than we had in the past. Music is a great thing to share.

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I agree 100%. Besides Steve's dedicated room I heard 20 years ago, Tom's is the best I've heard since. Granted, I've not spent time in $100,000 dedicated rich-people-rooms.

Oh, and Donnie is modest, I really liked his OBs.

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This is me reading his B.S. about "The Room is Rarely At Fault"

Use IMGUR.COM to upload and host images.  Works great and it free (at least for now).

yep... the Betsy AMT was a bit of a "OMG" moment for me at Decfest this year as well.  Air and space was amongst the best I think I've ever heard.  I’m sure Steve’s room has a lot to do with this as well.  I've been in this hobby about 40 years now and have heard about everything there is to hear (attend RMAF a few years and your reference will be broadened - and don't forget to get out and hear "live" music as often as you can).  Not too many things impress me much anymore... but the Betsy AMT "got my attention".  Just like full-rangers and flea-watt tubes got my attention about 5 years ago.  And like OB’s got my attention about 3 years ago.  There’s not many “box” speakers I can tolerate anymore.  However, I have been boxless with planars, Maggie’s and Martin Logan’s for many moons now to start with.  Once you go boxless… you’ll never go back!

Randy was also gracious enough to help me get setup to build a pair of Betsy AMT’s as well.  I have regular Betsy's, in a modified version of Randy's baffle.  I tilted the baffle back at about 10 degrees and run a brace down the back center of the baffle.  I would post pics, but photobucket has gotten greedy as some of you have discovered.  I’ll checkout the IMGUR site as mentioned above.  I intend to “extend” the radius of the top of Randy’s standard Betsy baffle upward to a more pointed/narrower peak to allow for the extra height the AMT driver needs.  I also like my Betsy driver mounted off-center vertically, a couple inches high of center.  There are sonic as well as aesthetic reasons for this.

Mr. Linkwitz has a ton of useful and interesting information on his site to be sure.  I have "heard", but never experimented in my own room, with a fully electronically crossed over and amped system, but it's on my "list".  I doubt it's better than crossover-less, high efficiency, full-rangers, but you never know till you try.  MiniDSP makes this relatively easy and not too expensive to try nowadays.  

Randy and I have been talking back-n-forth for some time now, about what our personal "perfect” speaker might be (for home use) - given all our experiences.  I am kind of closing in on a design that would be a "hybrid" of sorts.  It will be based around a full-range, crossover-less driver of some kind probably, i.e. the Betsy WoW driver in an OB, a dipole AMT (the Dayton model), and some type of “ambiance” driver (also OB), and of course OB bass.  I have four 15” Hawthorne Augie’s to experiment with (all mounted in modified Hawthorne Trio's at the moment).  I’m thinking separate bass baffles.  Perhaps an H-frame or W-frame OB, for a pair of the Augie’s might be the ticket.  It seems there is good science behind having the sub-bass separate from the main speakers so that you can place them optimally in the room – which is almost never the same position you place the main speakers for best soundstage, imaging, yada, yada, yada.  I have had very good integration/response results using two separate subs placed in different locations of a room, based on mode analysis – even with crude mode analysis.

One thing I am coming to learn about OB’s…. forget most everything you have learned about what is “good” for a box speaker.  A lot of it doesn’t apply to OB’s or defies what you thought you knew – at least this has been my experience.  One thing I will share is about “rigid mounting” of the driver’s in an OB to the baffle.  Forget that.  If you could completely 100% decouple the driver frame from the baffle while still sealing the area between the driver frame and baffle, it would be ideal.  We don't want the baffle to "talk" - only to separate front wave from back wave of the driver/s.  You can find some information about this on Linkwitz's page and his implementation in regards to an update to his Orion speaker models midrange driver mounting.....

Here is my first attempt at an IMGUR Image:

https://imgur.com/a/FIHK7



Edit:Hmm didn't work.