Man, I second that thought. When I made the DNA2 cabinets, my measurements were incorrect for the mounting rabbit, and I ended up with a half inch mounting surface for the screws. Nope, doesn't work. Fortunately, I figured out a mounting ring for various drivers and it is seated in with a temporary type of sealant. Holds just fine, and I can either reuse the ring, or make a different one for each driver.
The only benefit that I can see is that the driver has plenty of breathing room around the edge.

My mistake it was 33.5

Hey for you guys who used Howard F&W, how many coats do you put on?

Yeah, I’m going to be ordering their new 10”(they haven’t given it a name yet)
I have a few questions which I asked about these drivers but haven’t received a response.

They have been hiding out at home,hoping to return to factory around Feb.10 .

A couple weeks back I posted some pictures of the final assembly on a pair of solid hard maple ZF15M's...









They were sold hours after I originally posted it.  However, the buyer has disappeared so they are up for sale again, same deal which was:

This particular pair I will be offering for sale as demos at a reduced price as soon as I have the pictures and videos that I need. This means you won't have to wait 6 months to get a pair and they can be picked up or shipped right away! ; )

Steve's little gift to the impatient!  The price will be $3250 for the pair plus shipping.  That's nearly $500 off a brand new pair.


The shipping on these pair would be by UPS ground, and if I remember right came in around $400 to California which is about the farthest distance from here.

Email me if you want them, they can ship within a weeks time of cleared payment.

Steve@zenamps.com

Do you recommend mounting the F-15 from behind or to the front side?
I see Steve are mounting them from behind on the Big Betsy, but Caintuck are screwing them to the front side of the baffle.

What will the differences be?

My baffle will be aprox. 3 cm thick

Quote:


dennis66,

A 3cm baffle would create minimum Helmholtz resonator effects as long as the driver is flush mounted in the front and the back is routed with a radius. Or vise versa. The drivers frame creates a resonator looking close at the back of the driver.  
In my opinion, it would be best to mount the driver from the back at a depth of the frame resonator and round the front to the point of front driver contact with the baffle. This can't be done on a 3cm baffle, I believe from looking at the pictures. Maybe a 5cm baffle would give enough thickness after cutting to give room for screws.
Either case, it looks like there are other issue with these fine F15 drivers that can be tweaked as pointed out by Steve earlier(ie motor cover resonance, frame reflections).
We all are simply splitting hairs for a tailored outcome

John

The maple are not burned-in.  Instead I am trying to get a few hours on the most recent cherry pair before they go to the customer!  



Steve

Coronavirus casualties?  

Jeez Steve, when you go in for a speaker design, you go ALL in!  

Hello Acousticzen,

Good to see that there is some movement with the Lii situation. Still waiting to see a tracking number on my F-15 order.

Enjoy!

John

Hi John,

I ordered my f-15s on January 23rd. Given everything that's going on I'm really surprised I got them this quickly. I received an email last week to let me know that a shipment had arrived in the US and they would be distributing orders.

Good news! Leo from Lii stated they are back to work and in process of shipping backorders. However my window is starting to close for this session of audio indulgence. I had to cancel being my order has not shipped. Placing the horse ahead of the cart, I should have time enough to build a center channel speaker for the HT before spring arrives.

Lii audio is top notch and I hope to do business with them in the future.

John

BIG BETSY UPDATE:

Handicapped by the Zen Triode 25th Anniversary amplifier's insane imaging ability I just had a completely unexpected experience this evening with the ZF15L baffles!  Yes it's true, the amplifier images so well, I was unable to find the magic spot in the room for the speakers... until tonight.



I'm pretty stoked!  Boy, you know when you find yourself fidgeting with speaker placement, it's a sign that something could be better... something needs to change and that's where I was tonight.

I have been listening to the baffles almost exclusively on the SE84UFO25 amplifier and have tried God knows how many placements in the room trying to find that magic spot, if there is one and never did.

Last weekend I had an afternoon demo where we ran through many of the speakers here including the ZF15L Zen Master Series baffles.  The amplifier used was a nice sounding and well built 300B 8 watts per channel.  Sadly on the 100dB speakers it hummed.  This led to going with more power and less hum.  We tried a Torii MK IV and it had a tendency to get a little boomy with these speakers, so we changed to the TORII JR., which is ultra linear and had a tighter bass with these baffles.  

The amplifier has been used all week since that demo so tonight finally getting a chance to listen I went into the room and that's where the struggle began...

Couldn't get same brain-lock imaging I was used to, and the top end was a bit harder than I like... so the fidgeting began.  Since the highs were bothering me, I ended up toeing the speakers out a bit from the point blank angle they typically are at.  This fixed the highs and was better focused on the front wall as well.  With that solved, the only problem left was the fact that I liked the imaging and overall sound better when I stand up.

To make the speakers sound the same standing or setting I tilted them back 7-1/2 degrees and the sound is nearly identical standing or setting.  As soon as I did this, the brain-lock imaging was back, and better then it has ever been.  It will be interesting to see what happens when I put the Anniversary amp back without changing the speaker placement but definitely not tonight!

So as I've said many times, handicaps are great tools for improving your audio system.  This was a classic example with a twist, as for the first time ever the handicap was that something was too good rather than not good enough.

I now exactly where the best spot in the room for these speakers is, and it is only here.  What a stark contrast to my opinion prior to tonight!

An interesting Big Betsy development I thought I would share.  Distance to the wall is btw about 5 feet.  Anything less in my room resulted in diminished sense of space.

In the following cell phone recording you can get a nice sense of what I'm hearing moving through the space, setting down and standing up...



https://decware.wistia.com/medias/90mdy73zdr

Steve

Hey Steve (and anyone else who wants to chime in),

This new finding regarding the Big Betsys is interesting to me, as I'm planning to build some open baffles of various sizes later this year. My main question is why the bigger baffles benefit from the tilt more than (or rather than) the smaller baffles. Is it just the sheer size of the soundstage that the bigger baffle produces? Or is there something else at play? It seems that the effect of tilting the baffle back is biasing the sound energy from the front of the baffle toward the ceiling, and from the back of the baffle toward the floor, causing a delay in the time that the reflected sound reaches the listening position. So I'm wondering why that effect wouldn't be the same for smaller baffles. Or maybe it is the same, but just less noticeable? Any thoughts would be appreciated, as always.

Randy

Hey Geno, I agree with you - Steve's a trendsetter, for sure. It's another experiment that I'm looking forward to when I get my audio system back together. I'm just trying to understand the theory behind it before I start. Or maybe it will just be one of those mysteries of the cosmos that nobody really understands, but somehow works. I could live with that.

Randy

Thanks for the insight, Steve. I think that I'll make some simple bases like Randy's, only I'll have one edge at 90 degrees, and the opposite edge cut back by 7&1/2 degrees. That way I can quickly switch from straight up to tilted back just by spinning each base around, and evaluate the sound from each before making my final bases. Cool experiments abound - thanks for the inspiration.

Randy

JB,

Sorry I wasn't clear. What I'm planning to do is make two separate bases, each with a 90-degree edge opposite an 82 & 1/2-degree edge. I will mount the baffles to the 90-degree edge to evaluate the sound that way, then decouple the baffles from the bases, spin the bases around, mount the baffles to the 82 & 1/2 edge, evaluate the sound that way, and then choose the orientation that I prefer before making my permanent bases. I'm just trying to do my evaluation as efficiently as possible, without making 4 separate bases. I hadn't considered placing two baffles on the same base at the same time. That would be wild, but I'll have to leave that experiment up to somebody else.

Randy

JB,

I went back and reread what I had written, and I can easily see how it was misinterpreted. My father, a former aerospace technical writer, would be appalled by my lack of clarity. So, sorry JB, sorry Decwarians, sorry dad!

Randy

John,

I agree. I am pretty happy to have found this company/forum/group of audio innovators. It's changed the way I look at audio for the (WAY) better.

And thanks for the tip on the Acoustic Handbook. I'll check it out.

Randy

Donnie, I’m not sure how that would effect the sound, but they sure would have a cool look! I think you should go ahead and make some

Hey Donnie,

Cool idea, but you'd have to recess the driver a little deeper into the baffle to account for the curved surface. Doable though, I think, and you're just the guy for the job.  

Randy

P.S. Don't forget to take pictures.

Go for it, Donnie!  Do the math on how much wider than the speaker to prevent the backwave coming round front. Make it concave and you have a shallow big mouth horn!!

Hey Donnie,

Here's another, hopefully simpler, idea: mount the driver in a flat panel, just big enough to hold it securely (16" square for the Li F15?), and then surround the flat panel with your concave or convex baffle, with a cutout for the flat panel. If you made the base symmetrical, and secure enough, and made the flat panel removable, you could mount the panel and driver either on the concave side, or on the convex side. (But not both at the same time, JB. HA!). At least that would get you through the experimental stage with a minimum of wasted effort/material.

Randy

P.S. Also, you could try different edge treatments for the flat panel - beveled, radiused. It could also be possible that I need to START drinking Dr. Pepper for breakfast.