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LOL! Who would think that.  ;)

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Archie, I think that would create more work, be a waste of material, and produce an unstable product. If the TR was set in a controlled environment this would be ideal and worth a try!

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SteveLuck, I think attaching the bottom of the TB driver to a tube would create a negative effect of the sound. I do like the idea of for long bolts for assembly.

IMO, offering the Tiny Radials in five or six wood species, outsourcing panel milling, and a slight redesign for assembly would meet the demand. The four panels could be assembled without the inside square dowels. The plinth could be offset with small round dowels inserted into drilled holes of the panel assembly and plinth. Fours holes can be drilled into the plinth matching the drivers mounting holes and long bolts will complete assembly. Furthermore a special lens mount could be created/printed tieing into the assembly bolts.

This would change the appearance slightly.

John

But...cut the block of wood length wise in half then flip the pieces and glue. Mount the wood in a lathe and gouge out one end as far as possible making a flare. Using a drill press with a bit the size of the driver drill out the other end. The result will resist warping but still be time consuming.  I may give this a try when time permits.

John

I now have high quality solid nylon Tiny Radial Lenses available on the Tiny Radial Page.  This means you can purchase them and stack them for more treble response as talked about earlier in this thread.

Steve

I also have the solid steel 85mm plinths available on the site. These can be sanded and finished to look just like the original wood plinths but add a shit load of weight to the Tiny Radial giving it a more solid sound.

Steve,
You know that I used to make molds for a living?
I just thought that I would bring that up.

I have been, despite the apparent stagnation, very productive with the Tiny Radial Project. I have finally after. 6 weeks and a dumpster full of failures... perfected the holy grail mold after making five less than perfect prototypes and trying 6 different resins.  

I'm so excited because in the smooth mold I cast a dozen tiny radials with polyurethane resin made in the USA that just rocks! These are on their way to my hydro dipper guru in Chicago to be dolled up and will soon be showing up on the Tiny Radial page for sale.

Meanwhile I have the more important of the the two, which is a perfect silicon mold of just the right thickness with a perfect wood grain print that is so accurate you can't tell it's not real wood. I knew it was possible, but it only took countless failures to realize.

Anyway, today I finally cast the first test in a pure white resin so that I could dye the grain print to examine it for defects. When you use a black resin, it looks great even when it's not. So this is to magnify errors. Also the resin is waterproof and the dye is water based, so it just beads up on the surface. You have to wipe it continually until it drys which takes about 10 minutes. So it's not about making it look good it's about getting it into the pours to inspect the grain print.



So you can see it passes. It's just weird because this is a walnut grain pattern in what appears to be a light colored wood.

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Donnie, is that why you have that giant thing still stuck to your head?

Steve

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We have a new champion...

I have found new resins and the most hateful one to work with so far was a mineral resin that is like thick honey.  Not what you want when you're going for a bubble free finish without a pressure chamber... which I have btw, but have not used as of yet because I've been using low viscosity resins that are about like water for 2 minutes... and then they slowly turn to rock.

Anyway, this mineral resin was the cause of 2 of my countless failures, but now that I finally have a perfect mold I decided to use up whats left and make a single Tiny Radial with it. That way I could hear what it sounds like.

This stuff is like stone when it cures. So dense. So I put it together tonight to pair with my previous resin prototype so I could at least hear a pair of Tiny Radials made purely from resin. Since this thing is so heavy it would be a crime not to use the steel plinth, so of course I did.  

The final weight of this Tiny Radial came to 3500 Grams (7.716 lbs.) !!!

It is the one on the right. That beige is the natural color of the mineral resin and it is the first Tiny Radial to be cast in the perfect mold.  A mold that is all I have to show after 6 weeks of failed prototypes. I estimate this single mold to be worth about $5K.



The black prototype on the left is more like the resin I intend to use and it sounds great as well. It weighed in at a very respectable 2800 Grams (6.7 lbs.) !!!

The interior of these is round and cardboard lined - cast right into the resin - but the density of the enclosure is now so great that the energy is reflected back into the interior instead of being released through the wood at lower midrange frequencies. To fix that a foam absorber is inserted into 50% of the interior which turns those frequencies into heat. I was shocked how well that worked. When things are this miniaturized everything gets magnified... kind of ironic.

Anyway, we need to have a discussion about the sound.


Steve

👍👍👍

HK

I'm listening to them right now on some Bob Moses at a level that would normally have the lighter woods nearly jumping off the table. I can't detect even a hint of distortion. Everything is as solid as a rock.  Something wonderful is happening here... I think we should consider tracking down the engineer of this amazing 1.5" Wideband driver and send him a pair of these speakers.

https://decware.wistia.com/medias/9gi02rc95r

The yellow link above is a video of the first production model of the High Performance Cast Resin and Steel Tiny Radial. When you watch the video you will see not only how perfect the original was but how perfect the mold was. This is what I knew was possible by someone who knew what they were doing, like perhaps Donnie. Don't worry Donnie I'm sure my garbage man wondered what the hell hit the dumpster recently and I told him my friend Donnie could have prevented it but Covid kept him away.

As you can see in the picture above, the cabinet sets on the steel plinth and the plinth sets on the surface. Both are so heavy they don't move but they are not glued together. This works to decouple the cabinet from the surface, especially if the surface is something flimsy. Some of the energy is absorbed by steel plinth and some reflected back to the absorber inside the cabinet. This is different than having it couple more directly to the surface it sets on.  

Steve,

I was told long ago that a true craftsman stood head and shoulders above his lesser peers because he was standing on his pile of scrap.

We learn by doing, we can sit around and debate until our ears fall off, but until someone puts things into action nothing really progresses.

The whole secret is being able to overcome your inevitable mistakes and fix them in a way that improves the product. It also helps to do this in a manor that is still profitable!
My bosses have always stressed the profitable part.

One of the greatest lessons that I have ever learned is a time where I made a drastic mistake on a gigantic piece of steel. I was prepared to be fired as it was probably a $20K mistake.
The boss came in and looked at what I had done and said "OK it has happened, no going back on that, so what do we do to fix it?). It was a great relief to me and we soon came up with a plan to fix the part and move on.
I learned, he learned and we still made money on the project.
And I know now to double check things a little closer than I had before.

Tonight I'm breaking-in the first pair one of which appears in the video.  It's funny, because I've sat here and listened to 60 pair of wood Tiny Radials break-in 5 feet away from me and some nights I was amazed and some nights I wasn't.  Those nights were followed by days of break-in before they sounded good.

These resin units don't seem to break-in.  So what was breaking-in on the wood ones, the wood?  Right now I am running them with the subwoofer to check the blend and I have to say that the combination sounds like a very sophisticated hi-end system MUCH larger than it actually is and that's where I think the fun in all this is.   These are wicked little speakers.

Steve

Well I just ordered up a pair on the TangBand drivers.
Lets see how I can screw this up.

  With all the emphasis on density of the Tiny Radial enclosure, it occurred to me to try casting them in cement. Concrete has been used in Thiel and B&W speakers at times. It has nearly three times the density of high density resin and essentially costs nothing. So with a milk carton as a mold, six cups of Portland cement, a 2.5 inch cardboard tube, some damping material and a TangBand driver all x 2. The dimensions are essentially identical to Steve's. These are prototypes with no consideration for aesthetics whatsoever at this juncture although I would christen them "The Bauhaus Edition" as they are solid blocks of concrete. I would include photos, but the method to do so is not comprehensible to me as yet.
   How do the sound? Rather trebly with a lack of bass, but very detailed. The lenses and a subwoofer may radically alter this sound along with countless other tweaks. They could never be made for commerce  due to the shipping weight and the liability issue should the speaker fall on the purchaser's foot.

Already tired of hand-finishing and sealing steel plinths, not to mention having them come unglued on the wood models.  So I am moving from laser cutting to full 3 axis machining.  These will be pre-finished with a metallic grey powder coat to match the binding posts.



A lot of the additional costs of improving these are being washed by lower labor costs.

Anyway, the first batch of these new high performance models sold out on the first day so we're working on adding more as always : )

Steve

I am not Steve, but can recommend DAL Audio from personal experience. I owned one of their amps and have visited their shop. Nice product and people.

https://dalaudio.com/

I have so far put a dozen pair of the HP Tiny Radials on the page and they have all vanished as fast as I put them there. Since both the cream colored ones and the black ones are all the same there is no reason to list them each separately as I do the wood ones so it may look like nothing is actually happening.  The only way to tell is to add them to cart and see if there is any in stock.  

This weekend I'll start another batch and maybe take some pics.  Also I have a couple pair of wood ones almost complete and will have some hydro dipped models by the end of the month with any luck!

Steve

EVEN BIGGER UPDATE!

For those who have been following this thread it is beginning to become understood that mass benefits this design by giving it more substantial bass performance and improving power handling to allow you to play them louder. And that there are many differences in the sound of the various woods at various thickness vs. different kinds of resins at different densities.

After hearing the changes resin models made to the sound, my mind went back to how can I make wood sound more like this, or better phrased, how can I make the solid wood Tiny Radials denser / thicker.

I came to the conclusion that if it wouldn't block the passive radiator too much, a full 3/4 of an inch instead of 3/8 of an inch would probably be ideal, but you would have to have a way to bore a hole in the end for the driver.

I tried this on several occasions myself, although with a mindset of boring through a solid block of wood and then tapering the sides into a Tiny Radial.

I failed every time because I don't have a real drill press.  Never realized I would need one.  My drill press is an entry level model that works great for bit diameters up to about 1 inch., or so I have come to realize.

Inject into the story a small German much like myself with that death grip on precision and an instant connection was realized which lead to a business relationship that developed into building all of our stock hardwood amp bases.  

Over the years the problem has been that because he is so good, he is so busy I actually feel guilty asking him to make our bases.

Nevertheless I can see he hates his job - custom cabinet jobs from HDTV indoctrinated customers driving him crazy year after year... so I have been trying to entice him to build more stuff for us.

Finally, I drove my ass over to his shop with a pair of Tiny Radials that I made, and explained that I would order no less than 20 pair at a time and there are no crazy designers or customers to deal with...  It's not final yet, but that German ability to always build something better than someone else - something I recognized in him and Bob Ziegler for that matter -

I'm pretty sure the way it went down is that one weekend he just said screw it, I need some my-time, doing something fun for once... We've all been there.

And sure enough, something wonderful happened... The Tiny Radial I left there with him, which was pretty damn good btw, challenged him to try and make a better one.  So he actually went for it and built them better than I do.  (I knew he could)  So as I write this I am listening to them and they sound EXTREMELY good.  It's the presence of the wood and the density blended in a way that is making me re-evalute things.  They are only half as heavy as my resin models with the steel plinth glued to the bottom... yet they somehow seem to sound just as good... without a plinth. 





See the corner pieces of darker wood reminiscent of the original Tiny Radials?  In this design, they are not needed, yet they are there... and better yet is how are they there... it's a little tricky.  That's the Audio Gods communicating to me through his ego.  Glad to see they are still following this project, which has had their insights from the beginning.

This may well be the second Tiny Radial Elf to join the team before it over.  Just wait to you see and here these things...

That beautiful washed out pale blue maple finish in the background pair waiting for drivers...

There is something really right about this. You can see it. The Audio Gods were taking his skills and resources and making this happen.  

My thought right now is lets go all in and create such a high demand that I can go to him and say I want 40 pairs.  He won't be able to say no to that.

Steve

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Hi Scott,

Your observation is spot on, also speaker cable has a HUGE effect on the bass weight of these speakers.  You can already see how a guy with the right cable and the right amp could get to goal for 100.00 while the wrong amp with the wrong wire could cost ten Times amount and not sound as good.  It is possible.  

Indeed,

In a world where there is only a 1 in 10 chance of getting a good McDonnalds breakfast in the drive through it restores my confidence in humanity to see real craftsmanship.

Steve

Also another batch of High Performance Resin models are nearing completion.



Steve  :)

Perfection in a tortilla.



Give me 3 of those and a large ice tea!