I should stop looking at this thread! I want a pair so bad! They look like little gems.

Hi Steve - question on the wall thickness for those home building these.  Is the internal volume of the speaker a factor in it's performance?  If I use thicker material and keep the external dimensions the same will it work (provided the internal walls are sanded to allow the driver to fit)?  

I'm tempted by some laminated flooring for the sides, 3mm of Oak or Ash laminated to poplar to give 14mm thickness in total.  Other flooring MFR use hardwood and MDF.  I'd just need to chop the locking mechanism from the sides of each plank.

If I add another 1/4 inch to the outside of a 3D model I started playing with it looks a little chunky and it looks like the lense would need to be widened.

I ordered a Japanese saw today (always wanted one) and a 1 and 3/4 inch Forstner bit and a Drum sanding set.  Looking forward to this project.  No sign of Parts Express shipping the drivers yet - Out of stock when I ordered.

My first selfie... probably explains the look.

Steve

Yesterday and Today were are installing the drivers.  With some luck, binding posts will arrive tomorrow.

I gotta go polish them....lol....first timer,usually just dust them off.

Tubecan, you have a fine looking set of TR's.

I'm presently about twenty four hours on mine.  Indeed, the first few hours were not what I expected.  Today I rearranged the deck chairs on the Titanic (my desk).  Moved everything and changed the speaker wires.

At this point I have no regrets on the purchase.  The new arrangement has made a large difference.  I listen very nearfield.  Sub integration was a breeze as not much help is needed.

Working hard gathering tools and materials - satin nickel binding post on the way from parts express - no signs of drivers yet.  I've found someone who will cut some Black figured walnut and plane and drum sand it down to 7 - 6mm.  Going to look so pretty here 's what i've agreed to buy. [img][/img]

The binding posts finally arrived weeks late, so today I got a chance to make some more assembly videos while I finish more of these Tiny Radials.

Drivers are out of stock till late November now - just chasing Parts Express to see if the ones I ordered are being shipped soon.  Have everything else in hand ready now.  I bought a 100 M3 thread inserts (cheap) so that I can use them with M3 stainless cap head screws I have for driver and possibly lens fixing.  I also have M3 brass and stainless standoffs that could be used for spacing.  Have to make sure that if we have quake here in Wellington (NZ) big enough to tip them over that they stay in one piece.  Thicker base  might be called for.

You've been wandering how to scale these up - could you have four of the same drivers facing up in a scaled up enclosure ie 2x2 array - what would happen?  Or could you just buy a 4 inch driver and passive radiator and mount them back to back sealed together to make your own Tang band arrangement just bigger?  Appreciated the bigger the driver the less likely it is to move as fast.

I am having too much fun... can't think of a better time to have it ; )



Anyone wondering what this sounds like?  ;)

If a little is good, way too much is just barely enough!

Overkill is so much fun!

Just in case someone asks, six 8 ohm speakers, that actually measure 7 ohms, in parallel is 1.38 ohms.  After listening to that for a bit, I wanted it to get louder, so I series-paralleled it to 2.76 ohms and then made the video.  The amp is quite happy driving it all day.

Well done Steve, well done!

HK

Tubecan...great pic!  Can’t help but notice the Ray Bown Trio “Bassics” CD.  What a phenomenal album.    

Tidal used to have that in their catalog, but got rid of it like a year ago. Needless to say my wife has that on my  Christmas list as a stocking stuffer.  

Dom

Use the hi-level inputs on the sub amp.  Just run another pair of speaker wires from the amplifier to the sub amp.  You can also use the hi-level output from the sub amp. Depending on the quality of the amplification, you may not notice any degradation in the sound.

Steve

As I sit here tonight with a massive sliver of some exotic wood in my hand, I realized that all but a few pair of the Tiny Radials that Bob helped me build are already gone.  The longest a pair stayed on the site was 1 hour and 54 minutes.  

The wish list has grown to nearly a hundred so far, and message received.  The winter will have some cozy hours in the shop making more Tiny Radials.

To keep it interesting I purchased four more exotic woods for Tiny Radials.  It turns out that "bowl blanks" for wood turning are ideal for a pair.  I get the 7x7x2 if I want no room for error, or the 8x8x3 if I want a lot of room, but then I get greedy and make two pair with zero room for error...

It has been fun to explore the different woods.  It's amazing the variety.  Also I can't think of any other way that I could experience so many different hardwoods, so that has been great.

With the Tiny Radials I have been leaning towards heavier / denser woods because so far they have seemed to have more bass and can be played louder without dancing on the table.

One of the blanks I purchased was this one:  Bloodwood, shown below.



This was a real surprise.  Of all the woods so far, including Wenge, this is by FAR the winner of the dense wars.  I couldn't believe it when I picked this up... A concrete block the same size I doubt would have been as heavy.

When you cut it, the pitch is so high it sounds like Porcelain China.  When I sanded it, it became so polished that it looked finished and waxed.  I only used half the block by using a thinner bandsaw blade and making the panels .25 inches thick.  

Wanting to to protect the wax sealed remained after I cut it, I did what I normally do and painted the cut face with linseed oil. I came back 24 hours later and the oil was still basically wet, none of it had soaked into the wood and this was on a rough cut face.

So yea, it is despite being thinner than normal, by far the heaviest pair of Tiny Radials.  I glued some of the cut off back to the inside of the enclosure doubling the thickness to 1/2 inch at the base...  

Believe it or not, between the Zen Master Series Baffles, the Caintuck Audio Baffles, and the Tiny Radials I am starting to develop and ear for the different woods and how they effect the sound.  I guess that's my present for being a year older.  ::)

It is nevertheless fascinating and I'm predicting this will be my favorite sounding pair but I could be totally wrong because the pitch will be so high if the energy does overwhelm the mass it could wreck the midrange.

We will see.

Apparently some A-hole named Decware purchased all the drivers, so now we wait for more to arrive.  ;)

Anyway, getting back to the wood... I knew as soon as I slid this 3 inch block across my Jointer that it was special.  It must have a lot of oil or natural waxes in it because it does not take a finish well.  I already know from what happened when I sanded it to 220 and it got shiny that if I continued up to 1000 grit and then buffed it would have looked like it was finished.

Steve

Steve what a great journey these radials have taken since inception!!  The Janka hardness of the Bloodwood is 2900, which is like 1200 more than the Paduke.  Talk about a dense wood for sure!!

https://www.rarewoodsusa.com/product/bloodwood/

My cousin who builds humidors out of exotic wood told me that working with bloodwood is insanely challenging to work with.  

Please keep us posted on the build of this Tiny Radial with the Bloodwood.  I have been toying with the idea of making a pair of DIY Caintuck OB’s, and would love to hear your opinion on how the Tiny Radials sound in comparison to the others with a hardwood.  I would bet that for an OB build, the sound would be very rich, even using like a 10 or a 12 inch speaker.

Dominick

Well, you might be waiting awhile... bad things are already happening. Go figure.

It is shrinking and cracking and pulling the miters open which means the glue doesn't stick well enough.

I wonder what would happen if I sealed the four panels and let them cure before I assembled them... hmmm.

If density of material is good for the sound of these speakers, I wonder if they would benefit from being cast in Bronze.

Brian

So the bloodwood pair I built was pretty harry. I have been waiting them out to see how much they continue to crack.  It's hard to get anything to penetrate the wood because it is so dense.



Since the block was just big enough to make 16 panels from, the second batch I have been letting acclimate to the shop.  First the block of wood for several weeks, then the panels for a day, then soaked in a bucket of linseed oil for 24 hours...  Here is a shot after pulling them out of the oil.  Now we're back to letting them acclimate more so see what happens.

In this state where the panels are sized and planed on both sides if they warp or twist even slightly the game is off.  The good news in that case would be another wood added to the Illinois wood butcher's list of woods I've butchered which is a secret list of woods to avoid for myself and possibly others as well.

These are all beautiful and I can't wait to get lucky enough on a page refresh to actually buy a pair. I've kept a tab open since they debuted and overtime I hit refresh and nothing is ever available. Congrats to everyone who has been successful in buying some.

Got lucky X2 too! Great little speakers.

To celebrate pair number fifty, We did something rather special, and have decided to auction the pair on eBay. The Auction will be a no-reserve auction starting at $1.00 and will be take place the week ending on Novermber 25th.  I will probably link to the auction once I have posted it here on the forum, however I am hopeful that if you just search for "Decware Tiny Radial" it will come up.  This is a Maple pair that I painted and hydro-dipped followed by a few clear coats of lacquer for protection.

I'll be listening to them until they sell, so they are likely to be broken-in when you get them.



https://decware.wistia.com/medias/0pf3ggzq01

Enjoy  :)

UPDATE BLOODWOOD...

The first pair were indeed a failure.  Too much cracking and crowning they weren't even perfectly square anymore.

Dipping the panels I showed you into the oil for 24 hours was a total waste of time.  I have figured out that basically no oil penetrates the end grain because the straws are too small or the oil is way too thick..... and the face of the wood never soaks in anything.  Already after a couple days tiny cracks beginning to develop on the ends and the panels starting to cup.  It was build them now of just throw away the panels.

I got the idea to use ultra runny super glue that is way runnier than water, and the bloodwood drank that like crazy.  It was amazing really.  Anyway, this instantly stopped the cracking and shrinking process.  I tried lacquer last time and panels cracked anyway.  So the super glue is magic in this case.

I built a perfect pair using this technique and they came out great. I'll post some pics of them later.

Meanwhile I took the opportunity to see what one looked like with fire coming out of it and it looked pretty damn cool but not as cool as it did with fire going into it when I reversed the video... so check this out we have a new exotic kind of wood - fire wood!



https://decware.wistia.com/medias/pu7bvaiojd

Just wanted to poke my head in and update. I’m loving the TR’s even more now that I’ve swapped components in/out to find just the right mix (sig). In particular, the Fleawatt has good synergy with the TR’s, which to my ears, really show their stuff with the volume cranked up a bit.

Reluctantly, I removed the sub due to room issues. I recently ripped up the carpeting leaving bare hardwood. Not good. I’m still contemplating the floor situation and when the room is finished (God only knows when) I’ll revisit. Surprisingly, I’m not missing the sub as much as expected.