Planet-10 Maiko 2

[richidoo]

You guys are too much!     Since you're all settled in for a show, with popcorn and all, I gotta come through for my homeboys...  so here's some pictures I took tonight after gluing on the baffles.  It tightened up the MDF ringing and smear a lot. 









And one during building, before horn angles or coupling chamber. The little boards form the ports with the back wall.



And finally, just to make sure you go home from the show satisfied, because I know this is not good speaker porn....

While waiting for glue to dry, I spent too much time at Rick Craig's new website tonight, selahaudio.com.  Got a nice dose of humility to cool down my speaker building fantasies.

[bpape]

Plenty of good speaker porn there Rich.  Looks like you're having way too much fun.  Wait till you start playing with different phase plugs, damping on the whizzer, etc.  Ask Scott F about that...

Bryan

[Bigfish8]

Rich:

They look great! 

Ken

[lonewolfny42]

What the heck is that.....that little tiny white speaker....in that big box ?

What are you nuts Rich ????












Just having a little fun....
.........good work. 

[BobM]

I heard those new one of a kind Selah's when rick delivered them to a guy in NYC. Unfortunately they were only broken in for about 5 hours, so I really can't judge what they sound like, but the build quality was pretty amazing.

Good luck with yours.

[richidoo]

I wanted to host a G2G at my house to feature Rick's exotic OBs before their journey North, but it didn't come together.

Today I swapped in a pair of JPS Ultraconductor2 ICs on loan from Carlman (thanks Carl!) in place of the bluejeanscable.com Belden 1505 coaxial ICs that I had been using on these speakers. SHEBANG!  We have bass!   Overall big step up. Fatter tone, richer overtones, lower and louder bass, more open and powerful dynamics, and clearer transient details, and I can listen deeper into the background.

Spinning some Lee Morgan on vinyl now, this is getting really good. It is so easy to relax into a single driver speaker. It is so natural and graceful. None of the fatigue and stuffiness from a passive crossover. But also not the power handling or linearity of a multiway either, but good enough to enjoy most of my music.

Still using the i60, it is really wonderful, clean, pure, just not there. I will switch back to tubes tonight.

[richidoo]

I'm ready to build another copy of this speaker, because there are some panels that are not damped and I can hear the God awful MDF ringing sound. If I do the greenglue thing like I did on the sides it will change critical thicknesses and screw up the bass alignment which is very sensitive. So I'm wondering what material to build them with next, this will be the 4th version. 

Choices I'm considering are Baltic birch, 2, 3 or even 4 layers with green glue between each. I can get 5.2mm russian baltic birch here in Raleigh, three layers would make .75" material thickness called for in the plan, so the tricky panels will be dead too which they aren't now.  I could also use two layers of thicker BB, making the walls thicker than .75" and lowering resonance a little, and reduce the number of green glue layers to 1. I think that's going in the wrong direction.

Another material I am considering is hardboard. aka Masonite, Eukaboard, pegboard (without the holes). It is very dense and heavy, cheap, and 4x8' which is much easier to transport than the 5x5 sheets of russian bb. The 1/8" thickness allows me 5 or 6 layers with a green glue layer between each. With a roto zip I should be able to wall paper the layers on and trim the edges, making a labyrinth edge.

Green glue FAQ suggests that denser substrates are better than light. They also suggest that more layers of green glue are helpful. Butthicker layers nbeyond nominal .5mm thickness add nothing. This makes sense since the greenglue damps vibration by converting sheering force to heat. There is more sheering force if the layer of goo is thin than if it were thicker. The technique (thanks Bryan!) of layering it on with notched trowel seems to yield a final layer about that thickness.

I was thinking of making it in white pine, for the magic resonance of wood, but I think I am over that for now. I just want to hear the driver and the port, nothing else.

The thing that I don't understand in this puzzle is the effect of stiffness of the substrate. That should attenuate vibration amplitude, and raise the frequency which makes damping easier. Am I right?  If that's true, then the birch plywood should be best?

On that note of stiffer is better (twss) What about Aluminum? I have heard that it is possible to cut aluminum with a table saw, and they have special blades for aluminum. Should I try 1/4" aluminum and damp it with internal slabs of BB and green glue, or maybe spray the inside with auto body damping goo like bed liner.

All opinions are welcome, except for "you're fucking crazy." That should be obvious to everyone by now.

[Bigfish8]

Rich:

You must be having a lot of fun learning to be a master speaker builder.

When you finally have a model you like I want to hear them.

Ken

[TomS]

Rich,

Not sure who it was, maybe Bob Brines, laminated HardiBacker concrete board (no green glue) right to the wood.  Perhaps just for mass loading.  I once saw a large floorstander that had the stuff applied in rectangular strips inside.  The knuckle wrap test was interesting, not flexy like a Harbeth, not dead like an Eggleston sort of thing.  Just different.  No idea what it sounded like as I never got to hear it actually playing.

Tom