Battle of the Open Baffles

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As I have been preaching....he he....make your own Caladan or use a $50 planar instead of the $39 dome tweeter in the Caladan for less than $1500 using the worlds best parts and construction.  A simple version can be built in a day......Home Depot cuts the wood and all you have to do is jig saw some holes and screw it all together.....super easy.  I just ordered the woofs and planars and in a few weeks will have it all done and will have pics on my website and if it is as good as I imagine, I will invite serious bay area people over to listen (I am not making or selling speakers....just promoting the idea).  Info on my website.

danbro,

Gold buttons open links to drivers. Much more to come as I assemble the speakers and test....and also more general info, including parts and construction details.

http://tweakaudio.com/EVS-2/DIY_Bi-amped_super_speaker.html

Here is a list of things that could be improved on the XSD

1. Drivers are not time aligned.

2. No felting around the mids and highs.....so diffraction city.

3. The mids and woofs are not wired to the voice coil wires....tabs? you have to be kidding.

4. Wire is average.....so are all the xover parts.

5. Way too complicated and hard to build. Too much wood to throw away once you realize this is NOT where it is at.....he he.

Now compare this to the speaker I am talking about. You can build it in one day ($1500 total cost using super wire and parts), 18 inches wide, bass to 30hz.......93db sensitive.....fully dipole.....time aligned....felted......one amp does the whole enchilada.....of course, you could bi-amp as described on my webite and also make a line source of planars for more output, lower distortion and more vertical dispersion. If 18 inhes is too wide then make the baffle 13 inches wide and use slightly angled out wings on the bottom to extend the bass response to match an 18 inch wide baffle.

The ABX Audiophiles speaker has the tweeter way behind the woofer......so time alignment is way off.  And that tube connector that the compression driver is mounted on will add "horn throat distortion'.

The Voxativ drivers have crappy binding posts on them.  Throw the nut on the binding pos away and hard wire to the voice coil wires and it will blow your mind....way more pure and refined and extended.

Eveything makes a difference!!!!!

I have been making speakers and modding them since the 1970s.  The information I share is based on listening tests and reading and talking to others about their EXPERIENCE.  There are lots of things to consider....including the phase of the speakers as measured in pulse tests....like Stereophile does.  Does your tweeter sound best set back that far?  Have you experimented to infinity?  All speakers that I mention in my "expanding the possibilities"  lectures are great speakers stock.  However, 90% of what I say can be applied to most speakers with sonic benefits.  Horn throat distortion can be measured.  Do you really think you can send a sonic wave down a tube and not have a coloration?  Does this make sense to you?  Do you really think that having no diffraction control right on the edges of the speaker cone does not affect the sound?  You cannot trust that because someone made something (and even if they have a great reputation)...that they really know all there is to know.  It takes a village.....no it takes an entire world.  The knowledge of Audio is infinite.  This is why there are so many choices.  NO ONE......including me knows jack diddiy squat.......I am a master tweaker (relatively speaking).....but I am NOT a master.  There is NO MASTER.  Have you looked at Dragsters....they all look the same and do the 1000 feet in exactly the same time and speed.....That is because there is common knowledge in what makes a car go fast....you have horsepower, traction, drag, gearing and weight.....that is all there is.  In Audio you have infinite possiblilites.  Every single piece of wire has its own sound.....every connection.....every cap....every resistor....every diaphram....every thing matters.  Do you have your cables off the floor?  It matters.  Have you removed all your binding posts and speaker wire connectors and LEDs....and run your whole system off a super inverter system?  Do you have a super ground rod and filtered ground system for your stereo?  It works.....the game never ends....there is always more to learn and to discover.....which makes the audio game like life itself.....ever expanding joy, love and discovery.  I wish you feel better and better about yourself and everyone.....forever.

Ever expanding light, love, knowledge and Joy.....that is who we are.

Being judgemental is easy.  Giving praise is harder and more powerful and transformative for everyone....Every single thought you have or word you speak effects the whole world.

Only Love creates LOVE.......please....never stop loving.  I love you!....forever

There is no damage to be done to a driver by hardwiring it (unless you try hard or are very non thinking). However, you need to have some skill and intelligence. I will have very detailed info on my website about this soon......including pictures.

Spade (disconnect) terminals are used mainly for convienience. Of course, those filled with fear will tell you they are there so you do not damage the driver. Some people and a very few manufacturers will solder to the tab on the speaker. However, do you want your dealer to come to a customers house to change the midrange on a Magico speaker and pull the driver out and solder on it?....dripping solder on the front of the speaker? No way, so you use a push on connector and degrade the sound. Best sound is your PC triple c wire soldered directly to the voice coil wire.

Clayton may be soldering to the tabs on the woofers in the Caladan speaker....as shown in a fuzzy pic of the back of the speaker. This will be known with a better pic.....No, he is not soldering to the voice coil wires (the other end of the tab).