Hi all,
Since October of last year I've been toiling away on my biggest-ever ESL speaker project. And in the coming weeks I will be posting some photos as the project nears completion.
Several of my Carver Audio friends have twisted my arm for years to build speakers for them, but until now I've resisted because my designs are exceedingly tedious and exhausting builds, especially for an old guy like me. My friends chose my lightweight Audi speaker because it's more transportable than my other, heavier designs. I must have bumped my head somewhere because I finally agreed to do it.
I'm about 85% thru building four (4) pairs of a similar OB hybrid speaker that uses a 12" woofer mounted on a semi H-baffle. The frames are red oak and the stat panels are electrically segmented to emulate a line source projecting a cylindrical wavefront. This is accomplished using stators with frequency and phased-array wire groups driving the diaphragm sequentially from the center-line outward. The stator wires are 20 AWG, UL-1061 SRPVC insulated, single-strand copper.
The new speakers are a refined version of the Audi speaker shown in the video below. Refinements include a slightly narrower dispersion pattern for more precise imaging, a new 3.2kV bias supply assembled on a dedicated PC board rather than a prototype perf board, a slightly slimmer depth frame, and magnetically attached grills front and back. I will also be testing a couple of different woofer options.
Building eight speakers (four pairs) at once has been exhausting but I think the sonics and aesthetics of will be a cut above.
The video below shows the original Audi speaker built in 2018, along with my method of building the wire stators for the new speakers. I will follow up soon with another video showing the diaphragms being tensioned and the panels being assembled.
More to come, but for now; enjoy the video and photos below!
Since October of last year I've been toiling away on my biggest-ever ESL speaker project. And in the coming weeks I will be posting some photos as the project nears completion.
Several of my Carver Audio friends have twisted my arm for years to build speakers for them, but until now I've resisted because my designs are exceedingly tedious and exhausting builds, especially for an old guy like me. My friends chose my lightweight Audi speaker because it's more transportable than my other, heavier designs. I must have bumped my head somewhere because I finally agreed to do it.
I'm about 85% thru building four (4) pairs of a similar OB hybrid speaker that uses a 12" woofer mounted on a semi H-baffle. The frames are red oak and the stat panels are electrically segmented to emulate a line source projecting a cylindrical wavefront. This is accomplished using stators with frequency and phased-array wire groups driving the diaphragm sequentially from the center-line outward. The stator wires are 20 AWG, UL-1061 SRPVC insulated, single-strand copper.
The new speakers are a refined version of the Audi speaker shown in the video below. Refinements include a slightly narrower dispersion pattern for more precise imaging, a new 3.2kV bias supply assembled on a dedicated PC board rather than a prototype perf board, a slightly slimmer depth frame, and magnetically attached grills front and back. I will also be testing a couple of different woofer options.
Building eight speakers (four pairs) at once has been exhausting but I think the sonics and aesthetics of will be a cut above.
The video below shows the original Audi speaker built in 2018, along with my method of building the wire stators for the new speakers. I will follow up soon with another video showing the diaphragms being tensioned and the panels being assembled.
More to come, but for now; enjoy the video and photos below!
