Mumbai photowalk - Banganga and Khotachi wadi

 

All imager are non sequential and standing alone.

Photowalk on 25th December, 2022.

3 designs, 3 goals

 Sound is creation of AIR. Basic physics right?

If I jumble air flow, sound will be jumbled too.

My design basis is to have cabinets (or no cabinets at all) when I need free and natural like sound reproduction.

Open baffle lets air free to flow, follow Physics. Simple, is not it?

Here I am showing three of my designs.

One, the smallest in height (the heaviest one) is a transmission line design. The lean one is a mix of Open baffle and other design principles where basics still is the Free Air Baffle and the widest and tallest one is another Open baffle with Dipole design for the bass.

All of them have one two things in common, FAB and Co-centric mid/high reproducing drivers.

Enjoy their look.

SOLD>>>>An Open Baffle Stereo Speaker Set - for sell

Here is for sell my second design Open Baffle (OB) speaker with two module design philosophy. So that one can play around different positions and arrangement based on different listening position and available space.

Basic data -
Cost 15,000 INR (ex Thane) + shipping charges
Total cabinet - Four
Approx SPL - 93 dB
Design -
Mid and high - Open baffle with Helmholtz design augmentation
Low - Ripole design

Good things about OB speakers can be found in the net easily compared to what I personally can say about it. For myself, I am now an OBdict - [URL="https://www.facebook.com/OBdict/?ref=bookmarks"]https://www.facebook.com/OBdict/?ref=bookmarks[/URL]

A small video (by mobile) of my OBs playing Vikram Ghosh and Pete are available here which will give you better perspective of the speaker and its design.
[URL="https://www.facebook.com/1689741724600319/videos/1734114773496347/"]https://www.facebook.com/1689741724600319/videos/1734114773496347/[/URL]

I am open to valid questions and queries.

I am selling this set in its Passive configuration with the crossover mounted outside the Low Frequency cabinet. So, one can easily convert it to active mode (if interested).
I am asking lower than the material cost as I want it to go. Because I want to make my next design and I need space for that.

Video of my current Open baffle speaker performing Kingdom of rhythm by Bikram Ghosh and Pete

The home video of the OB performing

Compact transmission line speakers

Life wants more, so things need to be compact in a limited space.
I wanted to make a compact speaker with enough bass but distinct mid. My importance is in life like mid. One of my friend Hari introduced a Peerless driver which has almost flat mid frequency reproduction capability in a tiny 3 inch cone, 3.5 inch driver.

I conceptualize a two fold compact pipe based speaker design that can have a line length of 28 inch yet actual height of just 14 inch. It still has driver space of 5 inch too.

A demo version made out of PVC pipe, thermocol and card board proves my design will work.

I then used 6mm mdf board for my required pieces, cut them from a wood molding shop.

I cut the PVC pipe by self. I secured those mdf plates with mseal. Later, I came to know that one can use a quick adhesive called Vetra as a most effective sealant and adhesive.

Here are some photos of those two speakers. The box you see in front of them is actually an active cross over, but this is used to show how a compact amplifier with UB and FM connection can look like.

I will add a drawing of internal later. that will explain how this can easily be made at home.


Here is a link to a small video of it playing songs of Papon from his album "the journey so far"

Compact transmission line FR speaker by sumanta

Happy listening.

My tone arm trial - Magnetic and uni pivot type

Al of a sudden making tone arm of own make sense to me.
Then, I thought I can use two different cartridges on the same platter. Two different cartridges ased on their cost, quality (poor) of discs. I will b quick. and ofcourse it will be fun o DIY.

Uni pivot was the easiest to try so it was already a choice and I already had a good example of one of my audio friend.
While thinking about it, I realized friction is the problem, then naturally I thought of using magnet to avoid a contact yet get the strength of a connection through magnetic force.

in that time i discovered somebody has already thought about it and made a very good design on it with a patent too. He is Schroeder. Read DIY forum where people tried clone his idea and made their own tone arm.

I wanted both my tone arms to b made from easily available item. and also I tried to make use of similiar items for both designs.

Here are photos of them. I have used

1) wood bit for tone arm
2) cycle tube part like nozzle and holder for the shaft of uni pivot and top wire holder of magnetic pull uni pivot (Schroeder) design.

 

My Cabasse speakers for sale - space and money for next diy speakers

I am going to sale my Cabasse Jersey 222 floor standing speaker pair.

happy listening.

A new design - OB and Ripole sub

I am trying to make a value for money speaker set up with Ripole sub and open baffle (OB) speaker.

It is in the making.
Attached are some photos of first assembly. It is about to get paint now.
Drivers will be mounted post painting.

And here is the finshed version. Gaps are filled in. 

Balanced works are leg supports, and grilled speaker cover for the top.

Another piped driver speaker design.

I did my 3rd speaker design last Saturday. It is of Piping composition concept only, but this time acoustic behavior was similar to Pluto but drivers were completely different. Drivers were passive crossed over too with a simple capacitor (as it came with a Panasonic DVD player's speakers).

Because of the damping inside pipe and 180 degree horizontal sound wave direction and placing the speaker at least 3 feet away from both front and side wall, imaging was wonderful, sound clear, true to its content.
I compared it with my Tube and Cabasse set where the former one came out clearer. It does not have the heavy weight bass Cabasse brings out. It rather brings out distinct flavours, timbre sounds of individual instruments.

I believe I need to pack it more, and will be sealing it once they are properly packed. I need to steel base plates too, present baseplate is not heavy enough. It needs to be wide too.

I am happy listening it. I do not or intend to use instruments to measure sounds coming out of it as I will be listening it. My measurements are by my ear and other speakers only. These speakers are mostly made for my understanding of sound and pleasure of music only. I although feel these design is simple, effective, compact, can accommodate various drivers and can be played in rooms of various shapes and sizes. We only need to keep them 3 feet away from front and side walls while listening sound through it.

Here are some photos.

Piped driver, a 3 inch full ranger from a surround cabinet

Actually it is not a day effort if you consider mental calculations, reading, assembly processes that went through my mind, ut otherwise, it got finished in one day.
On last to last Saturday I supplied food to my gear acquisition syndrome, bought a used Panasonic 5 DVD player with 4 speaker set because I liked looks of the drivers there in.
Last Saturday I opened those surround speakers. Tried to fit them on PVC pipes.
It seemed working by physical and dimensional similarities. Gaps and mismatches seemed manageable.
Then I took one of the driver to a hardware shop, and found out that an elbow actually is holding the driver nicely. 
Bought two of those elbows and two pipe piece.
Then I took some plywood plates to a nearby wood shaping shop to get required holes in them. 
Later I placed those drivers on the elobow with MSeal.

And ran earthing wires to connect. I put some synthetic cottons inside and mass loaded them at the end too.
Here is the result.

Here is the latest version with increase in line length for more lower bass augmentation.

Sound to become music in a speaker

Have you listened songs impromptu in your drawing room? You must had or regularly have. Do you realize that those music sounds richer in base if the room is less absorptive.

The same wayit is not bad to have reflective sounds off your drivers/speakers. At the same time they should loose harmony, they shuld not colour the original sound but just add the warmth and or change depth of the music.

Open baffle speakers are simply open sound producing machine, almost like us and like any other music instrument. Place them at least 1m away from walls, they will give you open live musical sounds.

Let those drivers in your speaker box breath. Open the back end of your cabinet speaker, listen to it.
You will be amazed.

Why big driver

I love photography, shot some too!

for poor man's dream to be sucessful, I had to buy older lens which means quite old lens actually. but they come with fast aperture and fixed focal length. that helped me in toning my eye to reselct my area of composing correctly for the lens I have on my camera body.

Simalrly to conceive and achieve my dream I had to rely on cheap speakers. Means Public Anouncement speakers. Actually, later i found out those big PA drivers of those big speakers actually creates live programme like atmosphere at home.
Plus they generate a life like sound reproduction, a bit larger than life actually for some cases.

These PA drivers have quite good value of SPL. Mostly greater than 93 dB/W/m. Ahuja drivers has minimum of 97 dB/W/m. Means a run off the mill branded speakers of 89 SPL will struggle to produce sound with a 10 Watt amplifier, where these driver will fill your room.
Plus a larger diaphragm generates a pitch that emolute those musical instrument.

Try listening any song through your mobile and then listen the same song through your car speaker inside your car. You will understand what I meant.

Size does matter.

Secret of open baffle

There is nothing secret really, rather it is an illusion.

Illusion caused by delayed music that comes from the rear sound of the same driver. sound from the rear of the open baffle (OB) speaker gets reflected from the front wall (of the listener) and reaches listener bit delayed.
In presence of the sound projected by the front of the driver, this delayed sound creates a lovely 3 dimensional sound stage.

You get quite a depth depending on the music, room and ofcourse your speaker and amplifier set up.

What is a reproduction then?
Just an illusion of the recording studio or the live programme.

My first Open baffle speaker

Post my arrival in Baroda in 2011 December, I read some papers, write ups on OBs and BLH and decided to try an OB first.

Following a friend, Dr Vikram in Goa, I opt for Ahuja speakers.

Soon, I bought Ahuja 12FRX of 8 ohm and two Ahuja tweeters with capacitor. I gave them to a cabinet makers suggested by Ahuja dealer.

All three party (including myself) got the interest of making something new. OB design is a complete new thing for both Ahuja dealer and the cabinet maker. I have opt for clothing the baffles both sides.
It cost me 5000 rupees including transport.
  I then played them at home.

They sound clear, open, real, spacious, powerful. I played my Cabasses just after that to compare. Yes, Ahujas lack finess but Cabasse can not give the open, clear mid. Even the bass from Cabasse is more than what I think is real.

Norah Jones, Roja, Hotel California (live), Sona Mahapatra, Dali's demo CD ... all of them came live (at least to me). I think one 12 inch has more presence than some 5 or 6 inches.
I am not an audiophile...I hear music and heard some good speakers recently. I heard some floor standaers and some few bookshelves. Floor standers were from JBL (2 and 3 ways), Mission, Bang and Oluffsens, Infinity, Klipsch, Jamos.
The best to me was Jamo R909 for home application.
I have two Cabasse Joursey, two Mission 702e, two Jamo 402 (I guess) for Floor Standers. My guage reference are them as immediate as it can be. And I always try to remember what I listen in other speakers. That Jamo R909 will always be in my ears.
To me, this OB with my Music Angel tube plays what I like. The tube with th Cabasse Joursey is also quite to my liking.

I want to thank Dr. Vikram for all his support. I did some basic calculation in Xvaffle excel and then followed writting in Enjoy the Music.com - High End Audiophile Audio Equipment and Music Reviews. The Absolute Sound, Superior Audio, hi-fi+ and Review Magazine and followed my mind.
Baffles are of 20" X 36" with two tapered wings starting from 1" to 8" and of 33" high. Baffle has an arc at the top. I also have a 4"x 9" plate on top of the Tweeter. I just thought it will be good. I have used MDF of 12 mm thick and used two plates per baffle to get 18mm thickness. They were bonded with Fevicol and some nails.

Bottom line, such DIY project gave me a lot of joy in reading, thinking, calculating, planning, executing and owning two good speakers. All of this for not so much money.
I will post photos pretty soon.

 

Open baffle - way to go for us

Try talking having your mouth inside a plastic packet or in a handi.
And then speak on an open ground,
You will get a feel how OB (open baffle) speaker will sound.

Spend 800 rupees buy 2 Philips full ranger driver (what we generally call speaker), buy two simple MDF plank of size 10" X 24" each, have one hole fit for mounting the driver at the top end of the plank. Connect it with an amplifier (1200/- cheapest one) and a player (just your mobile phone with MP3 player. Place it 3 feet away from your front wall. VOILA! You have your stereo OB music arrangement.

Believe me the open sound will make you smile.

Then you might miss bass depending upon the song.

We will come to that in next write ups.
Listen to another cabinet speaker later and then listen back to you OB. You will realize how much were you missing.

OB in a middleclass room

We all like music right?

WRONG! We all like big sound, showing off with speakers. We do not like music as natural as it should appear from a musical instrument or from a human voice. How otherwise we then like doped sound from cabinets. Why we like thumping sound of the song Hotel California when actually hardly any speaker recreates actual sound what it should be from a Congo. On top of that we add room reverberation colour too.

We are middleclass Indian who might be reading it right now. We do not have much money to treat our room to make it a proper listening room.

Why not then use the same untreated room in to advantage by using an Open Baffle speaker. Open baffle speaker use the rear sound reproduction to its advantage to create a holographic 3D sound image. Thus you will earize (a term I just coined out to replicate feeling of visualize with our ear).
In other words, OB speakers use our small room to create sound image.
Yes OB speakers need to be 3 feet away from front wall when you are listening to it. But you can always push it back to wall when you are not listening to it. Simple middle class attitude.

And what you get?

Realistic sound reproduction with least amount of expenditure.
Well then how little will be the real expenditure?
Even spending 5K INR can give you OB stereo speaker set which can easily beat a 20K branded cabinet speaker. The best part is you can get it done with your local carpenter and local dealer of drivers (speakers what we generally call them). And can continue tweeking it to make it sound better.

Open baffle is the easiest speaker to get it made locally. It is the most forgiving design as well.

Yes, like all other speakers it works best when placed away from side wall (at least by a foot for each side). So do the same for OBs too, you will be alright. And yes, they should be 3 feet away from your front wall.

Enjoy music.

Why I like OB - Open baffle speakers

I had my first experience of an OB speaker  14 months ago from now.

It has changed my perception of sound imaging a lot.

Open baffle speakers have space behind them till the wall facing the listener.
In my limited hearing space, I felt that 3 dimensional space between speakers and the walls is the canvas for the speaker to make the soundscape.

The moment OB speakers throw sounds to me andto the wall in front of me, sounds seem to take the stage in front of me and start a ballet. Depending on the source's sound design, that dance of the sounds is so captivating that I smile in myself most of the time when I listen to my OB. The difference in 3D feel is like the same as in a 2D movie and a 3D movie.

I have not listened all my CDs through those speakers yet, most of the CDs are in Kolkata only. Some few CDs (Indian Ocean, Silk route, Dohar - a Bengali band, Pink Floyd) that I have here create such a soundscape (or imaging whatever you call it) that is impossible to dislike. The illusion is superb.
Those same CDs make a 2D image on the plane of the box speakers whenever I play them through. I have tried moving my box speakers away from wall (not by 3 feet though like OBs) but the plane remain fixed with the speakers. those box speakers sometimes disappear but still fail to make a 3D image.

That I think is the most beautiful gift from an OB speaker.

Plus, there is bass, bass blast like a natural sound. A foot pedal hitting a drum can be realized in my OB, which I can't do with my cabinet seakers. I am not familiar with words that can express sounds correctly to an audiophile, so bear me. Bass from OB is clear, precise, not lean, not heavy. Listening it is like being able to identify different sounds produced by beating a table with your bare hand but having different kind and thickness of cloths on top of the table. Bass is there, but not over encompassing mid. Bass is true bass.
Ofcourse my cabinet speakers are not of abosolute quality but they are quite famous in their own countries to start with. Where as my OB is made of drivers from Ahuja and are actually intended for public anouncements. Performance per investment is too good for OB and that is another advantage but I will stick to beauty of it only for now.

I think, beauty of OB shines the most in mid. Identifying a cymbal location in a blank space is a wonderful thing but identifying a vocalist standing just by the side of the cymbal or say a bass guitar but a little up front while he or she is breathing in is something different. And how about realising that she/he is actually not present in front of you if you open your eyes? It is that real for the mid. Older sound recording of Ghazals proved more captivating. Listen to "Aaj Jaane ki zid na karo" by Farida Khanam recorded live through an OB, you will understand.

I would love to read experiences of other OB users. Friends here are listening OBs for a longer period than me...reading their feelings will be encouraging for me.


For friends who haven't yet listened music through an OB system, I request earnestly to do so.

Another two (advantages) of OBs are

1) wider sound stage than their speaker distances

2) use room effect to the advantage. The front wall (of the listener) actually become the end of the stage for the speakers. OBs use reflection off the front wall in its advantage. You have to do some trials to get the sweet spot.

Right now I am listening to two albums of Indian Ocean, Black Friday and Desert rain in them. I have listened live performance of Indian Ocean and the Desert Rain resembles live performance (at least the MP3 files that I have does so). 


NOTE - all photos are of OB made and updated by me .