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Lydgalleriet-Speakers Kevlar
Lydgalleriet-Speakers Kevlar
Lydgalleriet-Speakers Kevlar
2 July 2020
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SPEAKERNEWS 2 July 2020
“Working at SEAS, Electrocompaniet,
Norsk Radiofaabrikk, ABB Contec and
heading development at Telenor
Integracom, I have been greatly helped
by the concept that a design should be
“pure in spirit”. If there is a consistent
guiding philosophy, the end product
will usually be of some value. This term
was first formulated by Terje
Sandstrøm while at Electrocompaniet.
Paal Rasmussen
The vision
a speaker pure in spirit
By Trenz Pruca
It’s not difficult to put three speakers in a box and make commercialise low distortion, linear drive speaker units. I had
sound. The challenge lies in creating a musical the great fortune to work with him at ABB and at Norsk
Radiofabrikk on dome tweeter designs and speaker
instrument that translates the emotionality of the
philosophy.
performances into soundwaves that moves us. This legacy is brought to bear in the current design. It
Research in how to do this has gone on since Rice and tries to do things right within the constraints of the project.
Kellogg invented speakers in 1924. Many broadcasting Often it’s the small things that matter. Presented with a
companies had technical personnel doing quality control, boomy commercial speaker and an equally dissatisfied owner,
procurement, and in some cases design. The BBC was one of I proceeded to cure both by taking out my power drill and
these, and their Research Department did materials analysis drilling 30 holes in the back of his speaker cabinet, effectively
and design work that is still valid today. transforming it from a boom-box into an aperiodic design.
At GEC’s Hirst research establishment outside London I The guiding vision for the present undertaking is
saw their experimental aluminum cone bass/mid units in the building speakers that use the room - a set of four sub-
early ‘70s. My experiments with composite resin cones at woofers along with a corresponding set of four bass/mid/
SEAS met with disbelief a few years later. Now everybody tweeter units to be placed in each room corner.
and his uncle uses metals, composites and resins in their Exciting all four corners in a room makes the speakers
speakers. dominate the acoustic space, and acoustically “disappear”.
Ragnar Lian, the man behind B&O loudspeakers, The sound of the speaker and the sound of the room are one
ScanSpeak, the famed Dynaco A25, and an “inspirer” of and the same. Exciting, isn’t it?
many Dynaudio designs, was one of the first to
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The making of the midrange
SPEAKERNEWS 2 July 2020
A serious hump
Initial measurements
showed two huge
midrange resonance
that kept on ringing
and colured the all-
important midrange.
This was due to a
black Bextrene dust-
cap glued on to the
cone, creating a
resonant chamber.
Removing it left only
the cone/voice coil
mismatch resonance.
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The making of the midrange
SPEAKERNEWS 2 July 2020
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The making of the midrange
SPEAKERNEWS 2 July 2020
Making waves
When two notes are
fed to the speaker,
they interact to
produce new tones
not harmonically
related. This sounds
jarring to the ears
because it’s so
unmusical.
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SPEAKERNEWS 2 July 2020 box, and that certainly helps, but the the air inside it. At the speaker
The Bassmaker reflex system acts like a resonant filter fundamental frequency, the air inside
the best box is no box producing its own characteristic sound. the tube moves in unison with the
at all One-note bass or boominess is a term speaker, and the added mass reduces
used to describe such designs. On the the fundamental frequency of the drive
A conventional loudspeaker consists dance floor it might be just what you unit.
of a disk that’s pushed to and frough need to get in the groove, but on female A long throw drive unit, like the
vocal it’s just wrong. one chosen for this project works well in
to generate vibrations in the air.
Another way of solving this such an enclosure.
One side pushes, the other side pulls problem is to place the speaker at one The power handling ability is
at the surrounding air. It’s obvious end of a long tube, made so the air increased around the lowest frequency
that the air, lazy as it is, will rush inside the tube moves in unison with the the system can produce compared to a
from one side of the speaker to the speaker. At some frequency, the air will closed box.
other rather than to set out on a start to augment the output from the A subwoofer is meant to be a part
speaker, and at no frequency will we of this design, so this box design is
journey straight ahead.
have reflections from the back wall of made so that a natural and deep bass/
So we place the speaker in a box, to the cabinet, because there simply aren’t midrange is had for the subwoofer to
block the air pulling from one side to be any rear or side walls the speaker can augment instead of trying to match two
cancelled out by the push from the see. resonant bass reflex cabinets.
other side of the vibrating disk. Such an arrangement is called a
This works well for the most part,
Transmission Line, or more recently, a
but the build up of pressure inside the “quarter wave enclosure”.
box can be quite high and introduce By
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FASHIONMONTHLY 2 July 2020 with frequency. It is advertised as a
A serious x-over 8Ohm unit, but barely ever is. Over Series crossover diagram
Why the summing is most of its useable range, it is much The amplifier sees both drive
better than its parts higher and thus is less efficient. As we units as a whole.
approach the 2kHz crossover point, the
Electric crossovers are components resistance is 30 Ohms.
added to the electrical wiring of a The tweeter, on the other hand, is
a high-end unit with a built in heat-sink
multi-speaker design to separate the
to keep the performance stable, and
low and high frequencies to their with a magnetic system that is constant
respective speaker drive units. with signal amplitude.
In our design we need a crossover To counteract these shortcomings,
that is robust enough to tackle the we need a crossover that is in close
imperfections of our jumble sale bass/ contact with the drivers.
mid unit. High-end drive units have Common crossovers provide
predictable electrical behaviour, independent sections to filter the signal
presenting a constant load on the to the drive units, we will connect the
amplifier and making life easy for the drive units in series, so each speaker is
crossover designer. dependent on what the other does, and
Our mid/bass unit has a four layer the system as a whole becomes
voice-coil and no copper damping in its independent of speaker characteristics.
magnetic system. This makes the driver This configuration has its positive
change its electrical characteristics as and negative characteristics; it depends
we go up in frequency, and as we play on the drive units having a wide
loud notes and as the whole unit heats bandwidth, and requires that the response, the drive units must also be
up with use. tweeter be able to handle frequencies time-aligned - their acoustic centres
The diagram shows how the below its normal operating range must be on the same plane equidistant
resistance of the bass/mid unit changes without overheating. to the listener.
If we are These conditions are met in this
to design.
achieve In real life things are never so
a perfect simple, a crossover network needs to
transient compensate for driver faults and tune
the enclosure to sound like the designer
intended. That requires more
components, and adjusting the topology
and feature set of the crossover can take
anywhere from a few hours to a few
months – a few famous designs has
taken years to perfect. The final
crossover schematic is therefore not
included in this booklet.
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SPEAKERNEWS 2 July 2020 wool or Dacron or BAF or fibreglass
Transient response Lamb’s wool commonly used in speakers.
not so transient a quest for the perfect Its properties come from the tiny
fibre scales on the hollow, air-filled fibres. It
We have briefly discussed the causes them to interlock and trap
reasons why we chose a series The transmission line, or 1/4 insulating air. Vicuñas have some of the
crossover for our design. wavelength enclosure, adds the mass finest fibres in the world, and are
among the most expensive as well.
Remembering Ragnar Lian’s quote of the air in the line/tube to the
Bailey facilitated the sale of
earlier on in this document about mass of the loudspeaker cone at the appropriate wool for many years during
the importance of paying attention bass end. (The frequency where the the 70s, with me as one of his
not only to frequencies but to the length is 1/4 wavelength of the
timing of loudspeaker systems, we sound signal fed to it.)
must admit that little attention has This is beneficial, and makes the
been paid to discussing the way our loudspeaker act as if it was a much
speaker system will handle bigger unit with a better transient
transients - the quickly changing performance.
parts of music that makes for depth What if we could increase the
and realism. mass even further by making the air
“thicker” and more massive?
We remember that the series
Enters long, thin, organic fibres
crossover adjusts itself to the vagrancies
that move in unison with the air. Fine
of the drive units. How does this feature
lamb’s wool fibres have this ability, and
a pipe filled customers, but this supply chain has
with lamb’s long gone.
wool have In our quest for suitable damping
proven to both fibres, we came upon Hillesvåg
reduce the Ullvarefarbrikk in Hjelmås outside
unwanted Bergen, a supplier of fine grade wool
midrange suitable for transmission lines. They
“sound” of a offer short and long fibres ranging from
pipe, while at 8 to 40 μm. We chose a 20 μm Merino
the same time quality for this project, possibly the
adding weight single most costly component of the
to the air. whole project.
The wool
works it’s
magic in two Panel damping
play out in practical terms?
ways, by when live is dead
changing the way sounds travel
Below is a graph showing a perfect (adiabatic in stead of isothermal By Our Correspondent
square wave fed into two crossovers - compression of the air in the tube) and Research by Dudley Harwood at the
the cyan one is a traditional crossover, also by being moved around with the BBC showed than the loudspeaker
whereas the magenta one is a series. bass sound waves. cabinet often radiated some notes at
The simulation is based on real drive Researchers measuring
units that have imperfections like the a higher level than the speaker cone
transmission lines have not measured
ones used in this design. itself. Although that was a horror-
this latter effect, stuffing common wool
It is obvious at first glance that the into their test enclosures like a bored story, cabinet vibrations contribute
series network compensates for the strongly to the sound of a system.
factory worker. Thus stuffed, the tube
driver’s problems and produces a started to behave like a closed, leaky His cure was to use laminated
perfect response, whereas the transients box. structures that weren’t stiff, but flexible
of the cyan curve are exaggerated and Arthur R. Bailey, M.Se., Ph.D., and to damp these so any resonance
distorted in time. M.I.E.E. from the University of was way below the sensitive midrange
This is a real benefit, lasting as the Bradford in Yorkshire studied the effects region.
loudspeaker produces actual sound and of various wool fibres during the late My testing of famous brand
this compensating action works 24/7 1960’s. Lamb’s wool, angora rabbit, speakers of today shows that his insight
irregardless to provide a constant, has yet to sink in with mainstream
Vicuñas, cashmere goats, Tibetan
transient fidelity. speaker designers, possibly because
antelopes, all have fibres of varying
lengths from 8 to 12 μm. These fibres laminating and damping is a costly
behave differently than coarse sheep’s exercise.
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SPEAKERNEWS 2 July 2020
Worst of all is the MDF panels Woodworking
often used for home brew designs. prototype
Easy to work, but often shows By Our Correspondent
midrange resonances that are hard to Working with plywood making small
kill even with internal bracing.
boxes requires certain skills and
Our first try was to use 9mm
plywood laminated with bitumen tools. What is required is more than
panels glued and heat-welded to the basic skills, it’s more like cabinet
plywood to form a dead but flexible
cabinet devoid of midrange coloration.
The bass/mid drive unit was
mounted on a thicker detachable plate
mounted on the front panel so that the
drive units could be properly recessed,
the edges chamfered and the tweeter
horn loading accomplished in one
piece.
This arrangement also meant that
the drivers could be detached from the A measuring calliper, a spring
cabinet for servicing without calliper, a metal ruler, a tape measure
disassembly of the whole speaker. As and a metal compass will all ease the
the cabinets were designed to be work.
corner mounted, they could even be The required precision is 0.75 mm,
left in place while the drive units were i.e. the errors should not be greater than
removed. +- 0.35 mm. This allows for easy
Unfortunately, later listening tests assembly and accurate joins that allows
showed that the birchwood plywood the glue to form tight bonds.
used in the prototype was way too The construction takes the
lively even with bitumen lamination. making – all pieces fit together in following form:
It was therefore decided to forego three dimensions to make an air- 1) Cut all plywood pieces to size
both the horn loading and the bitumen tight enclosure. 2) Make the speaker mounting
on the front speaker panel, instead First and foremost, you need an plate
doubling the thickness to 18mm, and 3) Make all the cut-outs and
area sheltered from the elements that
strengthening it by laminating it with recesses for the drivers
can accommodate sheets of plywood
4) Hot-weld the bitumen damping
that are 240 x 120 cm. 9mm plywood is
to the panels, leaving room for where
the internal bracing needs to be glued
Assembly should be be performed
in the following order
1) Assemble the top to the side
panels
2) Fasten the braces to the side
panel
3) Glue the Rockwool damping
pads in place
4) Fasten the front panel to the sides
and top panels
5) Fasten the tweeter with wires to
the front panel, ensuring an air-tight
fit
6) Fasten the speaker mounting
plate to the front panel
floppy, so you need a large working table 7) Mount the bass/mid speaker
or supports to work it. with wires, to the composite front
Certain basic woodworking tools panel
are also required. A circular saw is a 8) Connect the speaker wires to the
must for clean, straight cuts. A jig saw crossover and fasten this to the
for cutouts, a belt sander for finishing recessed terminals box and fasten this
and an electric drill completes the list of box to the back of the cabinet.
essential power tools. 9) Stuff the line with the long-
haired wool
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SPEAKERNEWS 2 July 2020
“We shape our
loudspeakers:
Thereafter, they
shape us.”
Adapted after Winston
Churchill
Drawings
for construction
By the development team
Detailed drawings will become
public once the design has been
finalised.
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FASHIONMONTHLY 2 July 2020
“Transmission line, ported and vented
designs are three different concepts on
how to load the bass driver in a
speaker enclosure. Transmission lines
and sealed boxes have a 12dB per
octave roll off after the resonant
frequency, while a vented box has a
24dB per octave roll off.”
Peter Thomas, PMC speakers
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SPEAKERNEWS 2 July 2020
Timing
The first audition “There is a real danger
By Paal Rasmussen that the audiophile
The day had come, the 15th of community –
July, when the first prototype was manufacturers, critics,
ready to be audition by the and customers alike –
reference group – Julie, the director has become obsessed
of Lydgalleriet and Roar, a fellow with the search for
artist, loudspeaker builder in his absolute beauty in
own right and board member at reproduced sound and
Lydgalleriet, and me. has lost sight of the
The listening tests were done in
mono, with the prototype on a table,
underlying animal force
fed Spotify content from a unassuming essential to a truly
measurement amplifier. musical experience.
I put on some female singer tracks, Drama, surprise, and
and Roar assumed the role of the
dance elements are
critical listener, hand to chin and eyes
half closed walking around the room essential to most music
listening for tonality and rhythm.
The crossover version 18 had been
finished the night before, and 30
minutes before the session was about to Some female singers shrieked, because of phase effects from the horn
start, I realised that we had to listen to whereas others mumbled. But the loading - substituting the wave-guide
version 19 that wasn’t done yet. Luckily speakers had rhythm. There was a with an absorbent dispersion limiter
the soldering iron was still hot. quickness to the music that we all liked. made the sound not fill the room.
First let me explain that the After we were finished listening, we Quite the contrary, it was most
prototype lacked the phase plug. It also compared notes, and removed the encouraging how a single speaker
had the tweeter phase plate, wave guide tweeter wave-guide. So much for being placed in a corner could fill the whole
or horn or whatever you call an air avant-garde! room with music without being noticed
motion transformer these days, and the The second immediate action point as a source in the same way a floor-
version 18 crossover used sintered iron was the addition of a phase plug. It is standing unit would be.
core coils and bipolar capacitors. amazing how much this simple addition Oh, and the transmission line bass
Crossover 19 had high grade means for a coherent upper midrange had great timing – instead of saying
audiophile coils and capacitors, where performance. “boom” it just pushed you. But we still
one single capacitor cost as much as the The third realisation was that the need to get rid of boxiness, so the
bass/mid drive unit. crossover needed more fine-tuning now damping of the line is not optimal.
The speaker had a nice balance, at that the speaker drivers had both been The next few days will be busy
least when we placed it in a corner, but modified. making the intonation match the
the voicing was off. Beck would sound The notion that the tweeter needs pacing. If you follow my drift!
shrill on one track and mellow on the to be recessed does not hold for room
next. coupled designs like this. And it’s not
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Listening to speakers
FASHIONMONTHLY 2 July 2020
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SPEAKERNEWS 2 July 2020
“Every component in the signal chain
should ideally have a flat frequency
response, so that the sound passes
through unaltered. But the reality is
that many components don't offer
ideal performance.”
Robert Triggs, SoundGuys.com
Version 19
on the road to a release candidate
By Paal Rasmussen
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SPEAKERNEWS 2 July 2020
“When it comes to the practical
requirements for accurate sound
reproduction, then there are a
surprising number of issues that are
not fully understood.”
Siegfried Linkwitz
Version 19 was thought to be a finished design. But Testing the tweeter by pressing it firmly down improved
extensive listening tests revealed that the performance in the critical crossover area, showing that
the front plate of the tweeter was radiating appreciable
amounts of (mostly distorted) midrange sound. This
a) The treble would sometimes “shriek” on distorted
particular design uses a cheap plastic front plate, whereas the
female vocal - i.e. overproduces and processed songs standard Norsk Radiofabrikk tweeter of similar appearance
b) The upper treble was weak is fully encased in absorbtive rubber and welded to a dead
c) There was extensive boxiness that was tiresome over front baffle. So this result was to be expected. Version 20.3
time specifies a foam damper behind the baffle.
d) Upper midrange distribution was not good. The distribution of mid/high sounds was also lacking
once the horn came off, leaving the tweeter to radiate 1 kHz
The solution was to re-evalue parts of the design. The
in a 180 degree angle. This excessive pattern was tamed
high frequency horn was (incorrectly) blamed for the treble
using an absorbent placed around the speaker dome limiting
problems, but was excluded for a variety of reasons. The
the spread. This will take a more visually pleasing form in the
MDF mounting plate therefore had to go. The front panel
production samples.
was too resonant, and new and thicker materials were found, Oh, and as a fun fact: the version 20.3 crossover was
and the area behind the speaker is now laminated with solid soldered using Ragnar Lian’s personal soldering iron, a relic
aluminium. from the start-up of Norsk Radiofabrikk.
Power handling issues were addressed with the crossover
being tweaked to protect the tweeter, and at the same time
the group delay was reduced to below 0.5 mS at all mid/high
frequencies. The highest frequencies were raised by almost
3dB at 20kHz, straightening the transfer curve further.
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Special Products Division
SPEAKERNEWS 2 July 2020
handcrafted items
By Paal Rasmussen, Norsk Radiofabrikk
Wouldn’t it be nice if nice sounds could be “I already am a product!”
made using off-the-shelf components? That’s
Lady Gaga
what most designers strive for. Loudspeaker
drive unit manufacturers and system
integrators
prefer drive units
that go well
together. Makes
has more than a few parts, and an intricate
life easy.
interconnection of parts that can only be tweaked
A case in
using simulation software.
point is the
The phase plug is designed to augment the
Ragnar Lian
dispersion of frequencies
designed speaker in the crossover region
sold by the US company “Dynaco” as the A-25. from the bass/mid drive
Two matched SEAS drive units, a simple box and unit, and blocking high
a two component crossover selling between frequencies from radiating
600,000 and 1,000,000 units, making Hi-Fi from the voice coil and the
history.
voice coil former that was
The bass/mid unit was made to roll off
exposed when when we
smoothly into the treble area without resonances.
removed the dust-cap.
The special doping of the paper cone can be seen
It fits inside the
in the photo.
magnet system central
We’re not so lucky, being stuck with what was pole-piece, and fills the
left behind from an arts project. So the crossover area inside the voice-coil
former and extends far
enough out so the cone doesn’t hit it at its
maximum excursion.
There are many materials suitable for this
part. PVC, Polypropylene and PTFE, aluminium,
and wood. We chose the latter for ease-of-
manufacture in a commonly available wood-
working lathes for machining the part.
2 special items
The crossover is
hand-crafted to
achieve the project
goals, and the phase
plug – shown here in
prototype form – is an
integral part in forming
the midrange
response
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