Paul Carmody's Tarkus

Nice looks. So..... you are open to hearing ideas !!

I think there is far too much criss-cross bracing internally. I'd scale it so you can use a minimum of 3/4 inch plywood for all but the front baffle. For the front baffle - make that 1 1/8th inch Marine grade Plywood.

Three sets of high quality Cardas Speaker Posts on the rear, one for each driver is a good idea, but costly. Two sets as a minimum.

Use 1/2 of Fulton lengths for the driver-to-speaker- post runs. ( 57 .125 inches Xs 0.5 ) .

Use ALL M22759/ 11 wire internally to the two or three Cardas speaker posts, as follows :

Woofer: 2 Xs 12 AWG, for each polarity

Mids: 1 Xs 12 AWG per polarity, no touch polarities

Tweeter : 1 Xs 16 AWG per polarity, carefully set up so polarities do not touch each other.

Internal stuffing. Start with none, and add by ear until you get the minimal amount needed, so as not to KILL the sound and music's presentation. Most people tend to use too much stuffing, to the detriment of the music's presentation.

Have fun. The true cost of a hi fi system includes all the iterations we spend on in our lifetimes, to eventually get where we want to be.

Jeff
 
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The Flare Port finally showed up in the mail yesterday and I was able to hack away at the bracing. The bracing of the bass cab is done. Just one brace for the TM cab remains, which should be done by tomorrow.

With this scheme of bracing it'll be challenging to get my hands into individual squares to stick the egg crate foam. So I'll stick the foam before I install the side and the front. The foam arrives only on Sunday, so another delay :(


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Have you accounted for the loss of volume due to the volume taken up by the braces. Nice bracing, BTW.
 
The Flare Port finally showed up in the mail yesterday and I was able to hack away at the bracing. The bracing of the bass cab is done. Just one brace for the TM cab remains, which should be done by tomorrow.

With this scheme of bracing it'll be challenging to get my hands into individual squares to stick the egg crate foam. So I'll stick the foam before I install the side and the front. The foam arrives only on Sunday, so another delay :(


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If you had a few kittens…they would have a fantastic time in there
 
The foam arrived early and I was eager to get cracking. I was a little apprehensive that the ordered quantity of foam wouldn't suffice; thankfully, in the end, a 6"x6" piece was the only remnant from a 6'x3' sheet.

I stuck the foam with one of the side walls and the front removed, as it would be easier to reach all the individual squares between the bracing. Once this was complete, the missing side wall was installed and the foam was stuck. All walls of the bass cab, except the front face have been lined with foam.

My next step is to install the TM cab and begin the putty work, temporarily installing the front faces, of course, as you don't want the dust from all the brutal sanding to enter the enclosure. I have already completed the hole for the flare port and the binding posts.

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The woofer and the mid on the Tarkus are to be mounted on the face, whereas the tweeter is flush-mounted. I realised the horror when I checked the drivers for fit. I had gouged holes for all!

Here's the mistake. This is the rear btw. The cutouts have been chamfered for ventilation.

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I was left with two options. Either fill the tweeter slot with a piece or make another TM baffle. I wasn't too pleased with the routing job anyway, so I decided to make another baffle. Here's the new baffle.

The tweeter can now sit flush. Ignore the outer edges of the baffle, they'll be neatly finished once they're installed on the box.


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On the left is the old piece.

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This coffin is the soon-to-be-completed Tarkus. The Bracing scheme of the TM box.

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@aeroash, In case you have not finalised your baffle design this podcast discussion with a experienced speaker designer may help…
This is such a wonderful insight into loudspeakers, something that everyone should listen to!
Ironically, my next project is Troels Gravensen's The Loudspeaker 1. The biggest, baddest published DIY loudspeaker.

Seeing first-hand what a 15" woofer does I have been a convert. No more small drivers and boxes for me. Only a large driver, and a paper cone at that, can emulate acoustic musical instruments as truly as possible. The hit of a snare or a bass drum can be heard with any tiny drivers, but only FELT with a large driver. The texture, reverberance, and tone are real. The most common misconception is that larger drivers are for more SPL only. It isn't necessarily true, and Peter Comeau articulates this point well. Big drivers sound natural even at low volumes, this itself should be a wet dream for many.
 
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I am with you on the big drivers and bass tones at low volumes. Going beyond the single note boom-thump and achieving a textured range of bass note reproduction with nicely controlled decay is a deligtful sensation.
my faith in the large driver-good bass theorem has been shaken however by the diminutive KEF KC62 sub. It seems to bend the laws of physics with a small pair of drivers and a 1000w of amplification. I have only heard it in smallish spaces. But it does it very nicely.

This is from a discussion on “bass slam” on Audigon:

”… It is a function of transient dynamics and raw SPL. If there's not much dynamic contrast, it doesn't come across as "slam". If there's good dynamic contrast but the sound pressure level is still soft, it doesn't come across as "slam".

From a loudspeaker design perspective, the solutions include high efficiency and/or large diameter (or multiple) voice coils. If a loudspeaker system is being pushed close to its RMS thermal rating on peaks, your peaks are softened and so is the emotion conveyed. If a loudspeaker system is just loafing along at fairly high SPL, it will deliver plenty of slam. That's why 5 watts into a 98 dB efficient speaker almost always sounds so much more lively than 200 watts into an 82 dB efficient speaker, even though "on paper" both are 105 dB capable.”

 
@aeroash: Once you are done with the fun on Troel's loudspeaker-1, you should try to build these :p:
These will be the grand daddy of all home hifi speakers and will end the quest for big speakers for many, unless they are into house-sized horn bass systems. These speakers are from the master himself (Kimmosto) :) They work in small bathroom-sized rooms to much bigger living rooms.
It has 2 x 18-inch woofers in passive cardioid configuration per side and a coaxial compression driver from BMS for the upper end. He even uses the BMS 4550 compression driver (that is the one you heard at my home) as super tweeter :p
 
@aeroash: Once you are done with the fun on Troel's loudspeaker-1, you should try to build these :p:
hahaha!

These will be the grand daddy of all home hifi speakers and will end the quest for big speakers for many, unless they are into house-sized horn bass systems. These speakers are from the master himself (Kimmosto) :) They work in small bathroom-sized rooms to much bigger living rooms.
It has 2 x 18-inch woofers in passive cardioid configuration per side and a coaxial compression driver from BMS for the upper end. He even uses the BMS 4550 compression driver (that is the one you heard at my home) as super tweeter :p
I have come across Kimmosto's posts on ASR, wasn't aware of this design of his. It's an interesting design using that CD as a super tweeter!

He really did test his speakers in a bathroom!

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As I said... :p🤪
For it to work, pattern control down to the lowest frequencies is needed. That is the cardioid configuration helps with :)
The cardioid system is such a boon for many! considering many don't have the luxury of space and end up pushing speakers closer to the walls.. Why don't we see more commercial offerings of this system? I can find only QSC subs and Linkwitz.
 
@aeroash: Once you are done with the fun on Troel's loudspeaker-1, you should try to build these :p:
These will be the grand daddy of all home hifi speakers and will end the quest for big speakers for many, unless they are into house-sized horn bass systems. These speakers are from the master himself (Kimmosto) :) They work in small bathroom-sized rooms to much bigger living rooms.
It has 2 x 18-inch woofers in passive cardioid configuration per side and a coaxial compression driver from BMS for the upper end. He even uses the BMS 4550 compression driver (that is the one you heard at my home) as super tweeter :p

Horns (large) are the best.

How does the cardioid work in this design, I am familiar with how it is used in pro sound but this is two drivers appearing on the same plane.
 
The cardioid system is such a boon for many! considering many don't have the luxury of space and end up pushing speakers closer to the walls.. Why don't we see more commercial offerings of this system? I can find only QSC subs and Linkwitz.

In pro sound cardioid systems are often setup using multiple enclosures rather than integrating the design into one enclosure.
 
Why don't we see more commercial offerings of this system?
First of all, it takes some knowledge of loudspeaker system design and the trade offs involved to even conceptualize a cardioid speaker. The passive cardioid technology used in commercial speakers like dutch & dutch 8c is patented. So blatent violation of that and bringing a similar product to market is not easy. One has to find ways to get around the patent in terms of implementation. It essentially requires "thinking out of the box" and some amount of initial experimentarion & prototyping to bring such a product to market.
Technology-wise there is nothing rocket science-like in a passive cardioid implementation. It is just a properly designed and damped leaking port, the radiation from which will mix with the radiation from the driver amd create nulls (hence less interference) to certain directions.
On the other hand an active cardioid like Kii-3 is easy to implement but requires more DSP intervention and additional drivers both to create the desired interference pattern and to offset the loss in spl levels. The product will definitely cost more and audio purists will run away at the mention of dsp.

So it will be hard to see a similar cardioid product with enough brain power going into design, with a convincing enough usecase to be projected and a space created in the market and most of all to educate the consumers about why they might want it. However, in Diy world, things are different.. And that is the only hope for immediate future.

Bu the way, a 15inch woofer by itself, on a relatively wide baffle generates cardioidish radiation down to 300-400Hz (among other advantages). Match it to appropriately designed horn for the upper end and one has a very nice speaker on their hands.. Part of the reason why 15inch woofers can sound really nice in a good implementation.. ;)
 
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Horns (large) are the best.
Even with my limited experience with horns, I agree. I like even my shorter horns. So can imagine about a larger one.. :)
How does the cardioid work in this design, I am familiar with how it is used in pro sound but this is two drivers appearing on the same plane.
This is a passive cardioid design. Essentially it is a leaking box containing two 18-inch drivers. Let me copy-paste some pics from Kimmosto's build here.
Here is how the insides of the woofer box looks like. There is just gaps between those wooden pieces on the sides.
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Now comes the appropriate amount and quality of damping material through which sound from the inside of the cabinet has to pass through to leak to the outsides of the box (as per recent investigations, basotect foam and polyester wool can work well as the damping material).
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Once sound passes through and reaches outside leaking through the sides, it is appropriately delayed and attenuated (just enough) to create destructive interference from the radiation from the drivers on the front at appropriate off axis directions. Hence the cardioid/supercardioid/hypercardioid pattern forms (remove the leaking box completely, and one gets a figure-8-shaped radiation pattern from the dipole. :) )
 
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