Lowther Voigt Pipes are up and running

Albert, believe it or not, I thought about renting a van and driving down to your place to see how you like these. I know they would sound terrific on your system. But, you would have to only just barely crack open the volume control on your system to get these babies singing. I can't really bring them down there, but I'd love to. I'm sure we'd have a fun time. BTW, these speakers are BIG. With the wings out, they stand 6 feet tall and 3 feet wide. They're solid 3/4" oak. But, with the wings on the piano hinges, they can fold back against the center section when not playing, so they can be just over a foot wide when folded. Then they just look like 6' towers. Pretty cool. Baffle compensation can be adjusted to needs of the room, if someone has a peaky room. Just by different angles of the wings. If you decide to ever try the low-power/high efficiency game, I'll work with you on some designs, if you'd like. Who knows? Maybe next year, I'll come up with some ideas to improve back-horns and have to build a pair of them.

Where did you get the wing idea Twl? Love to see a picture. Are the p/resisters recommended with the driver/enclosure literature or did you come up with it?

You probably talked about this but did you modify the Club of Norway design in any way? What was material.

If you already typed this all out just point out the thread.

I was looking at doing a Fostex/Voight design but now I think I might do a monkey see monkey do on yours. You're an inspiration!

We might want to go e-mail on some of this if you don't mind.

Thanks
I remain,

Twl,

Congrats! I also would like to see some photos. If they sound this good so early, you must be onto something. Keep us informed of the progress.

Happy listening,
Patrick

p.s. Albert, how about you going over to Twl's and giving us a report?

When i first saw the subject line last night, i new it was you that had posted it : )

Good idea about the "wings". I've used similar approaches to extend baffles on smaller stand mounted monitors before, but these usually extended below the cabinets and not to the sides. This type of baffle extension is typically called a "baffle beard" and can be fine tuned via different lengths and angles. This approach can help extend the bottom end of smaller designs while also minimizing "holes" in the frequency response that were caused by cancellation from "floor bounce".

Since you could not really extend the baffle below your cabinet due to the design, your idea about going off the sides and making them adjustable is quite creative and simple to boot. Not only can you tailor the amount of reinforcement, but you're not really running into big-time problems with diffraction this way due to the angular nature of the design. Two birds with one stone ( so to speak ). My only concern with this is that the "wings" will tend to resonate unless you've found some way to rigidly couple them into position and keep them anchored. Have you looked into this or does it not seem to be a problem at this point in time ?

While i've got a couple of other speaker projects i have to get done first, your tinkering with a single driver like this has gotten me wanting to experiment a little more with something i had previously thought about. I have a couple of Pioneer full range 8" drivers with whizzer's that i'm going to experiment with. My brother had used them in a previous project but ended up getting TOO "creative" and ruined the project.

I'm thinking of doing something along the lines of a Shahinian design i.e. mounting the driver on the top of the cabinet with a gradually sloped baffle pointing somewhat forward. The rear wave of the driver would be loaded using a TATL ( Tapered Acoustic Transmission Line ). This would give me a near 360* radiation pattern with a slight forward axis. The TL would reinforce the bottom end without making it peaky or introducing big impedance swings. While the driver is relatively efficient ( 92 - 94 dB's if i recall correctly ), it is nothing like your Lowther. Then again, my smallest amp is 30+ wpc : )

As far as driver mods go for my project, i'd:

1) Damp the basket of the driver to miminize ringing. Depending on the mass of the individual driver and it's basket, how it is mounted, etc... this can DRASTICALLY reduce peakiness in the upper midrange area. If you haven't done that with your Lowther, you need to check into it. I think that this is responsible for what many people refer to as "shout" in this type of driver. I have seen basket damping alter the linearity and frequency response of a driver by SEVERAL dB's.

2) Treat the cone to help stiffen and damp break-up.

3) Support the whizzer by placing high density foam between the rear of the whizzer and the immediate area of the cone behind it. This should keep the whizzer from flexing independently of the cone. This should also minimize the reflections that take place from the signal bouncing off the whizzer and back into the cone behind it. Another potential solution for minimizing "shout" or harsness in the upper mids.

Other than that, it is good to see something "good" come out of a "mistake". Some people would have pissed and moaned about receiving the wrong drivers. You made a silk purse out of a sow's ear : ) Sean
>

Actually there is no need to complain as the EX3 are considered better (more expensive). Not a sow's ear at all!The “DX” and “EX” series both use neodymium magnets, and are similar except that the “EX” series provide a module on the back that keeps midrange and high end noise from rebounding in the compression chamber and escaping through the horn or reflecting back through the driver cone. They also have the equalizer phase plug. Specs are slightly dif but very little. (from Lowther)

Cheers,