New Lowther Drivers.

There is another cabinet that looks to have a lot of potential and is a variation of the Voigt Pipe. I saw it on the Single Drive website under the DIY menu, titled: Bigger is Better. Basically, it looks like the Voigt Pipe but has the "other half" of the Pipe attached, and the port/mouth opens up toward the ceiling. The fellow that built these speakers has some tips in building them that may be useful to you when you build your Voigts.

Please keep us udated on your Lowther DX-3 Voigt speakers.

Yes, I've seen that one and it does look interesting. I am trying the regular Voigt Pipes first, because my ceiling is vaulted, and the Terry Cain upfiring pipes may not get much bass boundary reinforcement from my ceiling. The Cain pipes would gave to give at least 3db more bass in order to compensate for the loss of boundary reinforcement. Also, when I experimented with transmission line lengths in my last set of single driver speakers, I found that at some point, longer line and lower tuning can result in loss of output level. Since the Voigt pipes act as a T-Line and a kind of horn, this may be mitigated somewhat, but the mouth size is way to small for a real horn and would reflect alot back up the throat if pressed into being a real horn, drastically raising the cutoff frequency. Also, they act as a bass-reflex somewhat, and the box volume would be doubled, requiring much tuning of the port mouth. Cain designed his pipes for a smaller Fostex driver that has a significantly higher resonant frequency, and likely lacks the bass output of the Lowther. The Lowther, having a resonant frequency of 36Hz should be good down to 40Hz-50Hz in the traditional Voigt pipe cabinet. This is fine with me. I'd like to go lower, but I can live with 40Hz. If I decide I really need the extra bass, I will build the "Big Fun" horn with a cutoff of 32Hz on the low end. Efficiency of the DX3 in all these back horn cabinets is about 100db with 1 watt input. The only way to go higher is to go with a front horn, which I don't like to do because of colorations imparted to the mids.

Twl:

You wrote:

"I can live with 40Hz"

I agree Twl. If the speaker handles 40Hz really well it's much betteer than having something that stumbles over something lower. I've been building two ways for a couple years that max out at 39Hz, but handle that well, and for lots of music I never miss a thing.

I am moving in your (FR) direction though.
Continue to let us know what your doing and how it's going.

Thanks,

This again brings us to the perennial question of whether we are listening to the sound or to the music. It is pretty clear when twl makes statements like "I can live with 40Hz" that he is opting for listening to the sound.

THERE IS NOTHING WRONG WITH MAKING THIS CHOICE. Please...hear that.

In my judgment (not revealed truth, just my judgment) this is why people choose tubes over SS and vinyl over digital: They want to listen to the sound.

That's a good choice...a legitimate choice...in every way a valid choice.

But that is not the same as listening to the music.

Off to NYC for a week of concerts and shows. Y'all have fun! Great 4th of July to all!

will

Here's another variation of the Voigt Pipe that you may be interested in: http://indigo.ie/~walton/voigt.html Also, there is a construction tip on the Pipes at that site.

The "Pipe" is a bit larger than the original and has a modification at the bottom of the cabinet, which according to the builder, helps smooth out the bass response.