The Travelers - New Year, New Design

[Jim Holtz]

I assume that these were designed to be at least 18 inches from the back wall?

18" is ideal but 12" - 36" works very well. Obviously they'll play just fine closer than 12" but the sound stage diminishes and sound more like a conventional speaker rather than open back mids. This applies to all of our open back mid designs.

HTH

Jim

[LOUT]

18" is ideal but 12" - 36" works very well. Obviously they'll play just fine closer than 12" but the sound stage diminishes and sound more like a conventional speaker rather than open back mids. This applies to all of our open back mid designs.
HTH
Jim

Is this ideal distance pretty common for open-back mids in general or are there some other design aspects that heavily influence the ideal wall distance?
If there are other design aspects, are any of them pretty concrete "tuning"/planning things you can mention, or is it more of a build it first and then test/listen to find out kind of thing?

[Jim Holtz]

Is this ideal distance pretty common for open-back mids in general or are there some other design aspects that heavily influence the ideal wall distance?
If there are other design aspects, are any of them pretty concrete "tuning"/planning things you can mention, or is it more of a build it first and then test/listen to find out kind of thing?

Curt tested different distances from the rear wall when we 1st tried open back mids and found 18" was the most wife friendly and allowed the soundstage to open up and sound much more realistic than closed back speakers. So, Curt has developed all of our open back speaker projects about 18" off the wall behind. Actually, nearly all high end speakers you would buy will sound best at 18" or more. You can buy speakers for close wall positioning but the sound stage suffers. Di-Pole speakers usually require 3' or more to sound as designed and have the big sound stage they're known for. Every crossover designer will have their own take on what they like and what sounds best to them.

The design goals Curt has for every design he touches have been thoroughly researched before he starts the development. He's been developing crossovers for many, many years and has a real talent at getting the best performance possible out of the drivers used.

HTH

Jim

[Geoff Millar]

The design goals Curt has for every design he touches have been thoroughly researched before he starts the development. He's been developing crossovers for many, many years and has a real talent at getting the best performance possible out of the drivers used.

HTH

Jim

Absolutely, Curt's speakers are marvellous: I never cease to be amazed at the sound and value from his Tritrix and Slapshots designs.

Geoff

[cmv26o]

The fronts are solid Bubinga (PAIN IN THE REAR! hard to work with)
the rest is a mix of redwood burl veneer and myrtle burl
The bass cab design for the RS225 is from the Amaroso designed by Paul K,
Will post more of a review after spending some time with them.

Beautiul build - if you dont mind me asking (planning a build myself) - how did you go about designing the extended cabinet? What changes, if any did you make? and/or did you isolate the lower woofer into it's own cabinet essentially?

IT will be much appreciated!

[Paperweight]

Paul K. designed a cabinet for the Finalists that will work for the Travelers. You will find that in another thread on this site.

I recently purchased the full kit from Meniscus. The mids were on backorder for a while. Now it seems the kit isn't listed. I wonder if there was a long lead time on drivers so they pulled it temporarily. Seems the supply chain is going to be really messy for some time to come.

[Paperweight]

Here's the combined Travelers with Paul K. ML-TL if anyone is interested. I believe the measurements and dimentions are correct. I have yet to get any feedback on it and I haven't got around to test cutting and assembling it so I offer this as is.

The cut list:

Inner front baffle and Back panel: 43 1/4" X 9 1/2" 3/4" thick, 2 per speaker
Outer front baffle: 44 3/4" X 11" ** 1/2" thick **, 1 per speaker
Side Panels: 44 3/4" X 15" 3/4" thick, 2 per speaker
Top and Bottom panel: 9 1/2" X 15" 3/4" thick, 2 per speaker

PVC support panels: 9 1/2" X 7 1/2" 3/4" thick, 2 per speaker
Inner Solid panel for top of woofer section: 13 1/2" X 9 1/2" 3/4: thick, 1 per speaker
ML-TL main center panel: 24 7/8" X 9 1/2" 3/4" thick, 1 per speaker
Window Braces: 9 1/2" X 6 3/8" 3/4" thick, 4 per speaker

Paul K.'s original drawing for the ML-TL included the bit about ~14oz of polyfill is to be added in the front half of the woofer cabinet. The back port half of the cabinet doesn't get any.

[kevchev]

Hi, Newbie here, I'm looking for a 3 way design that has a slightly elevated mid bass, most 3 ways I've seen measurements of seem slightly recessed or a dip in mid bass area with a bump in the (port) lower bass region, I'm really interested in the Travelers, are there any measurements posted anywhere or can anyone comment on the sound character. Thanks. Kevin