DIY Flat Panel Speaker Love

[WernerM]

As I understand it, the back side of the exciter mounts directly to the radiating panel, the front side has the small tweeter radiating into free space.
Referring to Post #918.

Jack

After watching the video from posted, it appears you are indeed correct sir 😉

[WernerM]

I just finished my last dml flat panel today which was the sub panel......Not sure if I am the first to do it but I am using ALL DML flat panels for my surround sound home theater and music.....My Bertagnis are the main L/R speakers while the center and L/R surround rears as well as the sub is from my own custom designs. After a little experimenting and dialing all the speakers in to my desire preference they just sound awesome....all of them utilize a wooden frame with built in stands.....the surrounds are the smallest panels at 10inchX16inch....center 24inchX16inch.....Sub is 21inchX16inch.....surrounds use the cheap panasonic XO at 200Hz and up....while the center uses a 2 way 4.5 dayton crossover.....sub is running on a older polk audio amp at 50watts....this is still just my prototype as I feel and know how to make them sound even better but right now my funds are limited so this will do for now. lol

Sounds awesome! Could you post pics? Lol

[captainjack115]

Hey interesting find Jack!!!! I didn't read anything about it (yet), but to me it appears that you have to mount the panel to the front to the "exciter" where as the back of is held in place by a spline or frame. Then a cutout in the panel for the tweeter. I only say this because the speaker inputs are VERY close to the back surface of the exciter. If it was that close to the panel it would surely make contact with the panel it seems?!? Just a hunch.

Sure looks beastly and of top quality. Solid engineering!!!

Hey Rich,
I had the same impression about the input leads. I'd like to see a close-up photo of that exciter as AER mounted it to the plexiglass. Noted too, that they use some sort of dedicated digital processor to contour the frequency response. Something most of us have done in our various prototypes.
Jack

[Gary.M]

A transducer noted in the latest Voicecoil. SSP6. http://www.revolutionacoustics.com/

[Unbiasedsound]

Sorry no pics the cord to up load is broken so when ever I get the chance to buy a new one I will post some pics.......I had another friend come over and we blind folded him lead him into the listening area and played a few tracks and asked him to guess what type of speakers these were and how much does he think they cost......He is the second person to guess Maggies and he said they sound close to around 1k speakers...when we took off his blind fold and showed him the Polystyrene panels he couldnt believe it so he asked us to play them again with his blind fold off and he was just in awe. LOL...I asked him about the pros and cons....he said the pros is that these speakers sound very SMOOTH with great midrange presences like maggies, he said the bass is also pretty fast and accurate and that they have a great sound stage.....I have to admit though the great sound stage is probably due to the fact that I was playing all 5 speakers LOL....the cons were lack of the most upper frequencies as well as lack of the lower/lowest frequencies as well as dynamics.....he said considering the price I paid to make these speakers as well as the aesthetics, one would never know how good these speakers sound unless they heard it first hand themselves....I told him the other guy that listened to my speakers called them the POOR MANS MAGGIES, and he chuckled and says that sounds about right. lol

[WernerM]

Still experimenting here, today I tried just aluminum foil mounted to the window insulation. On a roughly 8" square opening frame. I taped the aluminum foil anywhere it resonated, amazing amount of bass, but at the cost of midrange. So it gives me a nice idea for a bass panel.

I just want to add that I have found a small piece of the pink foam insulation that I am going to try out. Once I find the right combination of materials that sounds the best to me I will start measurements during the process of different treatments, and finalized. I will also add pics then. Until then I change things up so fast that it would be a waste of time to do measurements and pics...

[WernerM]

So I tried the 1.5" XPS today no round overs, and only one side sanded and treated. I can definitely say that on a side by side comparison it wins in the SPL department hands down! 😃

I cannot say yet whether or not it wins overall. I will do proper treatment finishing and then decide. I am going to play around with the different thicknesses also.

I am still working on my listening/test/measurements room and hope to be done by next weekend. I will take measurements of my top 3 choices and of all the different thickness XPS that I can.

On another note, if these panels will go high enough, I was thinking of pairing this http://www.parts-express.com/dayton-...6-ohm--275-083 Dayton planar tweeter to cover the upper most frequency range if I can't get the panel up there. At $12 each and being planar themselves I think they may make a nice complement and keep the price of this project low and easily affordable. I don't have any way to EQ, and honestly I would rather have something that doesn't need it in the end.

That way anyone can try them without special equipment. I'm also thinking of using a cheap 8" sub for the lowest bass...

Let me know y'alls thoughts on these ideas...

[Tin Ear]

I'm curious as to whether or not the window film has titanium, which I think has great potential. via Tapatalk

[WernerM]

I am not sure. I don't think so, what I have been using is just a thin clear plastic film. I still want to give acrylic a try also. Found some acrylic sheet "wire shelf liners" at HD that are 16" x 48". When I can convince the wife to let me purchase them I will.. lol. When I come up with what I would consider finalized versions of different materials I will do measurements and post them. One thing I am planning on doing with my new spare room is to put hooks into the studs and run cable between them that I can hang sheets over to make temporary walls for my measurement setup. Kind of like two dog trots...

[captainjack115]

Lost another Thruster. I really need to consider using 4 per channel, I'd gain 6 db in volume plus an overhead in power.

[Unbiasedsound]

Time for a upgrade....IMO and a few others that have heard my DML speakers, it seems they are lacking in the higher end frequencies. With that said I am ordering a tweeter from parts express that can reach 40,000khz. to be used in my center channel speaker to see if the extended frequency response will do the trick.

[Kornbread]

Lost another Thruster. I really need to consider using 4 per channel, I'd gain 6 db in volume plus an overhead in power.

Good luck with those. I went through several of the daex32ep-4 before giving up, some didn't live long enough to do any testing.

I'm still in the train of thought that without some way to predict how multiple exciters will react on the same panel, getting your desired response is going to be a krap shoot. Please take base line measurements and measure every step along the way, show us what you are doing and post it. Maybe together we can skin this cat.

[Unbiasedsound]

I have 6 of theDAEX30HESP-4 and none of them have failed me so far even though I have abused them by dropping them a more then a couple dozen times and or driving them to the limits of there excursion. Plus they are on sale now for 17 bucks.

Listening to Jennifer Warnes from The Well album....very good voice/vocals, it just sounds so smooth on the DMLs.

[WernerM]

I still only have the $15/pr DAEX25 exciters. I am currently trying to nail down my measurement setup so that I can provide relevant measurement data using these on various materials. The quick test I did on a 1.5" panel with no edge treatments and only one side (the exciter side) treated looks pretty promising from 500-5kHz nice and flat with no EQ. There is a spike at around 10k iirc that matches the SPL level of the usable frequency range. Like I said once I have my setup down and am making good measurements i will post results from different materials and different treatments of said materials.

I want to get good SPL levels also...

[captainjack115]

Good luck with those. I went through several of the daex32ep-4 before giving up, some didn't live long enough to do any testing.

I'm still in the train of thought that without some way to predict how multiple exciters will react on the same panel, getting your desired response is going to be a krap shoot. Please take base line measurements and measure every step along the way, show us what you are doing and post it. Maybe together we can skin this cat.

I have a photo of an old project on post #274, I used 4 exciters, but they're on 4 separate panels. Using separate panels isolates each exciter from one another and eliminates modal interaction that would otherwise take place. The exciters I used were low power, I bought them in bulk from Parts Express for very little money. Ironically, I never lost any of them through over power.
I'm probably the only one on this forum using corrugated plastic for panels, to be honest I'm not even sure why. Maybe for cosmetic aesthetics, maybe for easy fabrication, or both. I could be missing out by not at least trying XPS.
On post #284 there's a photo of a spectrum analyser reading using a pair of 12"x12" corrugated plastic panels, Post #361 shows what they look like.

Jack