DIY Flat Panel Speaker Love

[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...

[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...

[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

[Gary.M]

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

[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