Abdul Jalib
Stunt Coordinator
- Joined
- Dec 27, 2000
- Messages
- 175
Here is my design, submitted for your critique...
Arctic Ice
You are looking at front and side views. The black section on top is ribbon, the circle in the middle is the woofer, the baffle is acrylic, and the black box at bottom is the amplifier (not actually part of the speaker.)
Arctic Ice are dipole speakers through and through, with 16" of dipolar ribbon for crystal clear highs and mids and a 12" dipolar woofer for bass. The ribbons are dual 4x8" push-pull planar Neodymium panels with award-winning sound. The special low noise woofer is mounted on a flat open baffle made from 1" thick transparent acrylic. The triangular shape offers a more smooth frequency response compared to circular or square designs. The relatively small size of the baffle is designed to avoid the problems with resonance of higher frequencies within its operating range. The flat baffle design is not subjected to the forces that boxes must endure, and acrylic is very resistant to resonance for this application.
Monopoles have their fans, but the advantage of dipolar bass is more focused sound waves and less wall reflections, making for crisp and pure bass. The ribbons have excellent imaging, with the dipole adding a little envelopment to the sound.
With a 24 db/octave Linkwitz-Riley crossover at 166 Hz, the phase is consistent throughout, aiding by a slight tilting of the baffle. This 2-way design is not a compromise. The wide range of the ribbon section, 166 Hz to 20 kHz (-3 dB), makes it possible to cover the lower range of 166 Hz down to nearly 20 Hz with just a single woofer.
Biamping is not only the best way to drive Arctic Ice... it's the only way! This is an active crossover design, positioning the crossover before the amplification for the best possible sound. The pre-outs connect to the crossover, and the low pass output of the crossover is subjected to equalization. Bass equalization is always a good idea to compensate for room response, but with dipolar woofers equalization is a necessity to compensate for their inherent -6 dB per octave roll off. With equalization, the response curve will be flat down to nearly 20 Hz.
The amplification for high and low needs to be done by two separate amp channels. The two amp channels could be left and right channels of the same stereo amp (vertical bi-amping), or all the highs could be on one multi-channel amp and all the lows on another multi-channel amp (horizontal bi-amping), or each channel of amplication could be provided by a monoblock. Because the woofers have dual voice coils, you can even go for a 3-channel amp, using one channel for each voice coil, which is probably a good idea for more SPL. For monoblock or vertical-biamping, the amp(s) can be placed on the foot of each speaker. This provides physical stability to each speaker, and you can show off your tasteful choice of amplifier through the transparent acrylic.
Arctic Ice is designed to be used for every speaker in your home theater and run full range. No dedicated subwoofer is necessary. A single Arctic Ice speaker does not pump out anywhere near the SPL of a subwoofer, but put together 5, 6, or 7 Arctic Ice speakers run full range for your home theater and that will be some bass! A center channel version has the ribbon pannel mounted horizontally so that you can mount it underneath or on top of your TV. (For shielding, um, a big slate of lead?)
Specifications:
Frequency response: ~20 hz to ~20kHz (-3 dB) (maybe a bit less)
Dimensions: irregular, 37x24x16" (HxWxD), 1" thick baffle
Weight: 25 lbs (?)
Price:
$85 Monsoon MM-702 (two Sonigistix planar panels, cheaper direct)
$145 Adire DPL12 12" dipolar woofer
$30 Marchand XM1-A 24 db/octave L-R crossover @ 166 Hz
$12 OPA1234 Op-Amp upgrades
$90 Marchand WM8-A BASSIS bass equalizer
$100 Acrylic slab
$1 wood tie from Home Depot (to join planar panels)
$10 miscellaneous (solder, wire, etc.)
------
$473 each, $946 per pair
For the whole set of speakers, you'll also need a power supply (e.g., Marchand PS10 for $50) to power the crossovers and equalizers, and it would be nice to have a big box with 7 RCA inputs and 14 RCA outputs to house the crossovers and equalizers. Whatever amplifier you choose needs to accept unbalanced input (RCA), because that's what the XM1 outputs.
Another concept...
Arctic Narwhal
The Narwhal uses a whale of a subwoofer as its woofer, but I haven't finished designing it.
Arctic Ice
You are looking at front and side views. The black section on top is ribbon, the circle in the middle is the woofer, the baffle is acrylic, and the black box at bottom is the amplifier (not actually part of the speaker.)
Arctic Ice are dipole speakers through and through, with 16" of dipolar ribbon for crystal clear highs and mids and a 12" dipolar woofer for bass. The ribbons are dual 4x8" push-pull planar Neodymium panels with award-winning sound. The special low noise woofer is mounted on a flat open baffle made from 1" thick transparent acrylic. The triangular shape offers a more smooth frequency response compared to circular or square designs. The relatively small size of the baffle is designed to avoid the problems with resonance of higher frequencies within its operating range. The flat baffle design is not subjected to the forces that boxes must endure, and acrylic is very resistant to resonance for this application.
Monopoles have their fans, but the advantage of dipolar bass is more focused sound waves and less wall reflections, making for crisp and pure bass. The ribbons have excellent imaging, with the dipole adding a little envelopment to the sound.
With a 24 db/octave Linkwitz-Riley crossover at 166 Hz, the phase is consistent throughout, aiding by a slight tilting of the baffle. This 2-way design is not a compromise. The wide range of the ribbon section, 166 Hz to 20 kHz (-3 dB), makes it possible to cover the lower range of 166 Hz down to nearly 20 Hz with just a single woofer.
Biamping is not only the best way to drive Arctic Ice... it's the only way! This is an active crossover design, positioning the crossover before the amplification for the best possible sound. The pre-outs connect to the crossover, and the low pass output of the crossover is subjected to equalization. Bass equalization is always a good idea to compensate for room response, but with dipolar woofers equalization is a necessity to compensate for their inherent -6 dB per octave roll off. With equalization, the response curve will be flat down to nearly 20 Hz.
The amplification for high and low needs to be done by two separate amp channels. The two amp channels could be left and right channels of the same stereo amp (vertical bi-amping), or all the highs could be on one multi-channel amp and all the lows on another multi-channel amp (horizontal bi-amping), or each channel of amplication could be provided by a monoblock. Because the woofers have dual voice coils, you can even go for a 3-channel amp, using one channel for each voice coil, which is probably a good idea for more SPL. For monoblock or vertical-biamping, the amp(s) can be placed on the foot of each speaker. This provides physical stability to each speaker, and you can show off your tasteful choice of amplifier through the transparent acrylic.
Arctic Ice is designed to be used for every speaker in your home theater and run full range. No dedicated subwoofer is necessary. A single Arctic Ice speaker does not pump out anywhere near the SPL of a subwoofer, but put together 5, 6, or 7 Arctic Ice speakers run full range for your home theater and that will be some bass! A center channel version has the ribbon pannel mounted horizontally so that you can mount it underneath or on top of your TV. (For shielding, um, a big slate of lead?)
Specifications:
Frequency response: ~20 hz to ~20kHz (-3 dB) (maybe a bit less)
Dimensions: irregular, 37x24x16" (HxWxD), 1" thick baffle
Weight: 25 lbs (?)
Price:
$85 Monsoon MM-702 (two Sonigistix planar panels, cheaper direct)
$145 Adire DPL12 12" dipolar woofer
$30 Marchand XM1-A 24 db/octave L-R crossover @ 166 Hz
$12 OPA1234 Op-Amp upgrades
$90 Marchand WM8-A BASSIS bass equalizer
$100 Acrylic slab
$1 wood tie from Home Depot (to join planar panels)
$10 miscellaneous (solder, wire, etc.)
------
$473 each, $946 per pair
For the whole set of speakers, you'll also need a power supply (e.g., Marchand PS10 for $50) to power the crossovers and equalizers, and it would be nice to have a big box with 7 RCA inputs and 14 RCA outputs to house the crossovers and equalizers. Whatever amplifier you choose needs to accept unbalanced input (RCA), because that's what the XM1 outputs.
Another concept...
Arctic Narwhal
The Narwhal uses a whale of a subwoofer as its woofer, but I haven't finished designing it.