acoustic wave guide technology(reg)?

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RICK FITZPATRICK

RICK FITZPATRICK

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Hello, say I just watched an "infomercial" for Bose "acoustic wave guide technology" in one of thier radio products. Herbie Hancock among other salesman were demonstratiing the benifits of listening to music on this "miracle breakthrough". Just curious if this would have any use in monitor enclosure design, as in soffit construction.
Pretty scientific, probably sounds like a small radio.;) I wouldn't know. Just curious if anyone know anything about this, or if its bogus. They say "award winning sound".
I'm just interested in the concept. Boy, what a long commercial to sell these. Oh well, to each his own.
fitz:)
 
well since Bose has convinced millions that all you need is a tweeter and a sub.......... I'd suspect they could convince you of anything :)

cheers
john
 
I don't generally believe anything. Unless its someone I trust. Thats why I asked you.:D Thankyou sir.
fitz
 
I think it's hilarious, the Bose systems. They are trying to sell a glorified clock radio for $1100.
 
You never get something for nothing.

And this fancy new "acoustic waveguide technology" is actually not new at all. The basic idea of loading speakers with waveguides goes back to the 40's and is way older than even the ported box designs developed in the 70's. Like I said, nothing is free. So, you can indeed make a little speaker put out a lot of bass. But in order to do it, you have to significantly limit its bandwidth and seriously degrade its transient response. That's what these "waveguides" do. They're essentially tuned organ pipes connected to both ends of the speaker that in tandem act like a resonant filter. The speaker works very efficiently in a narrow frequency range and it also continues to ring like hell long after (100's of milliseconds) the bass notes in its range end.


barefoot
 
I don't generally believe anything. Unless its someone I trust. Thats why I asked you.:D Thankyou sir.
fitz

Well, the Bose Wave thing is kinda cool, basically its a folded horn.

And, folded horns are everywhere. Peavey had 'em, EV had 'em, and many others for outdoor use.

There is a DIY design called the "Ariel", which has six or seven iterations by now, but here is a picture:
cabinetdrg.jpg


Here is one of a ton of places to read about it:
http://indigo.ie/~walton/ariel1.html

Weird speakers that amused me:

Spiral "folded" horn Speaker Design:
http://www3.ocn.ne.jp/~hanbei/eng-inside.html

Concrete Speaker:
http://home.columbus.rr.com/dkuzma/concrete.htm

Fancy Concrete Speaker:
http://david.lewander.com/projects/concrete/concrete.htm

Fancy Snail-Shaped Concrete Speaker:
http://www.speakerbuilding.com/content/1106/
http://www.speakerbuilding.com/content/1106/ammonite2.jpg
 
frederic said:
Well, the Bose Wave thing is kinda cool, basically its a folded horn.
No, these are different animals altogether.

The Ariel is actually a transmission line speaker - not the same thing as these "waveguide" speakers, and not the same thing as a folded horn. A transmission line is actually a quasi reverse folded horn. The transmission line cross sectional area decreases rather than increases like a folded horn. And a transmission line is stuffed, unlike folded horns which are usually only lined with felt to dampen high frequency resonances. In the Bose system there are two waveguides of unequal length on either side of the speaker and their areas are constant in order to develop strong resonances.

barefoot
 
I tend to develop pretty strong resonances whenever somebody asks me to pay $1000 for a freakin' clock radio...
 
Thats what I like....

Thankyou gentleman, you have confirmed my suspisions. Acoustic waveguide technology huh? Ok how about this one, theres this guy going door to door selling this exilar.......smells like snake oil. :eek: He calls it Bose cure all. Any takers?
fitz:D
 
BTW all, Herbie Hancock was the "salesman" for this variety of snake oil. They had his band and himself in the studio, with the product. It looks very "acousticly" hi tech. My niece, who is a total valley street urchin numbskull, is watching this with me. Mind you, my "studio" is MY woom. I watch tv on 2 commodore monitors, and have the audio patched into them also for quick turnons. The speakers face straight up into the bottom of a rackmount cabinet. Now, the "sound" of the Bose is "supposidly"
coming from the monitors. My niece says," OH listen to that, its WONDERFUL" No wonder they convinced a million people to buy these.
fitz:confused:
 
BTW all, Herbie Hancock was the "salesman" for this variety of snake oil. They had his band and himself in the studio, with the product.

Commodore monitors for TV? You're as bad as me. In my studio, I watch TV on a rented digital cable box on a car LCD display I got on e-bay for 35 bucks. Tiny, but enough to get the idea while I'm doing other stuff. Wires hang off it too :)

Anyway, snake oil has been around since humans first figured out how to stand. In the days of cavemen, there were traveling cavemen on wooly yaks going cave to cave selling special "fire sticks" which would ignite fire faster than ordinary forest sticks rubbed together.

Real snake oil of course is "Slick-50", but thats another rant altogether.
 
Your as bad as me too!
I watch TV on a rented digital cable box on a car LCD display I goton e-bay for 35 bucks

your killin me too frederic, I love it. I search ebay all the time for unusuall stuff. Got a
storage unit full. I'm building a 3d sign for my sister right now. Its for her kitchen. Her last name is gibson. I used a lower grill from a 68 cadillac with a bunch of chrome extrusions, colored plex etc. Kind of art deco The sign says "GIBSON GRILL". I love 3d graphics.

Hows the design coming frederic? I can't wait to see your final draft.
fitz:)
 
RICK FITZPATRICK said:
Your as bad as me too!

your killin me too frederic, I love it. I search ebay all the time for unusuall stuff. Got a
storage unit full. I'm building a 3d sign for my sister right now. Its for her kitchen. Her last name is gibson. I used a lower grill from a 68 cadillac with a bunch of chrome extrusions, colored plex etc. Kind of art deco The sign says "GIBSON GRILL". I love 3d graphics.

Hows the design coming frederic? I can't wait to see your final draft.
fitz:)

Yeah, I'm an e-bay addict. Where else can someone find the vintage synth modules I seem to have a fetish for?

Anyway, the designing is coming okay. The upstairs design is done and I'm happy with it.

The downstairs, well, I'm still moving walls around in visio.
 

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And here is the downstairs/studio part. Obviously, not even close to being done. I like where "Control room B" is laid with the first booth (sliding doors too, woohoo) but the giant airlock between everything is ridiculously large. Also, the second bathroom I added really shouldn't be in an airlock. I'm still chucking room modules around, but there are some constraints.

1. I want to section off the office stairwell, office (2nd floor) and reception from the rest of the studio, for acoustical reasons and security.

2. I want two control rooms, that share a machine room. In the machine room will be all the recorders, digital patch bays, file servers, that sorta thing. Anything that could be a shared resource, or patched as such, will be in that room. Also, anything that makes mechanical noise of any sort.

3. Because the bathroom is where it is, I've decided to make that the bathroom for the offices and the reception area. I wanted a seperate bathroom for people within the studio, so the doors seperating the office from the studio can be locked going in (with pushbar fire escape on the inside). This is for security reasons. Its a large studio, and if I'm the only one there in the console room, I don't want to worry about people wandering in to the live room and knocking on the window, screwing up a perfectly good take. The easiest way to add a second bathroom is to simply tap the existing pipes and run them to a room right next door, and have two bathrooms mirroring each other like I have drawn. Of course I don't like it in my airlock :) There is another sewer pipe and water supply located in this diagram in the upper right immediately to the right of the "I" beam thats by itself in what may eventually be a live room, facing the tank. Not exactly a good place for a bathroom :)

Very quirky building, thats for sure!

4. I need to enclose the tank for acoustical reasons. At first I wasn't going to bother, but now that its cooler the heat kicked the other night while some friends and I were sweeping (well, leaf blowing actually), and apparerently inside the tank is a large pump thats on its last legs. Screeeeeeeeeeeeeech kerchung, kerchung, kerchung, clang, clang, clang, vrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr. Sounds like an old Packard found in a junkyard. So, that needs to be fixed, and enclosed.

5. I also discovered that I didn't look at the breakers/wiring carefully. I only saw one power feed into the building, so I had assumed the panel over the tank was it - which I thought was 600A. Turns out thats not the case and both sides have their own electric and my side has 600A 220V. Still, gross overkill.

Anyway, I'm still still still working out the placement of the rooms, and its fun. Annoying to some degree, but fun. I have a drum room and a midi "lounge" to shove in there somehow, then just clean up the layout. Oh, and get rid of the humungous airlock too LOL.

This is definately not my forte. My architect just laughs :)
 

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