Dave A Posted November 28, 2020 Share Posted November 28, 2020 Finished a long term project today and it is a stacked BB horn lens with removable clamp plate for 4" center line diameter four bolt drivers. The block is 13.5" x 9" x 6.875" deep. Mouth is 11.5" x 7". Stacked and machined with no steps and very little hand sanding. These had a pair of N314X drivers on there and they sound very good. No testing done just listening. I have been kicking around the idea of making something like the Elliptracs which are no longer available and this is the first version. Meant to be free standing and might add a bracket to tilt and swivel in time. For now I am just sticking them on top of a speaker I have sitting around and enjoying them. 8 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OO1 Posted November 28, 2020 Share Posted November 28, 2020 1 hour ago, Dave A said: I have been kicking around the idea of making something l , BB looks way nicer than MDF Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
babadono Posted November 28, 2020 Share Posted November 28, 2020 Nice, very nice Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fido Posted November 28, 2020 Share Posted November 28, 2020 tou do amazing work Dave! again - WOW! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alexander Posted November 28, 2020 Share Posted November 28, 2020 beautiful work Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pete H Posted November 28, 2020 Share Posted November 28, 2020 Great to see this Dave. Can't wait to see the bracket. I really like that solid block of wood look. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
justinsweber Posted November 30, 2020 Share Posted November 30, 2020 Looks amazing! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Honeybadger Posted November 30, 2020 Share Posted November 30, 2020 Keep up the nice work. BTW, Eliptrac's are still available in kit form only. H.B. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dave A Posted November 30, 2020 Author Share Posted November 30, 2020 29 minutes ago, Honeybadger said: Keep up the nice work. BTW, Eliptrac's are still available in kit form only. H.B. For some reason I thought the small ones were still being made but not the large ones. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dave A Posted November 30, 2020 Author Share Posted November 30, 2020 OK Here is a larger one and the last for this week. Of the three larger wood horns I have cut this one is by far the best and I may be done tinkering for a free standing horn. The one above is stacked on the new one for reference. The larger one is a 6.75 deep, 16" long and 9" tall and the mouth is 14" x 7". I am impatiently waiting for the second one to finish cutting so I can hear a pair in service. 6 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jim Gregory Posted November 30, 2020 Share Posted November 30, 2020 Fantastic Dave ! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mr. Bissness Posted November 30, 2020 Share Posted November 30, 2020 Looks Great! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Honeybadger Posted November 30, 2020 Share Posted November 30, 2020 15 hours ago, Dave A said: For some reason I thought the small ones were still being made but not the large ones. I know the Eliptrac 400 kit is still available, I think the Eliptrac hf is still available as well. Just saw a post about Them yesterday. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Panelhead Posted December 1, 2020 Share Posted December 1, 2020 I asked Dave about an Eliptrac 400 a few months ago and he had at least one pair. Could not bring myself to butcher the La Scala top hat to mount. DaveA, what is the machine time running on these masterpieces? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dave A Posted December 1, 2020 Author Share Posted December 1, 2020 4 hours ago, Panelhead said: I asked Dave about an Eliptrac 400 a few months ago and he had at least one pair. Could not bring myself to butcher the La Scala top hat to mount. DaveA, what is the machine time running on these masterpieces? Of course there is more than just machine time to these but here is the machining side of things. There are two steps to cutting the clamp plate top and bottom. There are two cuts for the main block. The first cut roughs 4" of the stack out and provides the side finish surfaces and cuts the cavity for the clamp plate to fit in. Then the second cut trims the rest of the rough block sides out and also cuts the cavity. All told the machine time is just over 2.25 hours each with all the cuts and part indexing and then I route the top and bottom corners with a router while on the mill. Step over per pass is .015" and that is a linear dimension and not just a vertical down dimension which keeps the surface finish uniform no matter the slope. This yields a finish I find good enough to just oil it and go after a bit of scrubbing with some 7446 scotch brite pads. The plys of course do cut a little differently and are not homogenous so you can see the lines but it is smooth to the touch. A perfectionist would probably want to use a wood pore filler and sand for a total glass smooth surface. I however like the wood look and would oil it or spray it with satin polyurethane. I am still tossing around the idea of a direct K-400 drop in but I am not sure that is the right way to go. Fiddling around with these horns and just like the K-402's discovering that relative to the bass bin or speaker cabinet these horns are best when free standing so you can rotate and tilt to get your best sound. I am coming to the conclusion that all your drivers mounted in one board makes perfect sense for a factory who wants to keep things simple and to satisfy most customers who also want plug and play and don't have any desire to tinker except for toe in. But for those who want the best out of their components I think the horn has to be movable. The KPT-456's, KPT-904's, K-402's, and KP-450's I have had all benefit from being able to move the HF around. B&C has a new 1.4" coaxial driver out I am going to try later this year on a wood horn. It might not be these as a bigger horn might be required to make those coaxials sound their best so first these and then bigger if required. Chris A talks about coherent sound from those German drivers and I figure the B&C ones are good too. Then you could aim both mid range and HF and have better time and sound alignment. There is just no way a K-400 or similar with separate tweeters will work as well as the coaxials is what I figure. Right now I am using a set of Eminence N314X drivers on the horns and they sound very nice as a two way setup. I will be trying a set of B&C DE-1090's soon also. I really like the Eminence drivers but with songs I am familiar with on the S-MWM's I can tell some of the music is missing. You would never know this though unless you had a very good benchmark system to compare it with. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JohnA Posted December 4, 2020 Share Posted December 4, 2020 Beautiful work, as usual! How DO they sound? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dave A Posted December 5, 2020 Author Share Posted December 5, 2020 3 hours ago, JohnA said: Beautiful work, as usual! How DO they sound? They sound good John and you are close enough to stop in and check them out. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
avguytx Posted December 8, 2020 Share Posted December 8, 2020 If you ever need a guinea pig to try them on a pair of Belle clones with A55's and Type AA crossovers, do let me know! Those look awesome. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rockhound Posted December 10, 2020 Share Posted December 10, 2020 @Dave A I'll second what everyone else has said those look fantastic. I agree having the ability to "adjust" the HF section is a plus. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CECAA850 Posted December 10, 2020 Share Posted December 10, 2020 Nice Dave. Out of curiosity, how many square ft of BB does it take to make one lens? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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