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Thread: Dayton Audio Exciters - DIY speakers

  1. #21
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    Now these exciters are definitely starting to impress me.

    I remembered the logo on CoreFlute sheeting...'millions of uses'...so while in town yesterday, bought a 600mm x 900mm piece....$9.50

    Initially I just hung the sheet longitudinally, with the driver roughly centered on the sheet, and this actually had too much bass response, with prominent notches at certain bass frequencies.

    So then I think, ok...cut the sheet in half...but then one realizes the flutes can either be orientated horizontal or vertical...I should've bought 2 sheets. Not to worry, it's all experiment, and so I ended up with two 600x450 pieces, hung like below with the flutes horizontal.




    Moved everything into the other room where the 2.1 amp & subwoofer live... it would be pretty much my first listening test in-situ as it were.

    Best thing I've found (and it works) to be able to attach/remove the drivers multiple times from various surfaces, is double-sided tape...not the foam backed stuff, just the thin sticky tape type stuff with sticky on both sides. You can layout a sticky pad area, and just plonk the driver on it, and it'll stay put ...I should point out, I've not yet removed the backing paper from the driver coil assembly ~ I'm kinda putting that off until I finalize the panel. The foam backed double-sided tape for the 3 support legs is easy enough to replace, so they're not a bother, but that center adhesive pad is one of the most important elements I've discovered, so I'm leaving it's 3M sticky backing paper on to preserve the adhesive layer.




    Yes...perhaps I should remember to clean the cam lense of the 'phone more often than I do =)

    With that sub (too big for the job really), this little test setup sounds measurably better/louder than any 2.1 computer speaker system I've heard....easily. Granted, the panel size probably puts it outside what you'd expect from a computer speaker system, but as the panels can be put anywhere (even hung from a wall), the considerations of footprint/size of speaker mounting take on a different bent.

    I'm now studying the coreflute panels themselves, just to see what they do when driven...examining how the sheet vibrates, lends a lot of clues =)




  • #22
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    This coreflute material is interesting as you are also vibrating air inside the 'tubes' and air is exactly what we need to vibrate so that we can hear anything.
    The word flute in that term now starts to make sense

    You could, out of curiosity, put duct tape over the 'flutes' on one panel and do a left <> right direct comparison to find out(in the name of science) if that makes a difference.
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    You could, out of curiosity, put duct tape over the 'flutes' on one panel and do a left <> right direct comparison to find out(in the name of science) if that makes a difference.
    Yep, on the cards =) Plywood tends to 'leak' frequencies out the edges as well, but just at certain frequencies (and sounds horrid..intermediate layers vibrating against each other). Marine ply will be different again

    I was also thinking, wrt coreflute, that you could inject 'something' into the flute tubes to act as a damper/stiffener to change the tone of the panel.

    One thing's for sure ~ these exciters are an experiment's audible sandbox =)
    Last edited by wotnot; 28-06-20 at 06:45 PM.

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    Quote Originally Posted by wotnot View Post
    but as the panels can be put anywhere (even hung from a wall), the considerations of footprint/size of speaker mounting take on a different bent.
    The Tech Ingredients guy on YT just hung his from some string and that was an appeal of these things to me. Much better than traditional bulky and somewhat ugly speaker boxes. If they could be hung high and a coule of inches out from a wall, that would be good. I was also thinking of putting photographs on them which would make them pretty much invisible. Corflute is a popular mounting medium for prints. I wonder if the usual lamination of the coreflute would have much effect of framing?
    It would also be very interesting to see how these went just mounted straight on opposite walls of a room.

    For suspending the things, I was wondering about some bungy cord to hang the panel to allow the things a bit more movement/ vibration than the "Solid" mounting of string or wire.

    I'm a bit surprised with your several references of them being bassy. Would have expected the opposite. I have a bunch of tiny tweeters from cars. They are normally located in the dash or Pillar. I wonder how they would go stuck on the back out of sight?

    The tech Ingredients guy suggested a 60/40 offset horizontally and vertical as the best positioning of the drivers on a board rather than in the middle. He said that gave a wider frequency range and stopped them cancelling each other out.

    Be interested to see what you come up with as the best medium to stick these to and how they go when put directly on a wall.

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    What about gluing a frame of say 19mm square timber around them to stop the edges flapping so to speak.
    That might prevent distortion sounds coming through.

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    Quote Originally Posted by loopyloo View Post
    What about gluing a frame of say 19mm square timber around them to stop the edges flapping so to speak.
    That might prevent distortion sounds coming through.
    I have a suspicion that would actually cause distortion and lower effective sound output -- think of a midrange speaker cone without the soft rubber suspension, with the cone affixed directly to the speaker frame instead. It's all hypothetical of course, and a lot would depend on the material used ; wood for instance *is* going to resonate with these things driving the sheets if used like that. I see many folks building frames and lacing the panel in, somewhat trampoline style, and I understand full wee the why of that - it stops the panel rotating...which happens all too much when corner fixed and hung from the center of a piece of string (cotton thread in my testing) like a painting....and in fact, hanging these panels on walls as you would a painting, presents another set of challenges, not least of which being isolating the panel from the wall.

    I've got other materials to check out as said, XPS foam (well overdue in the post), and I think I'll see what formed PVC sounds like as well.

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    These things have some serious power;



    That pic is actually good size representation, about 25mm depth on a 58mm square...I'll have to weigh one, you notice the mass in these picking them up. A lot easier to experiment with because of the flat, square fixing surface & 4 mounting holes, nowhere near as fiddly as the 5watt units. I've only just had time this evening to play with them, been sort of busy, they've been sitting there for a couple of weeks.

    Another material.... 'ACP' ..aluminium composite panel. This stuff needs to be handled differently, you don't want to free-air hang this this, it 'rings'..but if you put dampers on, or use it as a bottom supported panel it sounds ok..but may be a waste of time. You'd need divine the right size & shape, and panel thickness ... nowhere near as plug'n'play as coreflute. Might be interesting in a much smaller panel size with the 5w drivers, and forget about getting bass from there altogether...I'll get thw saw out later.

    ...and another ... 'PVC Foamed Plates'.( stuff is interesting. I've only got a piece of 10mm thick sheet, and that's probably a bit too thick...but the tonal quality is a lot smoother than coreflute....have to go at this with the saw as well...I've got a sq/m piece, go back to 1000x500mm and test there...

    I had the equalizer inline last night, and I've concluded you really really need tweeters to roll in at about 8kHz to fill the top end. I suppose it depends on how good your hearing is.

    As you get older, you should self-check your hearing frequency range .. ..my ears can hear 15kHz and below, and these dayton exciters start to really fall off in the 8~10kHz range (variation there dependent on material used for resonator board), so for me listening to the same source material on the Bose conventional speakers, does not compare to listening to exciters stuck to coreflute... because all the top-end is missing. That said...the midrange (lets say 3~8kHz) accuracy & definition of the exciters, often shame the Bose-Studiocrafts ...seriously ...I mean I'm hearing stuff in music I've listened to for decades, I've never noticed before with conventional (midrange) speaker drivers, and I've had now half a dozen friends remark exactly the same thing, of being able to hear things they've never noticed before... ; the midrange performance of these daytons is astonishing ~ it's really something that one has to hear for themselves to truly appreciate.

    The above para is meant to infer, that the need for tweeters is defined by the listener's ear ; if you can't hear above 10kHz, adding tweeters will achieve nothing to -your- aural listening experience. IRL, I find most folks to be totally oblivious to the actual performance and frequency response curve of their ears - you only notice stuff when things are going wrong, tinnitus for example. Bit like eyesight, except for those who know they need glasses, hardly anyone knows what '20/20' vision is, and whether or not they have that ...or how far out of spec their eyes are =)

    The XPS foam panel, got lost in transit and ended up back at the seller's address...damaged and undelivered =) No doubt they're flipping a cranky with the carrier, and I'm still waiting.

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