Danley DTS-10 "Super Spud" DIY kit

brandonnash · 10-19-09, 09:51 PM

DANLEY DTS-10 "SUPER SPUD DIY KIT

Well guys, those of you who caught the hint from Ivan a few days ago had an idea where this was going. Danley will be releasing a DIY kit called the DTS-10 or "Super Spud". I'm not at liberty to disclose all aspects of this, but this is something that has been in development for months. Tom Danley came me and Ricci a little after my subwoofer meet and past that there were only a couple others that were included in the very private discussion about this. It's been a real honor talking back and forth with Tom on this. He is an absolute genius when it comes to audio and this will really show with this project. On to the goods...

This will be a kit flat packed with wood pre cut and should be very easy to assemble. I've seen the first drafts of the assembly instructions and anyone who has assembled a bookshelf or desk from Walmart should have no problem building this. It will be a tapped horn much like the original TH-SPUD, but with a lot more output and extension. This will be made exclusively for use in the home theater environment. The sub will incorporate 2-12" sub drivers in a tapped horn that will look a lot like the original SPUD, but larger. Dimensions will be approximately 45"x60"x16" so yes, this is a very large subwoofer, but the benefits are huge. Get to that in a minute. The primary application will be against a wall behind a projector screen, but placement as with all subwoofers is flexible. I would imagine a pair of these could be used under a couch much like the original spud for a very tactile heavy response.

The original idea for this sub was to get similar spl and sound as from the TH-50. Most of you have probably read what people thought of this monster from my GTG. It really is an spl beast. The part where Ricci and I came into the picture was to help with a better "home in room response" for something better suited to movie soundtracks but would also be no slouch in the music department. That's where the lower extension comes into play. We had originally wanted a low end "knee" of 15 hz to provide a nice room shaking ability. After Tom's first model he arrived at a low end knee of 14 hz. After some prototype testing today by Ivan outdoors 1/2 space real world measurement actually put that lower knee at 11 hz!! Getting onto the best part about this 11 hz is that its outdoor 1 meter measurement with 1 watt of input gave a sensitivity of 90 db at that 11 hz. The rolloff going up the frequency spectrum puts it at 100 db with 1 watt at 25 hz and an upper frequency of 110 db with 1 watt input at 80-100 hz. This should yield a very nice room response with very very high output.

I know this is still pretty sketchy, but a lot of this is still in the final development stages. It shouldn't be too long before all details are final on this and more can be released. The price is still yet to be determined, but it shouldn't be too bad. This thing will give anything else close to it's price a run for its money. For right now any questions, that we can or have the ability to answer, should be directed to me or Ricci. When more info becomes available I promise to pass it along. I just wanted to give everyone a heads up and get everyone's mouth watering. I know mine is.

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Items you will need to buy to complete the kit

1. 44 tapered head 10-24 x 1" bolts for the access doors and mouth cover
2. 16 10-24 x 1 1/4" Philips head bolts to mount the speakers with lock washers
3. Speaker wire for inside the cabinet
4. 2-4 Binding posts for speaker wire to exit the cabinet
5. Plenty of glue. Most have used PL premium, but any wood bonding adhesive should work well.
6. At least one box of standard 1 1/4"-1 1/2" screws of your choice for assembling panels. Seems the best to use is square head screws.

Good advice from t6902wf.

Quote:

Originally Posted by t6902wf

The only wood screws you need are to assemble the cabinet.

You need a 16 10-24 x 1-1/4" machine screws pan head to secure the drivers.
This is a pan head

You need a quantity of 34 10-24 x1-1/4" machine screws flat head for the two access panels and to close off the mouth on the side you are not using.
This is a flat head

I would use star washers on the drivers. It is overkill but it can't hurt. This is a star washer

I forgot that you need something to attach the grill. It is also a 10-24 thread. It can be short say 1". I would wait until you have the sub it to pick what. The grill is black, you may want a black oxide finish on a flat head machine screw.

Good luck!

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Pics Gallery

Assembly

This is the base panel. Notice everything is very precision cut so all you really have to do is glue and screw.

Both pieces of pre-assembly done.

Driver baffles.

One fold of the horn.

Stood up on its side to see another fold.

Getting the sides of the box on.

Closeup of the baffles.

Interior shot partially built.

Interior done

A little acoustic padding to take the higher frequencies

Finished product minus the panels

Add a can of soda on top to give better size reference

Tcarcio's

Rigma's slideshow

http://s62.photobucket.com/albums/h1...view=slideshow

Driver pics

Another happy owner

One of MKTheater's pair

More pics to follow.

Here's a list of links in this discussion that people may want to refer to. Thanks to LTD02 for compiling the list. If anyone else has any posts they want referenced let me know.

dts-10 impedance, prototype
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showt...6#post17392166

josh ricci provides teaser (including frequency response of prototype)
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showt...6#post17386336

final dimensions, 44 x 59.5 x 16
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showt...9#post17494196

view of internals
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showt...5#post17394745

Fatawan · 10-19-09, 10:06 PM

COOOOOOOOOL!!!!

Questions--what will be recommended power requirement? Impedance? Where will the "mouth" of the horn be located(thinking about placement)?

brandonnash · 10-19-09, 10:23 PM

Power handling, if I recall correctly, is around 1000 watts. You can imagine what kind of output you will get with that power.

The mouth will be like the original spud, close to the corner. Not sure if its adjustable like the spud, but placement should probably be mouth close to a corner for that corner loading effect.

kemist1117 · 10-19-09, 10:36 PM

drivers included?

or was it designed around one of the common diy drivers?

brandonnash · 10-19-09, 10:51 PM

That's one of the things that may still be discussed (drivers included or drop in of another driver). The sub will work well with the lab 12 driver. Danley has their own version of that driver, but like I said, still kind of up to debate as to whether it will be a direct part of the package or not.

Erich H · 10-20-09, 12:29 AM

Do you think they would ever consider selling just the plans? If so, I wonder if the size and interior angles could be changed to work with some 15's?

Ricci · 10-20-09, 12:29 AM

This has been an ongoing project for awhile for DSL and it appears as if things are close to being finalized. A lot of details are still being hashed out and I haven't heard the real deal yet, but judging from Tom's comments about it being "fun" and the 10m outdoor response graph that I saw today, the in room response of 1 cab should be "adequate" for most users

.

A prototype build and more info will be coming shortly.

Scott Simonian · 10-20-09, 01:17 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by brandonnash

After some prototype testing today by Ivan outdoors 1/2 space real world measurement actually put that lower knee at 11 hz!! Getting onto the best part about this 11 hz is that its outdoor 1 meter measurement with 1 watt of input gave a sensitivity of 90 db at that 11 hz. The rolloff going up the frequency spectrum puts it at 100 db with 1 watt at 25 hz and an upper frequency of 110 db with 1 watt input at 80-100 hz. This should yield a very nice room response with very very high output.

Omg! This sounds so sweet! When .... will.... this ....be....ready?!?

Hope I can drop in AE AV12H's in this baby.

tommygee · 10-20-09, 01:34 AM

Damn, the decision for which new sub just got tougher. I've been deliberating between the submersive, captivator, AE's new offering, and now this pops up!

Regarding the super spud, has accuracy been compromised at all for sheer brute force?

Dbuudo07 · 10-20-09, 03:15 AM

Ivan let me in on this last week, and I can't wait to see the final product and what it achieves indoors. I'm wondering if the final product with drivers and amplification will be less than an active TH 50...

findbuddha · 10-20-09, 04:05 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by brandonnash

That's one of the things that may still be discussed (drivers included or drop in of another driver). The sub will work well with the lab 12 driver. Danley has their own version of that driver, but like I said, still kind of up to debate as to whether it will be a direct part of the package or not.

Having seen and done a few TH sims with the regular Lab12, I'd be curious to see some excursion graphs of this design. 13mm xmax and 22mm xmech aren't much at 11hz with 1000W input in a TH.

Vinculum · 10-20-09, 06:47 AM

IMO, Shipping 45"x60" wood panels will be somewhat costly. Wood isn't hard to come by locally and working with wood isn't difficult for most DIYers. I think this would really spread like wild fire if the plans and drivers alone were offered in a package. Offering a "snap together kit" is still a good idea. I'm anxious to see what develops with this!

Dr V

mynym · 10-20-09, 07:07 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by findbuddha

Having seen and done a few TH sims with the regular Lab12, I'd be curious to see some excursion graphs of this design. 13mm xmax and 22mm xmech aren't much at 11hz with 1000W input in a TH.

Unlike traditional alignments, horns don't rely so heavily on XMAX. Infact, using high XMAX drivers in a horn will lead to "throad overload". The pressure inside the horn path gets to a point where a negative pressure wave creates a vacuum effect causing turbulence and compression within the horn ultimately resulting in distortion.

If you take a peek at most TH/Folded Horn designs, most employ drivers with less than 15mm of XMAX.

findbuddha · 10-20-09, 08:08 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mynym

If you take a peek at most TH/Folded Horn designs, most employ drivers with less than 15mm of XMAX.

Most horn designs (tapped or not) don't have a corner frequency of 11hz either. It seems to be common amongst commercial offerings to claim a frequency bandwidth, power handling and max spl, but neglect to inform people that it's not actually possible due to the driver's mechanical limits.

Perhaps it's a moot point for most people, no doubt it will still be very loud.

brandonnash · 10-20-09, 08:11 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Erich H

Do you think they would ever consider selling just the plans? If so, I wonder if the size and interior angles could be changed to work with some 15's?

If you haven't messed around with modeling horns it really is a different ball game than designing a ported or sealed or PR'd box. The difference needed for clean response for different drivers can be significant. Ricci modeled one of his re xxx in a tapped horn and the enclosure needed was well over 100 cubic feet I believe.

This is more of a beginners kit with very non beginners results.

As for plans being available by themselves I am not sure, but I don't think they will be. The plans I saw makes it very easy to put this together, but not very easy at all to build with your own wood. Angles are not discussed, the size of the folds, throat, mouth, etc are also not discussed.

Oh, I believe my first post is wrong regarding the 90 db at 11 hz at one meter. Sorry about that. They do their testing at 10 meters!

brandonnash · 10-20-09, 08:59 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by findbuddha

Most horn designs (tapped or not) don't have a corner frequency of 11hz either. It seems to be common amongst commercial offerings to claim a frequency bandwidth, power handling and max spl, but neglect to inform people that it's not actually possible due to the driver's mechanical limits.

Perhaps it's a moot point for most people, no doubt it will still be very loud.

Not knowing how this will perform with full power at the lowest frequency I can't tell you. What I can say is that the graph I saw was not something proposed or modeled, its an actual measured response. Will try to post the graph tonight when I get home.

bossobass · 10-20-09, 09:44 AM

Just so I've read the OP correctly... we're talking 700L, right?

That's a lot of box.

Bosso

penngray · 10-20-09, 10:00 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by bossobass

Just so I've read the OP correctly... we're talking 700L, right?

That's a lot of box.

Bosso

Yep

"Dimensions will be approximately 45"x60"x16" so yes, this is a very large subwoofer"

Ricci · 10-20-09, 10:34 AM

Ok...After a bit of sleep, maybe I can get a coherant thought going.

First off no pricing has been mentioned yet, but I see this being significantly cheaper than a finished non powered TH50. It will be a kit flat pack that will come pre-cut and drilled with instructions and with, or without the drivers. Finishing will be up to you and amplification, eq and processing. There was the thought of a plate amp powered version at some point. There was also mention of being able to try a few different drivers as well, but with a TH like this that will be a shot in the dark as to the final response and headroom with a random driver without modeling. Like Brandon mentioned the assembly shouldn't be too bad, but it would take some skill and decent equipment to cut the enclosure yourself. (Have you seen a Labhorn cut sheet lately? It's not as bad as all that, but there are a lot of angles, roundovers and all of the joints are dado'd and what not.)

The drivers are a modded Lab12 type design with a larger 3" coil, more power handling and a longer xmax that DSL has been playing with. This is according to Tom. They aren't the regular Lab12 from PE. There are 2 in the enclosure.

This thing is BIG. 40x60x16. The basic idea is to place one, or 2, or 4

behind a screen in a dedicated room, or to use 1 or 2 as a riser. If you have to think about WAF, or how big of a sub you can deal with, this is not the design for you. Those people are not the intended audience. That would be the few, the proud, the true bass fanatics. That said...if you have the right kind of set-up for it they shouldn't be that bad with the 16" depth.

Some of the things that we don't know are the impedance (no graph for that yet). I'm assuming 2 8ohm drivers in parallel for 4ohm nominal. Assembled weight? (300lb?) Recommended hpf and processing. Power handling is still to be determined. The drivers should be good for at-least 1.0-1.5kw program thermally, but I have no idea what the excursion demands are like on the really low <30hz stuff. When Tom asked what I'd like to see in a TH kit, I basically said "TH50 type output with another half octave of extension". We know that it'll take at least 28.3v input without getting into trouble from the outdoor measurement and it did produce 90db at 11hz at a distance of over 30ft outside. What do you think that would translate to in a room? I've got faith in Tom and DSL's design work

. Overall it looks sort of like an undersized, low tuned, alignment roll-off and those usually handle quite a bit of power due to the efficiency not being maximized in the bottom of the passband due to enclosure size. Hopefully this is the case and it'll be safe from over excursion with a decent amount of power.

I'll be putting one of the first trial units together soon and rest assured I'll give it 3 kinds of hell.

Tom went for a low corner of 14hz in his modeling and a shallow roll off from top to bottom that should in theory be complimented by room gain to achieve a relatively flat power response. The knee appears to have come in at about 11-12hz from the FR measurement. (Outdoor, 10m with 28.3v input). There is quite a bit of roll off from 100hz down to 11hz. It's about 20db. The sensitivity is between 105-110db in the 50-100hz octave dropping down to the 100db range between 25-50hz octave before gradually rolling off another 10db in the next octave to 11hz. 2 EQ cuts could be used at 53hz and 30hz, but with the way the room will change the response anyway, who knows if they'll be needed.

Here is the FR response graph.

DTS-10 prototype.jpg

byrne · 10-20-09, 10:34 AM

This would be cool, I have done some research on TH and pretty complicated boxes to get right. You would need to do several iterations to get it right.

penngray · 10-20-09, 10:40 AM

Quote:

We know that it'll take at least 28.3v input without getting into trouble from the outdoor measurement and it did produce 90db at 11hz at a distance of over 30ft outside. What do you think that would translate to in a room?

Wow!

byrne · 10-20-09, 10:43 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ricci

I'll be putting one of the first trial units together soon and rest assured I'll give it 3 kinds of hell.

So this 100% confirmed just ironing out the final details?

brandonnash · 10-20-09, 11:02 AM

This is confirmed. This has been in planning and prepping for months. This is the near end. Any changes now will be very small.

penngray · 10-20-09, 11:04 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by brandonnash

This is confirmed. This has been in planning and prepping for months. This is the near end. Any changes now will be very small.

Changes for me are NOT small if I want one

Ricci · 10-20-09, 11:08 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by byrne

This would be cool, I have done some research on TH and pretty complicated boxes to get right. You would need to do several iterations to get it right.

They did do a few versions. The first one Tom was not satisfied with.

Quote:

Originally Posted by byrne

So this 100% confirmed just ironing out the final details?

Pretty much. This has been on going for about 7 months now. Since the Southern SW GTG.

Quote:

Originally Posted by penngray

Wow!

Yeah. No pair of any of the subs that Illka tested will do that cleanly and that's not a maximum output graph. I'm hoping that it had quite a bit of headroom left too.

Ivan Beaver · 10-20-09, 12:15 PM

I am jsust starting to "play" with this cabinet-among everything else to do. I will get impedance later on today.

Some details about the "kit". It is 13 ply baltic birch-no cheap wood here-the same as used on all the pro cabinets Danley sells.

It is full rabbitt and dado construction-with pilot holes for screws.

There will be a choice of a couple of different drivers-The custom 12's that Danley uses in other products and some off the shelf drivers from other companies. Tom will provide a list of what drivers would work well in it.

You can buy it with out without drivers. The input panel just has a recessed area for whatever input jacks you want to use.

Depenidng on skill level- you would not want to attempt to cut the wood yourself.

I doubt plans would be available-due to the precision of some of the pieces. That helps to maintain the success of the build.

Danley will be selling the same product as a finished product. Probably will be called the DTS10. It is the same exact wood off of the same CNC as the kit.

I'll try to get a photo of part of the kit later on-to give an idea of the wood cuts.

Before anyone asks I have not pushed it yet-and spent very little time listening to it-so have no opinions regarding that area.

Tom Danley · 10-20-09, 12:43 PM

Hi guys

I can probably answer a few of the things you have brought up to Brandon and Josh but not all of them at this point in time given the early state of the project.

I suppose the most common thing people “know” about horns is that they produce a higher SPL for a given radiator excursion by placing additional acoustic load on the drivers radiator or radiators in this case as there are two.
This “load” is presented as a higher pressure and there has been mention of throat distortion and velocity limits in the throat.
Here is the old thumb rule for calculating this;

http://books.google.com/books?id=b_w...age&q=&f=false

This “throat distortion” is caused by the fact that the velocity of sound changes with temperature, with a VERY intense sound, the pressure side of the wave travels slightly faster than the vacuum side.. This happens because the local temperature is slightly higher on the pressure side and slightly cooler on the vacuum side.
After traveling some number of wavelengths, one finds a pure sine wave can precess into a triangle wave as the pressure side advances on the vacuum part.

In what seems like a past life now, I worked on acoustic levitation system which were flown in the shuttle and here this was a real problem.
These systems used a 22KHz signal to levitate or position a sample without contact inside a high temperature furnace in ZeroG. Levitation of a Styrofoam begins around 155dB while stone can be levitated around 165dB and lead around 168dB.
Fwiw, at 170dB, one can ignite a cigarette with acoustic friction (air rushing in and out of the tobacco).
Anyway, here a few tidbits which I found on line if curious.
I was filmed once demonstrating acoustic levitation in a movie called “Mystery of the Sphinx” back then but couldn’t find the clip on line.

http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1988MTA....19.2619R

http://www.google.com/patents/about?...=0&as_maxy_is=

http://www.sciencemag.org/content/vo...5455/cover.dtl

The bottom line, normal throat distortion is not an issue with bass horns normally as the difference between the highest and lowest frequency is small and the sound pressure level is not high like the >>155dB used in levitation.

20 plus years ago I had developed Servomotor driven subwoofers called Servodrive, while working at the same company (they let me start a small speaker division at Intersonics).
They provided a data point as well because there was NO high power motor related Xmax or nonlinearity like a VC driver. At rated power, the BT-7 horn system produced less than 1-2% THD. Bottom line, bass horn distortion is nearly all driver related / caused. If you saw Garth Brooks, Michael Jackson, U-2 or Deaf Leopard etc in the 80’s, you heard these cabinets on tour.

So far as drivers, we are sending the 12 inch driver we use at first, there are other drivers that will work but in part this depends on physical fit and parameters.
I was thinking we would offer ours and as we confirm others have those on a list of ones that “work” also. Ours is an “all out push” on a lab 12, a driver I specified for another DIY horn I designed for pro sound some years ago.
It has a 3 inch VC and 15mm Xmax and has a very strong radiator happy with a high compression horn loading.

The Velocity in the throat is also not high enough to cause choking like ports a vented box can exhibit as well, to understand why, you need to picture a horn in action.
Horns in the most compact form are a quarter wavelength long, a quarter wave resonator or horn has a closed end and an open end.
For this condition, the closed end is a velocity minimum the open end a velocity maximum. The air motion at the driver end is approximately the driver excursion times the compression ratio (difference in radiator area to throat area)
Thankfully, the large end of the horn is also where the velocity is highest so choking is not an issue.

Is there a maximum output?

Of course, that is a frequency dependent thing and not determined by measurement yet.
Also, on the measurement, we normally measure at 10 meters when we have large enclosures, for the measurement that shown, this was at one meter because the amplifier in the measurement cart was most unhappy driving a low Z load at low frequencies.
This could be gotten around by using a different amplifier, hooking the drivers in series or using two channels, none of which were an option standing in the parking lot at the time. There will be more data taken but yesterday there wasn’t time to re-wire the box.
So, what you see was 1W nominal into 2Ohms (1.4V) and 1 meter distance.

What I can say now is that at 100W input, the predicted excursion is less than 5mm at the largest point, if that tracks properly, Xmax is first reached around 1KW around 16Hz..
Perhaps a better way to view that is where (what SPL in half space) do you reach Xmax with what your used to, relative to adding say 26 or 30dB to the measured level, reflecting an input of 400-1000W and keeping in mind you will have some room gain and corner loading extension indoors.

Ivan and the guys will be “beating on it” at the shop (a actually a very large room) later and will know more about it’s practical upper limits soon.

Yes it is big, so are the wavelengths involved, the two are related.
On the other hand, placed against the wall like how RMK had used his spud’s some months ago, behind the screen, they aren’t that big and should be able to cause the desired genuine panic response to the uninitiated.

As Ivan mentioned, I don’t think we will supply “plans”, the issue is partly that these are high pressure cabinets that depend of being very ridged with no air leaks.
We are supplying Baltic Birch fully precision CNC’d with dado’s for all joints and pilot holes drilled to minimize the chance to get inferior results.
I am keen to get feedback from Brandon and Josh as they build the first two kits, they gave a lot of good inputs on it in he design phase so it will be cool to see what they think when they have the smell of fresh Baltic birch in their living rooms haha.
I grew up building Heath kits and Knight kits (allied radio) and at least for me, I like the idea of people doing things a lot.
Anyway, back to work for me.
Hope this helps fill in some blanks.
Best,
Tom Danley

penngray · 10-20-09, 01:16 PM

So you are REALLY saying it will do okay in my room?

Scott Simonian · 10-20-09, 01:22 PM

Now I am just wondering what this flat pack will end up costing. Even with BB it's going to be a heavy shipment. Hmmm.... cheaper than an unpowered TH50, eh? I'd certainly hope so! Damn!

Hmmm..... I could use a TH50 or two...

A9X-308 · 10-20-09, 01:22 PM

Watching out of curiosity as I can't fit these in the current room, nor could I afford the shipping to Australia. They would be fun though: I miss the corner loaded LABhorns I had a few years ago and I still have 4 NIB drivers sitting in boxes in my office.

10-19-09, 10:51 PM	#5 \| Link	<a href='http://rev.avsforum.com/phpAdsNew/adclick.php?n=a591f81a' target='_blank'><img src='http://rev.avsforum.com/phpAdsNew/adview.php?what=zone:36&n=a591f81a' border='0' alt=''></a>
brandonnash Member Join Date: Jul 2003 Location: murfreesboro, tn Posts: 2,604	That's one of the things that may still be discussed (drivers included or drop in of another driver). The sub will work well with the lab 12 driver. Danley has their own version of that driver, but like I said, still kind of up to debate as to whether it will be a direct part of the package or not.

10-20-09, 12:29 AM	#6 \| Link
Erich H AVS Special Member Join Date: Dec 2007 Location: Cincinnati OH Posts: 1,058	Do you think they would ever consider selling just the plans? If so, I wonder if the size and interior angles could be changed to work with some 15's? __________________ My twelve 10" NHT subwoofer build. The cloning of a NHT VR-3. 2 dishwasher sized subwoofers.

10-20-09, 12:29 AM	#7 \| Link
Ricci Antikythera Join Date: Mar 2007 Location: Louisville KY Posts: 2,575	This has been an ongoing project for awhile for DSL and it appears as if things are close to being finalized. A lot of details are still being hashed out and I haven't heard the real deal yet, but judging from Tom's comments about it being "fun" and the 10m outdoor response graph that I saw today, the in room response of 1 cab should be "adequate" for most users. A prototype build and more info will be coming shortly.

10-20-09, 03:15 AM	#10 \| Link	<a href='http://rev.avsforum.com/phpAdsNew/adclick.php?n=a591f81a' target='_blank'><img src='http://rev.avsforum.com/phpAdsNew/adview.php?what=zone:36&n=a591f81a' border='0' alt=''></a>
Dbuudo07 David Budo Join Date: Apr 2007 Location: Toronto, Ontario, Canada Posts: 1,579	Ivan let me in on this last week, and I can't wait to see the final product and what it achieves indoors. I'm wondering if the final product with drivers and amplification will be less than an active TH 50...

10-20-09, 10:34 AM	#19 \| Link
Ricci Antikythera Join Date: Mar 2007 Location: Louisville KY Posts: 2,575	Ok...After a bit of sleep, maybe I can get a coherant thought going. First off no pricing has been mentioned yet, but I see this being significantly cheaper than a finished non powered TH50. It will be a kit flat pack that will come pre-cut and drilled with instructions and with, or without the drivers. Finishing will be up to you and amplification, eq and processing. There was the thought of a plate amp powered version at some point. There was also mention of being able to try a few different drivers as well, but with a TH like this that will be a shot in the dark as to the final response and headroom with a random driver without modeling. Like Brandon mentioned the assembly shouldn't be too bad, but it would take some skill and decent equipment to cut the enclosure yourself. (Have you seen a Labhorn cut sheet lately? It's not as bad as all that, but there are a lot of angles, roundovers and all of the joints are dado'd and what not.) The drivers are a modded Lab12 type design with a larger 3" coil, more power handling and a longer xmax that DSL has been playing with. This is according to Tom. They aren't the regular Lab12 from PE. There are 2 in the enclosure. This thing is BIG. 40x60x16. The basic idea is to place one, or 2, or 4 behind a screen in a dedicated room, or to use 1 or 2 as a riser. If you have to think about WAF, or how big of a sub you can deal with, this is not the design for you. Those people are not the intended audience. That would be the few, the proud, the true bass fanatics. That said...if you have the right kind of set-up for it they shouldn't be that bad with the 16" depth. Some of the things that we don't know are the impedance (no graph for that yet). I'm assuming 2 8ohm drivers in parallel for 4ohm nominal. Assembled weight? (300lb?) Recommended hpf and processing. Power handling is still to be determined. The drivers should be good for at-least 1.0-1.5kw program thermally, but I have no idea what the excursion demands are like on the really low <30hz stuff. When Tom asked what I'd like to see in a TH kit, I basically said "TH50 type output with another half octave of extension". We know that it'll take at least 28.3v input without getting into trouble from the outdoor measurement and it did produce 90db at 11hz at a distance of over 30ft outside. What do you think that would translate to in a room? I've got faith in Tom and DSL's design work. Overall it looks sort of like an undersized, low tuned, alignment roll-off and those usually handle quite a bit of power due to the efficiency not being maximized in the bottom of the passband due to enclosure size. Hopefully this is the case and it'll be safe from over excursion with a decent amount of power. I'll be putting one of the first trial units together soon and rest assured I'll give it 3 kinds of hell. Tom went for a low corner of 14hz in his modeling and a shallow roll off from top to bottom that should in theory be complimented by room gain to achieve a relatively flat power response. The knee appears to have come in at about 11-12hz from the FR measurement. (Outdoor, 10m with 28.3v input). There is quite a bit of roll off from 100hz down to 11hz. It's about 20db. The sensitivity is between 105-110db in the 50-100hz octave dropping down to the 100db range between 25-50hz octave before gradually rolling off another 10db in the next octave to 11hz. 2 EQ cuts could be used at 53hz and 30hz, but with the way the room will change the response anyway, who knows if they'll be needed. Here is the FR response graph. DTS-10 prototype.jpg Last edited by Ricci; 10-20-09 at 10:55 AM..

10-19-09, 10:06 PM	#2 \| Link
Fatawan AVS Special Member Join Date: Nov 2006 Posts: 1,024	COOOOOOOOOL!!!! Questions--what will be recommended power requirement? Impedance? Where will the "mouth" of the horn be located(thinking about placement)?

10-19-09, 10:23 PM	#3 \| Link
brandonnash Member Join Date: Jul 2003 Location: murfreesboro, tn Posts: 2,604	Power handling, if I recall correctly, is around 1000 watts. You can imagine what kind of output you will get with that power. The mouth will be like the original spud, close to the corner. Not sure if its adjustable like the spud, but placement should probably be mouth close to a corner for that corner loading effect.

10-19-09, 10:36 PM	#4 \| Link
kemist1117 Senior Member Join Date: Apr 2007 Posts: 276	drivers included? or was it designed around one of the common diy drivers?

10-20-09, 01:34 AM	#9 \| Link
tommygee Member Join Date: Sep 2008 Posts: 71	Damn, the decision for which new sub just got tougher. I've been deliberating between the submersive, captivator, AE's new offering, and now this pops up! Regarding the super spud, has accuracy been compromised at all for sheer brute force?

10-20-09, 06:47 AM	#12 \| Link
Vinculum Electrotechnologist AVS CLUB MEMBER Join Date: Dec 2001 Location: York, Pa Posts: 825	IMO, Shipping 45"x60" wood panels will be somewhat costly. Wood isn't hard to come by locally and working with wood isn't difficult for most DIYers. I think this would really spread like wild fire if the plans and drivers alone were offered in a package. Offering a "snap together kit" is still a good idea. I'm anxious to see what develops with this! Dr V

10-20-09, 09:44 AM	#17 \| Link
bossobass AVS Special Member Join Date: Mar 2003 Location: charlotte, nc Posts: 2,079	Just so I've read the OP correctly... we're talking 700L, right? That's a lot of box. Bosso

10-20-09, 10:34 AM	#20 \| Link
byrne Member Join Date: Apr 2009 Posts: 34	This would be cool, I have done some research on TH and pretty complicated boxes to get right. You would need to do several iterations to get it right.

10-20-09, 11:02 AM	#23 \| Link
brandonnash Member Join Date: Jul 2003 Location: murfreesboro, tn Posts: 2,604	This is confirmed. This has been in planning and prepping for months. This is the near end. Any changes now will be very small.

10-20-09, 12:15 PM	#26 \| Link
Ivan Beaver Danley Sound Labs Join Date: Dec 2005 Posts: 482	I am jsust starting to "play" with this cabinet-among everything else to do. I will get impedance later on today. Some details about the "kit". It is 13 ply baltic birch-no cheap wood here-the same as used on all the pro cabinets Danley sells. It is full rabbitt and dado construction-with pilot holes for screws. There will be a choice of a couple of different drivers-The custom 12's that Danley uses in other products and some off the shelf drivers from other companies. Tom will provide a list of what drivers would work well in it. You can buy it with out without drivers. The input panel just has a recessed area for whatever input jacks you want to use. Depenidng on skill level- you would not want to attempt to cut the wood yourself. I doubt plans would be available-due to the precision of some of the pieces. That helps to maintain the success of the build. Danley will be selling the same product as a finished product. Probably will be called the DTS10. It is the same exact wood off of the same CNC as the kit. I'll try to get a photo of part of the kit later on-to give an idea of the wood cuts. Before anyone asks I have not pushed it yet-and spent very little time listening to it-so have no opinions regarding that area.

10-20-09, 12:43 PM	#27 \| Link
Tom Danley Tomservo Join Date: Sep 2005 Posts: 120	Hi guys I can probably answer a few of the things you have brought up to Brandon and Josh but not all of them at this point in time given the early state of the project. I suppose the most common thing people “know” about horns is that they produce a higher SPL for a given radiator excursion by placing additional acoustic load on the drivers radiator or radiators in this case as there are two. This “load” is presented as a higher pressure and there has been mention of throat distortion and velocity limits in the throat. Here is the old thumb rule for calculating this; http://books.google.com/books?id=b_w...age&q=&f=false This “throat distortion” is caused by the fact that the velocity of sound changes with temperature, with a VERY intense sound, the pressure side of the wave travels slightly faster than the vacuum side.. This happens because the local temperature is slightly higher on the pressure side and slightly cooler on the vacuum side. After traveling some number of wavelengths, one finds a pure sine wave can precess into a triangle wave as the pressure side advances on the vacuum part. In what seems like a past life now, I worked on acoustic levitation system which were flown in the shuttle and here this was a real problem. These systems used a 22KHz signal to levitate or position a sample without contact inside a high temperature furnace in ZeroG. Levitation of a Styrofoam begins around 155dB while stone can be levitated around 165dB and lead around 168dB. Fwiw, at 170dB, one can ignite a cigarette with acoustic friction (air rushing in and out of the tobacco). Anyway, here a few tidbits which I found on line if curious. I was filmed once demonstrating acoustic levitation in a movie called “Mystery of the Sphinx” back then but couldn’t find the clip on line. http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1988MTA....19.2619R http://www.google.com/patents/about?...=0&as_maxy_is= http://www.sciencemag.org/content/vo...5455/cover.dtl The bottom line, normal throat distortion is not an issue with bass horns normally as the difference between the highest and lowest frequency is small and the sound pressure level is not high like the >>155dB used in levitation. 20 plus years ago I had developed Servomotor driven subwoofers called Servodrive, while working at the same company (they let me start a small speaker division at Intersonics). They provided a data point as well because there was NO high power motor related Xmax or nonlinearity like a VC driver. At rated power, the BT-7 horn system produced less than 1-2% THD. Bottom line, bass horn distortion is nearly all driver related / caused. If you saw Garth Brooks, Michael Jackson, U-2 or Deaf Leopard etc in the 80’s, you heard these cabinets on tour. So far as drivers, we are sending the 12 inch driver we use at first, there are other drivers that will work but in part this depends on physical fit and parameters. I was thinking we would offer ours and as we confirm others have those on a list of ones that “work” also. Ours is an “all out push” on a lab 12, a driver I specified for another DIY horn I designed for pro sound some years ago. It has a 3 inch VC and 15mm Xmax and has a very strong radiator happy with a high compression horn loading. The Velocity in the throat is also not high enough to cause choking like ports a vented box can exhibit as well, to understand why, you need to picture a horn in action. Horns in the most compact form are a quarter wavelength long, a quarter wave resonator or horn has a closed end and an open end. For this condition, the closed end is a velocity minimum the open end a velocity maximum. The air motion at the driver end is approximately the driver excursion times the compression ratio (difference in radiator area to throat area) Thankfully, the large end of the horn is also where the velocity is highest so choking is not an issue. Is there a maximum output? Of course, that is a frequency dependent thing and not determined by measurement yet. Also, on the measurement, we normally measure at 10 meters when we have large enclosures, for the measurement that shown, this was at one meter because the amplifier in the measurement cart was most unhappy driving a low Z load at low frequencies. This could be gotten around by using a different amplifier, hooking the drivers in series or using two channels, none of which were an option standing in the parking lot at the time. There will be more data taken but yesterday there wasn’t time to re-wire the box. So, what you see was 1W nominal into 2Ohms (1.4V) and 1 meter distance. What I can say now is that at 100W input, the predicted excursion is less than 5mm at the largest point, if that tracks properly, Xmax is first reached around 1KW around 16Hz.. Perhaps a better way to view that is where (what SPL in half space) do you reach Xmax with what your used to, relative to adding say 26 or 30dB to the measured level, reflecting an input of 400-1000W and keeping in mind you will have some room gain and corner loading extension indoors. Ivan and the guys will be “beating on it” at the shop (a actually a very large room) later and will know more about it’s practical upper limits soon. Yes it is big, so are the wavelengths involved, the two are related. On the other hand, placed against the wall like how RMK had used his spud’s some months ago, behind the screen, they aren’t that big and should be able to cause the desired genuine panic response to the uninitiated. As Ivan mentioned, I don’t think we will supply “plans”, the issue is partly that these are high pressure cabinets that depend of being very ridged with no air leaks. We are supplying Baltic Birch fully precision CNC’d with dado’s for all joints and pilot holes drilled to minimize the chance to get inferior results. I am keen to get feedback from Brandon and Josh as they build the first two kits, they gave a lot of good inputs on it in he design phase so it will be cool to see what they think when they have the smell of fresh Baltic birch in their living rooms haha. I grew up building Heath kits and Knight kits (allied radio) and at least for me, I like the idea of people doing things a lot. Anyway, back to work for me. Hope this helps fill in some blanks. Best, Tom Danley

10-20-09, 01:16 PM	#28 \| Link
penngray AVS Addicted Member AVS CLUB MEMBER Join Date: Feb 2006 Location: Florida Posts: 16,531	So you are REALLY saying it will do okay in my room?

10-20-09, 01:22 PM	#29 \| Link
Scott Simonian Mmmm....pizza! Join Date: Oct 2001 Location: Clovis, CA Posts: 2,865	Now I am just wondering what this flat pack will end up costing. Even with BB it's going to be a heavy shipment. Hmmm.... cheaper than an unpowered TH50, eh? I'd certainly hope so! Damn! Hmmm..... I could use a TH50 or two... __________________ My Twin 18's. 50cuft of box, 11hz tune, 2,000w, 115db+ 10hz and up! :D Xbox LIVE GT: Infrasonic07

10-20-09, 01:22 PM	#30 \| Link	<a href='http://rev.avsforum.com/phpAdsNew/adclick.php?n=a591f81a' target='_blank'><img src='http://rev.avsforum.com/phpAdsNew/adview.php?what=zone:36&n=a591f81a' border='0' alt=''></a>
A9X-308 Advanced Member Join Date: Mar 2008 Location: Sydney, Oz Posts: 878	Watching out of curiosity as I can't fit these in the current room, nor could I afford the shipping to Australia. They would be fun though: I miss the corner loaded LABhorns I had a few years ago and I still have 4 NIB drivers sitting in boxes in my office.