Hey guys...we need a little rallying here... - Page 238

I can't call them every day to schedule a pick up. The local drop off is only 5 minutes away. By the time I wait 15 minutes for FedEx to show up on whatever days they happened to be scheduled for, I would have made 2 trips to the local drop off. I don't mind dropping off the packages.

If things move up to the next level and I hire someone to be here all day for a couple days a week, then that would be different.

Erich
Do you have precut baffles for the TD12M? Are they ported or sealed? Do the mate with the 2.0 cu ft flatpacks?
Thank you
Chris

If possible, it might be a good idea to put the message underneath the add to cart button, a pop-up after adding the item to the cart, or putting it on the shopping cart page. I think the pop-up would be best, but that might require more effort. People pay closer attention to those areas and are more likely to see it. Some people are just too lazy to read, or in too much of a hurry so putting it in a more obvious place might save you some time having to respond to emails like that. People really should be doing their due diligence prior to ordering, but we all know that will never happen for everyone.

I don't know how your shopping cart is written, but I would be willing to take a look at making these changes for you if you are interested.

I have never done a Kick Starter project, but I am willing to help. As long as you can give me an idea of what you want to say, I can write something up for you.

He has them, they are just not on the site yet. I already sent him a PM asking what needs to be done to order them. I will let you know what he says unless he responds here. I am ready to order too.

The A&E stuff is pretty much just a custom option right now because everyone seems to want something a little different. Some want sealed, some wanted ported, or slot ported. 1 cuft or 2 cuft, narrow box or deep box. If there was a definitive box design, it would be easy to do.

I can get the baffles for the A&E woofers that will match the current 1 cuft box or the 2cuft box. But I'd have to know what to do about the baffles. I could do 2 options for each box. One with ports, one without. That would allow for sealed, ported, or slot ported if you made the slot port yourself.

I think the Kick Starter project would be interesting to try without a heck of a lot to lose. I can get a speaker made up pretty fast with a professional paint job. Then take it to a photographer and get that part taken care of. MTG-90 said he could help with a video. I could ship him the completed speaker to take some videos and maybe do a voice over to explain some of the concepts.

Hopefully we can get Mr. Bwaslo to help with some of the technical stuff, or maybe Coctostan or AudioJosh. Then we would have to turn that into something everyone can easily understand.

We would have to come up with different pledge levels and things like that. I've already sent the SEOS logo to a company to price out some metal emblems made of cooper but finished in an antique silver to keep the glare down. I thought about brushed aluminum or stainless steel, but that might be too shiny. If there are any thoughts on that, let me know because nothing is set in stone yet. I'll have to figure out shipping for international orders and how to go about filling those. I've already sent in drawings to get prices on each waveguide size. They're pretty reasonable.

As mentioned earlier, one of my employees needed a truck, and I had one that didn't get used very often. I sold that to him last month and it was used to fund the subwoofer flat packs. But that money will be back in and I can put it towards this project, along with the other money that went towards the SEOS-12 that has trickled back in over the past year.

The goal wouldn't need to be huge because I would put that extra money towards the project. Maybe a goal of $10k or so would do the SEOS-10 and the SEOS-15. If it goes over that.....we could attempt the SEOS-18. I don't have a price on the SEOS-18 yet, but I'm hoping for under $40.

Doing a project like this would pretty much guarantee that I'd have to hire full time help and really get things moving. It's only been about 9 months since we got the plastic SEOS-12 and it's pretty amazing to see how the DIY community came together to create at least 15-20 speaker designs in that time frame. Right now, I'd say I'm the weakest link trying to do too much by myself. With help packaging and organizing, a lot more could be done.

Having said all of that, anyone that wants to help should get something besides just the name recognition. We would just have to figure in the time and cost to the project goal. Or maybe a set of speakers, who knows. But for a project like this, no reason to donate your time for free.

*cough* You even breaking even on this yet Erich, or getting compensated in some way for all your work? Not that it's any of my business, just sayin'

A project like this would get me to hire full time help to make things go smoother and faster. I've been thinking about all of this a lot more lately because my busy season is about to start up. I'm not going to be able to do these DIY projects justice only in my spare time. But I don't want to let people down by not getting more of this stuff done. There's a lot more that I'd like to tackle.

I've talked to the speaker designers and did some thinking. I don't want to hire someone and then have to raise prices on the DIY stuff to cover the costs. So I had another idea that might work better and pretty much leave everything the way it is for the most part.

An easy way to help the employee pay for themselves without raising prices on the current stuff would be for them to assemble boxes and offer completed speakers or nearly assembled kits. That way everything gets paid for with completed speakers, without changing any of the DIY stuff that's going on. It's seems to be a win/win situation. The DIY stuff could stay 'separate' from the completed speakers.

Of course one waveguide is not enough to grow this thing. It needs to be taken up to the next level with a couple more sizes. I'm estimating a size up from the SEOS-12 will be about $5 more, a size down will be about $5 less. If by some chance all of the new stuff didn't work out, at least we'd have the different waveguides.

This is an excellent idea. They could also assemble crossovers and wait on Fedex to do pick-ups. DIY, AIY, & fully assembled sounds like something for everyone.
Thanks Erich
Chris W
Edited by countryWV - 3/9/13 at 4:23pm

I don't know if it would be cost prohibitive, but I can do the photography work if it wouldn't be too expensive to ship them to WI. I have a few studio lights, softboxes, etc, and a few thousand dollars in photo gear. I can make all the photos look just like what you see in product ads like this one.

^^^^
Can we get a flat pack for that? . Gorgeous speaker. Would love to see some more aesthetically pleasing SEOS builds.

So where are we with the latest pallet out of Poland? I know the pair of SEOS-24 via UPS or DHL never happened.... but is the pallet itself filled up and shipped on its way yet? Status update on where we are with that, please? Thanks!

pbc,

The SEOS builds with black cabinet and a dark grill over the woofer can look pretty sexy, too. (Or no grill for those who are into nekkid speakers).

Erich - Copper is maybe a bad idea. When copper gets old, it tends to turn ugly green unless it is really well coated (and even then). If you want a coppery color, perhaps aluminum with a "gold alodyne" finish would be better.

Thanks Bill, I'll make the change. I really don't want a copper color though, hopefully a finish that doesn't reflect too much light. It was going to be some type of antique silver finish. But there's still plenty of time for changes, so thanks for letting me know.


I always give updates when something changes. As mentioned, I paid for everything on the pallet. It was suppose to ship over a week ago, but he said it's not ready. When it ships, I'll let everyone know. I'm at their mercy on this with regards to time.

Thanks to Autotech, I'm going to miss out on the BMS group buy.

? Can't you still order BMS stuff without your autotech order

Of course, the BMS buy is a seperate buy

I think what Face was referring to is that he was waiting on measurements of the SEOS-24 horn before committing to purchase a BMS CD on the separate group buy... he didn't want to purchase the BMS CDs until he was sure he was going to use the SEOS-24... and he could only be sure he would use the SEOS-24 if he could see measurements.... since they still haven't provided measurements to date (either independently over there by jzagaja or by sending the pair of SEOS-24 early via UPS/DHL so folks here in the US could do measurements), he doesn't feel comfortable moving forward with the BMS purchase and is going to miss the BMS group buy deal price deadline...

^ Hmm, ya. I just read the posts from a couple days ago over there. Waiting to see jzagaja's reply to Erich...that may reveal when the pallet might ship if the holdup is for the 24's.

Hopefully this will not be the last BMS group buy.
Chris

How much are the SEOS 24's?

$200

$200 was the price before I asked them if they could use a metal mounting flange versus the standard mdf. The metal might add $10 or less to the price. They said they'd be metal, but I can't say for sure until I've got them in my hands.

I'm the sort to over analyze, and I've been following this for a while. I'm considering some SEOS speakers for my home theater build, and want to see how the technical specs will fit in the space. My problem is that I am pretty sure the data I would like is available, but I can't find it.

I want to be able to superimpose a polar plot from an SEOS with my room layout so that I can visualize placement and toe-in. Do I need to decide on the wave guide size before that's practical (or is it reasonably feasible at all?) It'd be nice if I could do it vertically for the surrounds as well, though I understand that would probably require I pick a design, since the crossover and woofer alignment will have a more significant impact on vertical dispersion.

If I could get some pointers or a link, I'd really appreciate it (it may very well be in this thread - I just haven't been able to find it). I'll come share whatever I put together so that people can see (and critique) my methods.

Fred

Edit: I'm going to start with the plots Mr Waslo posted here: http://www.avsforum.com/t/1291022/hey-guys-we-need-a-little-rallying-here/3420#post_21851929
Edited by HopefulFred - 3/12/13 at 6:19pm

This should give you more info

http://www.diysoundgroup.com/waveguide-speaker-kits.html

I probably didn't make very clear what I was going to do. Having done it, it's probably not very useful in a practical way, but it's been pretty educational for me.

I started with the graph bwaslo posted here (same as link above)

I interpolated and extrapolated as necessary to get from that graph to the data in the crumby picture below. I decided I was going to work with 4kHz - just because it seemed both representative and important. Basically, I normalized the readings from the graph to 105dB at 1 meter, then filled in from there, based on how many dB down I thought the graph showed at each angle, and then I adjusted for anechoic distance. I hope anyone interested can read the chart I made.

I then translated that data onto a polar plot, of sorts. Each 4x4 grid in this paper is 1/2 meter. The curves I've drawn in (poorly in some cases) are isobels. The idea is that I can draw a layout for my theater to the same scale and place it under this page, viewing one through the other. Then I can estimate the position and toe in that will make the seating positions equal SPL and I can see the impact of room reflections more clearly. I'm hoping to do the same thing with vertical (down) dispersion as well, to help me locate my surround loudspeakers - assuming I build a set. I have no idea why this is coming out upside down.

The three most complete curves, near the center of the plot are isobels for 99dB, 95dB, and 93dB - again corrected to 105dB on axis at 1m. After that the curves are for 91, 90, 89, and 88dB.

Having done this, I'm just glad to see the shape. I hope it's useful to me in other ways, but at the least it's been an interesting and informative exercise.

Since in a real room it won't be "6dB double distance," wouldn't that change things? 

 

Maybe if you tested in your room with a 4kHz tone how much loss with each doubling you get staying on-axis with a tweeter that'd help gauge?

zThe "direct" sound should follow the 6dB per double distance law, after you get a few feet from the baffle. Reflections will change things though. My measurements were made outdoors largely reflection-free.

HopefulFred,
I don't think you want to aim for "equal SPL". The direct path SPL from the furthest speaker needs to be higher than the SPL from the nearer speaker, assuming the goal is to have a stable image. Precedence effect will cause the sound to appear to come from direction of the first arrival, higher SPL from the other speaker is needed to balance that.

Earl Geddes has a thread over at DiyAudio.com in the Multiway section, (something about a speaker plazcement study) that gives a formula for the trade of SPL vs. time of arrival difference.

Bill
Edited by bwaslo - 3/13/13 at 6:40am

If using 4khz, it should be roughly the same for each SEOS 12 speaker kit.