Posted by Duke [ 208.98.185.206 ] on October 08, 2007 at 04:07:17:

At the Rocky Mountain Audio Fest October 12-14 I will be displaying what I believe is the first commercial loudspeaker of its type.

The speaker will be a controlled-pattern offset bipole. I will be using the same 90-degree-pattern waveguide and TAD woofer as in the Jazz Modules, only I'll have a second, identical rear-firing array. The rear-firing array will be offset vertically so that it's about a foot closer to the floor, which will stagger as much as is practical the location of my low frequency sources with respect to room boundaries and the listening position.

The system is intended to be set up a good 5 to 7 feet out from the wall behind it. This way, the reflected energy from the rear-firing array will arrive a good 10 milliseconds or more behind the direct sound. Reflections arriving earlier than 10 milliseconds are generally detrimental, but reflections arriving later than 10-15 milliseconds are beneficial. So with proper positioning my controlled-pattern offset bipoles will give a significant increase in reverberant field energy without a corresponding penalty in additional early reflections.

These new speakers are tentatively named the Dream Makers. I have wanted to build these speakers since about 1989, so in a way for me they're a dream that's been a long time in the making.

Unfortunately everything about them is twice as expensive as the Jazz Modules with the exception of the capacitors in the crossover. Because I'm wiring the drivers in series for an OTL-friendly 16-ohm load, I get to halve my capacitor values.

I'll try to get back here to answer questions if anybody has any, but right now I'm still sort of scrambling to get ready for the show.

Duke

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