Which Tannoys, folks?

[Rare Bird]

Im not a fan of Burr woods they are too blingy for me but should match ok.. The only Burr i really like is Oak or Elm Burr

[Reffc]

The Sycamore Cluster is not as dense a pattern as most burrs. Its way more subtle and looks lovely in the flesh. It has a very slight yellowish tinge and conrasts beautifully with the Walnut,

I tried mixing and matching several timbers and looked at Maple, Oak, American Black Walnut, European Walnut, Crown cut Sepele, Red Cheery, Zebrano and many more, but the Cluster Sycamore and Walnut was by far the nicest combination for my own personal tastes. Sycamore is a much under-used timber!

[The Grand Wazoo]

Well, it's usually described as maple, which may lead to that impression but it's not really underused.
I've sold a lot of Sycamore timber in the past (sawlogs and veneer butts) and most of the good quality sticks go to the Continent. There's a big demand for good quality ripple Sycamore in Germany for musical instruments, especially violins & cellos. The slightly lower quality wood goes to make furniture and industrial rollers.

[Reffc]

Well, Sycamore whilst part of the Maple family(of which there are many varieties) is used in this context to describe native Sycamore from the UK. This is UK sourced Burr Sycamore veneer and lovely timber at that. Looking forward to seeing the finished article but a heck of a long way to go! Spent part of the day designing the baffle board and jointing (made from 3 different types of timber) including working out the grille design and fitment and how the baffle edges would be finished.

The lining of the interior of the cabinets will consist of carpet underlay glued to the inside over which I'll place 3 inches of long lambswool.

[The Grand Wazoo]

I think they will look great and I've always thought Syc would make a good speaker veneer because it is very hard and, therefore, stiff.
I really don't want to fence with you over silvicultural terminology, but Sycamore isn't native to the UK, although it is considered to have become naturalised. Your veneers may well have been grown in the UK, but they are not native.

[Reffc]

Technically correct, so perhaps to keep everyone happy ( ) I'll refer to it as naturalised to the UK. "Acer pseudoplatanus", or "Great Maple" originated in Europe and isn't related to other Sycamores found elsewhere in the world (except perhaps to some of the Great Maples in Aisia). It is very commonly widespread in the UK (as it has been for many hundreds of years).

In fact, although thought to have been introduced by the Romans, It hasn't been widespread here up until several hundred years ago, perhaps a little earlier but whatever it's ancestry it shouldn't be compared with other species sharing the same name found outside of Europe as it is a different tree.

I agree with you though, it's very suited to speaker cabinetry. Durable and attractive, especially when contrasted with darker timbers. I rarely see it used in speaker cabinetry although Bird's Eye Maple is used by many manufacturers. I believe that is most commonly found in Sugar Maple and some Red Maples. The veneer I'm using is not a birds eye Maple though.

Wow..this seems to have turned into a timber blog!

[jandl100]

.... Shape wise, it won't be a box. Front baffle board will be 450mm wide and in plan, the sides will come in to 200mm deep before being angled at 45 degrees inwards to a total cabinet depth of 350mm. They will stand around 1.1m high. Port will be a 4 inch port, 6 inches deep located in the lower half of the cabinet to one side.

Well, I don't think Tannoys will ever be my thing, but I thought I'd come in here with a maybe-relevant recollection ...

A few Scalford Shows ago I seem to recall Simon sq12344etc sharing a dem room with a guy who had pair of speakers - Tannoy drivers in a tall enclosure (1.5m-ish?) shaped kind of like you describe, Paul. Quite probably the best Tannoy-based design I have heard.

Maybe worth dropping Simon a line to see if he knows owt about it or can give you a contact?

[Reffc]

Well, I don't think Tannoys will ever be my thing, but I thought I'd come in here with a maybe-relevant recollection ...

A few Scalford Shows ago I seem to recall Simon sq12344etc sharing a dem room with a guy who had pair of speakers - Tannoy drivers in a tall enclosure (1.5m-ish?) shaped kind of like you describe, Paul. Quite probably the best Tannoy-based design I have heard.

Maybe worth dropping Simon a line to see if he knows owt about it or can give you a contact?

Thanks Jerry. Perhaps worth a look. I've designed the cabinets to extract the best performance from the 315's, at least on paper/computer! I have made a few changes since I started, as further modelling and speaking with a friend who will be helping me with the build (he has a great deal of cabinetry experience) has refined the design. We will either experiment with a home brewed vacuum forming machine to form curved ply sheets to be laminated for side panels, or I'll make the shape more a conventional box but use internal sloping baffle boards to prevent standing waves formation. Either way, the front baffle board design has been extended slightly to 550mm to reduce baffle-step losses.

[Reffc]

Don't know if this is better here or the DIY section but as I've started, I'll continue!

I've now completed the design for the speaker cabinets and had a mad panic when after placing the timber and materials on order, realised I'd mis calculated for the volume taken up by the acoustically non-transparent 12mm wool felt in each enclosure (ie decimal point in the wrong place!) so 2 litres was in fact 20 litres!

Result is that each cabinet has had to grow to 180 litres in volume...not too far off the Lockwood volume! Couldn't source the cluster Sycamore but managed to get some of this instead:



10 large sheets of Grade A quality Ripple Sycamore on order instead!

I've tweaked the design to now use two 100mm diameter ports to generate a smoother response in-room (in theory) tuned to 34Hz (just a few dB down at this which should be interesting!).

Each cabinet is growing and will measure 1.28m tall weighing in at over 75kg each (without drivers). After some trial work at the workshop with the guy who's helping with the build (it's a two man job for various reasons) we've perfected a DIY jig to bend 6mm panels and laminate them in twos to form a single 12mm thick curved panel...two each of these then glued and clamped forming a 24mm cruved panel side. The end result in plan view will resemble a large kettle drum on it's side!

Sourced some very bling bell-mouthed ports of exactly the right size from Germany and they're now winging their way to me along with 3.5m2 of acoustic foam, 3.5m2 12mm dense wool felt, the same amount in 2mm mastic sheeting and a box of long lambswool. The cabinet fillings have cost an arm and a leg but I want this to be a no-holds barred high quality speaker build.

Some CAD mock ups of the speakers to follow so watch this space!

[Jonboy]

Don't know if this is better here or the DIY section but as I've started, I'll continue!

I've now completed the design for the speaker cabinets and had a mad panic when after placing the timber and materials on order, realised I'd mis calculated for the volume taken up by the acoustically non-transparent 12mm wool felt in each enclosure (ie decimal point in the wrong place!) so 2 litres was in fact 20 litres!

Result is that each cabinet has had to grow to 180 litres in volume...not too far off the Lockwood volume! Couldn't source the cluster Sycamore but managed to get some of this instead:



10 large sheets of Grade A quality Ripple Sycamore on order instead!

I've tweaked the design to now use two 100mm diameter ports to generate a smoother response in-room (in theory) tuned to 34Hz (just a few dB down at this which should be interesting!).

Each cabinet is growing and will measure 1.28m tall weighing in at over 75kg each (without drivers). After some trial work at the workshop with the guy who's helping with the build (it's a two man job for various reasons) we've perfected a DIY jig to bend 6mm panels and laminate them in twos to form a single 12mm thick curved panel...two each of these then glued and clamped forming a 24mm cruved panel side. The end result in plan view will resemble a large kettle drum on it's side!

Sourced some very bling bell-mouthed ports of exactly the right size from Germany and they're now winging their way to me along with 3.5m2 of acoustic foam, 3.5m2 12mm dense wool felt, the same amount in 2mm mastic sheeting and a box of long lambswool. The cabinet fillings have cost an arm and a leg but I want this to be a no-holds barred high quality speaker build.

Some CAD mock ups of the speakers to follow so watch this space!

All sounds very exciting, looking forward to the final result