Concrete speaker cabinets

[Box13]

Some mad fools used to build boats in reinforced concrete (Ferro Cement)!
However, concrete loudspeaker cabinets are not really a viable commercial proposition. Apart from any other consideration, most loudspeakers are now manufactured in China. so the cost of transporting them back to Europe in one piece would be prohibitive. Nigel.

Bendix used to set their main bearing in concrete to stop vibration on spin.
It was not possible to lift one onto a sack barrow, it took two men.

[walpurgis]

Bendix used to set their main bearing in concrete to stop vibration on spin.
It was not possible to lift one onto a sack barrow, it took two men.

It was not uncommon in domestic appliances. The ballast weight being used to counterbalance moving mass, tune out unwanted oscillations and reduce excursions..

[anthonyTD]

Sorry Simon,i didnt see this earlier post of yours on Patrick and his Electrofluidics speakers before posting my ramblings!

Patrick Handscombe made concrete speakers for years in the UK under the Electrofluidics brand. They were vibra moulded foamed concrete with some particulate filler. I spoke to him when building a composite loudspeaker cabinet during my degree. I ended up using an epoxy resin base loaded with rubber dust, wood flour and powdered glass. I literally made and NDT'd hundreds of sample tiles before arriving at a mix with high self damping, high mass and stiffness and available to take a great surface finish. Happy days...

[Reffc]

If you can see past the flowery market-speak, and usual "without compromise" nonsense (all speakers are compromised irrespective of technology or price) these are the speakers that have currently piqued my admiration in terms of thought process, the outstanding performance of the drive units used (off the shelf Accuton I think and not cheap) and of course the thought and development work that's gone into the cabinets. Nothing new in constrained layer construction but it is a breath of fresh air to see such painstaking trouble gone into design and build of the cabinet construction. Never heard a pair in the flesh (would like to) but there is a Youtube vid link below:

http://www.audioacoustics.co.uk/prod...ousticssc.html



The amp's not half bad either

[slate]

Hmm I was pretty sure that it was during my time that the Avance fiber concrete speakers was precented; but it seems that it goes back to 1973.

Still around http://www.avance-audio.dk/about1.asp

https://www.google.dk/search?q=avanc...odYnoLhw&dpr=1