Orthodynamic Roundup

[khbaur330162]

  pretty epic eh http://www.hifi-forum.de/printer.php?forum_id=110&thread=15878
 

I like his work. The volume of the ear chamber on that Sennheiser frankenphone is nice and small which, in my mind, allows him to use velour ear pads. The T50RP driver should still be able to pressurize the ear chamber quite well and bass response should not suffer too greatly through the use of velour. Ime, the T50RP's bass always had a "rubbery" quality to it. I used leatherette ear pads, however, and in one instance the ear pads used implemented quite thick chunks of "standard" open cell foam as their innards (Brainwavs pads on a Sennheiser HD535 frame). A T50RP with MDR-XB500 ear pads might sound similar? The ear pad should be comfy, yet firm, imo for T50RP bass to sound clean without either the use of massive amounts of baffle mass loading, or relatively high headband tension. My experiments with the T50RP are somewhat limited so much of what I'm saying is conceptual hearsay. I'd be interested in reading how others follow my logic. 

 

[Hutnicks]

I like the use of MDF in there.

 

[khbaur330162]

  I like the use of MDF in there.

Hadn't thought about it until your mention of it. I read what a man had to say about a similar subject matter. He built speaker boxes in his spare time (for himself and others) so I trust what he had to say. He built speaker boxes out of many different kinds of materials and in his experience chip board was his favorite. It was cheap, locally sourced, sounded great, held up well over time in rather abusive conditions, and so on. MDF is, in my mind, a very close relative to chip board. I'd probably use chip board or MDF depending on what was cheaper.
 
Also interesting to note/reiterate, people are developing biodegradable resins for SLA 3D printing. If good sound be achieved via these kinds of resins, and if their overall price (as well as "true cost," as in their creations' environmental impact) can be lowered, this may be even better than either MDF or chip board given how 3D printing is an additive process whereas milling enclosures out of (any kind of) wood is subtractive. As SLA printing gets better minimal support structures would probably be needed in order to print any kind of driver enclosure. You could also put different coloring into the resins in order to print in many different colors and opacities.

 

[Hutnicks]

  Hadn't thought about it until your mention of it. I read what a man had to say about a similar subject matter. He built speaker boxes in his spare time (for himself and others) so I trust what he had to say. He built speaker boxes out of many different kinds of materials and in his experience chip board was his favorite. It was cheap, locally sourced, sounded great, held up well over time in rather abusive conditions, and so on. MDF is, in my mind, a very close relative to chip board. I'd probably use chip board or MDF depending on what was cheaper.
 
Also interesting to note/reiterate, people are developing biodegradable resins for SLA 3D printing. If good sound be achieved via these kinds of resins, and if their overall price (as well as "true cost," as in their creations' environmental impact) can be lowered, this may be even better than either MDF or chip board given how 3D printing is an additive process whereas milling enclosures out of (any kind of) wood is subtractive. As SLA printing gets better minimal support structures would probably be needed in order to print any kind of driver enclosure. You could also put different coloring into the resins in order to print in many different colors and opacities.

Well. Until somebody comes up with a DIY formula for Corian MDF or HDF is it. About as inert as can be and you will find most speaker manu's use it. Easy to work with and provides a base for a spectacular finish. The only reason to not try it on a phone is the weight factor.
Offcuts of headphone cup size are likely to be had at your local lumber yard if you are interested in experimenting.
 
I oft wonder if there would be someway to mix tungsten powder or something in those resins without making a mess of the printer.

 

[khbaur330162]

 
Well. Until somebody comes up with a DIY formula for Corian MDF or HDF is it. About as inert as can be and you will find most speaker manu's use it. Easy to work with and provides a base for a spectacular finish. The only reason to not try it on a phone is the weight factor.
Offcuts of headphone cup size are likely to be had at your local lumber yard if you are interested in experimenting.
 
I oft wonder if there would be someway to mix tungsten powder or something in those resins without making a mess of the printer.

Hrm. I disagree with much you are saying.

 

[Hutnicks]

  Hrm. I disagree with much you are saying.

Care to elaborate?

 

[khbaur330162]

Care to elaborate?

 
Massless sound producing elements.

 

[Hutnicks]

   
Massless sound producing elements.

I seem to have lost the plot here. Are you referring to MDF/HDF?

 

[GREQ]

Isn't it impossible for something without mass to produce sound? 

 

[SeEnCreaTive]

Isn't it impossible for something without mass to produce sound? 

Kind of.

Sound is movement of the air, which then moves your ear drum, at its absolute basics

We need to somehow move air, most solve this with diaphragms that push on the air. Dynamic, planar, electrostatic all use this.

But there are other ways. Old school plasma speakers use well, plasma. Heating the air to expand to make the pressure wave. Basically super tiny and super fast thunder. But plasma, electrons, air itself all has mass.

So if we can some how move air directly with out a medium, this could be called "massless" I guess


Edit: or, you know, just wire a DAP directly to put brain. Skip the whole clumsy ear, air, driver thing. Or actually that skips sound entirely I guess heh

 

[khbaur330162]

I seem to have lost the plot here. Are you referring to MDF/HDF?

Not really, I just wanted you to think about plasma drivers, tbh. It just seemed to me like you were giving too much thought to driver housing materials when there are, in my mind, other things in the world which could lead to higher sonic performance. I've thought about IEM's that implement plasma drivers which are driven by a small portable energizer unit. The biggest issues with designing and using plasma IEM's would be safety, imo; ozone production and injecting 20,000V of electricity into your ear drum. However, if we could produce plasma IEM's would you still be interested in MDF or HDF?
 

Isn't it impossible for something without mass to produce sound? 

The air itself becomes its own motor force in a way. The air definitely has mass, the electrons we're using to create ionized Oxygen have mass, the electrons we're "pushing through" a wire have mass, the IEM's themselves have mass, the energizer unit has mass, you have mass, etc. But does magnetic flux have mass? I don't know. Magnetic flux as created by an electromagnet are arguably the result of electrons moving at relativistic speeds (think Einstein and time slowing as you approach the speed of light). So, in this model, electromagnets create magnetic flux as a result of moving mass which are concentrated within a vector (the wire we're pushing electrons through).
 

Edit: or, you know, just wire a DAP directly to put brain. Skip the whole clumsy ear, air, driver thing. Or actually that skips sound entirely I guess heh

But what signal does your brain use? Does that or do those mechanism(s) have mass? You definitely "get it," I'm just playing devil's advocate here, more or less.

 

[Hutnicks]

  Not really, I just wanted you to think about plasma drivers, tbh. It just seemed to me like you were giving too much thought to driver housing materials when there are, in my mind, other things in the world which could lead to higher sonic performance. I've thought about IEM's that implement plasma drivers which are driven by a small portable energizer unit. The biggest issues with designing and using plasma IEM's would be safety, imo; ozone production and injecting 20,000V of electricity into your ear drum. However, if we could produce plasma IEM's would you still be interested in MDF or HDF?
 
The air itself becomes its own motor force in a way. The air definitely has mass, the electrons we're using to create ionized Oxygen have mass, the electrons we're "pushing through" a wire have mass, the IEM's themselves have mass, the energizer unit has mass, you have mass, etc. But does magnetic flux have mass? I don't know. Magnetic flux as created by an electromagnet are arguably the result of electrons moving at relativistic speeds (think Einstein and time slowing as you approach the speed of light). So, in this model, electromagnets create magnetic flux as a result of moving mass which are concentrated within a vector (the wire we're pushing electrons through).
 
But what signal does your brain use? Does that or do those mechanism(s) have mass? You definitely "get it," I'm just playing devil's advocate here, more or less.

Well, I am working with what I have I was just tickled that someone finally got round to using MDF for a housing as for the life of me I never understood why no one had done it.
 
 Oddly enough back in the 70's my shop/electronics teacher had an incredible fixation for plasma drivers. That was before the carcinogenic angle became known. Stunning thing to witness in action.
 
To answer the question. If a workable Plasma system that did not in fact kill the user was available economically I would certainly take an interest. I do not know if it would be to the exclusion of all else though. So, the short answer is yes I would still be intrigued by the possibilities of different cup / enclosure materials.
 
Currently, I think that the most gain to be had is in new magnetic materials which as of yet are unused in the audio world. An ortho (hey we still are in the ortho thread after all) with magnets of significantly less mass and volume than what we see now would open up new avenues of performance for the good old ortho.
 
 Ideally if cold plasma generation ever gets a little more elegant the possibility of an IEM may come to fruition. As it sits temps are still 100deg C and up for that and sticking that in ones ear is not something I would do willingly. The upside is the RF powered plasma arcs of that ilk only require 10 to 300Mw which is well within the realms of audio equipment to generate.
 
That whole field is seeming to echo the development of lasers in so many ways that I would not be shocked to hear of a low power cold plasma diode type solution within 10 years or so.

 

[khbaur330162]

 
Well, I am working with what I have I was just tickled that someone finally got round to using MDF for a housing as for the life of me I never understood why no one had done it.
 
 Oddly enough back in the 70's my shop/electronics teacher had an incredible fixation for plasma drivers. That was before the carcinogenic angle became known. Stunning thing to witness in action.
 
To answer the question. If a workable Plasma system that did not in fact kill the user was available economically I would certainly take an interest. I do not know if it would be to the exclusion of all else though. So, the short answer is yes I would still be intrigued by the possibilities of different cup / enclosure materials.
 
Currently, I think that the most gain to be had is in new magnetic materials which as of yet are unused in the audio world. An ortho (hey we still are in the ortho thread after all) with magnets of significantly less mass and volume than what we see now would open up new avenues of performance for the good old ortho.
 
 Ideally if cold plasma generation ever gets a little more elegant the possibility of an IEM may come to fruition. As it sits temps are still 100deg C and up for that and sticking that in ones ear is not something I would do willingly. The upside is the RF powered plasma arcs of that ilk only require 10 to 300Mw which is well within the realms of audio equipment to generate.
 
That whole field is seeming to echo the development of lasers in so many ways that I would not be shocked to hear of a low power cold plasma diode type solution within 10 years or so.

Awesome stuff. I agree, driver enclosure materials (as well as internal acoustic structure ala MDR-R10 housings) still interests me greatly, as does the ECR-Ortho project. Planar magnetic drivers still sound fantastic to my ears, and an IEM can never really touch what it feels like to have massive low frequency sound waves slap your face and chest. Anyway, I would be very appreciative if you'd join Crop Circle Audio and post your thoughts on driver housing materials -benefits and contrasts- in the Housings and Headbands Design and Theory (http://cropcircleaudio.forumotion.com/f1-housings-and-headbands-design-and-theory) section. I'm sure others, myself included, would be glad to join in on the conversation.
 
I've been stalking the idea of plasma IEM's for a while. The reason for jamming a plasma driver into my ear is so fascinating is because my ear canal is such a small "room" to pressurize I don't need to ionize much air in order to create a high enough SPL to listen to my music. Ozone is poisonous, as you state plasma generation produces heat, so now we're attempting to: A) Exhaust produced ozone outside of the ear canal and ionization chamber at a rate that will decompose faster than our environment becomes dangerously poisonous, and B) Heat sink the ionization chamber such that we don't burn our ear canals, and C) Devise an insulator between the ionization chamber and ourselves with a high enough insulative coefficient that we don't electrocute ourselves (ever) while we sweat at the gym listening to our plasma IEM's, yet not interfere with the sonic performance (by introduction of perhaps an insulative membrane, or diaphragm, between our ear drum and the ionization chamber) which we're attempting to achieve by designing a plasma IEM.
 
As for "low power cold plasma diodes" being implemented as sound producing elements, you're over my head, good sir, I'm afraid I don't think I can help you with that yet.

 

[Hutnicks]

  Awesome stuff. I agree, driver enclosure materials (as well as internal acoustic structure ala MDR-R10 housings) still interests me greatly, as does the ECR-Ortho project. Planar magnetic drivers still sound fantastic to my ears, and an IEM can never really touch what it feels like to have massive low frequency sound waves slap your face and chest. Anyway, I would be very appreciative if you'd join Crop Circle Audio and post your thoughts on driver housing materials -benefits and contrasts- in the Housings and Headbands Design and Theory (http://cropcircleaudio.forumotion.com/f1-housings-and-headbands-design-and-theory) section. I'm sure others, myself included, would be glad to join in on the conversation.
 
I've been stalking the idea of plasma IEM's for a while. The reason for jamming a plasma driver into my ear is so fascinating is because my ear canal is such a small "room" to pressurize I don't need to ionize much air in order to create a high enough SPL to listen to my music. Ozone is poisonous, as you state plasma generation produces heat, so now we're attempting to: A) Exhaust produced ozone outside of the ear canal and ionization chamber at a rate that will decompose faster than our environment becomes dangerously poisonous, and B) Heat sink the ionization chamber such that we don't burn our ear canals, and C) Devise an insulator between the ionization chamber and ourselves with a high enough insulative coefficient that we don't electrocute ourselves (ever) while we sweat at the gym listening to our plasma IEM's, yet not interfere with the sonic performance (by introduction of perhaps an insulative membrane, or diaphragm, between our ear drum and the ionization chamber) which we're attempting to achieve by designing a plasma IEM.
 
As for "low power cold plasma diodes" being implemented as sound producing elements, you're over my head, good sir, I'm afraid I don't think I can help you with that yet.

Ach, he mentiones headbands of all things. See the pics a few pages back of the SMELA TDS that got the Turtle Beach treatment. Headbands have become my nemesis. I had never really given them much thought until the TDS showed me just what a sonic difference an inert headband could make. Small wonder Slammhammer went to almost ridiculous lengths to work out the HD800 mechanics.
Have to thank NickN for Sorbothane here, The best headband damping substance yet.
 I have registered at the circle and will post up when I get my act and facts together. Currently on YH3 mods and the little bugger is running me round in (pun) circles
 
Try a pair of older Shures if you want to be slapped around by bass

  The old 115's would have rivaled the ER4S if they had left the lowrider bass on the design floor.
 
The thing that caught my eye about the low power plasma scene was the surgical applications. They are using them for excising tumors and the like so it is a very small 1 to 4 mm jet. That and the low power consumption might be translatable into an audio driver at some time.
 
Then there is of course, the old credit card electrostat project that I think is still on the net somewhere. An interesting proof that a functional Estat can be made without too much worry about tensions, film thicknesses and exotic materials. I oft wonder what it could be if someone had done one up with attention to the aforementioned details. An Estat Porta Pro would be about the slickest thing ever............until it rained.

 

[khbaur330162]

Ach, he mentiones headbands of all things. See the pics a few pages back of the SMELA TDS that got the Turtle Beach treatment. Headbands have become my nemesis. I had never really given them much thought until the TDS showed me just what a sonic difference an inert headband could make. Small wonder Slammhammer went to almost ridiculous lengths to work out the HD800 mechanics.
Have to thank NickN for Sorbothane here, The best headband damping substance yet.
 I have registered at the circle and will post up when I get my act and facts together. Currently on YH3 mods and the little bugger is running me round in (pun) circles
 
Try a pair of older Shures if you want to be slapped around by bass

  The old 115's would have rivaled the ER4S if they had left the lowrider bass on the design floor.
 
The thing that caught my eye about the low power plasma scene was the surgical applications. They are using them for excising tumors and the like so it is a very small 1 to 4 mm jet. That and the low power consumption might be translatable into an audio driver at some time.
 
Then there is of course, the old credit card electrostat project that I think is still on the net somewhere. An interesting proof that a functional Estat can be made without too much worry about tensions, film thicknesses and exotic materials. I oft wonder what it could be if someone had done one up with attention to the aforementioned details. An Estat Porta Pro would be about the slickest thing ever............until it rained.

 

Senn HD800? Let's talk MDR-R10, please. I was here first! Not saying the HD800 has nothing to offer by any means. I've never heard one and would very much like to. Sennheiser has been a kind of dark horse for me. I liked the HD600 to a point, but other than that never gave the brand too much attention. At this point in time I'd probably revisit the HD600 before the K701, however, if I was to revisit either while running on my own steam I think people might hang me irl. I recently made a YHD-3 / MDR-CD280 frankenphone with hand stitched lambskin leather ear pads. Instead or sorbothane I attached the drivers to the baffle with epoxy putty. They sound rather good to my ears! Bass can be very deep and enjoyable. While not as refined or detailed as a U70 / DRZX701IP which I made for a close friend of mine, the YHD-3 has a certain character that I feel a lot of people could really get into over the U70. If you asked me, though, I'd take the U70. If you hadn't guessed I'd sooner go ER4 over Shure 115, however, I'm sure the Shure could knock my socks off especially with certain songs/genres. As for lasers to produce sound waves they are growing diamonds for various applications. It's hardness, optical qualities, and thermal conducting capabilities are off the charts. Not sure where I'm going with this. I'm still not grasping how you plan to create sound with a laser. Your thoughts? As for electrostatic porta pros... Dude I like maggies, what's wrong with maggies?