OB9
Copyright 2009 ©
Troels Gravesen
Open Baffle 2009 Construction from
JA8008/TW034 drivers
+ Eminence
Deltalite-II 2515
Read also
about OB7 experiments.

If I had a second
livingroom - or
a dedicated hifi-room, these panels would be
there. View pics below. The JA8008/TW034 combo
helped by the 15" Eminence bass drivers will
probably never come closer to projecting a live
feeling. In that respect they even beat the DTQWT
by a small margin. But... it comes at a price, a
serious price: Panel size, a suitable room, an
electronic crossover + extra amps - and not least
ultra-low WAF.
Whether your room can accommodate these panels is
the first thing to consider. 20 square meters is
probably minimum for these speakers to breathe
properly and if your room does not allow for
experimentation with placement, look elsewhere.
Our livingroom is 24 m^2 and the panels were
placed on the longest wall. As discussed in the
OB7 file, a more optimal placement would probably
be like this:

What's seen
above to the right is well on accordance with
Gilbert Briggs' recommendation for the SFB - way
back in the Fifties.
What I almost hate to
admit is the
quality of the sound coming from the JA8008/TW034
combo after passing countless operational
amplifires in the dbx
electronic crossover + not to forget some
off-the-shelf interconnects. No wonder
professionals sometimes shake their heads hearing
NFB triode nerds praising their trade.
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Before getting into
details,
here's the recipe:
- 1 x
JA8008/TW034 kit (= a pair), available from
Jantzen Audio, mail for quotation here.
- 2 x Eminence Deltalite II 2515 bass drivers,
available from here.
- 1 x electronic crossover, 24 dB L/R with
variable point of crossover
- 2 x stereo power amps, anything from 20 watts
and up will do. Small SET amps can easily run the
mid/tweeter section.
- A decent clone of the beautiful vintage
Wharfedale SFB speaker.
- Liniarise Deltalite II impedance from 15 uF +
10 ohms across terminals.
- Add baffle step loss compensation to the bass
drivers from 8.2 mH bypassed by 4.7 ohms.
- Hook it all up, set point of crossover between
80 Hz and 160 Hz to your liking.
- Make coffee from freshly ground Arabica beans,
pour a decent cognac, sit down in your favourite
chair and enjoy the concert!
After numerous experiments with passive crossovers between
bass and mid drivers, I gave it up. Didn't work
right. Having a pro dbx
223XL, Stereo 2-way/Mono 3-way 24 dB,
L/R electronic crossover, I inserted this between
bass and mid and set the point of crossover at
80-120 Hz.
The 4th order electronic crossover makes a smooth
transition between bass and mid and I suggest
point of crossover at 120 Hz, but take your time
and try vocal recordings @ 80-100-120-140 Hz and
make your choice. Going higher draws vocals
towards the floor and it starts sounding a bit
funny.
The current set-up makes a really big speaker and
and it can play immensely loud with low
distortion, so take care of your hearing!
There's an excellent live feeling to the
presentation and I won't hesitate to recommend
the current system for main speakers in recording
studios, built into the walls in front of the all
the mixing gear. With 220 liter cabs to the
Eminence drivers and a port tuning of 32-35 Hz we
will have response down to around 30 Hz. The
8008/TW034 could do with 25-30 liters. Well,
another project....
Those who do open baffle
studies may
wonder why a relatively low-Qt (0.38) bass driver
was chosen here. The Eminence 2515 will produce
some 97-98 dB/2.8 volts and I simply wanted some
extra sensitivity to play around with, and it's
easy to tune the bass driver down to 94-95 dB,
which is needed to match the 8008 driver. The
Deltalite has a speedy and punchy bass response
and from my OB7 baffle the main problem is
identifying all the things in your room that
starts rattling! What the Deltalite does on this
baffle is making the music not only emotional,
but also physical. Upright bass players will love
the sound from these panels. Two 15" drivers
hardly move driven even to very loud levels, i.e.
distortion is as low as can be.
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The Drivers

Left: The JA8008 and TW034 drivers. Right: Eminence
Deltalite II 2515 bass driver.
Click Deltalite for large image.
The Baffle

The finished speaker will resemble the legendary Wharfedale SFB. But until then, the OB7 baffles will be used.
Tilt baffle 5-7 deg. depending on listenning position.

The Crossover

OB9 crossover.
Use 24 dB L/R ECN between bass and mid-tweeter section.

OB9 in our livingroom, hard to overlook!

Rotel amp in control of the bass drivers and Audio Mirror
amps for the mid and tweeter.
dbx electronic crossover hanging on the right speaker
during fine-tuning.
Measurements
There won't be a
whole lot of measurements on this construction as the
upper part very much can be seen in TQWT and DTQWT files.
What's interesting here is the performance of mid and
bass driver around point of crossover - and unfortunately
it's pretty hopeless to present frequency response graphs
in the bass region as I do not have an 8,000 cubic meter
anechoic room like B&O. And even if I had, it
wouldn't represent what's going on in our living rooms.
Open baffles and the room they are placed in are so much
an integrated system that any frequency response graphs
will only reflect what's going in that particular room -
at that particular location - and from that particular
measuring point.

Left: Impedance of Eminence
driver on baffle. Driver not broken in.
Right: Red = SPL @ 2.8 volts, 1 meter. Blue is from
filter applied (1/3 octave smoothing).
This is an excellent response from a 15" driver.
Smooth response up to 3-4 kHz from where it rapidly
declines.

Left: Response of all driver
on baffle.
Right: 8008 response @ 2.8 volts. Around 94 dB in the
midrange, which is slightly less compared to measured
response in TQWT and DTQWT, but here we have a dipole,
thus we have to take rear radiation into account.
Workshop images

"Standard"
JA8008/TW034 set-up. Huge Eminence Deltalite II 2515
below.

Grounded Grid preamp and dbx
223XL electronic crossover.

Rear view with JA8008/TW034
crossover and equaliser on the bass driver. These 15" bass drivers barely move,
even at loud playback levels.
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