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Since the wool-filled transmission-line the front of the loudspeaker cone at low
loudspeaker enclosure was first des frequencies. radiated
acoustic
cribed t there has been a steadily increas The effect of the wool filling in the pipe output
ing interest in its use. is to slow down the wave relative to its < —•
The basic transmission-line enclosure velocity in free air. This reduction factor
is shown in Fig. 1. Radiation from the is between 0.7 and 0.8 for the recom
back of the driver cone flows down a pipe mended packing density, so the system
filled with a low-density sound-absorbing will operate down to a somewhat lower Fig. 2. Unlagged totally enclosed
material. Fibrous absorbents such as frequency than would otherwise be ex cabinet.
loose wool, cotton wool and kapok can be pected.
used; sound absorption decreasing as the The folding in the original cabinet de
frequency goes down. In general it is very sign caused sound coloration due to re
difficult to obtain good absorption if the flections at the bends — particularly the direct cone-radiated pulse
ACOUSTIC OUTPUT
path length is less than one-quarter first one at the back of the cabinet. The
wavelength of the sound in free-space; at degree of coloration introduced by this
cham of pulses due to end
30Hz this corresponds to a path length of first reflection (which, incidentally, is ' reflections within the cabinet
about 9ft. present in all plain box-shaped cabinets)
If the pipe length is less than 9ft, sound was quite serious with the high crossover
at and below 30Hz will emerge from the frequency of 1500Hz. Certainly the re
open end of the pipe. Due to time delay in production without it sounded as if an
the pipe, the sound will not start to cancel echo had been removed. The reasons for spacing is approx. time
the radiation from the front of the cone this were investigated.
™-r~~ seconds
until the effective pipe-length is less than In a simple closed box, as shown in Fig. 550
one-sixth of a wavelength. It is therefore 2, a sound impulse generated by the cone
possible to use the radiation from the will have two components — the direct Fig. 3. Pulse-response (idealized) of
open end of the pipe to reinforce that from radiated pulse from the front of the cone cabinet shown in Fig. 2.
and that propagated back into the cabinet.
* university o f bradford If this latter is assumed to be a plane
wave, i.e. sound travelling parallel to the
tbailey, a . r . , ' n o n - r e s o n a n t loudspeaker enclosure,
cabinet sides, it will strike the back wall
Wireless World, o c t . 1965.
and bounce back to the cone still as an
impulse. Some of this energy will radiate
dense short-fibre wool through the cone to the outside and the
remainder will be reflected back into the
cabinet for re-reflection. The net result is
cone a succession of steadily weakening pulses
radiation being radiated from the cabinet. The
acoustic ouput will therefore be as shown
in Fig. 3. Fig. 4. Triangular cabinet showing
If the reflection from the back wall of different reflecting path lengths.
the cabinet is changed so that it is gradual
long rather than abrupt, then the reflected
fibre w o o P wave will not be a unit impulse from an direct corre radiated pufse
initiating unit impulse, but a pulse whose
ACOUSTIC OUTPUT
will not emerge as a unit impulse but as a Towards a solution Recommended drive units and
much lower amplitude long pulse — more crossover networks
The basic requirement in using a forward
like a continuous low level sound. This is Bass driver B D 25/8 £24.50 + V A T
facing loudspeaker unit is to guide the Mid-range unit MD 6 £16.50 - H V A T
subjectively far less noticeable to the ear sound into the vertical direction, without Tweeter TD3 £ 7.50 + V A T
than a series of decaying impulses. The producing bad reflections. In addition the Crossover network F N 10 £11.00 + V A T
two effects are compared in Fig. 5. system must be fairly simple, to keep Radford A u d i o L t d . , Bristol B S A 3 2 H Z .
Obviously, it would be far better to ab woodworking costs l o w , and also
sorb the sound completely on the back mechanically strong, to avoid significant Alternative units
wall of the cabinet. Here we face the im panel resonances. Bass driver B 139 £19.50 + V A T
possible, but it is imperative to make the After experimenting with different Mid-range B 110 £ 8.25 + V A T
best use of absorbent within the cabinet. Tweeter T 27 £ 6.00 + V A T
cabinet shapes, the arrangement shown in
Crossover unit D N 12 £ 7.00 + V A T
Fig. 6 was arrived at. This has several
K . E . F . Electronics L t d . , Tovil, Maidstone,
advantages over the original design. Kent. (The performance with the K . E . F . units
boss First, the pipe is triangular in cross-
unit is improved if the Radford crossover is used in
tweeter
section, thus giving less audible colora place of the K . E . F . crossover.) Long-fibre
tion due to reflections. Secondly, the wool may be obtained from John W . Pen
woodwork is very simple; only two inter nington ( D o w l e y G a p ) L t d . , Midland W o o l
nal partitions are necessary. Thirdly, the W a r e h o u s e s , B n g g a t e , W i n d h i l l , Shipley,
front ofthe cabinet and the large partition Y o r k s . T h e cost is £1.35/lb including V A T and
postage.
are automatically braced so reducing
panel resonance. Finally, sufficient area
mid
range is available on the front of the cabinet to
mount a mid-range unit in part of the line
remote from the back of the bass driver ness. Anchoring the wool is something of
when internal pressures are not too high. a problem as it can compact with trans
In practice, it has not been found neces port or use over a period. Nails or dowels
sary to use a separate enclosure for the projecting from the partitions will serve,
mid-range unit.* but make stuffing difficult. The best
port suggestion yet made is to use a 'Netlon'
Details of the partition sizes are shown
core for the wool, fibres being teased
in Fig. 7. A three-speaker system is re
through it and left sticking out all round.
commended, as there is at present a dif
Using front-mounting loudspeakers as
ficult 'gap' between known low-
specified, the two front pipes can be
coloration bass units and tweeters.
loaded through the speaker and port aper
Incidentally, it should be noted that
tures, and the rear pipe is easily filled by
many 'high-fidelity' drive units are that in
removing the back of the cabinet. Alter
name only. Frequency-response is only
natively, if the cabinet top is made re
one aspect of performance, and the trans
movable all three pipes can be loaded
ient response is far more important over
from the top. A packing density of about
all. Pulse or step testing loudspeakers in a
V2lb per cubic foot is about right. Excess
long matched acoustic transmission line
wool will cause back-pressures on the
is most illuminating. Some units will still
cone, and too little will cause pipe reso
be radiating appreciable acoustic power
nances in the low bass region.
50ms after the exciting pulse has disap
peared! What column resonance remains in the
The units specified are known to have system can be reduced by putting 45-
good transient response and are available degree corner reflectors at the back of the
with a suitable crossover network. Such speaker and also at each side of the first
networks are very difficult to design and it bend. These are not critical but should be
is not sufficient to use a general-purpose so arranged that sound from the back of
crossover unit. Unfortunately, loud the cone will 'bounce' down the first pipe
speakers do not behave as pure resistance and then up the second, i.e. consider the
at all frequencies — often quite the con sound to be light and the reflectors to be
Fig. 6. Final design. trary. Design of crossovers from this as mirrors. The improvement is only about
sumption is completely incorrect and it is ldB in frequency response when using re
not uncommon for correct inductor sizes flectors, and as this improvement is only
in a network to be double that expected just detectable it may well be decided to
from simple theory. In addition the diffe omit them. If included, they should be
rent phase-angles of speakers at the cros made from /4in chipboard or some similar
3
sover frequency complicates matters material, and firmly fixed to the cabinet.
even more, and bad design can lead to The port area is not critical as there is
abnormally low impedance levels over none of the tuning effect that occurs in the
some parts of the frequency range. In base reflex enclosure. Changes in port
short, crossover networks must be de area of two-to-one ratio produce no
signed to operate with the speaker units noticeable effect, but nevertheless it
that they are to be used with or very would be unwise to make the port much
peculiar results can be obtained. smaller than that given in the drawings as
As previously, long-fibre wool is re this is already considerably smaller in
commended as the continuous acoustic area than the pipe feeding it.
absorbent that fills the whole of the As mentioned previously, response
transmission line pipe. The wood must be curves should be treated with extreme
well teased out or it loses its effective- caution as they represent only part of the
performance of the speaker. Neverthe
less the overall response curve should be
•However, there may be audible improvement if an
absorbent filled enclosure is used behind the mid- as flat as is reasonably possible. The
Fig. 7. Dimensions f internal partitions. range unit. ED. curve for the complete system when mea-
HIGH FIDELITY DESIGNS 157
FREQUENCY ( Hz)