Abnormally shaped speaker cabinets

[jgsbass]

I saw oval (as in a pillbox hat) speaker cabinets for bass but have been curious as to whether anyone has had any success with a speaker cabinet that was not square or rectangular. More curious about applying a pyrimid shape to a cabinet. Anyone know of any results?

 

[fdeck]

I saw oval (as in a pillbox hat) speaker cabinets for bass but have been curious as to whether anyone has had any success with a speaker cabinet that was not square or rectangular. More curious about applying a pyrimid shape to a cabinet. Anyone know of any results?

Shouldn't make much difference. At one point, someone was selling bass speakers made from round bass drum shells.

 

[billfitzmaurice]

Shouldn't make much difference. At one point, someone was selling bass speakers made from round bass drum shells.

Odd shapes are of some use with midranges and tweeters but they're generally a bad idea with woofers, as they usually result in less box volume for a given footprint, the result being less sensitivity and LF extension.

 

[Rhythm5]

I think Acoustic used to make bass cabinets that were square, but then had a round enclosure inside of that where they mounted the driver. They actually didn't sound half bad...Ok, not great, but not half bad.

 

[Rick Auricchio]

The equations and computer programs for cabinet design assume rectangular shapes.

And it gets really difficult to load a pyramid-shaped cabinet. You can't stack 'em with anything!

 

[shoot-r]

30 or more years ago Yamaha had a bass and guitar amp that were wedge/pyramid shaped. They had a plastic-foam type of square-ish speakers. The guitar amps didn't sound to bad at low volume levels, the bass amps weren't very impressive.

 

[Bassflute]

Odd shapes are of some use with midranges and tweeters but they're generally a bad idea with woofers, as they usually result in less box volume for a given footprint, the result being less sensitivity and LF extension.

Wonder why they'd spend five years and buckets of money doing this then...

Also, my Trace-Elliot PA has circular (tube-like) speakers with a 10", 2x5" and a tweeter, and they sound marvelous; less 'boxy' for lack of a better term.


And back in the day when I was a kid, my mom had both the smaller Yamaha trapezoidal amp, and then the larger one; I played bass through both of them. Very smooth sound, no punch or bottom end, but quite a lot of presence. Kind of like an electrostatic, but not very good.


Cheers,
Cameron

 

[seamonkey]

I think A pyramid shape would look cool for a 3-way design with a docking slot for one of those new mini-heads. The slight angle back would be good for hearing yourself.

I'm finding google sketchup a handy tool for drawing cabinet concepts.
There's a VolumeCalculator.rb you can pickup that will derive the internal volume.
I tend to just put together a hollow box of planes, adjusting it to get the volume right, then build the real box around this figuring out the joints. Don't forget to add extra volume for the ports and speaker, and bracing - look in 3d warehouse for some speakers. A solid cylinder represents a port for the calculation.

 

[newfuture]

rickenbacker sold the Transonic cabinets in the '60s. Reverse trapezoids, larger on top than bottom. Enormous.
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Though I've seen a lot of them, I've still yet to actually hear them.

 

[brothernewt]

Wonder why they'd spend five years and buckets of money doing this then...

It's a beautiful looking piece. It's very possible the design goal was form rather than function. Some of Ritter's creations come to mind... very visually appealing but not something I'd think about playing from a practical standpoint.

 

[meatwad]

What about "bass cannons",those long tubes with the subwoofer on one end, and a port on the other? They are great for car audio.

Then, there is always the five-gallon bucket trick...

 

[billfitzmaurice]

It's a beautiful looking piece. It's very possible the design goal was form rather than function.

Having the drivers in separate compartments. which is accomplished via separate compartments in more traditional designs, eliminates rear wave interaction. The small individual baffle faces for each driver minimizes edge diffraction. The overall shape doesn't do anything acoustically out of the ordinary, but for $50k one probably doesn't expect a plain Jane box.

 

[JNW7]

wow, noone has explained the nautilus(sp?) shell design. I remember reading about it a while back, that design was actually made to completely cancel the wave coming out of the back of the speaker..as reference, think about ported designs that make use of the back wave by use of a tuned port. That "cabinet" does away with it all together. Something about clarity of sound.
I need to re-research it, but that's the jist of it...beautiful design.

As for odd shaped cabinets, i remember seeing some cabs made out of bass drums, actually stackable as well, cant remember the company name for the life of me though.
-James

 

[mvw356]

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coolest bass cabinet ever