Thread locking of DIY horn / compression driver discussion

[jeffbabcock]

Just wondering why the recent Otop thread was locked?

There was good back and forth discussion, nothing mean spirited, and with the intention of testing products to give an honest look at what is going on under the hood. My particular point of interest was the noted minimal difference in the sound quality of certain compression drivers on the DIY horn, when I know there is a very large difference in the quality of drivers.

This is important stuff to look into. I for one considered using BMS drivers with the DIY horn. It seems that based on others experience, that might be a waste of money. Nobody likes wasting money, so knowing why better drivers don't yield much improvement is a VERY important issue. It takes measurement data to help figure that out.

As I have said many times before:

An open "warts and all" discussion of products, their strengths, their limitations, etc will do much more to help the credibility of this forum than keeping things under tight wraps. Even the best designs have limitations, as there is no free lunch in audio.

It seems there is some resistance to this idea, which I find somewhat frustrating. Having detailed info regarding both strengths and weaknesses is far better than having little info and simply relying on the opinions and experiences of users who you know little about.

[Greg Plouvier]

I hear you Jeff. I would like to try a BMS driver as well - the 4550 biamped @ 800-900. I think then you would see a noticable difference. I have 1 in stock that I'm going run through some paces - when I can find the time! I'd also like to see a 1.4 or 1.5" version of the diff horn.

[Bill Fitzmaurice]

Because some people, not you Jeff, forget the reason for this forums existence: to aid potential builders in choosing, building and using their speakers. When threads deviate from that intent the threads will be closed. This applies especially to parties who have neither built nor even heard our cabs but seem to have nothing better to do than waste their time and ours incessantly spouting on forever about things of which they have at best third-hand knowledge.

[jeffbabcock]

Hi Bill,
I do realize that the things I am talking about are only of importance to a small fraction of the users on this site. I realize that I am one of a very small group of users on the site who has both built many DIY designs as well as worked with high end commercial gear.

I am sorry if the discussion veered a bit in that thread away from the Otop building focus of that particular forum section.

Understand that I don't mean to upset anyone with the comments or questions. I hope you have not misinterpreted my intentions. I am a DIY fan at heart and am always looking to push the envelope in terms of DIY capabilities. The questions I have specifically about the HF driver and horn in particular are important to me. But to investigate requires info that's really not easily found on this site currently....

Perhaps we could add a small section on the site dedicated to more advanced discussion topics where the "nerds" like me can live. Something like "Advanced discussion and optimization" Putting it somewhere separate prevents it from muddying the waters for new users, while also possibly doing a better job of archiving the content. A lot of the advanced discussions in past threads where we had smaart measurements of various products and detailed discussion of more complicated issues have long since disappeared due to age and expired in their primary forums. It is sad to have lost a lot of that good information.

Best regards,
Jeff

[Mikey]

Perhaps we could add a small section on the site dedicated to more advanced discussion topics where the "nerds" like me can live. Something like "Advanced discussion and optimization" Putting it somewhere separate prevents it from muddying the waters for new users, while also possibly doing a better job of archiving the content. A lot of the advanced discussions in past threads where we had smaart measurements of various products and detailed discussion of more complicated issues have long since disappeared due to age and expired in their primary forums. It is sad to have lost a lot of that good information.

That doesn't seem like a bad idea. It really is a waste when some of the most advanced users provide in-depth discussion about high-end implementation of Bill's designs and then it's eventually lost.

[Bill Fitzmaurice]

Perhaps we could add a small section on the site dedicated to more advanced discussion topics where the "nerds" like me can live.

It already exists, it's called 'Everything Else'. But there as well posts that are counter to our reason for existing will not be tolerated.

[jeffbabcock]

Perhaps we could add a small section on the site dedicated to more advanced discussion topics where the "nerds" like me can live.

It already exists, it's called 'Everything Else'. But there as well posts that are counter to our reason for existing will not be tolerated.

Hi Bill,

This Everything Else section is subject to the limitation of posts expiring and thus being deleted from the forum. That makes it pretty much useless for the purpose I propose, and a very unfortunate limitation that this forum in general suffers from.

Are there still technical reasons for post deletion, given the low cost of storage and bandwidth these days, or is it just a carry over from an earlier time when that was a concern? The amount of data on this forum does not seem terribly overwhelming by forum standards. I have seen other larger forums retain threads forever and run their site on a single server.

Regardless, given the relatively low number of posts it would draw, a separate place where the threads do not expire would be the most useful for users interested in advanced design and optimization issues and would have little to no affect on forum storage capacity.

One final note, you mention "posts that are counter to our reason for existing will not be tolerated." Are you of the opinion that the topics I have been discussing are indeed counter to your reason for existing, and if so, could you please elaborate?" I ask this because I have relevant and practical reasons for discussing many of the topics I bring up.

Best regards,
Jeff

[jcmbowman]

Are there still technical reasons for post deletion, given the low cost of storage and bandwidth these days, or is it just a carry over from an earlier time when that was a concern? The amount of data on this forum does not seem terribly overwhelming by forum standards. I have seen other larger forums retain threads forever and run their site on a single server.

Actually, it's not an issue of bandwidth or storage. The primary reason for culling old posts is to improve the efficiency of the back-end database that stores the message board database. (One of my side businesses is webhosting - this is an issue that we run into all the time...) I'm not familiar with the hosting environment that this site is on, but depending on the speed of the CPU, speed of the storage drives, and the amount of load placed on the server by other sites if it's in a shared environment, you'll see the performance degrade drastically once you cross a certain threshold of posts.

There are definitely ways to optimize database usage, but the phpBB program that this forum is based on is not exactly the most cutting edge when it comes to those sorts of things. It would be nice if there were a way to archive older posts in a static format for later reference, but that's a discussion for the server folks, and I'm staying out of that.

[WB]

Are there still technical reasons for post deletion, given the low cost of storage and bandwidth these days, or is it just a carry over from an earlier time when that was a concern?

The old forum (before May 2006) didn't have culled posts. I found that very useful and read the whole forum before I even joined.

[Bill Fitzmaurice]

Threads in most forums are culled if they have not been viewed for six months. Reviews, Tips & Techniques, EQ Settings and Educational Links are never culled.

One final note, you mention "posts that are counter to our reason for existing will not be tolerated." Are you of the opinion that the topics I have been discussing are indeed counter to your reason for existing

No, but others have used legitimate questions as stepping off points to go off on their own agendas.

[jeffbabcock]

Ok, thanks Bill. In future, perhaps Tips and Techniques and Educational Links in tandem will do the trick.

[la malta]

On the topic of the BMS driver and Bills horn:

If you think of the space limitations Bill probably had to deal with when designing the compression driver horn for the Otop and Jack (and definitely the DRs) I'm inclined to think the tweeter horn is as good as its respective woofer horn is going to allow it to be. That is to say, perhaps the BMS drivers will shine considerably above others in another horn design that is perhaps wider or taller or longer etc, but then that horn might not be able to be coincidently mounted or implemented within the space constraints of these speakers or without interfering too much with the woofer horn. And then we would have a top box that is larger or not line arrayable or not coincident. There is possibly only so much that can be done within that amount of space.

On that note, I'm now curious if the tweeter horn itself acts as a "diffuser" for the woofer horns high frequencies for the Otop and Jack?

edit: It sure would be interesting to see people make the tweeter horn out of fibreglass or implement other mods though. Also, Jeff, did you mean acoustic material behind the tweeter horn or the compression driver itself in the other thread?

[Bill Fitzmaurice]

On that note, I'm now curious if the tweeter horn itself acts as a "diffuser" for the woofer horns high frequencies for the Otop and Jack?

No, it's acoustically invisible to the woofer frequencies.
The drivers recommended for every project are those which I feel give the best combination of performance, price and availability. If you want to spend more that's up to you.

[la malta]

Something else that can be considered: for those of you that find the eminence drivers unlistenable, did you hear them on Bills horn or eminences?

[jeffbabcock]

la malta,
Sorry for slow reply,
I would not say the Eminence CD's are "unlistenable"... that's going way too far. Having heard most of the models (PSD's & NSD's but not ASD's) on a variety of projects and horns, I think they are OK, just not quite in the same league as some other higher quality products.