Large Scale Central

Sound or not and speaker enclosures

General Discussion
#1

A recent post was posted to test the opinion of sound vs no sound. It seems to me that opinions are varied and depend very much on individual experience and the quality of the sound cards. The fact is, speaker and speaker enclosure design in particular is a very specialized field of expertise. Check out http://www.qsisolutions.com/pdf/loco_acoustics_design.pdf to get an example of how technical it can be. I’m no boffin at this sort of thing but I do appreciate that to get the sound to do any justice to the rather expensive sound cards we buy proper speaker enclosures need to be built.

So as not to hijack the original thread I’m posting a new one on speaker enclosures; I’m wondering if anyone who reads these forums has ever experimented with the typical 3" speakers large scale generally uses and enclosure designs to achieve decent / optimum sound. I’ve read loads of posts, with photos, on sound card and battery installations and have noted how few of them have speaker enclosures. I started building enclosures using 5mm perspex but a friend of mine who spent his younger years building speaker boxes for a music shop suggested I should rather use MDF with insulation wool, etc etc. I think it would be much better to hear from guys who believe they know the winning formula because they have already bought the tee shirt!

#2

One of my biggest gripes about “sound” is the reverberation that I hear, especially from steamers that have the speaker in the tender, with no consideration given to the back wave.

I have an Aristo Vanderbilt tender that I rigged for sound once, I got the sound card from Phoenix, used their speaker, used silicone to seal the speaker to the bottom of the tender, then filled a perfectly sized styrofoam cup with fiberglass insulation, wedged that into place, and almost completely eliminated the reverb.

I was doing some work on the tender, had the sound card on my work bench, and my lovely bride decided to put the card someplace “safe.” That was two years ago. She does not remember where that safe place is.

Ya just gotta love them, anyway… :smiley:

#3

Hi Murray,

Reading the LS mags (European ones) the following have been put into action:

small glass jars (i.e. the size that relish comes in)

parts of empty beer cans

the plastic tops of spray paint cans

chopped plastic medication containers

I don’t remember all of them, but basically anything goes as long as it modifies/amplifies the sound in the direction of the proto.

Note to Steve,

That’s what you get when you let SWMBO near your RR stuff. :stuck_out_tongue: BTW why don’t you order another one, as a spare. You’ll be surprised how that could lead to “instant recall” of any and all safe places in the house. :confused: :smiley: