John Sayers' Recording Studio Design Forum Archive

Hi,

I'm actually designing the soffit mounting system for my CR and was thinking that I maybe could try something a little bit different...

Is there any "success story" of people building (DIY) baffle plan (speakers drivers mounted on a very tall MDF front plate, open back) as a control room monitoring system?

Do you think that it will generate SBIR issues?

There was something similar in that thread but couldn't find more information on the topic (in a studio context at least).
http://johnlsayers.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=18340

I'm just wondering why you would want to do that? What's the reason for leaving the back open?

- Stuart -

Low sound distorsion, cheap, easy to build.

cheap, easy to build.

If you want to build a soffit properly, those two words cannot be in your vocabulary!

Let's run by the theory: The front baffle must be massive (extremely heavy: some people use concrete or stone). It must be rigid. It must be large. Combine those three, and you come to the conclusion that the structure supporting the baffle, must be very tough, very hefty, very rigid, and very massive itself. Add to that the need to either hold the speaker extremely rigidly, or float it fully, and that adds even more complexity to the structure. Can you see the $$$$ signs adding up?

If a soffit is going to work the way it is supposed to work, it won't be cheap, and it won't be easy.

That's not to say that it is too complicated for most people to build! Not at all. Pretty much anyone that has basic workshop skills and a reasonable set of tools can do it. It just requires careful design, and careful building.

Low sound distorsion,

A soffit won't reduce sound distortion much: That's a function of the speaker itself. What a flush mount (soffit) will do for you, is to get rid of the artifacts associated with having the speaker inside the room. Those go away, because the speaker is not in the room any more: technically, it is outside of the room, since it is flush with the wall. But if you don't have sides top, bottom and a back on your soffit, then you have not removed it from the room at all! It is still in the room, just with a much larger front baffle. Some of the artifacts will be reduces like that, yes, but some won't, because the speaker is still in the room.

- Stuart -

what are you talking about? It looks funny... [SPAM LINK DELETED. SPAMMER DELETED]

infinair wrote:what are you talking about? It looks funny...

... and now YOU look funny, sitting out there in the cold, with no more access to the forum....

Bye! Enjoy the joke!


- Stuart -