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Monday, March 13, 2017

Realistic Americana Open Baffle Speakers

Another idea planted in the depths of November is to start making open baffle speakers using vintage Utah, Realistic, Electro Voice, Knight and Lafayette full range, co axial and tri axial speakers.

The first one I  built was with a full range 8 inch Realistic Americana. I used a nice 3/4 inch plywood with a light mahogany veneer. These are drivers from the late 1960's into the early 70's. Made by Utah and re branded as Realistic. The frequency range is 45-18000hz with pretty high sensitivity.







The legs are from a pair of children chairs that I found at a thrift store.

I got a chance to sit back and listen last night and I liked what I heard. I had to bump the bass and treble for my taste. I found that they worked best around 2 feet from the back wall. I have read that it is best to do an open baffle with full range speakers, simplicity is the key with no crossover phase shift, or in other words coherent.

More to come later on my sound impressions, so far I prefer it to boxed speakers.

3 comments:

  1. How do they sound compared to traditional enclosure speakers

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  2. I have some 12" americanas but they are 3 way, the tweeter has no crossover, do you know what the crossover point was for these tweeters? Mine have been laying around collecting dust for years and I thought they were meant more for guitars or live production. Never gave them much consideration as a dedicated stereo music type till I saw your pix. I'm very interested in a simple baffle mount test now. Been working with electrostatic tweeters and making tri amped hybrids using dual 8" lowmids and 10" sub along with vintage infinity electrostats or vintage JansZens. JansZen is twice the size of the infinity but uses 2 panels instead of 4. Builds tend to get large, this looks like 1 afternoon to get results. What amp are you using, expected frequency on low end?

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    1. Hi. I did not get much low end with the 8" version and these would be best paired with a sub or larger woofer.

      I have a pair of twelve inch three ways too. It is best to peal the paper off the back side of the basket and the capacitor should be located inside. It will be a girst order single cap. My guess it will be up around a 4.7uf cap.

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