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08-10-2015 Post does not mapped to Knowledge Tree
Romy the Cat


Boston, MA
Posts 10,156
Joined on 05-28-2004
Post #: 1
Post ID: 21841
Reply to: 21841
Wheel-Fi
fiogf49gjkf0d
It looks like Jeffrey Jackson formed a new company and along with his friends makes a new horn-loaded products. 
  
http://www.wheel-fi.com/ 
 
….and do not miss the video.
  
http://www.wheel-fi.com/process/ 
 
Welll, I know very little about what they are planning to do and if they have a formed products or if they more agile and do anything customers want. For sure if they invested efforts and time into a professionally made video then they do have objective to become commercial. I was this weekend in Tanglewood, not far from Wheel-Fi and I semi-wanted to visit Jeffrey but I was with Thomas (he had his first BSO concert) and I decided do not harass people with baby visit. 
 
Let see what Wheel-Fi offers.  It looks like 4-way, with two conical sectorial MF and Upperbass.  Apparently sectorial people heard my plays and started to make the sectorial horn with odd number of section. Bravo, Jeffrey: the horn is 9 sections. It is conical, not my cap of tea but it is what it is. The MF horn is less conical and has some influence of La-horn profile with very nicely torn edge. The tweeter look like a direct radiator or Fostex tweeter, unfortunately mounted into the baffle. I do not know if the driver time-alight, I presume they are and if they are not then then if would not be hard to align them in this configuration. The horns are mounted into a large negative opening panel that I presume serves as host for mid-bass open-baffle channel. In my estimation the size of the baffle shall give a confident 50-55Hz. The driver looks like electromagnetic, I do not after which maker. I do not know if the amplification come with the acoustic system and if it was made specifically for this speaker. 
 
What can I say altogether? A reasonable move with all together fine design.  For sure something like this is not for any room décor but the new Wheel-Fi has own rustic look and feel. I would not estimate how it might sound – it might be anything.   
What I like. Color and pastoral appearance. A very slick transition from conical midbass to semi-tratrix MF. They make own amplification for own drivers. The horn bibbing system = very slick. The shape and curve of open baffle. Jeffrey Jackson involvement – his is one of very few US-based, talented horn enthusiast. 
  
What I do not like. The supporting leg for upper-bass horn – it has to be more elegant solution. The baffle-mounted tweeter. Jeffrey Jackson involvement – he has a tendency to align with nastiest industry scams – all those Robinsons, Weiss and the rest…

Rgs, Romy the Cat

"I wish I could score everything for horns." - Richard Wagner. "Our writing equipment takes part in the forming of our thoughts." - Friedrich Nietzsche
08-11-2015 Post does not mapped to Knowledge Tree
anthony
Posts 338
Joined on 08-18-2014
Post #: 2
Post ID: 21845
Reply to: 21841
I am a bit of a sucker for this stuff...
fiogf49gjkf0d
...not so much the design but the process...selecting timber...taking your time...modern construction methods and ideas applied to "the best" of old technology.  More style than function, but perhaps they may just make some nice sounding stuff too.
08-12-2015 Post does not mapped to Knowledge Tree
noviygera


Chicago, IL
Posts 177
Joined on 06-12-2009
Post #: 3
Post ID: 21846
Reply to: 21841
Www.wheel-fi.com
fiogf49gjkf0d
Nice video. I was disappointed J.Jackson never got back to me after we discussed a custom midbass horn. Maybe he got carried away polishing that walnut Wink
08-12-2015 Post does not mapped to Knowledge Tree
Romy the Cat


Boston, MA
Posts 10,156
Joined on 05-28-2004
Post #: 4
Post ID: 21849
Reply to: 21845
We still do not know how to present speakers.
fiogf49gjkf0d
What is interesting, and this is not Wheel-Fi problem but much wider problem, that we in audio still are clueless how to present speakers. The video above is fine but it is only fine in very confined zone of the Wheel-Fi audio interests. As the result the video is about admiring of product making. For sure it will be many people out there who hook on it as mostly folks in audio interact with products. Well, I am also a “person in audio” and video did nothing to me. The difference is that I am looking for not the porn of speaker making but rather the porn of experiences from the speaker. The video did not cover it and did not even make the effort to go there. They did depict the making process, that in fact made me to question a few aspects of the building (like overly random and not optimized winding of field coil among other things). Anyhow, I do not feel that Wheel-Fi did anything wrong, we just, many years after the Classic Maxell Commercial still are clueless how to depict sound in advertising.

"I wish I could score everything for horns." - Richard Wagner. "Our writing equipment takes part in the forming of our thoughts." - Friedrich Nietzsche
08-12-2015 Post does not mapped to Knowledge Tree
cv
Derby, United Kingdom
Posts 173
Joined on 09-15-2004
Post #: 5
Post ID: 21854
Reply to: 21841
Wheelfi horns and ethos
fiogf49gjkf0d
Hello,
A couple of things to correct here - the horn flare is not conical even though the exterior surface gives that impression.Also I don't believe Jeffrey has any affiliation with weiss or other industry types at all - in fact, from what I've seen the whole wheelfi thing is part of larger project to support local artisans and craftsmanship and help give the area a boost. They've got textile making, bread making, pottery and a load of other things going on there... and I think (at least in the past) all the guys have get involved with that when they can. You might recognise the name of one of the guys on the website, Rob Kalin... having met him a couple times he strikes me as sincere and completely genuine in his vision for the place.
Knowing Jeffrey, the thing will be precisely time aligned. The drivers and amplification are designed and made in-house. One might theorise that the somewhat scattered field coil winding may actually bring some benefits by reducing capacitance - depending on the external supply and interaction with it - but no idea in practice. 
Novi - I suspect he's been ridicuolously busy with all this as I've not managed to get any emails back from him either!
But these days I tend to get more excited (pun intended) about the littluns hitting the piano than field coil drivers... 
cheerscv
08-12-2015 Post does not mapped to Knowledge Tree
Romy the Cat


Boston, MA
Posts 10,156
Joined on 05-28-2004
Post #: 6
Post ID: 21857
Reply to: 21854
From conical to a politician....
fiogf49gjkf0d
 cv wrote:
A couple of things to correct here - the horn flare is not conical even though the exterior surface gives that impression.

I think you are incorrect. Even if the horns do have some internal belly then they still look more conical then exponential to me. The edit of the horn does look very conical. It is not that I said that being conical is wrong itself but in THIS configuration I do not think that conical-like termination is justifiable. They tried to make the horn proportional to the bottom and they did excellent job. However by doing it they decupled the horn from floor. So, having a slow opening profile they gained ~3dB at bottom knew but loosing the floor they might lose those 3dB. It is hard to guess anything as I do not know how and where they crossed the open-baffle bass atop. Let presume that it was let say 100Hz. How to play with the top response of the open-baffle, bottom response of the mysterious profile midbass horn and the type room mode in the 100hz is a complicated subject. The good thing that they have virtually unlimited upper knee of the open baffle but here is a funny part- I do not know how they organized the baffle. I presume that two angled drivers shoot in the whole under the upperbass horn – very elegant and very efficient. With good drivers like Klangfilm 405 for instance they can get a reasonable sound out of it.
 
 cv wrote:
… from what I've seen the whole wheelfi thing is part of larger project to support local artisans and craftsmanship and help give the area a boost.

Might be I need to hook them up with Steve the Farmer, he is from the same region; runs his winery somewhere in there and even became some kind of local politician.


"I wish I could score everything for horns." - Richard Wagner. "Our writing equipment takes part in the forming of our thoughts." - Friedrich Nietzsche
08-12-2015 Post does not mapped to Knowledge Tree
noviygera


Chicago, IL
Posts 177
Joined on 06-12-2009
Post #: 7
Post ID: 21858
Reply to: 21841
Like handicapped people....
fiogf49gjkf0d
In my life I have mostly seen either visual people or sound people. So my guess is if you try to depict sound visually -- ad or video or commercial, you are catering to visual people -- those are the movies people. But movies people don't care about the sound....
I hate commercial TV and indifferent to movies and anything "visual" as a form of art. So seeing something about sound/speakers to me will not be convincing. There is a contradiction to me in the idea of movie about speakers or sound. You either see or hear but not both (to a good degree).
What do others think?
08-13-2015 Post does not mapped to Knowledge Tree
Paul S
San Diego, California, USA
Posts 2,657
Joined on 10-12-2006
Post #: 8
Post ID: 21859
Reply to: 21841
Effing COOL!
fiogf49gjkf0d
Well the video shows some VERY skilled people giving life to their ideas in ways that most of us can only dream about. Of course, none of this says anything about how the system will sound, but I can tell you, when the video ended abruptly I was curious as hell to find out. Perhaps this is the reaction they wanted? OTOH, I am not off seeking them out because their mechanical processes convinced me of the system's worth (as I undersatnd this), so perhaps I am just off the fringe of their targeted market. Looking at this video, I get why Romy connected them with JW and his ilk.

FWIW, the video also shows the wooden horn's long-ish profile clearly enough.


Paul S
08-13-2015 Post does not mapped to Knowledge Tree
cv
Derby, United Kingdom
Posts 173
Joined on 09-15-2004
Post #: 9
Post ID: 21860
Reply to: 21859
Teaser video
fiogf49gjkf0d
Yes, I absolutely loved the ending of the video - such a tease... I would guess that it's exactly what they wanted.

Having viewed it again, Romy, I see what you mean about the larger horns' profile - looks like very truncated expo to me now... I was going from memory of seeing some early prototypes a while back.

I will have to be convinced about the theory of the odd vs even number of petals argument, I can't imagine it makes as much difference as that, at least not as the number of petals increases. But I will leave it open until I've actually heard a comparison.

"Might be I need to hook them up with Steve the Farmer, he is from the same region; runs his winery somewhere in there and even became some kind of local politician."

Ha! Yes I'm well aware that all that has little to do with sound, at least not directly, but it's still a very different raison d'etre to some of the other guys mentioned.
08-13-2015 Post does not mapped to Knowledge Tree
Romy the Cat


Boston, MA
Posts 10,156
Joined on 05-28-2004
Post #: 10
Post ID: 21862
Reply to: 21860
You will not be "convinced".
fiogf49gjkf0d
 cv wrote:
I will have to be convinced about the theory of the odd vs even number of petals argument, I can't imagine it makes as much difference as that, at least not as the number of petals increases. But I will leave it open until I've actually heard a comparison.

There is no way to be convinced about it. This is one of those many moments when we purely driven by theory regarding the subject as to conduct a methodologically proper experiment and assessment regarding the sound of odd vs even number of petals argument is practically impossible for a normal person. I have advocated the rational for this: the less parallel surfaces you have in horn the better it is. Do not forget that in any horn, and particularly in slow opening, the neck right at the trout is very long with very minor initial angle and if you have even number of section then you have effectively to near-parallel sides and it is very easy to predict standing ways are forming in there. The most important in this subject, regardless if my theory is right or not, that for a maker is absolutely make no difference to make odd or even number of petals. So, why not to make only odd number of section and do not think about it anymore.

"I wish I could score everything for horns." - Richard Wagner. "Our writing equipment takes part in the forming of our thoughts." - Friedrich Nietzsche
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