Flamenco 3
Who controls whom here? The speaker controls the room or the room controls the sound? Only the realization in one's own living room can help us to understand how good the Flamenco 3 really is.Perhaps it is a new reference in the 300 Euro ribbon class of small three-way loudspeakers, but certainly a speaker that plays at the top. We shouldn't rest on our laurels as loudspeaker builders, but you can enjoy the music through the Flamenco 3 for a long time until the DIY virus strikes again.
If you have the opportunity to analyze old loudspeakers from the end of the 80's, you will find out that this concept made school back then. The shelf speakers of that time rarely played lower than 90 Hz. By adding an 8 inch or larger subwoofer chassis in a large loudspeaker cabinet and only adding a coil with high inductance to the shelf speaker, the bass extension succeeds perfectly.
Curious now?
Content
1st sound: I'm off to YouTube
2nd technology: Compact floorstanding speaker with audiophile passive subwoofer.
3rd cabinet construction: Living room friendly do-it-yourself design.
1. sound: I am then times on YouTube
One of the highlights is the acoustic guitar as played by Estas Tonne in "The Song of the Golden Dragon". Being there live once would most certainly help to relate and thus understand why ribbons are the first choice here.
My own energy would certainly be at an end after this first song, but thankfully I only need to grab the remote control to fully surrender to the bundle of energy that is Estas Tonne. Here, the almost perfect ribbon is at its best and always keeps the overview despite all attention to detail.
Somewhat exaggerated, one could say that after the second song its use has already paid off, so serious is the sound difference to other tweeters ... However, I see it more as long-term capital invested in audophile listening.
So I'll add another song right away and play "Introspection" by Estas Tonne (Shardo Studios 2016). Here, the Flamenco 3 can demonstrate its full capabilities. With this modern tweeter in combination with paper cones, the balancing act succeeds very well, I think. The entire room is brimming with dynamics.
Away from the high-end world, other pieces of music are also played in the form of modern sound worlds such as those celebrated by David Guetta & Morten in "Never Be Alone".
It's really fun when David Guetta spreads out his sound carpet. Then you almost have the feeling that the baseline controls the room instead of the other way around, which of course doesn't work, but still sounds like that with the flamencos. "Tomorrowland sends its regards." The bass plays dry and fine-drawing, slightly dominant, in other words: controlled and without suppressing information.
Thus, the Flamenco 3 is an all-rounder that the modern sound world needs to do it justice. It is precisely these all-round capabilities that are so hard to find in the jumble of over-supply on the ready-made speaker market. So "build it yourself" is the right motto here and the Flamenco does its job with flying colors even in the digital world and even fills in nicely with digital colleagues as a power supplier or music player.
So we zap once on Snoop Dogg - 'Sweat' Snoop Dogg vs David Guetta - of course as a video remix on Youtube. Here, everything seems a bit flatter in the bass, and yet the songs are performed with a precision and control that other speakers sometimes lack, especially on Youtube.
Who controls whom? The speaker controls the room or the room controls the sound? Only the realization in your own living room can help you realize how good the Flamenco 3 really is. Another click and the song change takes place on YouTube:
This time, the Kiesza - Hideaway dance spectacle directs the senses more to the picture - but that is almost standard nowadays - with the Flamenco 3, the "home cinema" in the economy version is already fun with two compact speakers.
The dry and always controlled baseline is not to be overheard, but it doesn't sound weak at any time. A good movie has always been determined by the sound, why should anything change in this day and age? Try it yourself with the Flamenco 3 - it's worth a try in any case, but that's just a suggestion.
Perhaps it is even a kind of new reference in the 300 euro ribbon class of small three-way speakers, but certainly a box that plays at the top. We shouldn't rest on our laurels as loudspeaker builders, but you can enjoy the music through the Flamenco 3 for a long time until the DIY virus strikes again.
2. technology: compact floorstanding speaker with audiophile bass
If you haven't left us here yet, you might also be interested in what our team was thinking when developing the Flamenco.
The basis is something almost retro: a compact speaker with a passive subwoofer - a bass extension. The basic idea is that a floorstanding speaker can also be built from a shelf speaker. Budget-friendly thought, one would say today. Good things should be kept and so it is good for all those who later want to build a 3 from a Flamenco 1.
If one has the possibility to analyze old loudspeakers from the end of the 80's, one finds out that this concept made school at that time. The shelf speakers of that time rarely played lower than 90 Hz. By adding an 8 inch or larger subwoofer chassis in a large loudspeaker cabinet and only adding a coil with high inductance to the shelf speaker, the bass extension succeeds perfectly.
We now take up this "very old school" concept again with the Flamenco 3. In terms of sound, it is superior to three-way speakers in principle, since it has an exemplary behavior in terms of time, so that the spatial reproduction of the music is perfect even in the acoustically difficult living room. In terms of the crossover, such a circuit can be realized with only a few components. The icing on the cake is that the shelf speaker can continue to be used unchanged in the event of a bass extension for another room size, for example as a rear speaker for the home theater.
The parallel connection of the compact speaker with the bass extension is also a rather simple and clever solution in this case. If you look at the impedance measurement, it quickly becomes clear that the "very old school" solution hardly falls below 6 ohms in total due to the offset mounting resonances of the drivers, with a minimum of just over 5 ohms at 45 Hz - that's also "old school". If you still own an old vintage amplifier, you will have a lot of fun with this speaker, even though today power-saving chips are not to be despised as amplifiers. Streaming is hip.
The economic thought is currently more present than ever and for all economists among you: this passive variant is definitely cheaper than an active subwoofer.
So now we are at the control center of the box: the crossover.
In order to optimally achieve an objective with few components, we have again carefully selected the appropriate components from the extensive Intertechnik range and, using an unconventional filter circuit with a parallel connection of coils in the low-mid range, built a crossover that supports the midrange so that it plays more balanced. More balanced means without relevant emphasis in any frequency range. The coupling of the ribbon is quasi "English", to choose this already old term. It refers to a rather pronounced dip in the presence range, which leads to a beautiful acoustic stage. According to these old crossover concepts, the crossover frequency is set at 3 kHz, which is ideal for the drivers we use. In this cabinet only the bass gets a bass reflex port, the bass-midrange driver plays here in a closed volume.
The crossovers can also be mounted very easily in this cabinet: Behind the bass on the rear panel there is plenty of room for the two-way crossover of the top unit and the small high-pass crossover for the subwoofer can be mounted a bit lower - i.e. outside the magnetic interference range - above the lower cabinet divider.
3. housing construction: living room friendly do-it-yourself design.
Wood list: 19 mm (rounded to whole centimeters so that the protrusions - crooked edges from cutting - can be sanded flat): The model pictures illustrate the simple construction of the cabinet.
Front: 1 piece 92 cm x 25 cm
back panel: 1 piece 92 cm x 21 cm
Lid + bottom + inner divider: 4 pieces 29 cm x 21 cm
Vertical inner divider: 1 piece 30 cm x 21 cm
Small inner dividers: 2 pieces 10 cm x 21 cm
Sides: 2 pieces 92 cm x 31 cm
Whether you order the baffle from Intertechnik, mill it yourself or saw it out with a jigsaw is up to you.
And as always, we try to make everything as simple as possible. A few animated drawings are out of place here. The real construction is the only way to bring it closer to the self-builder. For the beginner the bass reflex cutout is quite manageable with the hole circle saw or the jigsaw. The dividers and braces are all easy to saw out as well. Glue and tension straps should be available for clamping the cabinet. To prepare the finish, the wood should be sanded well with whatever sanding tools you have available.
Painting has already been described in detail in the report on the Flamenco1-2 and will not be discussed again here.
The final work steps are always exciting because the first listening is just around the corner.
The soldering of the chassis is done quickly. At the tweeter, the cables are simply screwed together. This is a clean job.
Damping is also an important issue if you take speaker design seriously! Minimizing the damping in the cabinets should always be an objective if you don't want to just listen loud and crude, but want to create goosebumps. You can basically figure out the right amount of damping like this: If the sound remains obtrusive and indistinct and the frequency response wavy, there is definitely too little damping in the cabinet. If there is a lot of damping, the sound image lacks naturalness. The speaker sounds dead. That sounds harsh, but that's the way it is.
In between there is the emotionally coherent and homogeneous playing box. That is our goal, especially with this series. So in the midrange cabinet we put in half a mat of Sonofil. There is no damping in the bass cabinet, so work on it if necessary. And that's fun, you become your own bass designer, so to speak.
I needed some new spirit for the binding posts and have put out some other nice parts from the Intertechnik store. Have a look in the store. Maybe you will find what you like.
The screwing of all chassis is self-explanatory. The bass reflex tubes are installed untrimmed. Now listen to them and if you need more drive in the bass range, you can shorten them by 2-3cm.
They look chic and everything is said about the sound. There remains only to mention the great price-performance ratio of the Flamenco 3.
I'm off.
Greeting Marcus Nötzel
Flamenco 3 in the sights of the steel constructor
Contribution from Rene
So friends of wet shaving, Today is the time, here is presented today, the on speaker construction, probably first, childproof top speaker!
But that's not all! Still a world first there will be, I will comment on sound for the first time!
But back to the beginning
At Marcus in Kerpen I dusted off two cases for the Flamenco 3. A real bargain, even made by a carpenter. Ready primed. So I could start right away.
I would like to spare you the 10,000th story of glued boards that are sanded, primed and painted. Everyone who is interested in this has seen it so many times. Also there are no pictures of chassis and switches being screwed on for the umpteenth time. No, you can see that in one of the many other great reports here.
So, as it probably happens to everyone who has children, they will notice that the chassis become more and more interesting for children and attract fingers magically, just like throwing projectiles. As everyone who "knows" me or my reports should be aware, the front covering must be made of steel.
Reason number 1: It is super stable, just right for my requirements.
Reason number 2: It will look great!
Reason number 3: It is steel! (Which alone would be reason enough ;-).....)
So I got myself some super fine perforated steel, which I don't think has any acoustic drawbacks. Then a bit of flat iron and some pipe.
The perforated sheet is actually easy to bend but it should give me more trouble than I thought. I used a die and a hydraulic press to form the flat iron into a round shape. Then I clamped the perforated plate between two of the flat bars and welded them together. Here, the sheet metal proved to be extremely troublesome. I needed some convincing to get it into shape.
Fortunately, I still had a large pipe on which I could pre-bend the sheet. I also added square tubing to the sides to act as a support and help keep it in shape, as the sheet metal retained a tremendous amount of tension. I decided to use a plug-in system, quick, easy, sturdy.
The plates with the holder are simply screwed to the housing, and the sign is put on it and fixed with screws. The result is convincing! Super robust and I think a real feast for the eyes.
This withstands all attacks from small monsters and has no disadvantages acoustically.
Nice side effect: the bottom part can be aligned straight, and the top to the listening position. Due to the shield, this is not even particularly noticeable.
Now about the sound!
Yes, I heard correctly, for the first time as announced, I write something about the sound.
Nevertheless, my statement remains: There is no way around the test listening.
So the two Stahlmencos, are freshly armored in the living room. Approx. 30QM, high ceiling (2.50m to 3.30m sloping roof) tiles and quite reverberant. I must say I like the sound very much. They resolve very well, and the ribbon makes a characteristically detailed sound. The guitar playing of Lofgren, or whatever his name is ; -) sounds just fantastic! They make a huge stage, and fill the whole room with their sound.
A real madness is also the bass that the little Robocop's make. I have turned the AV almost all the way down and it's still thick enough, whether film or music, the two can play everything.
For a large and heavily fought home theater I would not recommend them now, they would probably run out of breath, but in a normal living room they are probably hard to beat at the price.
I just like the sound of them. The build was fun as always but also nerve wracking. It was nice that I didn't have to deal with the wood crap this time.
For those who also want to save themselves the work, I can highly recommend the case kits. I already used them for the S4 and the S4 Center and it couldn't be easier.
I will not paint the grilles for the time being, I put them up on a trial basis and I like it so much that I didn't take them down again ;-) you know how it is.
So dare the little dance and go for the Flamenco. For the price, my full recommendation.
Greetings Rene
Flamenco 3 built as an alternative concept - Flamenco 1 and bass extension
Contribution from Herbert
Iis this now my third Flamenco variant, or the extended variant of the One? Of course both, because my built variant is a construction concept of the Flamenco 3. A concept that can be quite useful for some situations. On the one hand, the possibility of full power at the desk, if you imagine that the separate bass extension is under the desk and the small ones above. Of course, you can also use only the small ones or the complete combo in the living room. So the split design offers more flexibility than if they were built in one cabinet.
Since I have already built the 2s, the question of a possible audible difference to this new variant arises. The difference is supposed to be relatively small, but that was not the only reason to add the power of the bass extension to the 1s. Ultimately, I was interested in expanding the possibilities, as described above, especially since the expansion is within reasonably affordable proportions. It would be a pity not to build the bass extension if you have already built the ones.
In terms of style, I have taken a new path by using two contrasting wood types, so I have also made the small ones for the top. First I had built them in beech. After my oak/black walnut combo on the Flamenco 2, I now made them in cherry and birch. I changed the case of the bass extension a bit and I had a reason for that. I'm thinking of using the combination F1+bass extension for the desk and for this, these housings would have to have space under the table. And since the table also has a drawer, I have just over 60cm of space. The missing volume, by the loss in height I have supplemented in depth.
Always a huge joy when packages arrive
Yes, of course, one is sincerely pleased when a package from Intertechnik arrives, that is certainly to compare when women get a package from a shoe or fashion store. As always neatly packaged, the instructions immediately at hand, just perfect. All parts of the crossover are also carefully packed separately.
Ready for first use
The Flamenco number 2 develop a tremendous dynamic and are bursting with power, how will the new combination unfold here?
I have already described what the ribbon is capable of with the Flamenco 1 and 2. With the F2, two 7" provide for mid and bass, with the F1+Bass, the 5" of the F1 plays the mid-woofer range and an 8" provides for the deep bass. If you ask me now about the difference between Flamenco 2 and 1+Bass, well, what do you think is more powerful, a 7" supported by another 7 or an 8? The 8" is even more powerful, for the first time in my building history I had to set the bass on the amp to minus- to minus 0.5 to be exact, with the F2s it still goes just at 0.5 above zero. And even that is just enough to keep the glasses from clinking. The glasses in the room were the benchmark, so to speak, for both speaker variants for the bass setting. Although the room itself is not at all optimal for testing speakers. It is not a living room, but a room that is used for other purposes. But in the break-in period, my speakers often remain for two to three weeks still in this room or just in the workshop, before they "get assigned" a living room or their task.
Sound, dynamics and experiments
Nevertheless, both versions play just as airy and cheerful, show no weaknesses, and differ minimally in the mid-frequency range, where one could perhaps give the 3s the preference. In the overall impression, however, I can't disadvantage the 2s at all, since they even seem a bit more harmonious overall. However, this could also be due to the fact that the 3s have only just been finished and the 2s have already been played for a few weeks. In the same way, I have not equipped the housing completely without Sonofil, as it is recommended in the construction plan, but have inserted a half mat behind the driver for the time being. But that doesn't mean that it will stay like that, because during the break-in phase it can still change. I also believe that even this measure is more attributable to the room and I will remove the Sonofil again when they are in the living room. As I said, the impressions are now fresh after the first rehearsals.
You can also experiment a bit with closing the bass reflex port of the top-mounted Flamenco 1 with Sonofil. You can't see it anyway, since the tube is mounted at the back. With the Flamenco 3 as a floorstanding speaker, the bass-midrange driver also acts in a closed cabinet, so it's worth a try, I thought. In the room mentioned, this resulted in an improvement, so I could even remove the sonofilm mat in the woofer cabinet again, interesting!
Music genres I tried different, besides any pieces with plucked and stringed instruments, just film music is terrific from both great flamencos. I played some pieces by Gustavo Santaolalla ("The Last of us") and Alexander Jaen ("Stampede" with Lindsey Stirling), that's pretty awesome. I also rediscovered some pieces from the Avatar film score, like "Jake's First flight", "Jake enter his Avatar World" from minute 2:50 and "Catering all the Navi' Clans" from minute 2:20, well some music pieces start to become real highlight's only later. Tommee Profitt is also one of my frequently heard artists at the moment. "In the End" by Fleurie, as well as "Free" by Svrcina for example, once again terrific. For vocals, perhaps minimal advantages for the Flamenco 3. In my opinion, the closed bass reflex tube has brought the Flamenco 3 exactly where I previously mentioned the F2 slightly in advantage, they have gained in the overall harmonic impression. But as I said, for a real comparison I'll set them up in the living room and now I know where to start.
In the meantime, I have the impression that the two models are becoming more and more alike. Which of course raises the question of whether the development of both variants was necessary. I say, yes, both have their justification. The F3 or the F1+bass extension, that is the classic variant of the original development. And the F2 are unbeatable in their slim design, with the same performance as the F3 and the possibly minimally more harmonious dynamics. The fact that I now happen to have built both variants is due to rather exceptional circumstances. First, the Einser built for my parents, from sheer enthusiasm about it arose the desire for a larger variant the Flamenco 2, so I get the Einser again for me, as a computer speaker. And finally the wish for the solution with the bass extension arose with me.
Well, that's it again, it only remains for me to give my recommendation. They are a price-performance tip, in any case, and indeed both or all Flamenco kits.
DIY loudspeaker building from a different perspective
The other day I was reading older construction reports and an opinion about self-building speakers stuck with me. Someone wrote that when you build your own speakers, you are in your element and virtually put everyday life aside. Yes, you really are in a world we have long forgotten for these building phases, namely in our own world of thought. As always, when we do something of our own accord, only very few do anything, but most let do and give the person money for it. But buying is not in our nature, but MAKING. Buying removes us more and more from being human and turns us more and more into pure consumers.
There are many great building reports, where people here with the simplest means implement their building projects, people who have no workshop. I think that's really great. Not everyone is as lucky as I am to have a workshop and when I was living in an apartment, I longed for such an opportunity. At the time I didn't know anything about getting the components, the wooden parts, ready to assemble, maybe that didn't exist back then. But if I didn't have a workshop, that would certainly be an option for me, and it can be assembled in an apartment. Painting is then again another thing. Especially with MDF, with which most build their cabinets, the surface treatment is relatively expensive, with insulating, priming and painting. Wooden panels are more expensive, but the surface only needs a simple "oiling" with a clean rag in the end, done.
I am infinitely grateful for the opportunity to work in a specially equipped workshop. Do-it-yourself has changed my life back to my roots, as a craftsman, as a carpenter, as a taster and discoverer, etc. It's a life that makes you curious again, about what's to come. It is a life that makes me curious again about what is to come, it is exciting again and no languishing in the consumer frenzy. I look forward to new experiments and hope for a speaker project soon.