Flamenco 2
The second design in the Flamenco family is a two-and-a-half-way speaker developed according to the same criteria as the Flamenco 3 with internal bass extension. The Flamenco 2 is a floorstanding speaker that scores with a full-blown bass performance despite its handy dimensions and proves that it sounds much bigger than its smart dimensions would suggest.
Curious now?
Content
1st technology: It works! High cutoff frequency of 3 kHz for audiophile ribbon.
2. cabinet construction: cabinet with double ventilated bass system.
3. sound: Authentic and present, this is how the harmonic pair of Flamenco presents itself.
1st technology: It works! High crossover frequency of 3 kHz for audiophile ribbon
The objective behind this speaker concept is to combine the acoustic playing capacity of the Flamenco 1 with additional bass extension in one speaker cabinet while reducing the overall volume. Here, two 7 inch bass-midrange drivers as double bass drivers are the ideal basis. In order to elicit the full bass power from the drivers, this speaker cabinet has a double-vented enclosure, i.e. two reflex tubes far away from each other, which allow the air column in the cabinet to oscillate optimally.
The basis of the Flamenco 2 are the rather perfect 18 cm chassis Dayton reference RS180 with the particularly audiophile Fountek ribbon neo CD 3.0. which we have already described in detail in the Flamenco 1.
The Dayton Referenz RS180 is exceptional in its performance in the 7 inch class with a diaphragm area of approx. 120 cm2. It can play with a silky, finely resolved sound right into the high frequency range. Even in this frequency range - at the upper end of its working range - it can hold a candle to its little brother, the RS150. As a rule, diaphragms become softer towards the edges with increasing size and only play higher frequencies with the inner area of the diaphragm or the dust dome.
If a bass-midrange driver is coupled to a ribbon, it must be able to play cleanly into the mid-high range. A poor diaphragm loses precision in the high frequency range due to partial vibrations, i.e. the opposing deformation of the diaphragm at certain frequencies. This loss, which usually occurs, is especially noticeable in female vocals, which then sound less present and more muffled, powerless and harsh. This deficit is common in a two-half-way speaker with two 7-inch drivers and a high crossover frequency of 3 kHz, and it is therefore understandable that modern designs usually (have to) couple the tweeter lower in the range of 1.5 kHz to 2 kHz in order to circumvent precisely the problem zone mentioned. The Flamenco 2 does not have this deficit: Male and female voices sound very authentic and present - a definite plus point of this speaker.
Measurements: Frequency response, impedance, distortion, waterfall, angle.
2. cabinet construction: cabinet with double ventilated bass system
The housing construction in classic DIY manner or as a housing kit available from us in the store.
Front and back: 2 pieces 92 cm x 20 cm
Side walls: 2 pieces 92 cm x 24 cm
bottoms: 4 pieces 16 cm x 24 cm
The board list for 19 mm is rounded to whole cm. These protrude about 1 mm with a good DIY cut and can therefore be sanded flat very easily.
The choice fell on the housing kit . The lamellos are cross-linked with glue and the precisely fitting parts are put together like a puzzle.
In the rear part there is a shadow gap, which makes the rear panel stand out discreetly from the rest.
The two small "bar stools" are glued together with the lid and the side wall.
Two to three tension straps are ideal. They pull the case into the right position. Building a case simply and effectively is possible after all.
Depending on what you want to do, the baffle can be placed on the cabinet body before or after. The chassis cutouts are already there, so only a little fine-tuning is needed.
The woofer crossover with the core coil fits very well on the rear panel behind the woofer.
The mid-bass and tweeter crossover fits on the rear panel behind the mid-bass driver. There are no space problems here.
The separator board has been geometrically optimized so that it is easy to manufacture and to cut out with a jigsaw.
and easy to cut out with a jigsaw. This also provides stability in the cabinet
The damping consists in the low-midrange compartment of about 1/2 mat black Sonofil behind the driver and in the low-frequency compartment on the rear wall of about 1/3 mat black Sonofil.
Two HP70 untrimmed bass reflex tubes are installed.
A flamenco dancer in red, she loosens up the overall black image
This time the focus was on trying out, which is always fun. There was a can of blackboard lacquer from the shelf. This served me as a primer for the black yacht varnish. I painted the baffle and the rest of the cabinet with the blackboard lacquer, which suited me from the time factor and the simplicity.
Trying two shades of black was not going to create a doomsday mood, so I decided to do a little meditative work to get away from it all and tried my hand at painting.
Since the speaker is called Flamenco, you can easily see the lady with a little imagination.
3rd sound: Authentic and present, this is how the harmonic pair of flamenco presents itself
The result can be seen and heard.
The Flamenco 2 is an alternative to the 3 when living space is limited. It does not need to hide behind the Flamenco 3 and is in no way inferior to it. Only the handy cabinet dimensions can irritate one or the other music listener. The Flamenco 2 once again shows that two 7 inch bass-midrange drivers can easily take on an 8 inch chassis. The Flamenco 2 also makes optimal use of the cabinet volume, as well as the balancing act between bass power and midrange resolution. This is where personal preferences decide. 2.5 ways or 3 ways, each has its chocolate sides.
Flamenco 2, Oliver's debut
Report from Oliver
I like music. Unfortunately, I get to listen to my music in peace far too rarely. But when I do find the peace and quiet, I want my music to sound good. No, not just good, but atmospheric, rousing and so that I do not want to stop.
The better is the enemy of the good.
Following this motto, at some point I had the idea to build myself a few great floorstanding speakers. Actually, I am very satisfied with my music and the sound, but I wanted to create something special, which you can not buy in the store. So I went to Intertechnik's DIY store, browsed around, wrote an email and shortly after talked to Marcus Nötzel on the phone, who helped me a lot in my decision-making process. Now I knew: It should be Flamenco 2, I like ribbon tweeters and the costs were manageable. After all, it was an experiment with an unclear outcome, because I am not a craftsman at all.
So: kit ordered, crossovers soldering I can probably, milling not so, so I also ordered the baffles. The rest of the cabinet I wanted to build in real wood. That was the idea. But in reality I couldn't find any wood I liked, so according to the board list everything was cut in MDF from the hardware store. The following assembly of the cabinets went relatively smoothly, but not without minor difficulties.
Difficulty 1: Drill holes with 97mm diameter for the bass reflex tubes.
Solution: A continuously adjustable hole saw (there's among others from Wolfcraft on Amazon), but I had to make a few "test holes" until the right diameter was found.
Difficulty 2: The delivered baffle has a shadow gap, which I do not like. Solution: Filling the shadow gap. To do this, however, the cabinet must be completely finished, sealed and glued. This leads to difficulty 3.
Difficulty 3: Where do I put the terminals for the connection cables?
Here I thought about it for a long time, but it didn't change anything. I would have liked to put them as far down as possible, but when the case is closed, you can't get to them to connect the cables inside. So the holes had to be somewhere where you can still get to them through the cutouts in the baffle. So there, where later approximately the crossovers will sit.
So: holes drilled slightly below the woofers, and ideally BEFORE the cabinet is completely closed....!
As a small change I have now first equipped the crossovers. It has really been thought of everything in the kit, cable ties, screws, everything there. There is a video on YouTube from Loudspeakerbuilding L(autsprecherbau), which describes very factually the construction of crossovers - a good help.
Video:
I was surprised by the weight of the woofer crossover: The module weighed a whopping 1.2 kg on my wife's kitchen scales, which is why I decided to mount the woofer crossover inside the speaker so that it is supported on the "bar stools" and thus does not have to bear the entire weight of the screws.
Difficulty 4: With the new installation position of the woofer crossover I covered my holes for the binding posts.
Solution: Complaining didn't help. New holes had to be drilled, this time between woofer and mid-woofer, and the whole thing through the cutouts in the baffle due to the meanwhile nicely glued cabinet. Good for the one who owns a small (!) cordless drill!
The good news: There was still enough putty left to close the old holes again!
I wanted to have a shabby look. Then sanded through again in places and final treated with black wax. The shabby look has the nice side effect that small errors and botch-ups of my amateurish wood construction are not so noticeable....! :-)
Now solder the cables, insert the drivers and screw it tight - done!
And now they are here in the living room and have played about 20 hours so far: My homemade Flamenco 2 boxes, which fill me a little with pride!
The sound is of course difficult to describe. First, I am amazed at the deep and powerful bass. One wonders where all the bass comes from - madness. I listen to a lot of unplugged concerts, so I turned out some bass earlier. The voices are wonderfully authentic, and overall I would describe the sound as warm and coherent. I'm very curious to see how it is when everything is recorded and we have gotten used to each other.
In conclusion I must say: The experiment was successful! The self-build was a lot of fun and I am living proof that you don't have to be a woodworm to get a halfway decent speaker built! The support from Intertechnik is great, the kit was near perfect with all the trimmings and my questions during the build were answered very quickly.
I will certainly go a second time among the loudspeaker self-builders. But now I would like to listen to music in peace for a while.
Thank you, Marcus!
Flamenco 2 – Design according to my wishes
Contribution from Franz
A few months ago, I heard in a hi-fi studio a very appealing box from a northern German supplier, which had a remarkable clear and clean reproduction of voices and instruments with its tweeter ribbon. On the one hand, however, it was not quite cheap and on the other hand, like almost all commercially available devices, it was only available in black or white. Both caused me to refrain from buying it.
Actually, only the self-construction of loudspeaker boxes allows to combine optical design wishes and sound requirements in such a way that sound and optics fit to the home furnishings. Therefore, I decided to try it again as a craftsman.
The kit for the Flamenco 2 with a ribbon tweeter offered on the Internet at Satorique.de aroused in me the hope to get similar good sound characteristics as from the ready-made box and to achieve an optically suitable overall picture. Therefore I designed a slightly modified version of the Flamenco 2 in height, width and depth, but with the same volume. I had all the wooden parts cut to fit (reasonably) from glued wood at the hardware store.
I am now very satisfied with the result. All parts from Intertechnik arrived well packed. The building instructions were sufficient and only my craftsmanship ensured that the construction took a few weeks.
I am also positively impressed by the sound. The sound resolution in the high range I feel very clean and the dry and surprisingly powerful for the size of the box bass impresses me. Now, at about a third of the price of the Kiel speaker, I have found a good sounding and - almost more importantly for me - a pair of speakers that fit in with the furnishings.
Greetings from Bavaria
Flamenco 2 - powerful, dynamic and a new style
Report from Herbert
I wanted to build the Flamenco 2 because, firstly, I have already built the small Flamenco 1 and am quite enthusiastic about it and, secondly, the space is nevertheless so limited that the Flamenco 3 would be too big. The difference between the variants 2 and 3 will be limited and especially the design fits perfectly to the 2s. I would have to build the 3s a few millimeters wider because of the design frames.
Why do I like the Flamencos? On the one hand, because of the tweeter: What I would not have thought possible before, because I could never listen to ribbons up to the Flamenco 1 longer, because they annoyed me easily. Then I built the Flamenco 1 and was thrilled. Again and again I discover new nuances of my favorite music. I sometimes sit in front of the computer and often I can't get away from listening to music, especially lately I also changed amplifiers and am quite taken with a Bluesound Powernode. I know Class D etc., but honestly, the best I could find in the streaming area.
Through my anyway quite a few speaker variations built, I have now finally arrived at ribbon tweeters. It was a process from "not wanting to believe" to growing curiosity and curiosity won out, again and again. But isn't it our curiosity that drives us on, that spurs us on to try out the unknown again and again, in order to make this or that experience? There is always a feeling of this curiosity, like "I'll try this one, but then it's over". Whether it is then actually enough at some point, I also don't know. Probably not, because there will always be new kit variants that make me curious.
Below the pictures of the construction of the Flamenco 2
A new design idea
The goal this time was also to find an own style. So now this new look has been created. The combination of 2 types of wood, which form a contrast in their color scheme and yet harmonize. Where it does not always have to be a second type of wood, so I have already combined oak and the color bog oak, so oak on bog oak stained and oiled. Here at the Flamencos I have now combined oak with black walnut and treated different surfaces. The oak was provided with an oil that retains the natural raw wood effect of the oak and the black walnut was provided with pure wood wax, so that just the beautiful coloring of the black walnut is expressed.
The narrow frame around the front was created by rabbet milling, and the body itself was miter glued. The sides, lid and base were designed to be slightly thicker for this rebate milling, so that nothing changes in the volume itself. For this design, accordingly, rather slim speaker constructions are suitable, since from the outset wide constructions by the frame grow even more in width. In principle, I love this design, even if I'm still a bit skeptical because of the minimal glue area at the miter joint, if the wood dries even very slightly, an unsightly opening could arise here.
Waxing and oiling
I taped off the narrow oak frame before waxing so that the oak wood also remains wax-free at the edge. The wax itself, as well as the oil are completely problem-free to apply and in addition environmentally friendly.
What speaks for the Flamencos is the ribbon tweeter and its radiation in the width. If you are not sitting in a perfect stereo triangle, domes quickly sound different, so especially with the tweeter you quickly notice the difference, because the sound impression is "duller", because you are not in the area of the "sound cone" and that can also be quite annoying. We mostly listen to music in different rooms when we move, or when we sit at the table and not in the couch area, which is where the speakers are aimed. In my opinion, a ribbon has its advantages here, since the radiation is much better in the width.
And something else speaks clearly for the Flamenco series and indeed for all: the incredible price-performance ratio. You get not only great drivers but also a perfect crossover. Either already built up, or to be built up on printed circuit boards.
The small Flamenco1 surprised me at that time, the Flamenco2 are the continuation. Simply ingenious! That's all it takes, isn't it? Perfect tuning, great dynamics and a tweeter that offers me again and again: Why did I discover construction variants with ribbons only so late? The same would probably apply to the beryllium tweeters of the Satorique series. And again my curiosity germinates!
The first photos are usually taken in the workshop and indeed they stay there for a week or two. Firstly, I then have a wonderful sound in the workshop for about 2 weeks and secondly, oils also spread odors that dissipate only after a few days. Only when it is so far that they are halfway odorless, they come into the living room.
I have one more point!
About the sound, which is important for most people here, I can say, first read my description of the Flamenco 1! With the small, the ribbon is more present, which contributes to an incredibly great resolution. With the large Flamenco 2, the ribbon fades into the background a bit, but loses none of its strengths. A great sound resolution meets a wonderful wide dispersion and fills the whole room. The two 7" do the rest and the low tones are now much more present compared to the Flamenco 1 and provide a harmonious dynamic, that's what I would call it anyway and I think that is also a very apt description.
One must not forget here, the small Flamenco 1 are just 20x20x33cm in size, deliver for this small size a wonderful performance, but are probably intended more as computer speakers or speakers for smaller rooms, such as for kitchen, office or room. Although I'm not so sure about that, because they also deliver dynamics by the way, which gives an idea of how the two larger variants, Flamenco 2 + 3, can sound. And they do, the Flamenco 2 live up to the promise made by the smaller Flamenco 1. The Flamenco 2 create exactly what you are actually looking for all the time as a speaker builder, power, dynamics and a clear resolution and I can only repeat myself, even at a top price.