Quote:
Originally Posted by emmsone
Even if this was all that port was for i'd say that would make it worthwhile!!!
I haven't been keeping up with this thread recently so I hadn't seen this fantastic idea, not only is it interesting and super cool, but coincidentally only a few weeks ago I was in the workshop working on my current guitar build, there was another guy working there that day who builds loudspeakers and he was asking me whether or not I 'tuned' my soundhole as he does the ports on his speakers. As yet I have not 'tuned' a soundhole and i'm not exactly sure how i would, but its definitely something i'm keeping in mind to be considering during future builds.
Is your port here actually 'tuned'? or is it more of an air/sound routing system?
David
|
Thanks for commenting David. To answer your question I can only say yes and no. Speaker cabinets and guitars are very different animals. Typically if they are designing in a tuned sound port for a speaker they are tuning the port to a specific frequency band which is part of the overall design for the speaker. With a soundport we’re trying to sculpt the sound for “the guy behind the speaker” while not diminishing the sound for the listeners out front.
So the “guy behind the speaker” is the player and he can already hear the lower frequencies because lower frequencies tend to fill an area and aren’t as directional as the higher frequencies. So what we’re after is to bring some of those higher frequencies around the corner for the player. We want a pretty wide frequency band so it doesn’t sound like we attached a little transistor radio on the side of the guitar.
Another difference between a speaker cabinet and an acoustic guitar is the speaker is attached to potentially a lot more power where the guitar is limited to the power of six little vibrating strings, so efficiency is a really big deal with guitars. Asking those strings to vibrate a heavily braced top or a heavy bridge is robbing energy that could otherwise go to sound production. The drag of the air going through sound holes and sound ports can steal volume as well.
My purpose is to increase efficiency by cutting some drag and more effectively guide the higher frequencies directly at the player.
I’ve done reasearch on this for awhile and luckily have Alan Carruth in our Granite State Luthiers group who was very helpful. We also have an acoustic engineer who has worked designing speakers.
Hope that was helpful!
Mark