SLS Ripole Subs

Dedicated to those large boxes at one end of the room
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Jazzman53
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#1 SLS Ripole Subs

Post by Jazzman53 »

Let me say up front that I am not an expert on Ripole subs and I have no measuring gear or response curves to show.

In my application I only use them to fill in the bottom end below 60Hz so I’m not likely utilizing their full potential. As crossed in, I rarely hear them unless I’m playing something with profound low bass like Bela Fleck’s “Flight of the Cosmic Hippo? -- and then I appreciate how their subtle tones seem to appear from nowhere and recede back to nowhere.

Unlike the large sealed box sub I was using previously, these compact little subs blend quite well with my main speakers and they don’t make the room boom. At first I was a bit disappointed at their inefficiency and tendency to bottom out the woofers if pushed but I’ve since grown to appreciate what they do and now I love them for playing my jazz.

Even so, I hesitate to recommend Ripoles to anyone who hasn’t experienced dipole bass. There’s one fellow on the DIY Audio Forum that bad-mouths Ripoles every chance he gets but others on the forum love their clean, subtle, non-boomy sound.

They make for interesting conversation anyhow!

Write-up and build photos:
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Ozziozzi
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#2 Re: SLS Ripole Subs

Post by Ozziozzi »

Re: SLS Ripole Subs | Hi Jazzman, I read with interest your post on RIPOLE sub. I have read the original webpage by Reidenthaler ( sp?), but your pictures and assembly plans are much easier to follow;) Maybe I' m just not good at interpreting plans. However, I have a question. Why do the magnets have to poke through the sides of the ripoles? Is it a necessity to brace the drivers or enclosure, or to reduce the overall width of the ripoles? Not doing this would allow the fitting of various drivers to assess their suitability.

I remember from previous posts on this and other fora that as OBs are less sensitive to TS parameters of bass drivers and, as ripoles are a special case of OB (W baffle ?), TS parameters of drivers may be less important in ripoles. For example, Could I get away with lower Qts value woofers or (heresy alert) even bass drivers that are similar but not identical, either in each ripole or in each pair of ripoles. I plan to experiment, but just wondered if you or anyone else has tried this approach. Why I ask is that I have a bunch of very similar 12" bass drivers (in pairs) just sitting around. I'm thinking that Mismatched drivers in an enclosure or two enclosures with different (matched) pairs of drivers either might not matter or even complement each other. I plan on bi-amping bass and FR with active XO. Hefty SS amp on Bass and valve amp on FR so sensitivities not an issue.

BTW I am planning to use the ripoles as bass reinforcement 40-160 Hz for FR OB drivers, not as true "sub-woofers". In effect they would end up similar to SLs slot-loaded bass idea, but would enable a narrower width matching the FR baffle and allow me to try out various FR drivers (from 4" to 8") on separate or attached baffles.

Any suggestions very welcome.

Ozziozzi
Jazzman53
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#3 Re: SLS Ripole Subs

Post by Jazzman53 »

Re: SLS Ripole Subs | <r>Looks like they made it into a commercial product :

"http://www.voxativ.com/en/loudspeakers/the-987-system/"
Ozziozzi
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#4 Re: SLS Ripole Subs

Post by Ozziozzi »

Hi Ozziozzi,

I apologize for not responding sooner but I don't have email notification setup and I seldom check the postings.

Anyway, to answer your question: There is no requirement that the magnets protrude and they are not attached to the sidewall, just poking thru with a rubber gasket sealing the gap.

The Ripole guidelines allow some variation in chamber volumes and I chose to go to the low end of the volume in order to minimize the physical size of the subs. That's really the only reason.... and going so small cost me a bit of efficiency, I think... but I like them.
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IslandPink
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#5 Re: SLS Ripole Subs

Post by IslandPink »

Re: SLS Ripole Subs | Hi Jazzman, thanks for your reply. I guess if the dimensions of ripoles are not that critical I can almost make design mine by reverse engineering ones I see based on the size of the drivers. I would also like to incorporate the output slot in a baffle that has midrange and tweeter above the slot as I have seen in some designs. This has the advantage of a slim baffle suitable for the mids and tweeters, which is the main reason I am looking at the ripoles.My latest idea for mids is to use a DML (distributed mode loudspeaker) panel as the midrange 200 to 8kHz as they are dipoles and some Infinity EMIT planar magnetic tweeters back-to-back out of phase so they act as dipole as well.

Regards

Ozziozzid
"Once you find out ... the Circumstances ; then you can go out"
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Nick
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#6 Re: SLS Ripole Subs

Post by Nick »

Somehow this thread ended up with some invalid UTF-8 so I have had to rebuild it. If any of the posts are wrong, its my fault, sorry.
Whenever an honest man discovers that he's mistaken, he will either cease to be mistaken or he will cease to be honest.
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IslandPink
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#7 Re: SLS Ripole Subs

Post by IslandPink »

Somehow you've attributed that previous post to me - but that's not a big deal in the scheme of things. Glad you got it back, that's the main thing.
"Once you find out ... the Circumstances ; then you can go out"
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