Bookshelf enclosure for the Lii Audio 6

Hello Brains trust
Recently acquired a pair of the Lii audio 15's and plan to open baffle them in due course. Due to the very, very slow delivery, Lii Audio also sent a pair of the 6 inch speakers as a 'sorry it took so long' for free! This gives me an opportunity to build another pair of speaker boxes, preferably of a bookshelf size (can do a max of 30cm wide, 30cm's deep, 50cm's high). I'm not good at design and from reading around the forum, the Lii's measured figures differ from what they actually achieve. They can obviously be smaller in size and I wonder if anyone has had experience with them already or could suggest a box that suits them nicely.
I thought about copying the silver 6 dimensions from their website, but there are no details about what's inside the box.
Amp is a little Yamaha desktop with about 15 watts and they'll be in a large space for background music at work.
All suggestions appreciated and thanks in advance, James
 
I sure wish Acoustic Elegance would have felt like sending me a pair of TD6M when waiting and waiting upon my TD15M... 😉

Is it the F6 driver? The advertised specs suggest a fairly large sealed enclosure. Aperiodic could be made smaller. Size depends on your desired or preferred Qtc, IOW how "loose or dry" you want your bass to be. I'm not sure I'd go with a standard bass reflex on this one. Maybe some sort of quarter-wave enclosure could be devised for them, but that would likely be very large.

If I stretch your listed dimensions so as to be internal, that's 45 liters, IMO likely workable for sealed or aperiodic. If external, then ~38liters, probably still alrigh. Stuffing can incrrease the apparent volume by 25-30%.

I like that inverted cloth surround, very old school. The cone and parameters also reminds me of certain Philips FR units. Is the cone "flat" - truly conical - or curvilinear?
 
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It is the F6. This is the driver in their box.


EmmoF6.JPG
 
I found some measured T/S parameters for the F6 & plugged them into the simulator...the results were not good, but I knew "trouble" would be coming with a Qts of 1.32. Cone control as measured as Qes is way high at One-Point-Seven...yikes!!! I got a sealed system with 15+ Liters of volume, and a big nasty hotspot right around 100 hertz, a big three decibel hump, Very poor electrical control...a nice big honking magnet would help...try to find a pair of scrap speakers & yank the magnets off of them & stick them to the back of these new units...anything to increase control...more lines-of-force...??? I would bet those shiny cool looking backsides are hiding a puny magnet.






---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Rick...
 
I'd also favour aperiodic if the Qts truly is that high.

I did try a ceiling FR driver in that TK6, high Fs and very high Qts, and it did better than expected, but I did not listen much, as only low levels were possible due to a rubbing voice coil. The distributed venting via lots of small holes did add a measurable resistive element to the impedance, so was somewhat leaning towards aperiodic. I did not work this out enough to recommend it outright though.

I think this is the data Richard Ellis found:

f6.png

I'm just not sure I can make sense of the low Vas, which would be more typical of a 2.5" driver. Then again measuring compliance is the most error-prone part.
 
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I'm just not sure I can make sense of the low Vas, which would be more typical of a 2.5" driver. Then again measuring compliance is the most error-prone part.
That's likely because Fs isn't shifted enough, i.e. if I've understood all the ramifications of this, then the pioneers concluded that 1.56x was the optimum and FWIW I've never had any obvious/audible issues when comparing theory to basic 'as built' responses.

That said, not familiar with T/S measuring systems, so in some [all?] cases may to limited to its max added weight.
 
I would vote for aperiodic as well...I had a pair of NOS five-inch drivers with a poor electrical control with a Qes of 1.11 Since the particular driver came out long long ago with a long history, many had seen fit to experiment endlessly. I fashioned an aperiodic enclosure along the "best sounding tried" volume of enclosure and "restrictive vent". The results have been great, wouldn't know it's one of those 'black art' aperiodic types.
I'd try some thirty liters worth, stuff it chock full of sound stuffing & bore a two-inch hole in the back...with the stuffing poking out the hole. My best guess...








-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Rick...
 
I think "6.33" liters makes sense. a stuffed leaky box would be safe. IF it has a lot of on-axis rise then might sound pretty good in a Karlson - it would need a lighter balance than say BetsyK or BG20 for clear sound.
 
If it's only a decimal shift, 6.3 liters would be more believable; considering the higher than advertised Fs, the suspension is likely stiffer than what the incomplete parameter set presumes on the Lii website. It's still a big shift from 50L to 6.3L. I wonder if their more popular or expensive offering measure closer to advertised.

I'll mirror Richard Ellis in suggesting roughly 1cu.ft (28 liters), stuff it good and make it leaky somehow, making sure some stuffing is on or in the holes.
 
Thankyou for the suggestions. I'm finishing off a pair of pencil/alpair speakers for home atm and will knock up a pair of 28 litre cabinets after they are done. Lastly, for the hole, is it better to be on the front or back... (Aesthetically I'd have the driver front high and port rear low)
 
The location of the aperiodic vent does not matter AFAIK, since it produces no output to speak of.

Here's how I implemented one over 10 years ago, for a Philips 6" driver. Luckily, the images were not hosted on Imagheshack and are still there.

https://www.diyaudio.com/community/...ion-of-an-aperiodic-vent.174902/#post-2330229

The "clear path between driver and aperiodic vent" thing, I believe I'd read about that somewhere, but I couldn't say if it's truly necessary, as long as the stuffing isn't overly dense it should be OK not to do it.
 
Here is my aperiodic with the five-inch driver, the "hole" is but one-inch in diameter so the stuffing stays in place, a bigger version could stand the likes of a nice chrome sink drain grating for a finished look. Wad up the stuffing having this "grill" on both the inside and outside to keep it in place...in addition to the volume being fully stuffed.






---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Rick...
 

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Hi James
FWIW, I received the same deal while awaiting F-18s. It was nice not to feel too "invested" and so have some fun with the build. I made some very basic open baffles. They were my first ever speakers and still work quite nicely for me (note: I don't hear over 10khz).
Simon


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F-6.JPG