Beam Blockers in the UK

[johnh]

Any brits on here know if anyone in the UK stocks Weber Beam Blockers?

[billyguitar]

I don't think any stores stock beam blockers in the US either. Pretty sure you need to order direct from www.webervst.com (http://www.webervst.com) .

[hamfist]

johnh, Yup you need to order them from the US, from the weber website. I did email them once to ask how much shipping to the UK would be. I'm afraid I can't remember exactly how much it was, but I do remember that it seemed very reasonable.
Alternatively you could make some yourself or use tape, cardboard, plexi-glass etc.

HF

[Dote]

Hi there,

try this:

http://www.tubetown.de/ttstore/product_info.php/info/p1685_TT-Diffusor-80-mm-10---12-.html

Cheers,

Dominik

[hamfist]

dote, very interesting. I wonder if there might be patent issues there ?!?

HF

[Dote]

Hi Hamfist,

does Ted Weber have a patent on the beam blockers? A quick search did not reveal anything. He has a trademark on the name "beam blocker".

I guess one would have seriously problems to show that the idea is new for a patent, when the homepage of Weber states, that SRV and others used duct tape to get the same results.

The tube-town blockers are a bit refined, in that you can move the cap or blocker to get different diffusion of the sound.

Cheers,

Dominik

[Han Solo]

Maybe these guys can help you out. Both deGier and Jukebox sell Beamblockers in the Netherlands. Although not mentioned on the site.

www.degiergitaarbouw.nl/

www.muziekhandel-jukebox.nl/

[tweber]

Wow... not only did they rip off our product, they used our description word for word from our beam blocker page.

Now THAT takes balls.


Ted

[hamfist]

Ted, that must seriously p_ _ s you off. Do you have any sort of patent on the idea, or just trademark ownership of the "beam blocker" name ?
HF

[moray james]

not much experience with MI gear but lots with hi end audio and full range drivers. You can experiment with any number of different shaped objects. I think that you will find that you can get some impressive results with objects that will be larger than you might imagine. A good starting point would be an outdoor flood lamp. Position it with the helping hand of your personal rody or jury rig it in place. Get the wide surface as close to the dust cap as you can and still allow full cone motion. The harder the surface material the better to achieve good top end extension. Softer materials will eat up some top end so you can experiment with different materials to achieve different results and tone. Craft shops have spheres and half spheres made of very light closed cell foam which would be ok if you paint them with a sealer and multiple coats of enamel paint but harder is better. The deflector object can almost obscure the entire cone and still result with smoother more extended high frequency response as the lows and mids have wavelengths long enough to simply slide around the object undisturbed on thier way forward.
You will find that the top end will be much smoother and more extended. A round reflector will bounce the sound in round pattern. This means that if you are in a studio setting that you will have more high frequency bouncing off of the floor and the ceiling. To control this you would want to use something the shape of capsul or cylinder with rounded ends and position it vertically so the bounce is in the horizontal plane.
The trick to this idea is that you have your top end being produced not by the cone but by the breakup modes in the dust cap.(whizzer cones do the same thing) The harder the dust cap the higher the "Q" of the resonant modes. That means that aluminum dust caps will have the highest "Q" modes or be the most agressive or peakiest. The object you place in front of the dust cap is simply a deflector and is deflecting the "oil can" resonant modes of the dustcap off to the side wall boundries where it will then reflect again but with a loss of level and most importantly with a significant time delay. It is the time delay that matters most as it is this combined with enough reduction of level to allow your brain simply considers this noise as being similar to room boundry reflections and not connected with the output of the cone. This will allow you brain to disasociate the reflected breakup modes of the dustcap from the clean(er) signal off of the cone.
You can also experiment with a form fitting cup (a matching shape to the dustcap) of close to the same diameter as the dustcap and again position it as close to the dustcap as is reasonable. The high frequencies will then "squirt" out the gap at the outter edge and into the cone then bounce around the inside of the cone utill they exit into the air (again at a significant time delay though less than with the first method). If you have a driver with a soft or porus dustcap material then the second method will probably prove effective enough. If the dustcap is hard paper or plastic or Aluminum then the first method will be best as you will be dealing with higher "Q" resonances.
If you are reconning your driver or you are brave you can remove the dustcap and install a good thick piece of Wool (use real wool not synthetic fiber) padding on top of the pole piece (glue in place) and then reinstall your dustcap. This will make a big difference.
I hope this makes sence and is of interest. Best regards Moray James.

[Jon]

What happened to Ross & Co in the UK? (Used to be www.ross-co.co.uk).

They used to be Weber dealers for the UK (I bought my Mass from them).