So I played around with vituixCAD a bit and here is a sample respone I got using the software for a bit. It seems quite reasonable for me to assume a nice frequency response and I'll learn a lot by just building the speakers in real life I think. even if they don't sound perfect out of the box, gifting it to my dad in a state where we can tinker around with it a bit more would be super fun as well. I think it would be a great father-son project. And yes I'll be spending close to 2k on it but it's my dads 60th 
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Yes, the advantage of an active speaker is that it is very easy to reconfigure it to new filter parameters, and room correction allows you to partially eliminate the influence of the room on the sound, which makes it much easier to get better sound.
I don't know how loud your father listens to music but SB Acoustics SB23MFCL45 are beasts with a LOT of Xmax and can take some power. 2 of them in reflex ... better have no neighbors
For mainly music ... I would use them in closed volume and use the EQ of the DSP to do some room correction and boosting according to the room they will stand.
For mainly music ... I would use them in closed volume and use the EQ of the DSP to do some room correction and boosting according to the room they will stand.
A month, or even two months, is a really tight schedule to design and build a cabinet, test the drivers in the cabinet, then simulate and design the DSP filtering. Making good measurements is crucial to the design process, and it takes practice. I do not want to discourage you, but I do want you to have reasonable expectations.
I used the SB23MFCL45 in an active speaker. I used a Hypex FA123 amp. I was very pleased with the results.
https://www.diyaudio.com/community/threads/new-project-tower-3-way-with-twin-8s.378223/post-6816455
j.
I used the SB23MFCL45 in an active speaker. I used a Hypex FA123 amp. I was very pleased with the results.
https://www.diyaudio.com/community/threads/new-project-tower-3-way-with-twin-8s.378223/post-6816455
j.
I also plan to use 2 of these bass drivers per side in closed volume as a "speaker stand woofer" to support smaller speakers in my listening tests. Will try and measure different configurations/positions of the drivers (front/back impuls compensated, Front top/bottom, Front top, back bottom).
@hifijim how would you describe the maximum SPL you can achieve with 4 of these? I expect it to be plenty. With FA123 they won't sweat in a closed volume?
How is vibration of the speaker when they play at high excursion?
@hifijim how would you describe the maximum SPL you can achieve with 4 of these? I expect it to be plenty. With FA123 they won't sweat in a closed volume?
How is vibration of the speaker when they play at high excursion?
I would describe it as high spl, given the size of the box at just 34 liters. Listening to music, I never reached the max capabilities of either the drivers or the amps. In theory, the pair of SB23MFCL woofers has a little less Vd than the single SB34NRX that is the woofer of my main system (1 per side in 70 liter boxes). In theory, the single SB34NRX will get to 107 dB SPL @ 40 Hz, while the pair of SB23MFCL's will get to 105.7 dB SPL @ 40 Hz. In practice, I never reached the limit on either system while listening to music.
High SPL at low frequencies generate no detectable vibration. The cabinets weigh about 80 lb (36 kg).
I do have 400 Hz cabinet resonance which is localized in the bevel area around the tweeter. Fortunately it is not audible with music, since I can not access that part of the cabinet for any kind of fix. This was my first speaker design with tapered bevels, and I learned a lot.
j.
