Cheap, simple home audio

[wxn]

Hello everyone.

I've been thinking recently a lot about how to get a pretty good sound in my sleeping room for as little money as possible, with what is available here (mainly Visaton and nonames). And what I have come to is something like a big PC sattelite system. The two "sattelites" would be for example pairs of BG17 fullranges in small (20l or so) vented (I'd prefer closed, but then crossover freq. must be at least 180Hz, which is not very neat) boxes. Anything below ~120Hz would be fed to a powered sub-woofer. Nothing fancy, I don't want to upset my neighbours anyway. Prabably some Visaton woofer like WS17 or the like.
Active crossovers, 12 or 24 dB/oct. Included in the woofer box, together with amplifiers.
Favorite music being rock/metal, I don't particularly need very good super-highs or wall-shaking lows.

BG17:
http://www.visaton.com/english/artikel/art_608_1_3.html

Any comments appreciated.

 

[wxn]

 

[SQ Kid]

do you by chance have any (cheap) access to Tang Band stuff? i can honestly say they are the best money i've spent on speakers so far and they cost next to nothing to build. i'm using them for my pc/bedroom along with a pc sub, and i refuse to get rid of them.

 

[wxn]

Not a chance
As I said, the only better-than-noname speakers here are Visaton. There is some JBL stuff, but everything is heavily overpriced.
Ordering I suppose wouldn't be the best thing to do as shipping cost could easily exceed driver's price.
Anyway, any ideas on the current design?

 

[mazeroth]

SQ, do you have any pictures of your Tang project or specs on it? I'm in the process of getting a bunch of the 871s speakers and was thinking of trying a mini line array with 4-8 per side, and crossing over around 100-120hz to a woofer on the bottom that will be powered by a small sub amp.

Thanks!

 

[Zozo]

wxn,

I have seen some discussion on the Visaton forum on the BG17. If you speak german you may find some useful info or they can help you.

Zozo

 

[wxn]

Yes, I know. Unfortunately, I speak lithuanian, russian, english, even french, but not a word in german tried babelfish and other online translators but with no success.
Anyway, I'm not asking opinions on this particular driver, more like wether this approach is of any use (crossover frequencies, sattelites, box type (vented/closed) etc)

 

[Mark25]

for rock/metal music, polypropylene cones generally give more pleasure in a domestic environment. Although less accurate in some technical terms, (ie X-over nasties) the visaton WS20E in a 2-way configuration might be more fun for you.

 

[Mark25]

if you got the WS20E or WS17, you could mate either to the bg17, you could electronically vary the X-over between 100 and 2000 Hz and see what your ears like best. You can run the bg17 full-range as a reference, or even buy just the bg17 first to see how well it suits your needs on its own.

If you adopt this approach and end up with the X-over quite high, you'll wish you bought a tweeter instead of the bg17 tho......

I'd still choose the WS20E over the WS17 due to the poly cone, given your music.

 

[wxn]

Actually, I see no point in using fullrange with woofer. The only thing that keeps up the idea of using fullranges, is the possibility to use several realtively small boxes with high levels of output with no crossovers in the most important freq. range (hence the double BG17). Thought that this approach would beneficial for music that contains a lot of guitar-like sounds.
I'd better do a traditional 2-way system with x-over freq above 4kHz then. I suppose sattelite-subwoofer combination is only appropriate with x-over below 200Hz, where the sound is pretty much not directional.
Another consideration is box size. My room is not so small but there is a lot of furniture and other stuff. So I'd rather have two hanging 20l speakers than normal floor-standing vented ones.

 

[Mark25]

i think your type of music will benefit from the 12 - 13 mm cone excursion offered by the WS type woofers, as opposed to the 4 mm offered by the bg17.
M.

 

[wxn]

mhm yes, probably you are right. But won't the specific qualities of such a system impact other types of music? I mean, I like rock but that doesn't mean I want to sacrifice the ability to listen to light techno or even Mozzart
Oh, probably I want the impossible. As we say here, there is no such diner that is cheap, tastes good and there is a lot of it

 

[Mark25]

every speaker system is a compromise;

It just so happens that a multi-way, polypropylene coned speaker tends to offer a set of compromises that favour rock/heavy music, which is what you stipulated in your first post.

M.

 

[wxn]

That is actually very interesting. You said "multi-way", does that include woofer/tweeter system, or is it 3 way and up system? Either way, what are the most common crossover frequencies for such music/speakers?

 

[SQ Kid]

mazeroth, i used the tried and true design that i found at http://home.new.rr.com/zaph/audio/audio-speaker11.html , using the taller box for my pc speakers. i was thinking of doing a 4 tb per side setup using the same internal size specs (just multiplying by 4), but i havent had the chance or the money to build another setup. there is someone on this site who has done what you're looking to do, but i cant remember his name at the moment.

 

[indoubt]

If visaton is the easiest to get over there and you don't want to spend a lot then why don't you look at a combination of a W130S and a DT94 (or SC10 or alike)

Plays well in approx 11 liter, you can get em lower in 15 liter and if its not enough look at the W170S (although they need more liters)

The filters are rellatively simple and can probably be found on the visaton site.

I have a W130S based rear and for the mony it's a steal.

If you're on a budget they are hard to beat.