For the sake of my hearing, yes the volume is definitely satisfying.
Really only time will tell for the second question. If I come across an extra $90, perhaps months from now I'll build another mid/high arrangement, otherwise, for now, its mono.
Alright, increased volume is not a priority, good. That simplifies things.
In order to design this system, we need to consider your closed-back mid. Closed back mids have very high resonant frequencies. If I was given this set of drivers, I would start by finding the resonant frequency of the mid. Pyle states it as 321hz if I recall from 3 hours ago off the top of my head. It was the low 300s anyway. I find this extremely hard to believe. The internal volume of the closed back is so small, 300hz seems very far fetched to me. If you compare it to similar drivers, the resonant frequency is more like 400hz. I also know from reading around the internet that Pyle slants their specs. It probably has a lower power handling than Pyle claims, as well. Regardless, I would test it myself. I have a DATS which can find the impedance curve automatically, but such a testing system will cost you $100. If I didn't have a DATS I would find the frequency at which my mid starts to roll off naturally. You can find this by building a baffle equal in size to the baffle you will install the closed back mid into. The baffle is very important because this effects bass response and defines baffle diffraction. Or, you could just go out and build the box first. Once I had the driver in the baffle or the box, I would visit audiocheck.net here: Sine Waveform | Online Sine Tone Wave File Generator and aquire sine wave tones in incriments of 100s. Example: 600hz, 500hz, 400hz, 300hz, 200hz, etc. Play those one at a time though the mid and listen for the drop off. Once you find the approximate location of the slope, you can narrow it down by listening in 50s increments, then 25 increments if you feel adventurous. Lets say for example you determine the mid starts to slope off at 350hz, giving a generous number. There is the frequency at which I would cross my 15" over to. I dislike huge inductors as they can cause a mess of things, as turk pointed out. So I would use a line level crossover for my 15". The steepest slope you can get from a passive line level crossover is second order (12db/octave) which should be fine for this purpose.
If I didn't own a testing/calibration microphone I would repeat the same process with the mids to find the high crossover point. Play sine waves in increasing frequency until I heard it roll of, or sound terrible. Once I found that point, I would play music through the mids by themselves. I would listen for harshness and dispersion (walk around the driver and see if it sounds the same from various angles.) as well as that frequency rolloff I found earlier. If the music listening session with the solo mids went O.K., I would assume the rolloff I found is an adequate crossover point. Note: We want this point to be relatively high to keep crossovers out the most sensitive midrange hearing of humans. Go as high as you can.
(Sidetrack-->) This is my personal taste, others will tell you different: If you can get away with running the midrange without a lowpass filter, do it. If you don't hear any harshness in music, just a natural slope in upper frequency response, then your job is done. You don't need a crossover. However, the unfortunate reality is most drivers will not accomplish this. A lot of drivers start getting excessively jagged response in the upper registry, which will wreak havoc on sound quality. I expect you will need at least a first order (6db/octave) crossover. Simpler is better, if you only need first order there is no reason to use second order.
Once I found the lowpass crossover point for my mid, I would implement it with foobar2000 and tie in my tweeter with it's highpass at that same frequency. Slope is depended on distance from the tweeters resonate frequency. If you can go really high, like 5 or 6khz, you may only need a first order slope on your tweeter. If you had to go low, like 2-4khz, I would advise at least a second order at all times to keep your tweeter from seeing too much power, distorting, and burning up. Your Pyle is a mid/tweet so this applies to that.
From there, I would gradually shift that crossover frequency around, to see what really sounds the best. I recently went though this process. It took me a month, but I found a combo that blew away my highest expectations for the drivers I used. Experiment with not only frequency, but switch between first order and second order slopes where applicable.
I would then commit the crossover I found to hardware, speaker level. Air core inductors if affordable. Nice capacitors by Jantzen if you can afford them. Avoid Non-Polarized Electrolytic capacitors at all costs!! Metalized Polypropylene capacitors are the way to go.
And all that would get me what I would consider the bare minimum for any speaker system. This is what I would do.
What I just described is the best practice I can conceive without spending money on calibration devices. And the manufacturer did not supply frequency response graphs, so you don't have the option of using speaker designer spreadsheets. That being said, it will get you the best results given any set of drivers and the limitations imposed. Anything less than this--and most here will agree with me I'm sure--would be considered "worse." Whether or not it sounds "average" is dependant on the abilities of the drivers themselves
You already know they sound good in your own opinion, so this technique will simply maximise their abilities in your eyes. Whether they sound good to me under any condition is up to me.
I find it interesting you have referenced DJs multiple times. I am a DJ, but I am by no definition average. I mean this in a constructive way; Just for your information, I would never consider using a system like this professionally.
In order to design this system, we need to consider your closed-back mid. Closed back mids have very high resonant frequencies. If I was given this set of drivers, I would start by finding the resonant frequency of the mid. Pyle states it as 321hz if I recall from 3 hours ago off the top of my head. It was the low 300s anyway. I find this extremely hard to believe. The internal volume of the closed back is so small, 300hz seems very far fetched to me. If you compare it to similar drivers, the resonant frequency is more like 400hz. I also know from reading around the internet that Pyle slants their specs. It probably has a lower power handling than Pyle claims, as well. Regardless, I would test it myself. I have a DATS which can find the impedance curve automatically, but such a testing system will cost you $100. If I didn't have a DATS I would find the frequency at which my mid starts to roll off naturally. You can find this by building a baffle equal in size to the baffle you will install the closed back mid into. The baffle is very important because this effects bass response and defines baffle diffraction. Or, you could just go out and build the box first. Once I had the driver in the baffle or the box, I would visit audiocheck.net here: Sine Waveform | Online Sine Tone Wave File Generator and aquire sine wave tones in incriments of 100s. Example: 600hz, 500hz, 400hz, 300hz, 200hz, etc. Play those one at a time though the mid and listen for the drop off. Once you find the approximate location of the slope, you can narrow it down by listening in 50s increments, then 25 increments if you feel adventurous. Lets say for example you determine the mid starts to slope off at 350hz, giving a generous number. There is the frequency at which I would cross my 15" over to. I dislike huge inductors as they can cause a mess of things, as turk pointed out. So I would use a line level crossover for my 15". The steepest slope you can get from a passive line level crossover is second order (12db/octave) which should be fine for this purpose.
If I didn't own a testing/calibration microphone I would repeat the same process with the mids to find the high crossover point. Play sine waves in increasing frequency until I heard it roll of, or sound terrible. Once I found that point, I would play music through the mids by themselves. I would listen for harshness and dispersion (walk around the driver and see if it sounds the same from various angles.) as well as that frequency rolloff I found earlier. If the music listening session with the solo mids went O.K., I would assume the rolloff I found is an adequate crossover point. Note: We want this point to be relatively high to keep crossovers out the most sensitive midrange hearing of humans. Go as high as you can.
(Sidetrack-->) This is my personal taste, others will tell you different: If you can get away with running the midrange without a lowpass filter, do it. If you don't hear any harshness in music, just a natural slope in upper frequency response, then your job is done. You don't need a crossover. However, the unfortunate reality is most drivers will not accomplish this. A lot of drivers start getting excessively jagged response in the upper registry, which will wreak havoc on sound quality. I expect you will need at least a first order (6db/octave) crossover. Simpler is better, if you only need first order there is no reason to use second order.
Once I found the lowpass crossover point for my mid, I would implement it with foobar2000 and tie in my tweeter with it's highpass at that same frequency. Slope is depended on distance from the tweeters resonate frequency. If you can go really high, like 5 or 6khz, you may only need a first order slope on your tweeter. If you had to go low, like 2-4khz, I would advise at least a second order at all times to keep your tweeter from seeing too much power, distorting, and burning up. Your Pyle is a mid/tweet so this applies to that.
From there, I would gradually shift that crossover frequency around, to see what really sounds the best. I recently went though this process. It took me a month, but I found a combo that blew away my highest expectations for the drivers I used. Experiment with not only frequency, but switch between first order and second order slopes where applicable.
I would then commit the crossover I found to hardware, speaker level. Air core inductors if affordable. Nice capacitors by Jantzen if you can afford them. Avoid Non-Polarized Electrolytic capacitors at all costs!! Metalized Polypropylene capacitors are the way to go.
And all that would get me what I would consider the bare minimum for any speaker system. This is what I would do.
What I just described is the best practice I can conceive without spending money on calibration devices. And the manufacturer did not supply frequency response graphs, so you don't have the option of using speaker designer spreadsheets. That being said, it will get you the best results given any set of drivers and the limitations imposed. Anything less than this--and most here will agree with me I'm sure--would be considered "worse." Whether or not it sounds "average" is dependant on the abilities of the drivers themselves
You already know they sound good in your own opinion, so this technique will simply maximise their abilities in your eyes. Whether they sound good to me under any condition is up to me.I find it interesting you have referenced DJs multiple times. I am a DJ, but I am by no definition average. I mean this in a constructive way; Just for your information, I would never consider using a system like this professionally.
Alright, increased volume is not a priority, good. That simplifies things.
In order to design this system, we need to consider your closed-back mid. Closed back mids have very high resonant frequencies. If I was given this set of drivers, I would start by finding the resonant frequency of the mid. Pyle states it as 321hz if I recall from 3 hours ago off the top of my head. It was the low 300s anyway. I find this extremely hard to believe. The internal volume of the closed back is so small, 300hz seems very far fetched to me. If you compare it to similar drivers, the resonant frequency is more like 400hz. I also know from reading around the internet that Pyle slants their specs. It probably has a lower power handling than Pyle claims, as well. Regardless, I would test it myself. I have a DATS which can find the impedance curve automatically, but such a testing system will cost you $100. If I didn't have a DATS I would find the frequency at which my mid starts to roll off naturally. You can find this by building a baffle equal in size to the baffle you will install the closed back mid into. The baffle is very important because this effects bass response and defines baffle diffraction. Or, you could just go out and build the box first. Once I had the driver in the baffle or the box, I would visit audiocheck.net here: Sine Waveform | Online Sine Tone Wave File Generator and aquire sine wave tones in incriments of 100s. Example: 600hz, 500hz, 400hz, 300hz, 200hz, etc. Play those one at a time though the mid and listen for the drop off. Once you find the approximate location of the slope, you can narrow it down by listening in 50s increments, then 25 increments if you feel adventurous. Lets say for example you determine the mid starts to slope off at 350hz, giving a generous number. There is the frequency at which I would cross my 15" over to. I dislike huge inductors as they can cause a mess of things, as turk pointed out. So I would use a line level crossover for my 15". The steepest slope you can get from a passive line level crossover is second order (12db/octave) which should be fine for this purpose.
If I didn't own a testing/calibration microphone I would repeat the same process with the mids to find the high crossover point. Play sine waves in increasing frequency until I heard it roll of, or sound terrible. Once I found that point, I would play music through the mids by themselves. I would listen for harshness and dispersion (walk around the driver and see if it sounds the same from various angles.) as well as that frequency rolloff I found earlier. If the music listening session with the solo mids went O.K., I would assume the rolloff I found is an adequate crossover point. Note: We want this point to be relatively high to keep crossovers out the most sensitive midrange hearing of humans. Go as high as you can.
(Sidetrack-->) This is my personal taste, others will tell you different: If you can get away with running the midrange without a lowpass filter, do it. If you don't hear any harshness in music, just a natural slope in upper frequency response, then your job is done. You don't need a crossover. However, the unfortunate reality is most drivers will not accomplish this. A lot of drivers start getting excessively jagged response in the upper registry, which will wreak havoc on sound quality. I expect you will need at least a first order (6db/octave) crossover. Simpler is better, if you only need first order there is no reason to use second order.
Once I found the lowpass crossover point for my mid, I would implement it with foobar2000 and tie in my tweeter with it's highpass at that same frequency. Slope is depended on distance from the tweeters resonate frequency. If you can go really high, like 5 or 6khz, you may only need a first order slope on your tweeter. If you had to go low, like 2-4khz, I would advise at least a second order at all times to keep your tweeter from seeing too much power, distorting, and burning up. Your Pyle is a mid/tweet so this applies to that.
From there, I would gradually shift that crossover frequency around, to see what really sounds the best. I recently went though this process. It took me a month, but I found a combo that blew away my highest expectations for the drivers I used. Experiment with not only frequency, but switch between first order and second order slopes where applicable.
I would then commit the crossover I found to hardware, speaker level. Air core inductors if affordable. Nice capacitors by Jantzen if you can afford them. Avoid Non-Polarized Electrolytic capacitors at all costs!! Metalized Polypropylene capacitors are the way to go.
And all that would get me what I would consider the bare minimum for any speaker system. This is what I would do.
What I just described is the best practice I can conceive without spending money on calibration devices. And the manufacturer did not supply frequency response graphs, so you don't have the option of using speaker designer spreadsheets. That being said, it will get you the best results given any set of drivers and the limitations imposed. Anything less than this--and most here will agree with me I'm sure--would be considered "worse." Whether or not it sounds "average" is dependant on the abilities of the drivers themselves
I find it interesting you have referenced DJs multiple times. I am a DJ, but I am by no definition average. I mean this in a constructive way; Just for your information, I would never consider using a system like this professionally.
Perhaps eventually I'll go through the process you described above, but for this very second, and a little bit after my amps are fixed, I'm going to leave it as it is.
However, no matter how I think it sounds, I'd rather not brag to people that I have a pa system that I could probably DJ with, knowing you said I shouldn't. What are your concerns, if it were a small venue, say a small school gymnasium, what are the issues with my system? The projection of the sound, volume, or quality of the sound, etc.
As much as I am cheap and as much as I like to keep things how they are for the most part, I do make improvements, and sadly, perhaps the most motivating reason to correct one of my mistakes (aka, rebuild this system) is to be able to boast about it.
I hope I don't sound completely close minded to you, I do love improvement. Its just that it was hard for me to justify the $92 for all the parts and crossovers of the mids and highs, so you can see it would be even harder for me to just throw that stuff under the bed if you will, and buy all new crossovers and what not.
I can definitely see it, I hope the rest of you can too, but I really do think we're getting somewhere, I'm asking the right questions, and you guys are giving the right answers.
I thank all of you once again, it'd take me SO long to just randomly stumble on this information on Google, and really, I would not have even gotten this far in the first place without everyone's suggestions, and criticism!
Oh and while your here, I have a quick question about the Behringer A500.
Since I'd like to be cheap and order caps straight from China on eBay, they will take like a month to get here.
So temporarily I'm thinking: 2x 50V 3300uf in series = 1x 100v 3300uf Am I not correct?
Is there any reason I can't just throw both of those 50v's in there in place of the 100v?
Since I'd like to be cheap and order caps straight from China on eBay, they will take like a month to get here.
So temporarily I'm thinking: 2x 50V 3300uf in series = 1x 100v 3300uf Am I not correct?
Is there any reason I can't just throw both of those 50v's in there in place of the 100v?
This one first because it's short and sweet.
Resistors in parallel halve resistance, resistors in series double. Capacitors in parallel double capacitance, capacitors in series halve.
Two things in parallel will double power handling.
EDIT: Nope, two things in series will double power handling.
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So If I do that I'll be running on half the capacitance.........doesn't sound good.
Sorry, I edited my post after you saw it to make it more clear.
Resistors in parallel halve resistance, resistors in series double. Capacitors in parallel double capacitance, capacitors in series halve.
Two things in parallel will double power handling.
So you need two capacitors rated at 50v and 1650uf in parallel to reach 100v 3300uf
EDIT: Nope, two things in series will double power handling.
Resistors in parallel halve resistance, resistors in series double. Capacitors in parallel double capacitance, capacitors in series halve.
Two things in parallel will double power handling.
So you need two capacitors rated at 50v and 1650uf in parallel to reach 100v 3300uf
EDIT: Nope, two things in series will double power handling.
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But but but.....you initially said series doubles voltage?
And people online say in series its 1/4 capacitance not half.
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I'm only mortal xD I got confused for a second then deleted the post with the mistake.
Two things in parallel definitely increases power handling. But with capacitors it also will double capacitance.
Here is the math behind it: Capacitance in Parallel and Serial Connections
EDIT: Nope, two things in series will double power handling.
Two things in parallel definitely increases power handling. But with capacitors it also will double capacitance.
Here is the math behind it: Capacitance in Parallel and Serial Connections
EDIT: Nope, two things in series will double power handling.
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EDIT: nevermind.
People say that due to small differences in capacitance that one cap might get more voltage than the other, so I'm not even going to try it.
I wonder how risky it would be to run the original filter cap that has a dent in the side of it...
EDIT: However, I could take something like 4x 680uf 200v caps, and add a 470uf 200v cap to it all in parallel and have about 3200uf at 200v........
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4 capacitors in series will quarter. Maybe that's what they were referencing.
How risky? Couldn't tell you. Probably depends on the type of capacitor. It may not hurt at all. Try disconnecting it and testing it independently from the system first. Capacitors are basically just wound up strips of metal and other stuffs, so if the dent doesn't damage the internal consistency I would imagine everything would be A.O.k..
Edit:
Yes, you are correct.
I was wrong, series increases power handling, not parallel. My mistake.
Whew that got messy. Let's get back to talking about speakers.
How risky? Couldn't tell you. Probably depends on the type of capacitor. It may not hurt at all. Try disconnecting it and testing it independently from the system first. Capacitors are basically just wound up strips of metal and other stuffs, so if the dent doesn't damage the internal consistency I would imagine everything would be A.O.k..
Edit:
Yes, you are correct.
I was wrong, series increases power handling, not parallel. My mistake.
Whew that got messy. Let's get back to talking about speakers.
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I sincerely respect your conservatism when it comes to bragging. It tells me you aren't just some punk kid on the internet trying to throw something together, but a sincere individual who is simply restrained by a realistic budget. These are the type of people worth spending time to help.
There are a few things I could point at, if you would like me to go into detail I can do so. The biggest concern I have with this system are the drivers. Pyle is on the bottom of my manufacturer respect list, they make cheap things and I would never trust a paying venue to them. However, if you are simply interested in volunteering for your school to DJ an event indoors in a small sized venue, theoretically it is possible... I guess? I do not desire to dampen your spirit here! Further disclosure will require consent! So let's see that promised video first!
I will be able to give you more relative feedback, rather than generalised statements about how I have conceptualised this system. The video can't tell me sound quality, but it will be a better reference than nothing.
Well that's exactly what I was worried about, if the film layers might've broken through the dielectric material and might be shorting inside the cap, although its not a big dent.
The best I can do as far as testing goes is, charge it to 40V. That's as high as my bench power supply goes.
The following is a bad idea and is intended as a joke: But the line voltage in America is 120v, and you live in America, right?...
Edit: Wear safety welding masks and thick gloves at all times!
Edit: 40v is better than trying without testing.
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Well I can completely agree, yes, pyle is absolute bottom of the barrel in respect. And usually for good reason, I cringed when I had to buy these pyle drivers (pile drivers
), however I can't say I'd not trust them to a paying venue. I know many things on the market are awful but I find it amazingly hard to believe a product would survive and sell, if it blew up after being at its rated power handling specs, for 5 hours or so. I like to look at things really realistically, and although we might like to think that's highly possible, realistically I think not, but we'll find out As we've said, I don't brag much. Although it does happen, but what I think makes it okay is that I can accept criticism (with strong supporting reasoning) and that is what I think separates me from the punk kids who would rather argue that their stuff is best in any way they think is necessary. With that being said, sure, tell me whatever your thinking. I sit here and look at all my gear all day and think to myself that either I'm the best, or everything is good enough, but really I need to hear what people like you have to say, good or bad, because its you guys that will actually point out flaws that I'd probably overlook (whether I realize them or not) and its you guys that will get me to want to fix them. So say what you want, however you want, if you've got criticism, I want to hear it.
So far (If you've looked in the other thread in the last few minutes) I've cleaned up the power supply board of the Crest Audio LA 601, and I'll solder on the temporary caps from the kenwood reciever into it tommorrow and button it up, hopefully I'll also be able to test it all out and get a video of it (I warn you it will be shot with none other than the Apple Ipod Touch 4th Gen as my nice kodak recently broke).
Thanks again for all of your help!
The following is a bad idea and is intended as a joke: But the line voltage in America is 120v, and you live in America, right?...
Edit: Wear safety welding masks and thick gloves at all times!
Edit: 40v is better than trying without testing.
HAH!
I actually may take it all the way up to 100V. I have a nice big box/unit (guess its my BIG bench power supply) where I've got a 5A variac, that is not only gfci protected, but also protected with a 5A breaker and fast blow fuse, and also has a switchable ballast (I usually use 60w ballast but I have a few different ones). As you can see I love electrical as well as electronics! This is one of those times where I'm glad I integrated a nice little rectifier into said box/unit to give myself a dc output from the variac. I originally built it and normally use it for testing amps, usually ones I buy used, and ones I make myself, but there are times like this that it also comes in handy!
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Ah, I bet that is what it was.
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I guess I don't have to wait on that video necessarily. I will go ahead and explain my earlier comment, as promised. I will address the speakers and then the amplifiers. In regard to a professional DJ:
Speaker-wise, you have one third of a completed system. At minimum, people expect stereo speakers from a DJ. This is practically universally a given. If you are doing volunteer work, perhaps you could show up with a mono system and have no complaints. It may even sound good. Suit yourself, but quite frankly I would be out-right embarrassed to show up with a mono system.
Your system will lack bottom end in rooms bigger than "small." One 15" driver is not enough for a solid DJ performance. A single 15" is not enough for live sound reinforcement in a lot of applications. (I do both-- DJ and reinforcement.) The key to good bass response is to move a lot of air. To move a lot of air you need a lot of surface area from your drivers. Surface area is denoted as SD.
I started with dual 15" subs, and I consider that a bare minimum. I currently have dual 18" radiating drivers in a quad 18" isobaric setup. One day I hope to upgrade to a configuration of 21" drivers. As a wedding DJ, most of the rooms I DJ in are large, very large, or outdoors. A single 15" will barely do anything outside at a realistic distance.
You have a solid start, though! I personally would start with the drivers you currently have by combining them all into a single box. This does two things: Your current 15" will have to play high to meet the sealed back mid, so it can not be considered a sub woofer. It is a woofer. It needs to be in the same box to produce an appropriate soundfield. The human ear can detect directivity above 100hz, so anything playing above this frequency needs to be properly placed in respect to the total system. You can place the 100hz and below subs wherever you please.* The second this is this: it gets you out of that perfectly square box you made. Panel resonance is a huge concern when dealing with high SPLs. The louder you push, the more evident flaws in your enclosure will be. If all of the enclosure walls are the same dimensions, they will all resonate at the same frequency. That resonance will be obvious and seriously degrade sound quality. Making all walls of the enclosure different sizes will divide the resonance around in the frequency spectrum, making it destroyable with bracing or at least minimal.
So really, you have a good start to a 4-way system. If you duplicate your current driver selection and place them all in an appropriate box as a 3-way speaker, you can add a sub underneath to provide bottom end. Subs 25hz** through 100hz, or through 80hz, take your pick. The 15 inchers pick up from there and play up to your mids. This sort of design actually has a few really strong points. Two things: Your ~100hz through ~400hz region will have benefit of a large SD too! This will make the speakers rock hard! Second: Your mids will be reproduced by a single driver. This keeps phase problems out of the most sensitive hearing range of humans.
Now, assuming all of these drivers are properly configured and aligned with calibration techniques, you may truly have speakers worth bragging about!
I highly stress the need to calibrate and align with measurement and math. There is a saying, you have probably heard it. "Garbage in, garbage out." Virtually all of the environments you play in as a DJ are garbage in terms of acoustics. If your speakers sound like trash and you put them in a garbage room you get toxic waste sound. If your speakers sound delicate and refined--well--you get delicate and refined garbage. That is really the best you can hope for as a DJ. Delicate and refined garbage.
This is why you listen to most DJs--in their harsh environment--then go home and easily think you have created something better sounding. That being said, there actually are, sadly, a lot of DJs with trash speakers creating toxic waste.
Amplifiers. This is my personal strong opinion: Never trust a paying venue to a piece of equipment that has failed once. Unless, (!) you know exactly what went wrong and have understanding to repair it to perfect condition. There is no excuse for going silent. Don't take that risk. Also, don't buy second hand if you can't get the item's full history.
Only use amps which are suited for the job. The A500 is not, sadly. It is indeed nice, I looked into buying it at one point. It has balanced inputs and 1/4" speaker level outputs (LOL) like you may see on a professional amplifier, but it lacks in durability. It is meant to be installed in the home or studio and left to sit, it is not road worthy.
---
Now, these are all points for a professional DJ. If you simply wish to be a home user and still brag, you can take a different approach. For starters, your amplifier system is fine the way it is for home use. In fact, you've done a good job so far in that respect. If you can take advantage of the balanced inputs one day, please do so! You will notice a very desirable difference. It will not be a huge difference, but you won't desire going back to SE. (SE = Single ended. Otherwise called unbalanced, which is technically incorrect as SE is impedance balanced.)
You certainly will not need more bottom end for your bedroom! You can omit the additional subs and use your current 15 for the bottom end as well, EQ to taste perhaps. However, the aforementioned physics still apply here. To create an appropriate soundfield in a stereo configuration you will need to duplicate ALL of the drivers. This includes the 15" Behringer, as it plays well into the directivity hearing range of humans.
You don't like the sound of that, I'm guessing. I recently created a low cost 2.1 system for a friend. He wanted it as cheap as possible but still sound the best I could possibly make it. To accomplish this, naturally I selected a small full range driver. This eliminates crossover complexity and most importantly--reduces cost--while still maintaining HF response due to its small size. The driver had a LF roll off at just below 200hz, however. To keep everything simple and low cost, I used a built-in crossover on a 2.1 amp to cross to two woofers (In parallel. Thus creating dual mono woofers which are paired with the L/R pair) at 200hz, which happened to be the maximum frequency of the variable xo on the amp. This sounded surprisingly good! The mono state of the system below 200hz does not bother me. (I am actually getting a little ahead of that story, for various reasons the system has yet to be finished. A thread on that to come later... Maybe.)
~400hz mono may not be horrible, if you could be willing to live with it. Again, you will need to find the roll off point of the mid. The lower you can cross, the better.
---
Alternately, Parts Express has a 30 day return satisfaction guarantee. You still have the option open to you of exchanging your mid for an open back.
---
*If you go too wild with placement, you will have to start playing with delay.
**There is virtually never a reason to reproduce signals lower than 25hz in DJ or live sound reinforcement, especially in the latter. Trying to do so is the quickest way to run out of excursion and destroy your subs. In honest practice, there really is no reason to have a system response below 40hz. The lowest note on a 4 string bass is 41.2hz. A DJ setup that plays to 40hz will be satisfying enough and hit hard. Being able to play to 30hz is just showing off. The only times you will *really* be able to tell a difference is in bass sweeps in music. In my humble opinion, a system responce too low actually sounds bad. Some people like myself do not like the sound of bass deeper than 40hz.
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I've read your post, but I don't have time to reply to it at the moment, however, I'll just leave this here for your viewing pleasure in the meantime (keep in mind in that video the mid and high was laying on top of the amps, they still don't have an enclosure)
Testing PA system, near completion - YouTube
(keep in mind in that video the mid and high was laying on top of the amps, they still don't have an enclosure)Testing PA system, near completion - YouTube
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Enlightening video. I could have missed it, but I never saw a post where you described what alignment your bass box was. I assumed it was a simple forward radiating ported or sealed enclosure. This is obviously not the case, so resonance wise you have eliminated that previously stated concern. What alignment is your sub, to be certain? I would like to know before making further comments on it.
Your mid is sealed, so naturally it won't have rear wave cancellation problems just sitting on your amp like that. It is facing up too, which actually is a solid design practice. Do a Google image search for "pluto speakers" to see one of the more popular examples of an upward radiating mid.
You may want to consider keeping your mid facing up if you like that sound. Any beaming or harshness will be directed towards the ceiling, so if your tweeter picks up where the mid's wide dispersion drops off, you have the potential to get very good results running your mid full range. Eliminating crossover components wherever possible is a good practice. If you have the time, I would suggest taking the crossover off the mid to see how the system sounds, leaving the mid facing up like that. It may sound better, or it could sound worse. It's worth a try for how simple of a matter it would be.
What is the title of the track you played? I would like to listen to the track itself to get a better reference, as playing speakers though a mic though speakers again is a far removed reference.
Edit: Centerfold J. Geils Band
Disclaimer: I wouldn't use an upward facing mid for DJ purposes, but for your home it's fine.
Your mid is sealed, so naturally it won't have rear wave cancellation problems just sitting on your amp like that. It is facing up too, which actually is a solid design practice. Do a Google image search for "pluto speakers" to see one of the more popular examples of an upward radiating mid.
You may want to consider keeping your mid facing up if you like that sound. Any beaming or harshness will be directed towards the ceiling, so if your tweeter picks up where the mid's wide dispersion drops off, you have the potential to get very good results running your mid full range. Eliminating crossover components wherever possible is a good practice. If you have the time, I would suggest taking the crossover off the mid to see how the system sounds, leaving the mid facing up like that. It may sound better, or it could sound worse. It's worth a try for how simple of a matter it would be.
What is the title of the track you played? I would like to listen to the track itself to get a better reference, as playing speakers though a mic though speakers again is a far removed reference.
Edit: Centerfold J. Geils Band
Disclaimer: I wouldn't use an upward facing mid for DJ purposes, but for your home it's fine.
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