diy studio monitors

[tinitus]

So be it ... but brsanko really wants to do his own, and not anything well proven ... I suppose we are over that point ... and stuck

 

[Jay_WJ]

but brsanko really wants to do his own, and not anything well proven

Then you misunderstood him. He did not say that he wants to choose ANy drivers that seem to be good. I believe he meant that he'd rather design speakers on his own, using good parts and proper knowledge. That's why he asks for help here.

-Jay

 

[tinitus]

He asked about and learn what to look fore in a driver
knowing theres is no easy answer to that ... I placed some teasing options ... good or bad ... thats up fore diskussion, which you obviously wont

I can understand that you depend on Krutkes measurements, and thats ok, fine ... but I dont ... and hell, I will make just about anything play good
Its ok to omit drivers that are objectionable by Krutke, but if we are limited only to use drivers aproved by him, thats quite a different matter ... I dont hope you are going that way, I am not, thats for sure ... and I am sure its not Krutkes intention either

I could easily suggest the AurumCantus and BG again, no sweat ... but obviously you are not interested in discussing the why and why not ... so we are getting nowhere at all

 

[Cal Weldon]

Gentlemen,

While I appreciate both of your inputs, I don't see this progressing at this point so it would be nice if the next post was from brsanko or others. OK?

 

[tinitus]

 

[brsanko]

come on kids can't we all just get along!!
I probably will want to be able to play them pretty loud.

 

[brsanko]

If some active xovers use cheap parts which ones don't? and how hard would it be to build one myself? And what about digital crossovers no one has commented on those. I've been looking at Zaph's pages and I really like what he's done there. Are there other sites that do the same thing? Can someone tell me what to look for in a CSD graph. The 5.5" speakers all seem to more distortion than the 6.5" woofers. Is this just an artifact of differing method of measurment or is it true? and if so why? At the moment my main goals are small sealed boxes (<.5 cu ft) table or small stand mounted, well integrated with a centerally placed under table subwoofer. I'm liking the Idea of active crossovers but they need to be high quality, though I haven't made up my mind for sure. I want ruler flat frequency response, very low distortion, and the capability of playing quite loud. If there are other qualities I should be looking for please let me know. I want to be able to make sure my recardings sound as rich, detailed, dynamic, musical, 3 demensional and accurate as possible.

 

[brsanko]

One other question. With an active crossover does the impedence of the driver still affect the crossover point or is this unrelated because the crossover is taking place before the amplifier?

 

[Jay_WJ]

Originally posted by brsanko I've been looking at Zaph's pages and I really like what he's done there. Are there other sites that do the same thing?

Do you mean his testing pages or design pages? If you mean the former, look at

Mark K's: http://www.markk.claub.net/
Monte Kay's: http://www.mfk-projects.com/Measurements.htm
Troels': http://www.troelsgravesen.dk/Tweeters_dist-test.htm
A Feyz P's: http://members.fortunecity.com/pirimoglu/Design/DriverComparison/MidWooferComparison.html and http://members.fortunecity.com/pirimoglu/Design/DriverComparison/TweeterComparison.html

and more. As you can see, I do not depend only on Zaph's measurements. I always want to see as many measurements as possible. The reason why Zaph's testing page is cited a lot by people is that he tested the largest selection of usable drivers.

If you mean the latter, there are many other DIYers' project pages including:

http://www.rjbaudio.com/
http://www.geocities.com/cc00541/
http://www.lonesaguaro.com/speakers/default.asp
http://murphyblaster.com/content.php?f=main.html
http://users.d-web.com/dbrown/speakers/speakers.htm

and a lot more if you search for all.

Can someone tell me what to look for in a CSD graph.

It shows nothing more than the frequency response graph especially when the FR graph is presented in high enough resolution. The CSD is generated from the same impulse data as the FR is generated from. If you're more interested in this issue, take a look at this thread (many experts joined the discussion):
http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=104500&highlight=

The 5.5" speakers all seem to more distortion than the 6.5" woofers. Is this just an artifact of differing method of measurment or is it true?

I don't think there's any significant reason. Simply because 5.5"s are not as popular as 6.5"s. And people didn't test as many 5.5"s as 6.5".

At the moment my main goals are small sealed boxes (<.5 cu ft) table or small stand mounted, well integrated with a centerally placed under table subwoofer. I'm liking the Idea of active crossovers but they need to be high quality, though I haven't made up my mind for sure. I want ruler flat frequency response, very low distortion, and the capability of playing quite loud. If there are other qualities I should be looking for please let me know.

It seems that Mark K's RS225/RS28 design is a good choice in your case. If you want to do your own project, consider the Peerless 830884 8" midwoofer (excellent distortion performance; tested by Zaph in his tidbits page) / 810921 tweeter combination (one of the lowest distortion tweeters; tested by Zaph, Mark K, and Joe Rasmussen).

 

[Jay_WJ]

One other question. With an active crossover does the impedence of the driver still affect the crossover point or is this unrelated because the crossover is taking place before the amplifier?

With an active crossover, the impedance profile of a driver does not affect the crossover performance unless your amp has an unreasonably low damping factor (usually not the case with a solid state amp). But note that steeply rising impedance curve often indicates a poor motor design of a driver, thus causes more distortions.

 

[tinitus]

My gut feeling says that you really dont want any fancy well tempered hifi speaker

http://www.partsexpress.com/pe/pshowdetl.cfm?&PartNumber=290-495

http://www.partsexpress.com/pe/showdetl.cfm?&Partnumber=277-045

Sub could either be a 18" monster like the Mach5 or other similar or even a 18" PA woofer ... depends on your taste

Digital xo and full blown equalizer, and you can play as much as you like and maybe even create the sound you like - one is sure, you can play pretty loud question is, do you have the needed skills to set it up

There you go, I did it again

 

[brsanko]

Umm.....OK!

I've used EQs in the past and they sound terrible, I'm doing digital recording here if I want to EQ something I'll do it in the digital domain. I get the immpression that because I have my own opinions, don't take your suggestions as gospel, and mention that I may play it loud some times your assuming I'm a noise freak and don't care about sound quality. My primary concern here is to get as close to perfect reproduction as possible, but I'm trying to get as many ideas, opinions, and information as I can. I going to be recording a lot of rock music so I need to be able to play it loud. Not ear splittingly loud but rockin' loud. I don't have neighbors for several blocks so I don't need to worry about that. Now I'm assuming that most high end hifi drivers are made to handle a decent amount of power so I don't need to move into any PA or musical instrument stuff for my monitors. Later on I may take on a guitar or bass amp project and then I'll look into that stuff. The main reasons I'm looking into active crossovers is that so many people swear by them, I really don't know how to solder, and I don't like the Idea of alot of ciurcutry in the way of the signal. I heard about digital crossovers and thought since I'm going to be processing everything digitally anyway I might as well send the digital signal straight from the recorder into the crossover do everything in the digital domain and probably eliminate a host of issues that way. If my thinking has gone astray on some of these point please feel free to let me know.

 

[tinitus]

Thats the problem ... many hifi speakers wont play rocking loud, at least not the small ones ... what you need is efficiency
Another thing may be dynamics ... I suppose that the master recording from real life bass and drums is a whole lot of different from our usual home junk

I dont know about recording gear, but I suppose its not so much a matter of how your monitor sounds, but more a question about you getting accustomed to it, knowing how your recording will sound on ordinary gear, when you have a certain sound on your own monitors

 

[brsanko]

Well that's why I want to avoid my monitors having a "sound" I want them as acurate as possible. Of course I will also have some lower quality speakers on hand as well to get an Idea of how things will sound on lesser sytems but those will probably just be conected to the computer via one of my old amps maybe the Technics or the Nikko. Actually the Nikko sound pretty awesome, I'd say at least as good as my new Denon.

 

[tinitus]

I am not really sure what you mean by accurate, but a speaker that plays music with timing, rythm, musicality and finesse needs to be very accurate and monitor like to reveal the ambiense and intensity in the music ... but many speakers that are rated accurate are just plain simply lifeless ... what originally gave the monitor its name, and became something to avoid in hifi ... and the more accurate they are said to be, the worse they are at playing music ... accurate can be very different things ... the worst recordings are probably made with use of "lifeless" monitors

What about using high quality headphones fore recording and then have a partyspeaker fore playing loud

If you want the best sound go fore a small 2way with a 5", but that will NEVER play loud

 

[brsanko]

Well I think that low distortion and a flat frequency response are important in a studio monitor so you know what your really recording. Dynamics are important too to be sure. I don't want a set up that makes bad recordings sound good I need to be hyper critical. Now if I was spending money on a system just for pure musical enjoyment I would probably go with a tube amp and maybe even horns, I need to know what the music is going to sound like on differnt systems and also exactly what is recorded on the disc. So I want different things than I would on a home system. I don't know if there is any way you can know how dynamic a speaker is by looking at specs. But if there is I'd like to know about it. I guess off axis response is pretty important too because if your recording a band they are all going to be sitting in different places. My studio is pretty small so I don't have a control room all the gear is right in the room with the performer(s). Unless I move my studio out to the garage, but then I won't have anywhere to park my car.

 

[tinitus]

If there is a speakers that makes bad recordings sound good I want to hear about it but I do know there are speakers that makes almost anything sound bad

I obviously dont understand much of this, but I do believe that ultimately different kind of music calls fore different kind of speakers etc ... I would think that the same goes fore a recording studio as well

I dont think that you can get a "all in one" solution ... well, at least not in a small package
And low distortion at high SPL ... completely different ballgame

Why dont you just build JAYs speaker ... wouldnt cost you more than a weekends partying

This might be what you want, but its a floor standing speaker ... but still NOT rocking loud or cheap

http://www.troelsgravesen.dk/TJL3W.htm

Sadly noone seem to make an oldfashioned 3way JBL monitor style speaker with up to date hifi quality drivers ... actually I am working on it ... sorry, I forgot about ATC

 

[brsanko]

Wow dude are you even reading my posts? A small two way with a 5-7" woofer crossed over to a 10" ported sub @ 100hz should be able to play plenty loud in my small studio. I'm putting these on a table and don't want a 3-way. Why did you recomend those last speaker they don't have any of the things I'm looking for.

 

[tinitus]

How about this nice coax

http://www.greatplainsaudio.com/2_way.html

Or you could get a 8" Radian coax, now you also want a sub ... or any other Radian coax ... it was mentioned at the very start

 

[brsanko]

too big, vas is way too big. Doesn't have any measurements or respone charts or anything. Just have to take their word for it that it sounds good. Unless it would work with an open baffle but I don't know any of the rules for those.