Hi all,
I'm the proud owner of a Yamaha Motif synthesizer. But I have a small problem. It seems very difficult to find good sounding speakers for such an instrument that can be used at home and outdoors. It's not the instrument. It sounds very good with a headphone. And on hi-fi speakers it works relative ok. But those hi-fi speakers use a 6.5" woofer and 1" dome. And they can't handle the dynamic range of the instrument. My sisters has a Roland stage piano, and she recently bought some HK speakers. But they just sound like a piece of crap with a large gap and some other problems around the crossover freq. And if you're like me, you say it's time to build some yourself.
What I'm looking for are some midrange drivers that can handle the dynamic range of such an instrument. But they should not be to big. I want to get the crossover freq. as high as possible. Do you people out there know of any good mid range driver capable of handling a very large dynamic range. Or would it be more interesting to use many small full range drivers? For the low end, I'm going to use a decent 10" woofer.
And all this will be powered by class D amplifiers, two SMPS's and a DSP. The SMPS is working (made it half a year ago. Only two MOSFET's got themselves burned. And it has been tested for conducted emission as well after rebuilding it for another company) But the amp is catching dust underneath my skull. Amongst some other things, one has to make money after all. It turned out daydreaming doesn't pay very well.
Other ideas are of course always welcome.
Thanks for reading,
Hendrik
I'm the proud owner of a Yamaha Motif synthesizer. But I have a small problem. It seems very difficult to find good sounding speakers for such an instrument that can be used at home and outdoors. It's not the instrument. It sounds very good with a headphone. And on hi-fi speakers it works relative ok. But those hi-fi speakers use a 6.5" woofer and 1" dome. And they can't handle the dynamic range of the instrument. My sisters has a Roland stage piano, and she recently bought some HK speakers. But they just sound like a piece of crap with a large gap and some other problems around the crossover freq. And if you're like me, you say it's time to build some yourself.
What I'm looking for are some midrange drivers that can handle the dynamic range of such an instrument. But they should not be to big. I want to get the crossover freq. as high as possible. Do you people out there know of any good mid range driver capable of handling a very large dynamic range. Or would it be more interesting to use many small full range drivers? For the low end, I'm going to use a decent 10" woofer.
And all this will be powered by class D amplifiers, two SMPS's and a DSP. The SMPS is working (made it half a year ago. Only two MOSFET's got themselves burned. And it has been tested for conducted emission as well after rebuilding it for another company) But the amp is catching dust underneath my skull. Amongst some other things, one has to make money after all. It turned out daydreaming doesn't pay very well.
Other ideas are of course always welcome.
Thanks for reading,
Hendrik
Synthesizers are capable of extreme bass, I'm not sure that 10 will do the job, I think Peter is on the money with the 15 for bass, but we have to ask what your budget is for the midrange, 8inch PHL with compression tweeter would be my guess.
I do not think a small midrange ( anything smaller than 6inch ) will do what you want, but I am no expert.
I do not think a small midrange ( anything smaller than 6inch ) will do what you want, but I am no expert.
Thanks for you input.
About the budget, didn't really think of a budget yet. I just want to see what options there are available and if other people faced the same problem and have a solution that works.
Outdoor use seems to need a little clarification: when used outdoors, they will be used as small monitors for myself without the bass cabinet.
Regarding the 15": a 15" speaker is not a good option. The cabinet will be to large. And it will create problems in the midrange. That's why I want to use one or more smaller midrange speakers instead.
It seems Beyma has some interesting units in the 6.5" range like the 6Mi90. The 6MI90 can be used up to 5Khz if it does what's written in the data sheet.
About the extremely low bass: the plan's to use a 10" or a 12" for the bass.
All the best,
Hendrik
About the budget, didn't really think of a budget yet. I just want to see what options there are available and if other people faced the same problem and have a solution that works.
Outdoor use seems to need a little clarification: when used outdoors, they will be used as small monitors for myself without the bass cabinet.
Regarding the 15": a 15" speaker is not a good option. The cabinet will be to large. And it will create problems in the midrange. That's why I want to use one or more smaller midrange speakers instead.
It seems Beyma has some interesting units in the 6.5" range like the 6Mi90. The 6MI90 can be used up to 5Khz if it does what's written in the data sheet.
About the extremely low bass: the plan's to use a 10" or a 12" for the bass.
All the best,
Hendrik
Celestion also seems to have some interesting drivers:
http://professional.celestion.com/pro/products/pdf/TF0510.pdf
http://professional.celestion.com/pro/products/pdf/TF0510.pdf
Hi,
It would be helpfull if you gave much more information about what you want to do with them.
For outdoor use, for example, it is very difficult to get significant bass response - many people would say don't try to get anything below 80Hz and put a peak in the respons of about 3 dB arround 100Hz as this seems to sound more natural outside. Clearly if you then want this speaker to sound natural and balanced inside you have a problem.
What SPL do you need to achive inside and outside. If you need it to go really loud then you will probably want quite high efficiency designs.
What do you mean by the dynamic range of the instrument. Dynamic range means from the loudest output the instrument can develop to its noise floor. A speakers ability to reproduce this is mostly dependent on how loud you want to play it back.
Do you actually mean the frequency response extreems. Again most speakers can do this at some output level you need to define a loudness requirement.
If you want the speaker to be very flat in response and have very low distortion so whatever sound you play into it it plays back cleanly. Then again you need to define a playback level and then that it needs to have a flat response, probably good polar response so it doesn't drop off fast as you move away from the seet spot and low distortion so if you are playing a signal loud it doesn't generate alot of harmonics.
This is all tied up with the budget as low distortion speakers are usually more expensive. If ou are happy for it just to have great dynamic range then very high efficieny speakers will give you this at the expense of distortion and low frequecny response.
Sorry, I have babbled a bit here. But I hope you get the idea. You need to define what you want then people can probably help you find a compromise close to it.
Andrew
It would be helpfull if you gave much more information about what you want to do with them.
For outdoor use, for example, it is very difficult to get significant bass response - many people would say don't try to get anything below 80Hz and put a peak in the respons of about 3 dB arround 100Hz as this seems to sound more natural outside. Clearly if you then want this speaker to sound natural and balanced inside you have a problem.
What SPL do you need to achive inside and outside. If you need it to go really loud then you will probably want quite high efficiency designs.
What do you mean by the dynamic range of the instrument. Dynamic range means from the loudest output the instrument can develop to its noise floor. A speakers ability to reproduce this is mostly dependent on how loud you want to play it back.
Do you actually mean the frequency response extreems. Again most speakers can do this at some output level you need to define a loudness requirement.
If you want the speaker to be very flat in response and have very low distortion so whatever sound you play into it it plays back cleanly. Then again you need to define a playback level and then that it needs to have a flat response, probably good polar response so it doesn't drop off fast as you move away from the seet spot and low distortion so if you are playing a signal loud it doesn't generate alot of harmonics.
This is all tied up with the budget as low distortion speakers are usually more expensive. If ou are happy for it just to have great dynamic range then very high efficieny speakers will give you this at the expense of distortion and low frequecny response.
Sorry, I have babbled a bit here. But I hope you get the idea. You need to define what you want then people can probably help you find a compromise close to it.
Andrew
Thanks for your response, and sorry for being absent for a week. Had to much real work to do. Your babbling is correct. It's all about a trade of between efficiency and distortion. I want a large dynamic range and low distortion.
It seems outdoor use needs some explanation: it's not really outdoor use. It's more like personal monitoring. It doesn't has to be full range. Just the mid and high is enough and it doesn't has to play loud on stage. But at home, it has to play full range without distortion.
About the SPL: peak SPL of a piano can reach 109dB at a few meter. But average it will be around 70dB.
Best regards,
Hendrik
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