Full range good for EW&F? WARNING: n00b status within

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I'm really hoping I'm not too far off here. I've been looking online for the past couple of days, trying to make heads or tails of Martin King's technical papers. I fear without some sort of project to help me understand, then it will remain gibberish.

I like the technical aspect but I need to know what will accomplish my goals. One of my top 10 albums... ever, is Earth Wind & Fire's "Best Of Vol.1." I suppose the real question is will a full range project sate my hunger for the Snappy mid-bass and crisp high's that Maurice White's group did so well?

My background is as a Car Audio Installer, which to me means 9/10 times your using stock locations and minimal enclosure design unless a sub is needed. In which case sealed is easier and ported is tuned for low end extension. I've never undertaken a "loudspeaker project", especially for a home application.

I've been searching through online sources looking for something useful. The technical articles frustrate me and the generic sources are so pedestrian that they provide no help at all. Is there a good Fostex full-range that will get me where I wanna go? The only reason I mention them is because my shop just got a Madisound catalogue a while ago and I know Fostex offers some inexpensive drivers and has some nice looking enclosure designs for their full-rangers.

Any advice or suggestions would be appreciated greatly.

Thanks
Aaron
 
i wake up so early today (10.10) that i can azard an answer:

earth, wind and fire? what did they have against water???

btw i don't know the album, but if complex passages are there mabye an helping woofer will...well...help. than if by highs you mean those things over 15khz than a smaller fullrange would handle those better (price-wise): so MJK little fostex with a woofer can be a very respected choice much people seems to like. i'm telling you because it's on my list of thing for the future, but i didn't tried it yet... it needs some space, and some big woofers but maybe you have them both.

if you are used to car subwoofers maybe the bass from a fullrange even in a horn would disappoint you, maybe it will englight you, but be careful often, crossing the fullrangers to one/two subs (that can also be h-frame helping woofers) can do the job on many more tracks.

i know it's not much to come out with a choice, but more knowledged people will give you the usefull answers :)
 
Hi Aaron, i think a great place to start (and a great place to end as well) is by building a BIB using a Fostex driver such as the 167e or 207e to appreciate EW&F. There are other enclosures that work great too but EW&F has a big sound and BIBs reproduce music in a big way. You need corners to fully realize what they can do but it's not mandatory (they sound fuller in the bass in corners for sure). The drivers above sound great in smaller ported boxes but just do not create as large a sound as BIBs.

Godzilla
 
Wow! What an awesome bunch of info GodZilla!!! Thanks, I've been reading up on the ZillaSpeak site. You've compiled a a good amount of information, especially about the actual construction of the enclosures. I did start punching in numbers on your BIB "how to" page.
Bigger Is Better 'BIB' Cabinet Dimensions - ZillaSpeak

I do have a few questions in regards to the process by which the answer's are derived.

So, taking the hypothetical driver "X" with some basic parameters.

FS- 65hz
QTS- .24
VAS- .46

When defining "L" you use 13560 however this is altered for the sake of your own example to 13464.54. Why is this? What is this magical number? When halved and then divided by the Fs you achieve the Line Length. Using this and my experimental parameters I achieve an "L" of

13560/2/65=104.31"

Proceeding forward, I simply divide "L" by 2 to create my folded height. Which in my case I arrive at 52.15" (I'm not rounding between calculations)

I also had a hard time understanding Vb. Is the integer 20 and the exponential value of 1.25 constant values or do either get altered depending on speaker. If they are indeed fixed values, then driver "X"'s Vb would be seen as

20x.24x.46^1.25=2.69153 cu ft

This answer is then plugged into 1728 (12in^3 or 1728 cu in) divided by my folded height to achieve the Sm.

2.69153x1728/52.15=89.184 sq in

SQRT seems to be an undefined value. As for internal dimensions I can progress no further. The only other factor that can be attained is the Zdriver factor which is simply the Line Length multiplied by .217 (given that you say that the Zdriver is normally a fixed value I'm assuming that .217 is also a fixed value used to determine a more accurate location)

104.31x.217=22.64"

So the center of the driver can be placed 22 5/8" from the top of the enclosure.

I am still devoid of the width and depths. Assumptions can be made. Since I know the Sm is area. I can assume that the WxD=89.194". Of course the number of non-integral Widths and Depths can be limitless.

I apologize for the lengthy post but I do wish to attain a greater understanding of these interesting enclosures, so that I might create one of my own with some confidence. If it is too much I do thank both you gentlemen for the aid you were already willing to provide for me.

Thanks so much,
Aaron
 
Not gonna lie... feel pretty dumb. Couldn't figure out that SQRT meant Square root. Hmm. In any case, the mystery has been revealed. I am still curious as to if there are any other factor to take into account when designing this type of enclosure.

Thanks once again for the help that has been provided. I hope I'll have some pictures up once I get rollin' on it.

Aaron
 
HI ABOB89, Greetings from Brazil,
I have the EWF Best of Vol.2 that have the Lets Groove hit, great disc to transients tests, I will listen it today in your homage.
My personal teste for FR are the MarkAudio Alpair10(6''), the Fostex F200A(Alnico 8'') and for OB the Nirvana SUPER15CF(15'' a real OB), I could love to parallel link two Super15CF in a good U shape OB panel. :);)
Gustavo
 
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