Floor Standing Speakers.

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Hi everyone,

I am new to this site and need some help from highly experienced members. I want to make a pair of Floor Standing Speaker with 200 watts rms each. I want to know which speakers i should use and there connections. Also the box size and if anything else required for teh same.

Gurpreet Singh
 
You need to tell us the size of your room and the type of music you listen to. Watts is one of the last things you need to consider and 200 rms is way more than most need and not available in a full range that I'm aware of. An efficient driver can play very loud with just a few watts.
 
A few thoughts:

When such a question is posted at a specialized niche of the DIY speaker building world ( i.e. the Full Range Forum, or "kiddie pool"), don't be surprised if recommendations are quite different from those at say the Parts Express, or even multi-way section herein.

As jimbro noted - unless this is for a PA or live music sound reinforcement application, I wouldn't start off with "watts" as a criteria - there are a few standard questions that I always recommend considering to help shorten the process - in no particular order:

- room size (square or cubic feet)
- application (2 channel music only/ multichannel home theatre?)
- program material / listening habits (type of music / anticipated loudness levels)
- placement / design constraints ( i.e the "wife acceptance factor")

Is there a make/type of domestic speaker that you've heard that you'd like to approximate?

start small
 
Thanks for your support.

Answers to your questions are:
Room Size: 12' X 12'
Application: Only 2 Channal Music.
Programm Material: Movies and high beats music.
Placement: I can place these two speakers maximum 8 feet apart along with front wall of my bedroom. On the two adajacent walls I have two doors of 3.5' each width opening to my hall and garden.
I am also planning to use a 12" active subwoofer with these speakers.

please tell me the make and size of speakers I should use.:confused:
I am thinking of using some pioneer speakers.
Thanks.
 
I am thinking that if your planning on playing loud bass heavy music and/or movies that you might want to consider a FAST system. Thats where you have a full range driver crossed around 150-200 Hz to a helper woofer on each speaker. You would not need a sub if you did that and used adequate drivers however you could if you really felt like it, crossed in really loud.

A Markaudio Alpair driver would sound excellent. And crossed high excursion wouldn't be a problem. 20 watts per channel should be nearly deafening in room.

Check this out: http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/markaudio/198703-fast-build-alpair-7-3-seas-l26roy-2.html

It's really hard to just tell you what drivers you should use, as there are hundreds. It all is going to depend on personal preference, output requirements, price range, off axis requirements, etc... What could be an excellent option for me could be terrible for you.

And as said before 200 Wpc is insane overkill for full range drivers, a FAST system maybe if the woofers were pretty inefficient. And even in that alignment the full rangers would only need a fraction of the total power. My new Aikos (fostex driver) I only give about 3-4 watts. My old speakers (line arrays, my own design) were inefficient relatively and needed about 5-10 watts. Even my horn subwoofer (its huge, a couch, literally) only needs about 30 watts to literally knock things off of shelves across the room.

Any information you have about what specific requirements you have would be great
 
Thanks "kctess5"

I have seeb the Fast Buid Project it looks great.
I have some specifications of speakers which I want to use.
A. Woofer - 14cm, 50 Watt RMS, SPL: 88dB, Response: 50Hz to 20,000 Hz, Impedance 6 Ohms.
B. Full range Speaker: 10 cm, 15 Watt RMS, SPL: 86dB, Respone: 50Hz to 18,000 Hz, Impedance:8 Ohms.
C. Tweeter: 6cm, 15 Watt RMS, SPL: 94dB, Response: 4000 Hz to 20,000 Hz, Impedance: 3 Ohms.

Are these speceifications enough for my requirement. Also, please throw some light on wiring of these speakers, box size (volume required), distance between woofer, speaker and tweeter and all other stuf that are required to build this.
Also up to what power of amplifier is required to run these speakers.:confused:
 

ra7

Member
Joined 2009
Paid Member
Gurpreet,

I think you want to be in the multiway forum, not in the fullrange forum. "Fullrange" here means one single driver covering nearly the whole audio spectrum.

You will need to design a crossover if you plan on using the drivers you mention. Crossovers are hard to do without measuring driver impedance and frequency response. An easier way is to go with a single driver in a box, like a horn. There are many good options, as suggested by members here. There is also a great article on this type of speaker:
http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/diyaudio-com-articles/158899-arpeggio-loudspeaker.html

If you want to build multiway speakers, check out the parts express forum also. Also check out the Manzanita project:
http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/multi-way/110583-fast-fun-inexpensive-ob-project.html

Be sure to pick a project that is well documented and supported. This will ensure you finish it and get it working satisfactorily. Otherwise you will end up spending a lot of money and not be happy with it.
 
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Thanks "kctess5"

I have seeb the Fast Buid Project it looks great.
I have some specifications of speakers which I want to use.
A. Woofer - 14cm, 50 Watt RMS, SPL: 88dB, Response: 50Hz to 20,000 Hz, Impedance 6 Ohms.
B. Full range Speaker: 10 cm, 15 Watt RMS, SPL: 86dB, Respone: 50Hz to 18,000 Hz, Impedance:8 Ohms.
C. Tweeter: 6cm, 15 Watt RMS, SPL: 94dB, Response: 4000 Hz to 20,000 Hz, Impedance: 3 Ohms.

Are these speceifications enough for my requirement. Also, please throw some light on wiring of these speakers, box size (volume required), distance between woofer, speaker and tweeter and all other stuf that are required to build this.
Also up to what power of amplifier is required to run these speakers.:confused:

If you are referring to those drivers being used for a FAST then thats not really what it is. You won't need a tweeter for a full range driver (in most cases...)

FASTs are basically 2 way speakers with low crossover points. They are usually done with active crossovers such as plate amps, this makes wiring easier as no crossover is needed. As mentioned before, thats a very tricky thing...

Wiring wise you with two plate amps will basically just have the sub output straight to the sub and the higher frequency output to the full range driver. You won't need any more electronics other than maybe a notch filter but thats not absolutely necessary, I still haven't used one.

Cabinet wise you will need some sort of wood, MDF or plywood will do. Some stuffing material for most designs, pillow stuffing will work. Whatever kind of finishing materials you will need, thats veneer, paint, etc. You will need glue, fasteners (i use a pneumatic nail gun), clamps for construction, and so on.

What could sound REALLY good would be a mid sized full range driver, like the Alpair 10.2, and some sort of lower frequency driver. Build an enclosure for the low frequency driver, sealed would be quite musical at the expense of some low frequency punch, but with a good driver it would be fantastic. Put the Alpairs on open baffles and mount them on top of the the subwoofer cabinets. That would be pretty easy to build and would sound great. Cross around 200 Hz actively via a plate amp, one per cabinet, lower than that would start needing some pretty big baffles. The price wouldn't be too bad, under $800 or so depending on finish, subwoofer drivers, amplifiers and so on.

Just a thought...

At this point here's my suggestion: Look around the forum and the internet as a whole at a bunch of different system designs to get a feel for the different options and how much design and thought goes into each system.

If it feels like we're avoiding your question we're really not, its just that many of your questions are more specific ones that wouldn't really come out until you knew generally what design you were going with. There are soooo many different enclosure types that telling you right off the bat things like box volume and amplifier output isn't really possible other than very vague estimates. For example, my subwoofer only needs about 30 watts of house shaking rumble because its a horn, however the very same drivers in a smaller ported or sealed box would need a much larger amp, as much as 10x time power for the same output.

Get a feeling for what you want, sonically and aesthetically, how much space you can give up, what SPL you need, what kind of music you will listen to. Then look around at different styles of speakers for what you think would be well suited to you.

For example, I know that for myself I like full range sound, especially horns (partially aesthetically), I don't particularly care for bass reflex boxes (though not all!), I don't like the look of many MLTLs, I like my bass low and very present, I listen very close to the speakers, and so on. From this I can decide what will work for me, a FAST would be great, a small bass reflex with a 3" driver not so much, a horn with a 80Hz crossover to a sub yes, a 3 way with a relatively large distance between the drivers not so much...

Sorry for being long winded, thats what happens when boredom sets in...
 
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