I note that your budget for drivers is huge compared to the amp.
Depending on how you want it to dig (deepness of bass and pocket?)
2 Fountek FE87s sealed in tiny boxes plus a Visaton W130S in a 11-12" cube ported will get you to 40hz or so. This is the mucho cheapness approach.
Less thrifty would be something like 2x Scanspeak Discovery 10F 8414 with a sub....$60-$70 each for the FR drivers.... $40-$50 for a Tang Band W5-1138SMF or aW6-1139SIF would be the compact and reasonable end of the sub side of things. But could be pretty compact. Going to a 12" Scanspeak or similar the price goes above $200 and the sub enclosure becomes rather larger.
Realistically, if you're prepared to spend this much on speakers, the Lepai should be the retired in favour of something rather more capable..... And that's without touching on the question of soundcard or DAC.
Depending on how you want it to dig (deepness of bass and pocket?)
2 Fountek FE87s sealed in tiny boxes plus a Visaton W130S in a 11-12" cube ported will get you to 40hz or so. This is the mucho cheapness approach.
Less thrifty would be something like 2x Scanspeak Discovery 10F 8414 with a sub....$60-$70 each for the FR drivers.... $40-$50 for a Tang Band W5-1138SMF or aW6-1139SIF would be the compact and reasonable end of the sub side of things. But could be pretty compact. Going to a 12" Scanspeak or similar the price goes above $200 and the sub enclosure becomes rather larger.
Realistically, if you're prepared to spend this much on speakers, the Lepai should be the retired in favour of something rather more capable..... And that's without touching on the question of soundcard or DAC.
The Tang Band mini-subs need a rocket up them to get any real output. I sunk 1000w peaks into a pair of the 6.5" ones. That wasn't a typo. It was an NU6000, one driver per side, nudging the -6dB lights on peaks.
I'm not convinced a little chip amp would get those drivers to give their all.
Chris
I'm not convinced a little chip amp would get those drivers to give their all.
Chris
Fostex ff85wk is a great speaker. It is perfect for 2.1. They are extremely transparent and have a good top end. If you go to a bigger speaker you will gain midrange and loose the top.
For best implementation find a nice woofer that will be well behaved up to 300-400Hz, and for near field get two woofers (for L-R channel) and run them mono in the same enclosure off the .1 channel. I really enjoy mine with a TPA3116 2.1 amp. It has a crossover built in for the woofer. The amp is the weakest link but it's cheap, has a crossover and sounds great!
For best implementation find a nice woofer that will be well behaved up to 300-400Hz, and for near field get two woofers (for L-R channel) and run them mono in the same enclosure off the .1 channel. I really enjoy mine with a TPA3116 2.1 amp. It has a crossover built in for the woofer. The amp is the weakest link but it's cheap, has a crossover and sounds great!
I'm using the FF85WK in the Lance design at my desk without a woofer. My amp is the SMSL SA-60 TPA3116. The amp has a bass boost that is very effective at the volumes and seating range and sounds a lot better than the commercial mini speaker/sub that my next office neighbor uses.
I've also built pairs of these speakers for my daughters' dorm rooms and they are both pleased with the arrangement, but they're not very picky either. It's funny that they say they are the only ones with real speakers as everybody just uses their built in computer speakers. "Back in my day" we all had dorm room stereos, some a lot better than others.
I've also built pairs of these speakers for my daughters' dorm rooms and they are both pleased with the arrangement, but they're not very picky either. It's funny that they say they are the only ones with real speakers as everybody just uses their built in computer speakers. "Back in my day" we all had dorm room stereos, some a lot better than others.
This looks like a great little setup. I might pair it with a small sub. Yeah, I remember the dorm stereo wars... of course with mp3's and streaming these days, the better the system the worse the music sounds.
Those Woden TLs are great if you can position them properly. Given the usual computer desktop situation, I feel they're a little bulky, and the rear port necessitates positioning them away from the back wall. If you're going for a sub anyway, may as well go for something like the Aura NS3 in 1-1.5 litre enclosures as the satellites. Or go a little bigger ported....
I'd go the soundcard route but it's a laptop. I found one 2 channel amp with a sub out, that should do the trick. I want to be able to control sub volume from the amp.
That's why I suggested USB.
External USB 6 Channel 5.1 Sound Card Adapter SPDIF Optical PC Audio Converter | eBay
That's the one I played with for a while.
J.
External USB 6 Channel 5.1 Sound Card Adapter SPDIF Optical PC Audio Converter | eBay
That's the one I played with for a while.
J.
This looks like a great little setup. I might pair it with a small sub. Yeah, I remember the dorm stereo wars... of course with mp3's and streaming these days, the better the system the worse the music sounds.
It is a very nice setup. If I had to downsize my living space I could live with just this as my main system, although I'd have to keep the turntable and preamp for the best sound.
As for the size, they are a little deeper in the back than most mini speakers, but that's what gives the bass a little room. They are a few inches from the lightly padded back wall of my desk.
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Any idea how they'd do in a sealed box? The Lance design is a bit too big for my desktop. I came up with the following which is considerably smaller. Bass rolls off around 150 but I'm using a sub.
Sealed Box
Vas = 1.036 lts
fs = 115 Hz
Qts = 0.55
Qtc = 0.707
Dimensions 2.82"X7.61"X4.7"
Vb = 0.06 ft3 = 1.59 lts
= L x W x H
f3 = 147.85 Hz
fb = 147.83 Hz
Vb: Speaker Box Internal Volume
f3: 3dB Cutoff Frequency
fb: Enclosure Resonant Frequency
Thanks for all the advice. I started a build thread for this at http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/full-range/295231-ufonkenwk-1v0-fostex-ff85wk-build.html.
In SQ terms it's quite reasonable. Plays as well as anything else through my Tannoy E11s.
It's quite small, about the size of the palm of a hand or a Raspberry Pi.
It's listed as to 16/48Khz but for Stereo, I persuaded MPD to send it 16/96Khz.
Only issue I had with it so far was with the 3.5mm stereo jacks. Some seemed to resist "bulkier/chunkier" plug tips until they'd been used a couple of times. Using a smoother or shallower profile plug on a lead I had lying around solved that.
J.
It's quite small, about the size of the palm of a hand or a Raspberry Pi.
It's listed as to 16/48Khz but for Stereo, I persuaded MPD to send it 16/96Khz.
Only issue I had with it so far was with the 3.5mm stereo jacks. Some seemed to resist "bulkier/chunkier" plug tips until they'd been used a couple of times. Using a smoother or shallower profile plug on a lead I had lying around solved that.
J.
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