Full Range Build, 12" driver...

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Right. Well after a lot of reading here and elsewhere, i do believe that I'm now a full range convert - at least in theory anyway. I'd like to build a pair of full range speaker enclosures to test this theory out!
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So which enclosure design? Well, i will be retiring an old pair of Fisher 3 ways with 12 in woofers, so to me it only makes sense to go for a 12 in full range design. I have 500 usd budgeted for the pair, which seems to put me into the lower end of things depending on the amt pf wood needed.
Which driver? The Eminence 12 lta seems to be quite popular .. or possibly the newer celestion K12H-200TC or that Fane 12" full range. So I need an enclosure design that works well with one of these 12" speakers. Ah yes, and i understand i will need a super tweeter to fill in the very top end of the spectrum.

Designs of interest:
Bigger badder BIB
BBBIB Bigger Badder BIB Speaker
Hammer Dynamics super 12
Emken
Afterburner
Karlsonator 12

I want something thats at least somewhat hifi, though given my current ds-826s, pretty much anything shoulf be an improvement. They will be used for music of all kinds, as well as movies, so they need to do a lot, and play loud but clean. Ideally with bass extension way down low (hence the bbbib as the current favorite). Ideally no need for a subwoofer - for music at least - would be great.

I will driving the pair with a Yamaha receiver with 80wpc, so i don't necessarily need a speaker so efficient, but nothing wrong with efficiency either. Unless a different full range driver would sound better?

I have a table saw, circ saw, jig saw, etc, but I'm more of a novice when it comes to woodworking so simpler enclosures will probably come out better.

Any opinions on drivers/ enclosure designs are welcome! I've not had the opportunity to listen to any of these unfortunately, so any first hand experience would help.

Edit: Room is approx 25 ft wide x 12ft deep with 8ft ceiling, but there are doorways in both front corners, so speakers are inboard of doorways (so no corner loading currently - though a move is in the near future so this will change).
 
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firstly, are you really committed to 12" speakers?
Committed to the big full sound that the 12s (or larger) would provide might be a better way of putting it...
For rock, they need to, well, rock. For classical, they beed to be full and authentic. For jazz, similar. If anything i guess i like a "live" sound, but maybe with a little extra low bass, the feel it in your chest kind.

I had not thought about a fullrange with helper woofer... hmm. Most of my reading was pages and pages of BIB designs.. :)
 
So its crossed low enough to not kill the magic of the fullrange.. interesting. I'll do some reading on the FAST concept.

For something like that bigger badder BIB, my understanding is that the tapped horn rear portion of the drivers output provides all the low frequency stuff, so a helper woofer isn't necessarily required... Nice and simple at least.
 
Hello again Pico, well yes i suppose there would be some intermodulation issues, though those that built some of the designs with the 12lta never mentioned it as a problem. Supposedly the imaging is good, and issues with delay/directivity of the horn is minimal since we're talking about lower frequencies. I'm sure there are negatives with this type of design as with any design, it becomes a series of compromises. :)

Admittedly, I like the concept and want to try it out. I could just build a set of 2 or 3 ways instead (w/12 or 15" woofer) but i wondered whats lost between drivers in the crossovers. I'm also planning a subwoofer build to augment the frequencies 17-60 hz for movies, but would rather leave it off for most music listening.
 
Uh, Fisher ! Yes, I remember...
Well, the fact that appears strange to me is the importance given to the woofer.
In a three way design, the mid and tweeter have the same importance.
The crossover too. How can anyone just can design something based on one thing ? Specially if that thing is going to reproduce music.
The woofer, the midrange, the tweeter, they are going to be put in a room.
How is "the set-up" ?
(w/12 or 15" woofer)
Please don't ! They are going to be put in a room, I mean, a real room, not a hall
6-7" is the maximum. 3-4" for the midrange unit, 3/4-1" tweeter.
 
Yep, those ratty old fishers... Though being nearly free years and years ago, their sound quality / price is impressive!

Maybe i'm not being entirely clear, apologies. Not that the woofer is more important than mid/tweet, just that the low frequency response in most modern "miniature" speakers is lacking.
As for going smaller, maybe I'm wrong, but I've never been impressed by the bass response of 6" and smaller drivers. Superior mids and highs from the same cone? Perhaps so!
And of course the crossover can be a simple affair or quite complex in a 2 or 3 way system.

For a full range speaker though, everything is based on the single full range cone.

Yes in a room not a large hall. I'm aware that the bbbib design might be a bit much speaker for such a room.. though the living room will likely be bigger here shortly, pending a move.
 
12LTA could use a double magnet - -or at least a standard Eminence 56oz slug - a Klippel BL curve would be interesting. I think it has 0.08" physical voice coil overhang. Although it plays clean, and reasonably loud, I don't think it has the "snap" of a good 12 with say 80oz magnet and similar moving mass. I get the feeling its compressing on large signal transients.

12LTA does pretty well in the Karlsonator 12 Putting in in K15 would probably extract a bit more "hit" and probably could be put in a traditional style K-coupler somewhat less in size than K15.

Fane's 12 has an awfully high qts - it is tough and extended in highs (dead-on-axis) - had one in the Karlsonator 12 and it went pretty deep - but didn't graph it to see how much peaking there may have been.
 
I would do the Eminence 12LTA twelve-incher, a truly inexpensive full-ranger, a way straightforward "classic" bass-reflex enclosure...then refer to a drawn out thread of an individual here who had some testing gear to "get it right", or as best possible. This individual fortunately didn't fall for the "it sounds right", or the "sounds muddy", the subjective qualities. As Neil deGrasse put it "humans are poor data taking devices...that's why we have science...machines...they don't care which side of the bed they woke up on...what their spouses said,...if the had their morning caffeine...they will always get the data right".
I'd apply all this individuals experience, data acquisition...trying to "get it right"...with this one driver.


___________________________________________________Rick..........
 
I saw the relatively small magnet on the 12ltA, but the Celestion was a bit bigger at least, 60 oz i believe, vs 48oz for the lta.

Freddi, you seem to be the karlsonator man...
With all the highs coming from the front of the cone, do you need to put them up on stands? Or does the angle the driver is mounted at account for this, given a reasonable listening distance? The "veil" panels on the front don't block part of the highs? It's an interesting design that i have not delved deeply into yet... sort of fell into about a million pages of BIB reading!

Thanks Rick, thats sage advice. I don't mind blazing a trail if i have to, but if someone else already went thru the motions it would be great to check out what the conclusions were. Do you recall which member had the thread or what the title was?
That hammer dynamics super 12 was just a vented reflex, and appeared to have some thought/ experimentation put into it.
 
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the angle of a Karlson and beaming of typical fullrange and coaxial pretty much allows Karlson - Karlsonator to sit on the floor. Karlson's K12 ( fall 1954 to Karlson's death in 1973) had a 3 inch stand - with some small K-coupler, that provides a better balance as things could get "chesty" sounding with some small Karlson (like my "SK8" and Tangband W8-1772) directly on the floor. Raising that cabinet about 5 inches allowed harp and soprano voice to play well.

12LTA will definitely need a "helper" tweeter - even for 78 era recordings (maybe not the early acoustics)

for what little its worth Karlsonator 12 with Beta 12LTA - YouTube
 
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Probably is my room that adds too much room gain but yesterday I was to finish an old job, a so-called boombox with 2 fullrange speakers and a subwoofer. This particular one, as others, works with pee-wee TDA 2822 and the like...something like 1+1 W delivered to the FR and 3 W to the sub unit
Yesterday the transformer got quite hot :p
I was focusing on the subwoofer, as I eventually added a passive radiator on the back- The sub uses a 4"
I did use also a sony subwoofer, a 6", which is overly powerful for this project.
So the 4" has good bass ( previously it was intended for use with open back, same as OB :eek: ) and with PR now it's better...go figure what caused the addition of a second PR to the previous PR, sort of push-pull but better to say added mass :) Sooo, it depends on the project
 
I saw the relatively small magnet on the 12ltA, but the Celestion was a bit bigger at least, 60 oz i believe, vs 48oz for the lta.

Freddi, you seem to be the karlsonator man...
With all the highs coming from the front of the cone, do you need to put them up on stands? Or does the angle the driver is mounted at account for this, given a reasonable listening distance? The "veil" panels on the front don't block part of the highs? It's an interesting design that i have not delved deeply into yet... sort of fell into about a million pages of BIB reading!

Thanks Rick, thats sage advice. I don't mind blazing a trail if i have to, but if someone else already went thru the motions it would be great to check out what the conclusions were. Do you recall which member had the thread or what the title was?
That hammer dynamics super 12 was just a vented reflex, and appeared to have some thought/ experimentation put into it.


" beta 12LTA in a 3cf box-port size " the exact wording..he deals with adding material onto the driver basket itself, differing types to dampen internal reflections, & various works with removing the dustcap, replacing it with a "spiked" structure, or?, & various measurements along the way, a good long read.


------------------------------------------------------------------Rick.......
 
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