Full Range Speaker Photo Gallery

Just wanted to say thank you to such an awesome community and share my first build. I was introduced to Markaudio drivers a couple months ago by my father-in-law with a 3D printed enclosure for the CHN-50s. I had never heard a full range driver so magical and wanted to build a pair of towers for my main listening setup.

Spent a lot of time reading through posts here and landed on the Pensil 11. Built with 3/4” Baltic Birch, stained with black gel stain and finished off with polyurethane. Added the vertical brace from the Super Pensil. Could not be happier with the sound!

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I think that you are on the right track. These enclosures are pretty easy to build and when I think of it, that is the most logical way to build. I mean, when I built the Klipsch corner horns, I never saw so many angles in my life. The results were amazing, but there has to be an easier way. For me, this is it.
 
I build open baffle speakers with 4 Tang Band w8-2145 per baffle, based ECdesigns' "design". Satisfied with the results I got a carpenter to make a nicer version.

View attachment 1110585

I recently made a few recordings of the speakers, which are powered by ECdesigns' DAC/Amplifier, and give a pretty good idea of the type of sound which I would qualify as natural and transparent.




The Tang Band drivers perform well in this configuration, and offer a linear response. I do have a few humps in the lower bass (at 40 and 75 hz) on one speaker, as a, result of its placement and room modes.
Nice!
I've been using single 12 inch full ranges in a small enough folded baffle guestimated to be small enough to act similarly to a high pass filter to marry them to a subwoofer.
It nearly worked, but I had to highpass their amplifier with a single capacitor to get it to work with their single winged folded open baffles.
To progress (hopefully) along the same path, I'm starting a slightly larger folded open baffle with a Mark Audio 12P handling things full range, augmented with a 12PW lowpassed around 350 hertz to bolster the lower midbass before rolling off to meet a subwoofer.
It's inductor sums with the driver impedance to approximate 7.25 ohms; for little more even impedance plot than using two identical drivers plus an inductor on one.

Do you do any filtering or power tapering on your speakers?
 
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There is no filtering. The 4 TB drivers are in parallel, which results in 102 db sensitivity and a 2ohm load. The amplifier’s output is 2 ohm. Frequency response goes down to roughly 35 hz then rolls off. The bass level is adequate, but for bass heavy music a subwoofer may be relevant.
Beautiful build. That's a ton of surface area, so I'll bet they don't move much at normal listening levels.
With my little 8 inch (and their cones are small for nominal 8 inch drivers) there's a lot less area, so line level highpassing them reduces Doppler distortion for me, somewhat.
I don't live in terror of comb filtering, so maybe I'll give mine a whirl with 2 per side MarkAudio 12PWs sometime too.
There's something special about full range drivers connected directly to an amplifier.
It may sound better to me without the impedance ripples from a second order filter on one driver.
 
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After I bought the MA 12P drivers, I saw the 12PW drivers. So, I do wonder what the real difference is if a 12PW was implemented as compared to the 12P. I realize that the 12PW was intended for the lower frequencies, but it doesn't look (on paper) to be much different than the 12P. Am I missing something?
 
After I bought the MA 12P drivers, I saw the 12PW drivers. So, I do wonder what the real difference is if a 12PW was implemented as compared to the 12P. I realize that the 12PW was intended for the lower frequencies, but it doesn't look (on paper) to be much different than the 12P. Am I missing something?
The 12P frequency response looks similar until about 10,000 hertz or so, and gently dips to maybe -3db at 15000 Hz or so, and falls off a little steeper, IIRC.
I tried a pair of bipoles in a sealed cabinet before, unfiltered with a 12P up front and a rear firing 12PW before, intending to net a lower rear firing output due to the 4 db or so lesser sensitivity. In practice they were not very different in output level I think, probably due to the lower impedance of the 12PW.

Starting out with one of each in a baffle, I'm hoping without a filter they average out for me.
From what I recall, a single 12PW sounded more natural with voice, but a little shut in compared to a 12P, which sounded subjectively a little bright with a lot of recordings.
I will start with no filters, but I think I'll need the 1.22 ohm added resistance of a 4.7mH inductor to the 6 ohm 12PW in a dual driver speaker to keep my little power amp happy.
It's only 10 watts a side, 15 watts into 4 ohms, so the higher efficiency of the 12P will be welcome too.
 
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Thank you for this explanation. Truth is that these days I am trying to get the rest of my enjoyment of music while I still have some hearing left. In fact, I would say that anything above 12k is not all that important as it once was. As it is, I will be building a set of Joan horns in the spring and have a set of 12P drivers to use. Kinda wish that they were the 12PW drivers though.
I have been very fortunate in my past audio experience with the gift of incredible hearing. It was great.
 
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frugal-phile™
Joined 2001
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I do wonder what the real difference is if a 12PW was implemented as compared to the 12P.

A12pw is about 3dB less sensitive, goes much, much lower, top end starts dropping at 10k. Needs considerably larger boxes. It is a killer extended range woofer. Some prefer it (ignoring the lack of top) as a FR.

A12pw is a wildly underappreciated driver.

dave
 
frugal-phile™
Joined 2001
Paid Member
I will be building a set of Joan horns in the spring and have a set of 12P drivers to use. Kinda wish that they were the 12PW drivers though.

A12pw also fits in Joan, so at a later date you can easily swap.

Here is an A12pw standmount we did for a fellow in Vancouver for FR use. The shut-in qualities MIT mentioned would be down to the differences up top. About 2x the volume of the similar A12p Mar-Ken.

MK12pwxwT-SM.jpg


dave
 
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Those stand mounts are hard for me to look at and not just jump into the shop and start building! It is something about that venting that makes me want to hear what they sound like. Seems to be the most natural choice for venting that I have seen in a long time.
Then yes, there is the wood. It can be the most striking aspect of woodworking when the grain lends itself to this level of beauty.
 
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