Hi there, my name is Jesse and I am a bit of a project-aholic (for better or worse). I was into car audio some 20 years ago, so i have some hands on experience building enclosures and figuring ohms and wattage and such. I'm a mechanical engineer by trade, so i also (somewhat) enjoy the math in designing enclosures and optimizing things. I've been wanting to upgrade my home theater/music speakers/sub for some time, and it's finally economically feasible to make some decent DIY speakers so here we go...
Existing system is a Yamaha RX-V870 receiver w/ Fisher DS-826 (3 way w/ 12" woofer) for mains, design acoustics (model#?) center channel, Bose 201 for rears, and a Jensen 12" 100ish watt ported powered sub (Pieced together over a long time, hence the lack of any consistency...). I want to upgrade to something with deeper bass (the little Jensen sub struggles at deeper/higher volume stuff, especially in movies), and have somewhat crisper highs as well. The fisher 826s, surprisingly, actually seem to have pretty good mids & bass for speakers that are old and were pretty low end to begin with... Reviews of them are pretty critical, but i actually don't mind the warmer sound they have. But I don't claim to have a golden ear either - whatever hearing I had years ago was dulled by the aforementioned car audio shenanigans back then...
I had joined one of the other audio forums, but realizing that I'd most likely be building my own speaker cabinets led me here, and to much reading!
Jesse
Existing system is a Yamaha RX-V870 receiver w/ Fisher DS-826 (3 way w/ 12" woofer) for mains, design acoustics (model#?) center channel, Bose 201 for rears, and a Jensen 12" 100ish watt ported powered sub (Pieced together over a long time, hence the lack of any consistency...). I want to upgrade to something with deeper bass (the little Jensen sub struggles at deeper/higher volume stuff, especially in movies), and have somewhat crisper highs as well. The fisher 826s, surprisingly, actually seem to have pretty good mids & bass for speakers that are old and were pretty low end to begin with... Reviews of them are pretty critical, but i actually don't mind the warmer sound they have. But I don't claim to have a golden ear either - whatever hearing I had years ago was dulled by the aforementioned car audio shenanigans back then...
I had joined one of the other audio forums, but realizing that I'd most likely be building my own speaker cabinets led me here, and to much reading!
Jesse
Haha, thanks Pico!
I'd love to go simple someday, with low watt tube amps and some super efficient speakers for music... but not there yet.
For now, how to optimize what I have for music/home theater listening...?
1. The Yamaha receiver stays, its in good shape, has 5.1, and pushes some watts. And it also does stereo well for a solid state amp
2. The Fishers go - they'll be relegated to garage duty and will fit in much better there. New mains are what I'm focusing on here.
3. The center channel, I need to grab the model# but it was a decent piece a number of years ago and has high sensitivty... maybe keep it in play, assuming it can keep up with new mains
4. The Bose rears.. well they're Bose, which doesn't automatically make them suck but they aren't great. They're just bookshelf speakers anyway, and for that matter only get 24W of rear channel sound anyway (and I don't think the yamaha sends them much LF stuff anyway)
5. The little Jensen subwoofer also goes to the garage, or goes to the little computer sound system or something... Replacement sub needs to have some deep, big sound. I'm thinking a lilmike F20.
I'd love to go simple someday, with low watt tube amps and some super efficient speakers for music... but not there yet.
For now, how to optimize what I have for music/home theater listening...?
1. The Yamaha receiver stays, its in good shape, has 5.1, and pushes some watts. And it also does stereo well for a solid state amp
2. The Fishers go - they'll be relegated to garage duty and will fit in much better there. New mains are what I'm focusing on here.
3. The center channel, I need to grab the model# but it was a decent piece a number of years ago and has high sensitivty... maybe keep it in play, assuming it can keep up with new mains
4. The Bose rears.. well they're Bose, which doesn't automatically make them suck but they aren't great. They're just bookshelf speakers anyway, and for that matter only get 24W of rear channel sound anyway (and I don't think the yamaha sends them much LF stuff anyway)
5. The little Jensen subwoofer also goes to the garage, or goes to the little computer sound system or something... Replacement sub needs to have some deep, big sound. I'm thinking a lilmike F20.
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Well, nobody says "high efficiency or bust" and...how low is "low Watt" ?
The Fisher's could be a good playground. Once you "fix" 'em, they might sound more modern. Put a real midrange - and study the crossover.
Eliminate the L-pads if any, run the cables of each speaker out of the box and experiment. A new 1" dome tweeter working >5 kHz .
The presentation of the sound would change dramatically !
The Fisher's could be a good playground. Once you "fix" 'em, they might sound more modern. Put a real midrange - and study the crossover.
Eliminate the L-pads if any, run the cables of each speaker out of the box and experiment. A new 1" dome tweeter working >5 kHz .
The presentation of the sound would change dramatically !
Well, I suppose the high efficiency stuff is really for the tube amp folks... I believe the receiver I have is good for 80w for mains, so perhaps efficiency isn't all that important in my case.
The Fishers.. I actually like quite a bit, compared to a lot of the junk that's out for sale in the big box stores. Which is sad, really. But they are, after being bought 2nd? 3rd? 4th? XXth? hand, pretty rough around the edges with the plastic veneer on the particle board cabinets peeling at the corners/edges, grilles are full of holes and tears... They look like college speakers, which is what they were bought for back then!
So without really really redoing them entirely, its not a good starting point. The $ spent just to remake them I feel would be better spent starting more or less from scratch, but building a proven design & getting the correct drivers.The system does dual duty as home theater & music, maybe 30/70. I enjoy my action movies loud and like to be able to feel the tornadoes/dinosaurs/explosions etc. Music ranges from classical to rock, with jazz and electronic/synth stuff in there too. Music is typically listened to in stereo mode, movies in either stereo or in surround, but bass is very lacking when in surround mode either due to the limits of the small powered sub, or the receiver trying to send too much bass thru the center channel which only has 4" or so woofers/mids and not enough to the mains/sub. Bass in stereo mode is adequate for music listening (with the sub set to low gain and low pass filter set pretty low, maybe 50hz), but is lacking for movies - if I do crank up the sub for movies, it flops around and makes a lot of whooshing noises with very noticeable distortion.
Current room is about 25w x 12d x 8h, though this will change as a move is in the near future.
Budget is probably under 1000 for the mains and the sub - about $500 for both mains and $500 for the sub, including amp.
Mains - I was looking at making klipschorn clones originally (lots of cool info about the old khorns by PWK to read floating around out there), then was looking at klipsch jubilee clones, then started looking at frugalhorns, the bigger Ron Clarke model with the Fostex 206en, I believe this was called the "Dallas II" with a single 8" full range driver in each, rear horn loaded. Reviews on these sound great, though I'm having a hard time believing that an 8" speaker could blow away my ratty old Fishers with their trusty 12"s... But I don't have any experience with horn loading yet. Seems like something with a horn loaded 10 or 12, coupled with a smaller horn loaded mid might have fuller sound down low, but i understand the point there is to eliminate the crossover altogether and a larger speaker wouldn't reach up high enough without an added tweeter. Possibley something like the BBBIB (12" Eminence BIB).. my top pick at the moment. I had also just started looking into the eWave design that other folks rave about, but don't understand those fully yet. Ideal range would be at least 60-20k hz, though going lower to more like 40 hz would be great for listening without the sub engaged. I'm certainly open to other designs as well, full range, 2 way, 3 way, etc. Bigger is better, in general though obviously some neat tricks can be done with horn loading, transmission lines, and such. And khorns/jubes are pretty damn big.. that size or smaller would be ideal, but open to pretty big stuff if its worth it for the response. I could always just do a big traditional 3 way ported cabinet with a 15" woofer, and quality mid and tweeter w/crossover - that still ought to far outdo the Fishers, though they wouldn't have the efficiency of a horn and would take more juice per dB.
Jesse
Put the speaker upside down, get rid of the mid & tw and cover the holes.
Extract the crossover, post a pic of it.
Try to guess/estimate the sensitivity of the drivers...well, the efficiency !
Put the (new)midrange above the woofer, or put the (new/neo) tw in between the two.
The midrange is better alone, with no box. Use felt ( real sheep's felt) to absorb rear emission.
Study crossover's technique > which goes together with knowing how a speaker works
Leave the horns and wideband drivers to others. Big is not better, in audio !
Pico, I'm with you, but these cabinets are junk at this point... They were okay in 1986, but 30 years of being moved around and humidity + dogs & cats has pretty well ruined any decent looks they may have had. Wife wants them out of the house at any rate, haha.
I've got a basic understanding of crossovers, but the Fishers appear to just have filters on the speaker leads, I haven't seen a typical crossover on a pcb inside the cabinets yet (though I've not had the woofers out).
Ciao!
I've got a basic understanding of crossovers, but the Fishers appear to just have filters on the speaker leads, I haven't seen a typical crossover on a pcb inside the cabinets yet (though I've not had the woofers out).
Ciao!
Well, or avoiding crossovers altogether... That's why I was looking at some of the full range designs.
BIB, Replicon, FrugalHorn Mk3, RonClarke Horn, and last but not least BBBIB
Why do you say PCBs are death? I'm not worried about sizing components and soldering them, but if you can get a ready made board that will look good and has heavy traces, why not go that route?
I think I could throw together some good size 2 or 3 way cabinets with crossovers that would sound better than what I'm used to with relative ease, just looking at frequency plots & sensitivity for a few drivers and selecting crossovers/L-pads as needed, sizing the cabinet volume for a certain frequency to make the woofer happy, and getting the mid and tweeter up at ear height...
Or I could go full range, and try something new. This interests me, especially the specific tuning done for horns and transmission lines with the ability to tune below a drivers Fs and ability to flatten out the speaker's response. Also the relatively low cone excursions for high volume, so low distortion.
Which would sound better in the end? Well, I don't know. I listen to a pretty wide range of material, you might call it eccentric even. I have a feeling some things would sound better on a multiple speaker cabinet, and other things might sound better on a full range. Classic rock vs. Classical vs. Electronic...
BIB, Replicon, FrugalHorn Mk3, RonClarke Horn, and last but not least BBBIB
Why do you say PCBs are death? I'm not worried about sizing components and soldering them, but if you can get a ready made board that will look good and has heavy traces, why not go that route?
I think I could throw together some good size 2 or 3 way cabinets with crossovers that would sound better than what I'm used to with relative ease, just looking at frequency plots & sensitivity for a few drivers and selecting crossovers/L-pads as needed, sizing the cabinet volume for a certain frequency to make the woofer happy, and getting the mid and tweeter up at ear height...
Or I could go full range, and try something new. This interests me, especially the specific tuning done for horns and transmission lines with the ability to tune below a drivers Fs and ability to flatten out the speaker's response. Also the relatively low cone excursions for high volume, so low distortion.
Which would sound better in the end? Well, I don't know. I listen to a pretty wide range of material, you might call it eccentric even. I have a feeling some things would sound better on a multiple speaker cabinet, and other things might sound better on a full range. Classic rock vs. Classical vs. Electronic...
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