Building the best loudspeakers

[Ceibal]

I am a first time builder and trying to decide on the best tweeter and midbass combo. I have been looking at two Morel MW-164's and Morel's Supreme 130 tweeter in one of Dayton Audio's MTM towers. This will be a sealed box design. My goal is to design a set of speakers that would rival any at or above the price of 5K. Is there a better set of tweeters/woofers that I should consider? Any suggestions on the crossover? Is there a better enclosure that someone can recommend or will this one the best out there?

[wigginjs]

I am a first time builder

I strongly recommend that you build a published design from a reputable designer. It sounds like you want to build an MTM. Consider the below:

Zaph XG18 / 27TDFC

Troels Ellam d'Appolito

Tony Gee Proteus

There are others and any of these could be turned into a floorstanding speaker be adding a sand-filled chamber to the bottom. If you are doing this project to gain knowledge about speaker building then it's possible you should design your own, although even then I'd probably still recommend you base it on a published design. If you are just looking to build wonderful sounding speakers then I strongly, strongly recommend building a published design.

[ShinOBIWAN]

Hi Ceibal

If this is your first build and especially if its your first crossover then I'd be inclined to build a well documented design. It might sound like a bit of a let down but there's many excellent ones and some will fit your criteria of out performing other much more expensive commercial loudspeakers. You also learn a lot in the process despite building someone else's design.

Loudspeaker design is quite sweeping and even old hands sometimes have failures. So be wary of buying a bunch of expensive drivers as it could turn into just an expensive failure. When your first project is a success its surprising just how much of a boost that will give. I think if you made an expensive mistake you'll be less inclined to build more speaker in the future.

As for designs that fit your requirement, have a look at these:

Highend standmount designs:

http://www.zaphaudio.com/ZD5.html

http://www.geocities.com/woove99/Spk...Usher_2way.htm

http://www.humblehomemadehifi.com/Phlea.html

http://www.humblehomemadehifi.com/Cup-a-Soup.html

http://www.troelsgravesen.dk/SEAS_5INCH.htm

http://www.troelsgravesen.dk/AT-R.htm


Highend floorstanding designs:

http://www.humblehomemadehifi.com/Optimo.html

http://www.humblehomemadehifi.com/The_Monitor.html

http://www.troelsgravesen.dk/HDS164.htm

http://www.troelsgravesen.dk/AcapellaNEXT.htm

http://www.troelsgravesen.dk/JA8008.htm

http://www.troelsgravesen.dk/TJL3W.htm

As you can see, there's a lot of choices out there even if you go with an existing well respected design.

Finally should you absolutely want to do your own design I'm not familiar with the performance of the drivers you've mentioned. I do understand the Morel Supreme is a good dome tweeter but the Morel MW164 drivers are expensive for the relative poor performance they offer. I'd be much more inclined to look at Seas or Usher drivers which offer a nice blend of performance and value for money.

[planet10]

I'll have to agree with the comments already made. Crossovers are by far the hardest part of a loudspeaker to do (i actually classify them as e-vil ). So if you want to do an MTM 2-way do one with an already well thought out XO as your 1st project. Then you will have something you can listen too as the bug gets you and you start scheming your 2nd project.

I would watch out for XOs that get too complex. They have a tendency to suck the life out of the music, and can cause impedance swings that will drive an amp crazy.

Myself, i just try to avoid XOs as much as possible, choosing to live with other compromises. Still, even my modest stand-mounts would take a big chunk out of some pretty expensive speakers thay sell at the local hifi emporium (maybe a bit of hubris there on my part)

dave

[Keruskerfuerst]

You should not use Speaker units from Morel.

[Ceibal]

What is so bad about Morel? How can you determine which woofer has the most detail or is going to give you what you want? Most of the woofers I have looked at don't appear to be geared for a sealed box design or at least when I do the math. fs/Qes= EBP.

[Ceibal]

How good is the Seas W18E-001 (E018) 7" magnesium cone woofer? Has anyone used or heard this driver?

What started all this was when I went to a highend shop and heard Dynaudios line of speakers at around $2500 a piece. They sounded way better than B&W, to me at least. I want to build something that sounds as good or better.

[ShinOBIWAN]

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Ceibal
How good is the Seas W18E-001 (E018) 7" magnesium cone woofer? Has anyone used or heard this driver?

Not used that that driver but am familiar with the W22, which comes from the same family. The sound is good but you do need to be aware of the resonances and notch/crossover to accommodate this. Not really a beginners driver but the results should be worth the effort.

What started all this was when I went to a highend shop and heard Dynaudios line of speakers at around $2500 a piece. They sounded way better than B&W, to me at least. I want to build something that sounds as good or better.

Dynaudio used to supply drivers to the DIY market but that all stopped around 5 or 6 years ago. I think its fairly easy to select drivers that are either better or comparable to what Dynaudio are currently using. If you like the Dynaudio sound but want something that takes things further then look towards Audiotechnology which are a natural progression. These aren't the most detailed or transparent drivers out there but they certainly have a natural and smooth presentation that few can compete with.

If Audiotechnology proves to be too expensive a choice, then other good poly cone drivers such as the ScanSpeak 18W-8543, Seas P series or Vifa P series would give nice results. Poly cones drivers are usually easy to work with and sometimes incredibly easy to work with such is the case with the Vifa P series. Not much effort required in the crossover to get results.

[Godzilla]

I always liked the sound of Morel drivers. I was very disappointed when i accidentally threw away my Morel dome tweeters. Would love to have them back! Having said that, i once tried to build the ultimate monitor speaker using expensive Eton woofers and Dynaudio Esotec tweeters. The crossover parts cost over $200 each and i hated listening to these speakers for a few years, always tweaking crossover parts. I paid for help with the crossover but still never liked what i heard. My recommendation is to spend less money on your first project and experiment a little before spending big bucks. I think you will learn that in the end, the ultimate speaker does not have to be very expensive and that it is all a matter of personal taste. Enjoy the process and have fun!

Godzilla

[tinitus]

So very true