Simple Speaker build for dummies

[madrugger10]

Hey there. I'm a speaker building newbie and need some help. My knowledge is very limited on the nitty-gritty specs and what makes a good cabinet.

I bought 2 15" cerwin Vega raw frame woofers about a year ago with intentions of building myself a pair of speakers. I e-mailed cerwin vega and they said they could not give me spec sizes for a cabinet.

they sent me a link to the cabinet in which houses the woofers i bought. I have a sheet of specs from the entire enclosure they e-mailed but its at work right now. (i can get that if it may help)

http://www.topdjgear.com/cevevi153sps.html

So here I am....I feel like this is really out of place with all the awesome and much more complicated stuff you are all discussing and building but I could uses some help, and by help someone to suggest and tell me step by step what to do.

I need to figure out cabinet volume, horn options, crossovers? and how to stuff or fill the inside to create sound.

I wouldn't say I'm on a "budget" but I'm not going to break the bank...nor am i going to go on the cheap and build myself a piece of crap.

I would like something that sounds ok but I'm not going to go nuts here. I have less than $200 invested thus far. I'm going to use 3/4" MDF, carpet the boxes and add the corner guards.

These will be used as a backup pair of mobile DJ speakers or for any backyard parties I have.

Can ayone help me?

In advance.....Thank you.

Cheers!
Jessehttp://http://www.topdjgear.com/cevevi153sps.html

[augerpro]

My honest opinion: you've already burnt up nearly $200 and any more you spend is just throwing good money after bad. You'd be better off ebaying what you have and buy some of the PA speakers at musiciansfriend fro $200-400.

[MJL21193]

Originally posted by madrugger10

Can ayone help me?

Hi,
To build an enclosure you need the T/S specs for the driver, therefore it's good to buy one that has the numbers at hand. These specs can be measured, but it takes some equipment.

You could experiment: the link you posted for the CV 3-way shows that box to be about 140 litres (5 cubic feet). Do you know if that speaker is ported? If so, yo could go look at it and guess the size of the port diameter and length.

As for mids, tweeters and crossovers, you need to overcome the box problem first.

You could do as augerpro suggested and sell these drivers - cut your losses.

[BHTX]

I agree with the above.

Also, I have to say that it's not as bad as it sounds really. Could be a lot worse. You could have spent several thousand dollars on stuff over the years and ended up not doing a thing with any of it. And then when you finally get around to selling it, the economy has gone to **** and no one wants any of it, yet back when you bought it, people were going nuts over all these items like they were the last thing on Earth. So yeah.. it could be worse.

If it were me, I'd probably just toss 'em on eBay and start over. But before you do, figure out what you're doing first.. like what you really want out of the design and the best way to go about getting it. Begin your design focusing on the mid/high freq drivers, and design for the low frequencies after that. However, after reading your post, I couldn't help being reminded of the Selenium 15PW5-SLF I've been looking at lately. About $100 each, and I've seen them for as cheap as $70 a piece. It actually seems to be a very decent and versatile driver.. far better than most of the offerings in that price range from Eminence, etc. Most likely a really good deal for the price. Would work well tuned around Fs in anywhere from 4.8 to 6.5 cubic feet. It should actually be clean enough to cross around 1KHz or less in a simple budget 2-way for PA use, if you wanted to go that route and save some money in the process. Oh, and I think I remember the manufacturer pdf spec sheet for this driver actually looked worse than the few 3rd party measurements I've seen, which all look very similar.

[Cal Weldon]

If you do decide to start over, I second the Selenium suggestion. I have a bunch of their 15"s and am happy with the build quality and price point.