First DIY system: 4-ways! Peerless, HiVi, TangBand, Fountek

[Candisa]

Hi,

We're new to building our own home-audio speakers. We were planning to build a couple outdoors F.A.S.T. speakers first "to get the hang out of it", but since we have a limited budget at the moment and we already have all the drivers we need to build the indoor-project we want, we'll start with that one and do the outdoor speakers later...

This project will be a 4-ways setup consisting of:
- Peerless 12" XXLS subs
- 2 Peerless 10" PR's per speaker
- HiVi M8a woofers
- TangBand W4-1337 mids
- Fountek NeoCD1.0 tweeters

[Candisa]

The design:

To prevent problems with baffle-step, we want to keep the baffle the same width from top to bottom.

The subwoofer enclosure will be made out of 30mm thick MDF, with the subwoofer in the front and the PR's in the sides.

Because of the size of the subwoofer, the overall width has to be 34cm.
To get the tweeters at ear-level, the height of the box will be 45cm, and to get the right volume, the depth will be 38cm.

This is how the subwoofer-part of the speakers will look like seen from the left (Links), front (Voor) and right (Rechts):

[Candisa]

We want to work with decoupling between the subwoofer, woofer and mid+tweeter, so the woofer will get its own enclosure that will be mounted on top of the subwoofer enclosure.

Like I said before, we want to keep the width of the speaker the same from top to bottom, so the width of this enclosure will be 34cm as well.
To keep the drivers as close as possible to eachother, we want to keep the height of the woofer-enclosure as low as possible, so this will be 26cm.
To give enough volume to the woofer and leave some extra space for bracing, the passive filter... the depth will be 30cm.

In combination with the subwoofer, this is the result:

[Candisa]

I don't see why the midrange and the tweeter should get their own enclosure, so these will be combined together in 1 enclosure.
Again, the width will be 34cm.
To be able to put the drivers in it, the height will be 26cm, and since the width and height is already exactly the same as the woofer-enclosure, we'll keep the depth the same too: 30cm.

The total picture becomes:

[Candisa]

That's all for now!

Additional information:
- The woofers, mids and tweeters will be filtered passively and powered by a regular stereo-amplifier.
- The subwoofers will be filtered actively and powered by a dedicated subwoofer-amplifier.

Isabelle

[Cal Weldon]

Hi Isabelle:

New to building, trying to get the hang of it and starting with 4 ways. That is certainly ambitious. I'll let the others deal with some of the finer points but since I have experience with PR systems I can help you a little there. It will be a struggle to make it work with a 12" woof and two 10" drones per speaker. You might want to reconsider the design. For a 12" driver you will want either a single 15" or two 12" drones minimum per cabinet. Trying it with two 10" you will run into trouble with cone farting as soon as you turn it up.

[dantheman]

I'd recommend reading through this stuff:
The Speaker Building Bible - Techtalk at Parts-Express.com
mh-audio.nl - Home

This is an ambitious project. Best of luck.

Dan

[Xeentje]

Closed would be another option, but I know she wants maximum output with max low-end extension... We'll see how it turns out.

It's pretty ambitious and we got some other options: Using the css trio8's for instance... But she wants to use those in the car since there's not really that much space to put in the subs since we need the trunk for groceries.

[chlorofille]

Looks like a good, fun project. You seem to know more than you admit to. =)
For the sub, try to go ported if possible. The Peerless XXLS 12'' is a killer in a 75L ported box tuned low. I'm using the 12'' XXLS 830847 dual voice coil version. What is your exact subwoofer number? All your speaker sensitivities are well chosen too.
Good stuff.

-Dinesh-

[Candisa]

Cal: I already have 2 subs and 3 PR's laying around. I bought these subs and pr's 2 years ago to use in my car.
I based this choice on Peerless recommendations: Peerless recommends 1 12" sub in combination with 1 12" PR, and since I tought 3 10" cones looked nicer than 2 12" cones and 3 10" cones have about the same total area as 2 12" cones, I went that way...

Since I already have these subs and PR's laying around, it was more logical to buy another 10" PR and use 2 of those per sub, than to spend a lot more money and buy 2 or 4 12" PR's and still have those 3 unused 10" PR's laying around...

According to the simulations I made in WinISD, 2 10" PR's per 12" sub should suffice with the power we're planning to give them.

dantheman: thanks for the links, I'll give a look at them.

chlorofille: Like I said: I already have those PR's, so it would be a shame not to use them. Apart from that, 75L is a lot bigger than we want. The subs I have are the ....44 version, 4ohms, Nomex cone, very low Qts, optimized for use with PR's...

Isabelle