New cabs for Selenium 15CO1Ps needed

[epalla]

I've got a couple Selenium 15CO1Ps that I've used since college. They've served me well as a good compromise between efficiency, price, output and quality. They've been used variously as home theater speakers and as college party speakers with Crown amps.

Here's what I've got:


Now, those cabinets are basically the exact specs recommended by Selenium for these speakers. They sound great - but they don't exactly blend in nicely as I move on from college to real life. I'm interested in preserving the sound quality and reusing the drivers but I'd like to replace the cabinets with much slimmer and nicer towers. I'll probably keep them about the same height (though the driver will be moved to the top to put it right at ear level) and make them exactly as wide as the driver.

Any plans out there that would work well for this? Should I be looking into sealed enclosure? Would a complicated folded cabinet help to keep the sound from a much smaller box?

I don't know a lot about tailoring the cabinets to the speakers and the sound you're looking for.

[nigelwright7557]

I wouldnt recommend a smaller cabinet the sound will degrade.

Folded cabinets end up large to get the right sound.

[epalla]

These cabinets have a bit of padding in them but no stuffing. Can't I do a lot to decrease the size by just stuffing a smaller cabinet?

[GM]

Which recommended cab, or do you mean the 110 L reflex test alignment used to measure response? Regardless, what are its build dimensions?

Don’t recall any this small. Typically, I would recommend a fairly tall cab tuned lower with the driver offset to the proper ear height. This way, it can be made larger, require less internal damping that an end loaded tower, but with the smaller footprint you desire.

GM

[epalla]

These are the dimensions these boxes are built to:
http://www.partsexpress.com/pdf/264-392b.pdf

It puts the driver a little below where I'd like it to be, but it could be moved up in the cabinet without making them taller also. The width and depth are the two dimensions I'd like to reduce as much as possible. Height is a little easier to work with, though I'd still prefer they not be much taller than they are.

I guess short of stuffing (which can get you some size, but not a ton) there aren't a lot of tricks to make a smaller cabinet sound like a bigger one, huh?

[901Fixer]

The cabinet can have just about any dimensions provided they are still ~5ft^3 internally and the ports are the same diameter and length. New cabinets could be a bit narrower but still at least 16" or so wide, they are gonna be obtrusive.

Like most Pro Audio drivers they are super efficient, 96dB, but don't go real deep, F3 ~50hz, great for party music but lacking when it comes to Home Theater. I've never heard a 15" Pro Audio style co-axial, how do they sound up top?

How do you plan to use them now at home? For HT you could build some Sub enclosures and put your existing cabinets on top.

[epalla]

They're all right up top, the HF driver in these is actually the D205TI titanium driver which isn't bad and pushes the whole driver up to 18,000hz. I've definitely heard better from "normal" two way speakers before, but the crossover here is well made and works well between the two drivers to make this a pretty nice musical speaker.

Right now they're hooked up as a home theater system and they see about equal use watching movies and playing music. I'm happy to use a sub to get the deep lows you want for HT, so I'm not worried about that. I'd rather keep these sounding basically just like they do now.

5ft^3 is just too big of a damned box. These are 17.5" deep, 22.5" wide and 30.5" tall. The internal volume is 5.11 ft^3 (the front panel is set back a bit which reduces the volume). The size that I'd like to get it to (what I have worked out now) would drop it to 16" wide, 32" tall and 15" deep, for an internal volume of 3.26 ft^3.

What difference in the sound would I expect from such a volume reduction? Will polyfill be an effective way to scrape back 20-30% of the volume I've lost? Are there any other tricks I can use in the cabinet design to counteract these differences?

[901Fixer]

If you employ a Sub then a smaller cabinet should work, they just won't go as deep as they do now which would be fine as the Sub will handle this. They will become a large very efficient coaxial mid range driver. You might even have a few other options if you cross them ~80Hz, like open baffle or H-frame.

[GM]

The box sets the max acoustic efficiency, so less is always less. All stuffing does is flatten any peaking due to the cab being too small acoustically for the driver’s specs, which in turn raises F3.

With some measured specs, a ~3.26 ft^3 net sealed cab calculates a ~84 Hz Fb with only very minor peaking, but might be a bit marginal for an 80 Hz XO. Otherwise, tune it down around 32 Hz with a 4" dia. x 6" long vent near the bottom and damp to 'taste' as if it were a too small sealed.

GM

[epalla]

I'm running it in WinISD (holy cool program batman) and getting the same results. I like how the vented plan looks GM, thanks!