Which DIY speaker designs work best on low volumes?

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Hi.

Long time reader, first time writer :)

Due to personal preference and thin walls, I'm looking for speakers that "come alive" on low volumes. Most speakers need too much power/volume to give the right bass and detailing, but some designs work better than others. Does any one of you know, which DIY designs work best?

Budget is max 3k$, so I'm concidering both DIY and 2nd hand commercial. This would be my 4th speaker project and I'm a professional carpenter, so the bar is high overall.

Medium to high WAF is appreciated. The room is approx. 25m2 (270sqft), so I'm thinking small floorstanders, maybe. Smooth, warm(ish), effortless, musical sound is very much preferred. Amp is 2x70W tube-mosfet hybrid.

So, high end sound at late night levels? High sensitivity? Scanspeak drivers? 2nd hand Harbeths (what ever happened to the WAF)? Any suggestions, ideas or personal experience?
 
I just finished a project like that , but ,man ! 70 W it's a lot !
I spent more money on the crossover parts than on the drivers.
Indeed the drivers were found in : woofer in a '60s box , midranges come from a radio-cassette player , tweeters from a sony tv set , and they cannot support more than 10 W :eek:
For the tweeters ( cheap plastic cast with neo magnet )I prepared a waveguide made from dead elliptic speakers ;for the woofer , I cut the whizzer out and put a reversed dustcap that looks fantastic ; midranges are housed in a cylindric tobacco can , onto the plastic cover :Olympic:
 
Hi.
I'm looking for speakers that "come alive" on low volumes........ Medium to high WAF is appreciated ....... Any suggestions, ideas or personal experience?
Hi,
One suggestion & idea:
I did a very good (& unique) experience with concept "DML" and Treupath amp.
It's KIS ...... but ..........It's music, i like it ....
(Btw: normaly, my favorite musical scène go for 5-way-horn system .. but not in 25m2)
Good luck with your musical set-up,
Karel
 
Hi.

Long time reader, first time writer :)

Due to personal preference and thin walls, I'm looking for speakers that "come alive" on low volumes. Most speakers need too much power/volume to give the right bass and detailing, but some designs work better than others. Does any one of you know, which DIY designs work best?

So, high end sound at late night levels? High sensitivity? Scanspeak drivers? 2nd hand Harbeths (what ever happened to the WAF)? Any suggestions, ideas or personal experience?
High sensitivity does help. Anything above 92-93 dB/(2.83V*m) would be nice. Just beware that many commercial speakers declare 'optimistic' sensitivities ;)
Also, if you go the DIY route, one other parameter to consider is the compliance of the Woofer's suspension. Simply put, higher compliance = easier to "come alive" at low volumes. A good rule of thumb, I'd say, is Cms > 0.3 (which rules out many pro PA woofers, despite their high sensitivity).
One more thing you might want to consider is box tuning. Well-damped boxes (e.g. closed with Qtc < 0.7, or Bass Reflex with Vb = n*VAS*Qt^2, n<4.5 and lowish Fb) tend to sound "quicker" and "more alive", all else being equal.

Cheers,

Marco
 
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Long time reader, first time writer
Welcome aboard!

Interesting project. Most guy want speakers that can blast really loud, but many of us just can't do that where we live. A speaker that plays well at low levels is a cool project.

Many of the fullrange guys are quite happy at moderate levels with single, small drivers in some sort of MLTL, BLH or other enclosure. But it seems to me you'd want a speaker with a recessed midrange to take into account the Equal Loudness Curves at low levels.

The SEAS FA22RCZ is a very good driver that works well on open baffle. Its rising response is gone on OB in a room about your size. You'll want some woofer under it, especially for low levels. You can adjust the woofer louder to make up the subjective bass roll-off at low levels.

Good luck with the project, it will be fun to see what others come up with.
 
High sensitivity AND high quality is a good recipe for excellent sound at low levels. My Nagaoka BLH's with Fostex FE208ES-R (just tippin' the 100 dB mark) has real good sound and not at least RESOLUTION even when I'm lurkin' around at 55- 60 dB. The amount of low-level detail is quite amazing. Most of these details are lost with below 90 dB speakers..

My Altec 604s are also pretty sweet-sounding and detailed at low levels, and these are readily available and in your price bracket, I believe.
 
as far as i can tell, the following properties are desirable in a "low spl" system:

1) Very wide dispersion in the 1khz to 3khz region. The side wall reflections reinforce these frequencies and improve our sense of intelligibility Absorb reflections behind the speaker and listener, and also absorb ceiling/floor reflections. Have very obvious reflectors at lateral reflections.

2) Frequency response tilted down about 2db in the 500hz to 2.5khz region

3) Very LOW room noise floor. This is the worst culprit for wanting to raise SPL.
 
Hi,

You don't need high sensitivity, you need high quality. If you have high
sensitivity and quality fair enough, but sensitivity is near irrelevant.

For small floorstanders high sensitivity means no real bass extension.
Zaphs ZD5, which is low sensitivity and matches 70W well, wiill go
low, what they won't do is loud, and that is not a problem here.

rgds, sreten.

Best way of using a 70W amplifier at low volume is a low efficiency
speaker that for its size has very good bass extension, its obvious.
 
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as far as i can tell, the following properties are desirable in a "low spl" system:

1) Very wide dispersion in the 1khz to 3khz region. The side wall reflections reinforce these frequencies and improve our sense of intelligibility Absorb reflections behind the speaker and listener, and also absorb ceiling/floor reflections. Have very obvious reflectors at lateral reflections.

2) Frequency response tilted down about 2db in the 500hz to 2.5khz region

3) Very LOW room noise floor. This is the worst culprit for wanting to raise SPL.

Definitely important - especially the noise floor. My listening room is below ground basically, with outer walls of concrete, and it is dead silent - usually 25-27 dB which helps a lot when playing at low levels.

And high sensitivity IS relevant. And if the mentioned 70W amp is of a certain quality, and the gain situation of the total system is optimal there is no problem with high sensitivity/70W/low level listening.
 
Due to personal preference and thin walls, I'm looking for speakers that "come alive" on low volumes.

1) GPA 604 coaxial. 2) Synergy horn.

My uncle has owned Altec 604 coaxial speakers for over 40 years. They deliver "comfort sound" that I can enjoy for hours. Take a good look at the GPA Model 604-8H-III. I have been surprised by the clean bass from MLTL cabinets, for which there are at least 3 designs for the GPA 604, all using simple construction techniques. There are a few crossover options for the GPA604 III, including the one on the GPA website.

Great Plains Audio's Two-Way Loudspeakers

Jay Fisher's Bottom port MLTL:
Mass-Loaded Transmission-Line Cabinet: (outside Dimensions): 19.625" WIDE. 26 inches DEEP (front-to-back). Height 42.5 inches plus 10 inch legs to accomodate the bottom port = 52 inches TALL. Mount the driver so the center is 19.625" from the inside top of the cabinet. The bottom port is 6" round, and 2" in length. Panels cut from 1" baltic birch plywood.

============

Your small room and neighbor concerns can both be accomodated by a 50x50 or 60x60 constant directivity synergy horn. The narrow polar pattern aims most of the 100db/watt energy at the listener, with little going off to the room sides. There are several theads describing 2-way and 3-way Synergy horns. There are three popular bass units for the Synergy: 1) monopole box(ported or sealed); 2) dipole bass; 3) cardiod bass(least rear energy). The woodwork is not complicated, but you will probably want to copy a proven design to avoid crossover challenges.
 
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Joined 2001
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The short answer is high quality, the better the speakers, the less volume they need.

To put the same thought in less nebulous terminology, the speaker with the better DDR (downward dynamic range) will likely sound better at low levels. Back to Pano's suggestion of single drivers, they get an immediate edge because they have no XOs to subtract low-level information (FRs have their own set of issues, one of the big ones moot if you are playing at low levels). Active XOs are usually better in this respect than passive, but they still have fundemental issues.

It all comes down to choosing your compromises (all speakers are heavily compromised) to best suit your particular situation.

dave
 
I'll second sreten's comment, that high sensitivity is absolutely not needed in achieving high quality sound at low listening levels. If anything all higher sensitivity loudspeakers do is magnify problems, such as minor ground loops, hiss, transformer induced hum and crossover distortion.

The main reason for going with high sensitivity drivers is to do away with any issues with compression, either loudspeaker/crossover related, or power amplifier (clipping) related. In a low SPL system you're never going to be pushing any of the system components hard enough for any of this to be an issue.

As sreten said a lower sensitivity pair of loudspeakers will actually give you far more bass extension. It's all about maximising the gains you can get out of a system with regards to the laws of physics. If you don't need high SPL then may as well exploit this fact and get deep bass from compact boxes. If speaking of full range drivers, Mark Audio drivers are more geared towards maximising the bass extension, rather then fostex drivers that tend to go more for high sensitivity.
 
as far as i can tell, the following properties are desirable in a "low spl" system:

1) Very wide dispersion in the 1khz to 3khz region. The side wall reflections reinforce these frequencies and improve our sense of intelligibility Absorb reflections behind the speaker and listener, and also absorb ceiling/floor reflections. Have very obvious reflectors at lateral reflections.

Frankly in my experience side wall reflections reduce intelligibility more than any other variable.
They do give a false sense of 'spaciousness' though.

For intelligibility a very tightly controlled dispersion in the 1-3k region is absolutely essential.
 
2 pages of replys overnight! Thank you SO much, people, much appreciated. It'll take me all day (or weekend rather) to properly go through all this. But what better way to waste away a friday afternoon at the office, than obsessing about DIY audio ;)

I'll take a serious look at the ZD5. Definitely high WAF, quality components and (theoretically) spot-on system match, I'm very interested. But tell me this: " In a largish enclosure, we get ridiculously deep bass". What, from a 5" driver? For real?

Also, I have Fostex FE208E's in a huge BR box here at the office, maybe I'll make a quick n' dirty closed enclosure and try those, see how this FR thing would work at home. But like Planet10 said, they do have their issues... I'll look into the GPA-604 as well, most interesting to say the least, but I doubt she'll let me bring those boxes in. 254 liters! Might as well mount them through my bathroom wall, should be about the right size...

So thank you, everyone. I'll start going through all this, will be much wiser soon.
 
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