After going to see a Skrillex/Madeon/Wolfgang Gartner/A-Track (the list goes on) concert last night I feel the need for a system with some massive power handling capabilities and not incredibly hifi sound quality. Mostly, I want to be able to hit war volume in small outdoor venues like my own average sized suburban backyard.
I generally do full range systems as I listen incredibly near field and I like the coherence and sound quality they give for in room use, but they will not cut it for any sound reinforcement type application, so this is sort of foreign territory for me.
I was thinking using making two 2 way mains augmented by a horn loaded sub focused around high efficiency. I am thinking of going for a low crossover, around 300Hz between the mid woofer and the top woofer, to make the wave front more coherent over most of the range and then cross to the sub around 80Hz with a 30 Hz low cut. I already have an active crossover than can do the legwork for all of that.
My plan was to look for a beefy full range type driver with medium excursion capabilities for the upper range, and use a 10" PA driver for midbass, thus taking the excursion load off the full rangers and letting them hit very high volumes without going over excursion. The subwoofer design I can handle just fine, ive done it before.
Is using a full range type driver like this a okay idea?
Any overall suggestions?
I would love to keep total cost below $150 (not including crossover), I know this is a stretch, but as I said, I'm going lo-fi, if I want crystal clear articulation, I can go upstairs.
I generally do full range systems as I listen incredibly near field and I like the coherence and sound quality they give for in room use, but they will not cut it for any sound reinforcement type application, so this is sort of foreign territory for me.
I was thinking using making two 2 way mains augmented by a horn loaded sub focused around high efficiency. I am thinking of going for a low crossover, around 300Hz between the mid woofer and the top woofer, to make the wave front more coherent over most of the range and then cross to the sub around 80Hz with a 30 Hz low cut. I already have an active crossover than can do the legwork for all of that.
My plan was to look for a beefy full range type driver with medium excursion capabilities for the upper range, and use a 10" PA driver for midbass, thus taking the excursion load off the full rangers and letting them hit very high volumes without going over excursion. The subwoofer design I can handle just fine, ive done it before.
Is using a full range type driver like this a okay idea?
Any overall suggestions?
I would love to keep total cost below $150 (not including crossover), I know this is a stretch, but as I said, I'm going lo-fi, if I want crystal clear articulation, I can go upstairs.
I did some looking around and I found a few I though could go together
T3 Audio T200-12S4 12"
GRS 8FR-8 Full-Range 8"
Foster 025N03 Aluminum Horn Tweeter
Heres the idea:
Horn load the 12" sub to get some SPL out of it, its pretty high excursion (12.7mm) so it could do well assuming I didn't ask it to go too low, I'm thinking 50Hz taped horn.
Four of the GRS 8"s crossed in around 125Hz, they have 5mm of excursion and are very efficient. I calculate that 4 of them at 15watts each would hit 114.7 dB 1 meter, which is loud for a backyard.
Cross to the horn tweeters at 5KHz or so, I can change it easily so I can mess around with it. At 100 dB/meter/watt efficiency they will only need a few watts.
The sub will be a bit power hungry and I can deal with that, the mids I will probably need about 50 watts per channel, and the tweeters I can use a 10 wpc amp, the Lepai t amp should do the trick.
Total driver cost is $110, not too bad. I think I can get my hands 2 of the three amps, and I can just get one more Lepai t amp (I already have 2).
So with the drivers, amp, and MDF (no finish, keepin it quick and dirty) and a bit of stuffing I'd be looking at about $170, not too bad. And it could probably hit 115dB without too much trouble from 50Hz to 19kHz (the sub might not be able to but I need hornresp before I know for sure)
Look ok?
T3 Audio T200-12S4 12"
GRS 8FR-8 Full-Range 8"
Foster 025N03 Aluminum Horn Tweeter
Heres the idea:
Horn load the 12" sub to get some SPL out of it, its pretty high excursion (12.7mm) so it could do well assuming I didn't ask it to go too low, I'm thinking 50Hz taped horn.
Four of the GRS 8"s crossed in around 125Hz, they have 5mm of excursion and are very efficient. I calculate that 4 of them at 15watts each would hit 114.7 dB 1 meter, which is loud for a backyard.
Cross to the horn tweeters at 5KHz or so, I can change it easily so I can mess around with it. At 100 dB/meter/watt efficiency they will only need a few watts.
The sub will be a bit power hungry and I can deal with that, the mids I will probably need about 50 watts per channel, and the tweeters I can use a 10 wpc amp, the Lepai t amp should do the trick.
Total driver cost is $110, not too bad. I think I can get my hands 2 of the three amps, and I can just get one more Lepai t amp (I already have 2).
So with the drivers, amp, and MDF (no finish, keepin it quick and dirty) and a bit of stuffing I'd be looking at about $170, not too bad. And it could probably hit 115dB without too much trouble from 50Hz to 19kHz (the sub might not be able to but I need hornresp before I know for sure)
Look ok?
Hi,
I tend to agree, 16 of these per side in a ~ 4ft high cabinet equalised
with a graphic EQ shouldn't be too shabby, around 102dB/W and the
1/x cylindrical wavefront will aid projection outside, 32 for $40.
3" x 5" Ribbed Paper Cone Shielded Woofer Speaker 299-286
Possibly double up your subwoofers to one each channel.
rgds, sreten.
I like the line array suggestion, but I don't know about those little 3" by 5" things. I found a few options
12 of these:
6-1/2" Sealed Back Treated Paper Cone Midrange Speaker 289-126
6 per side. Thats $36. Max SPL 140 dB with ungodly amounts of power. More realistic output with 20 watts per side 120dB
2 of these:
Heavy Duty Titanium Super Tweeter TW44 270-125
Very efficient at 104 dB. 20 watts per channel gives 123 dB, I don't need line arrays for these things to get loud so I might as well save some cash
2 of these:
T3 Audio T200-12S4 12" 200 Watt Subwoofer 4 Ohm 269-086
Not very efficient. 100 watts per channel gives only 113.5 dB. That is of course without horn loading, with it they might be up near the others at 120 dB, but I don't know if I can design a horn that will go flat up to 800 Hz needed for the midrange crossover. There's not much I can do about that without spending a whole lot more though, and 113.5 dB is still pretty loud
What I am thinking to keep it small and portable is making only a bass cabinet, and just mounting the tweeter and midranges on a open baffle setup that folds up from the bass cabinet. Open baffle will be fine for both of those as there are no enclosure requirements with the sealed back midrange. That would also free me up to make a relatively large bass cab while keeping overall size manageable.
My current speakers are line arrays, although designed with hi-fi in mind rather than pure SPL, they are still quite dynamic so I am leaning towards line arrays for this also.
12 of these:
6-1/2" Sealed Back Treated Paper Cone Midrange Speaker 289-126
6 per side. Thats $36. Max SPL 140 dB with ungodly amounts of power. More realistic output with 20 watts per side 120dB
2 of these:
Heavy Duty Titanium Super Tweeter TW44 270-125
Very efficient at 104 dB. 20 watts per channel gives 123 dB, I don't need line arrays for these things to get loud so I might as well save some cash
2 of these:
T3 Audio T200-12S4 12" 200 Watt Subwoofer 4 Ohm 269-086
Not very efficient. 100 watts per channel gives only 113.5 dB. That is of course without horn loading, with it they might be up near the others at 120 dB, but I don't know if I can design a horn that will go flat up to 800 Hz needed for the midrange crossover. There's not much I can do about that without spending a whole lot more though, and 113.5 dB is still pretty loud
What I am thinking to keep it small and portable is making only a bass cabinet, and just mounting the tweeter and midranges on a open baffle setup that folds up from the bass cabinet. Open baffle will be fine for both of those as there are no enclosure requirements with the sealed back midrange. That would also free me up to make a relatively large bass cab while keeping overall size manageable.
My current speakers are line arrays, although designed with hi-fi in mind rather than pure SPL, they are still quite dynamic so I am leaning towards line arrays for this also.
The design Riley suggested might work pretty well for your needs. I have a feeling it's not going to put out a lot of low bass, but might offer you what you are after since it's capable of decent spls at least.
A slight word of warning when you talk about horn loading this t3 driver you mentioned. You just can't go and pick a driver from a shelf and expect it to work in a horn. Horn drivers need to have certain qualities if you are expecting to get a decent results as an out come from horn loading. Thiele-Small parameters tell you a lot about the driver and in what sort of use it might be intended.
For example for a horn driver we might want to look into a driver that has a high EBP value, which stands for efficiency bandwidth product. You can calculate an EBP of a given driver by dividing it's "fs" by it's "Qes". On this particular case with the T3 driver, we arrive at a EBP of 43.2 which is abysmal when considering the probabilities of it being a successful combination with a bass horn. EBP roughly estimates how well the cone of the driver is able to modulate the air column that form inside the horn. A general rule of thumb is to have a driver which EBP reaches over the 130 mark. Also drivers with less value than this have been known to work, but it's just a some kind of ballpark to aim your search. Mounting a low EBP driver to a demanding horn loading application will make it sound pretty gnarly. Slow, unarticulated and "one-noteish". Drivers that fit this criteria don't come in cheap because strong powerful motors yield high EBPs and these powerful motors cost a lot to manufacture.
Another thing that should be mentioned is that horn loading subjects the driver to a lot of pressure especially when we are dealing with long horns that are needed for reproduction of bass frequencies. This pressure caused by the viscosity of the air column has easily enough force to punch a hole through a cone that's not designed for horn load applications and I have my doubts that the t3 doesn't provide the much needed strength. Of course this phenomenon only applies when high sound pressures are to be extracted from the driver so the driver might be fine when driven with low levels. But Exceptionally bad combo in this sort of situation is a cone that's not designed to be horn loaded and high displacement of the cone because the more the driver moves, the more pressure it will create.
Good luck with your project!
A slight word of warning when you talk about horn loading this t3 driver you mentioned. You just can't go and pick a driver from a shelf and expect it to work in a horn. Horn drivers need to have certain qualities if you are expecting to get a decent results as an out come from horn loading. Thiele-Small parameters tell you a lot about the driver and in what sort of use it might be intended.
For example for a horn driver we might want to look into a driver that has a high EBP value, which stands for efficiency bandwidth product. You can calculate an EBP of a given driver by dividing it's "fs" by it's "Qes". On this particular case with the T3 driver, we arrive at a EBP of 43.2 which is abysmal when considering the probabilities of it being a successful combination with a bass horn. EBP roughly estimates how well the cone of the driver is able to modulate the air column that form inside the horn. A general rule of thumb is to have a driver which EBP reaches over the 130 mark. Also drivers with less value than this have been known to work, but it's just a some kind of ballpark to aim your search. Mounting a low EBP driver to a demanding horn loading application will make it sound pretty gnarly. Slow, unarticulated and "one-noteish". Drivers that fit this criteria don't come in cheap because strong powerful motors yield high EBPs and these powerful motors cost a lot to manufacture.
Another thing that should be mentioned is that horn loading subjects the driver to a lot of pressure especially when we are dealing with long horns that are needed for reproduction of bass frequencies. This pressure caused by the viscosity of the air column has easily enough force to punch a hole through a cone that's not designed for horn load applications and I have my doubts that the t3 doesn't provide the much needed strength. Of course this phenomenon only applies when high sound pressures are to be extracted from the driver so the driver might be fine when driven with low levels. But Exceptionally bad combo in this sort of situation is a cone that's not designed to be horn loaded and high displacement of the cone because the more the driver moves, the more pressure it will create.
Good luck with your project!
Hi,
The sealed back 6.5" would be a disaster area given the bottom end is
specified as 800Hz. If your going for line arrays you want close spacing
which the " little 3"x5" " allow. Decent Xmax, lowish Qts, reasonable Fs.
16 per side will work with EQ. If your going for line arrays the last thing
you want is a separate tweeter with a very different dispersion pattern.
Around 1.5 to 2 cuft sealed and well stuffed for 16 of them, x/o around
150Hz to ideally a separate sub for each channel. They will need EQing.
rgds, sreten.
For lower impedance than 8 ohm you could go 20 (6.4 ohm 5ft+)
or 24 (5.3 ohm 6ft+) or 28 (4.6 ohm 7ft+) or 32 (4 ohm 8ft+).
The point is to exploit the cylindrical dispersion, and the taller
they are the lower in frequency the dispersion is maintained to.
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I would consider this:
SEOS12 with Designer12 woofer
It's got a bit of a high Q bump near 200hz but i figure that would probably even be preferable at parties.
SEOS12 with Designer12 woofer
It's got a bit of a high Q bump near 200hz but i figure that would probably even be preferable at parties.
Cheap Party system. Dual 15's, 6.5 mid open back and a horn tweeter.
$400 including wood. Look around there are many choices for what you need. It helps if you have dealt with XO's in the past. Otherwise consider going active, it's easier
$400 is a bit for a budget system for me
I'm thinking more around $150. I already have an active 3 way crossover so thats good to go.
I looked at a few more options now I have it pretty darn cheap but pretty capable looking on paper. Driver cost about $110
2 of Heavy Duty Titanium Super Tweeter TW44 270-125
4 of GRS 12PF-8 12" Paper Cone Foam Surround Woofer 292-412
1 of T3 Audio T200-12S4 12" 200 Watt Subwoofer 4 Ohm 269-086
The woofers and tweeter would go on an open baffle, mtm style, with hinged wings, 1' wide for transport, 3' wide set up, about 3' tall, that should get down to 150 or so Hz without too much trouble. The very high Qts on that woofer should help too. I like the idea of having it fold up because I have no where to store this really. If the main speakers could fold up to a little box and fit in my closet that would be fantastic, and having an extra sub sitting in the corner would be pretty normal for me
The sub has a bunch of excursion (12.7mm) and if I designed some sort of horn that was small enough to transport and store that got down to the 50Hz range I should be good to go bass wise. It won't be earth shattering outdoors but it should at least be present and respectable, and I could reinforce it later if I wanted.
Active crossover makes setting levels for the system easy enough, and lets me play around with crossover points.
Sure it's not perfect but it makes up for it with cost and sound level. I calculate about 115 dB peak output before power becomes over the top or the sub burns.
I don't like the 10000Hz rated top end rolloff on those.. I could probably eq it out but that would require means with which to eq, which would easily take the project out of its budget. I also figured that sealed one wouldn't work, like you say. Though buying 52 of them is tempting at a dollar each... Also I would need a way to cut 52 oval holes and I have a feeling that would be a B....
This wouldn't be something near and dear to my heart. I already have an expensive high quality system for personal use, this would just be something made out of OSB to whip out at parties and hope the cops don't show up. So i really don't want to spend too much, because then it wouldn't be worth it to me.
Thanks for the tip. I haven't had a chance to do some horn resping but when I do I can see how it models. If it doesn't do well I could always just put it in a bass reflex. Then again, even slow, one note bass may be acceptable outdoors as long as it's loud. If I want quick accurate bass thats what my sofa subwoofer is for upstairs. I probably wouldn't push it to the point of a hole ripping in the cone, I'm generally good about watching excursion. And Im thinking tapped horn not a front loaded horn or something reallllly high pressure like that
Open baffle is about the last thing you want for going loud - it throws away efficiency.
Find some used Eminence PA drivers: a couple of 8"s and tweeters for the tops, a 15" for the bass. Make it ported, tune for a big bump in response in the 60-80Hz range, add a low cut below that to prevent over-excursion. Alternatively, put it in a tapped horn. The extra wood might not suit the budget, but a decent 15" in a pro-style tapped horn will rock the house. Don't try to go low, you either throw away efficiency or make it massive.
Ported cabinets for the tops, too - bit more power handling gained before the crossover rolls them off.
Chris
Find some used Eminence PA drivers: a couple of 8"s and tweeters for the tops, a 15" for the bass. Make it ported, tune for a big bump in response in the 60-80Hz range, add a low cut below that to prevent over-excursion. Alternatively, put it in a tapped horn. The extra wood might not suit the budget, but a decent 15" in a pro-style tapped horn will rock the house. Don't try to go low, you either throw away efficiency or make it massive.
Ported cabinets for the tops, too - bit more power handling gained before the crossover rolls them off.
Chris
Or something like this, although it's a little far away
Pair Dual 12" PA DJ Speakers SELENIUM WOOFERS | eBay
Pair Dual 12" PA DJ Speakers SELENIUM WOOFERS | eBay
Swap meet Louie
I got a pair of Cerwin Vega D-7's for 40 bucks at a local swapmeet. Cabinets were in really good shape and cheap vinyl veneer was still almost completely intact. Tweets and dual midranges worked and sounded ok... Only had to recone woofers. The woofer cones were not in good enough to just re-surround. I also didn't trust the voice coils had not rubbed if they had been played for years with no surrounds. But with all new moving parts, these woofers will last quite a while. Had to pay 130 bucks total for both woofers to be reconed, but I have original speakers instead of hacked originals. I also was fortunate to live not far from a well known speaker repair shop. So I could drop 'em off and pick 'em up. Only took a week. They told me 2 Under 180 bucks for AWESOME party speakers. I don't think I could have built better speakers for less. For more, heck yeah I could improve these.
I am confident these have crap capacitors that are bad. I also want to bypass the stupid protection circuits and high/mid l-pads. I can also bi-amp and go active crossover to play around with settings without ruining the speakers in case I want to go back to original 1984 specs Just bypass the internal crossver (which is not too bad to begin with).
I have also found awesome stuff for reasonable price on craigslist. I love the local swapmeets. Lots of mexican guys who fix gear for mariachi bands and what not. I can find cool stuff at swap meets on occasion. I found a set of C.V pro tops, but didn't have room for them at the time I don't mind buying used stuff, as I can research what the original stuff sold for, and what the originals drivers were in the cabinets. You see a lot of pro cabinet stuff, with SUPER cheap car audio woofers in the woofer slots Might be worth to buy a cheap cabinet with crap woofers, and buy just for the cabinet and the horn I have seen nice horns/cabinets with no CD on them
If you are patient and search around, you will find good stuff. I just wish I had space and money Although my other half is probably happy I am not dragging more dead audio carcasses home
Lucky Cal.... hahahahahah You look like you got the space, and she has the patience!
I got a pair of Cerwin Vega D-7's for 40 bucks at a local swapmeet. Cabinets were in really good shape and cheap vinyl veneer was still almost completely intact. Tweets and dual midranges worked and sounded ok... Only had to recone woofers. The woofer cones were not in good enough to just re-surround. I also didn't trust the voice coils had not rubbed if they had been played for years with no surrounds. But with all new moving parts, these woofers will last quite a while. Had to pay 130 bucks total for both woofers to be reconed, but I have original speakers instead of hacked originals. I also was fortunate to live not far from a well known speaker repair shop. So I could drop 'em off and pick 'em up. Only took a week. They told me 2
Under 180 bucks for AWESOME party speakers. I don't think I could have built better speakers for less. For more, heck yeah I could improve these. I am confident these have crap capacitors that are bad. I also want to bypass the stupid protection circuits and high/mid l-pads. I can also bi-amp and go active crossover to play around with settings without ruining the speakers in case I want to go back to original 1984 specs
Just bypass the internal crossver (which is not too bad to begin with).I have also found awesome stuff for reasonable price on craigslist. I love the local swapmeets. Lots of mexican guys who fix gear for mariachi bands and what not. I can find cool stuff at swap meets on occasion. I found a set of C.V pro tops, but didn't have room for them at the time
I don't mind buying used stuff, as I can research what the original stuff sold for, and what the originals drivers were in the cabinets. You see a lot of pro cabinet stuff, with SUPER cheap car audio woofers in the woofer slots Might be worth to buy a cheap cabinet with crap woofers, and buy just for the cabinet and the horn I have seen nice horns/cabinets with no CD on them If you are patient and search around, you will find good stuff. I just wish I had space and money
Although my other half is probably happy I am not dragging more dead audio carcasses home Lucky Cal.... hahahahahah You look like you got the space, and she has the patience!
Hi,
Many ways to skin a cat, and a few dispersion criteria you can attempt.
Cylindrical line array dispersion is one way, it projects well, there are other ways.
All I'm saying is one way of doing it needs shedloads of closely spaced
ideally full range drivers in a vertical array, and that can be done cheap.
Ellliptical drivers are ideal to increase cone area versus spacing,
3" x 5" over 3" round increases cone area by 77%.
The projection / dispersion is the main reason to do it with big line arrays.
Whatever they are are at 1m, they are relatively 3dB more at 2m, 6dB
more at 4m etc.
If you've never built them an unusual soundfield. My experience is a too
short 2ft ribbon x/o to an 8 inch domestically, it didn't work at all, well
it did but only at a specific (short) listening distance. For line arrays
IMO the longer the better if you want them to work well.
rgds, sreten.
Many ways to skin a cat, and a few dispersion criteria you can attempt.
Cylindrical line array dispersion is one way, it projects well, there are other ways.
All I'm saying is one way of doing it needs shedloads of closely spaced
ideally full range drivers in a vertical array, and that can be done cheap.
Ellliptical drivers are ideal to increase cone area versus spacing,
3" x 5" over 3" round increases cone area by 77%.
The projection / dispersion is the main reason to do it with big line arrays.
Whatever they are are at 1m, they are relatively 3dB more at 2m, 6dB
more at 4m etc.
If you've never built them an unusual soundfield. My experience is a too
short 2ft ribbon x/o to an 8 inch domestically, it didn't work at all, well
it did but only at a specific (short) listening distance. For line arrays
IMO the longer the better if you want them to work well.
rgds, sreten.
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Soooo tempting, and so close. I think my mother would scream if i brought that monster home though, I don't think it would fit in my closet
Hammer Dynamics super 12 clones FWIW. Uses a couple of
Eminence Beta 12 lta's 2 sheets of MDF. Ive been rolling tweeters
to taste (use what you got laying around) for a month now. total cost, about $200. they will play very loud,and have great bass and midrange.
You can run the Beta's full on, and us a single cap on the tweeters
for the top end. They sound great even nearfield. If you want higher-fi
I recomend using a baffle step network (but when I started out,I didnt. And
really when not critical listening, they still rock !) Very daynamic.
Eminence Beta 12 lta's 2 sheets of MDF. Ive been rolling tweeters
to taste (use what you got laying around) for a month now. total cost, about $200. they will play very loud,and have great bass and midrange.
You can run the Beta's full on, and us a single cap on the tweeters
for the top end. They sound great even nearfield. If you want higher-fi
I recomend using a baffle step network (but when I started out,I didnt. And
really when not critical listening, they still rock !) Very daynamic.
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