Collecting drivers, need to make something!!

[TheBaronGroog]

Afternoon all, I've been acumilating bits and bobs for a year or two with the aim of doing some floor standers and a subwoofer.

Subwoofer is sorted, 2x KEF B139 in a T-TQWT-big thanks to Bjorno and others for the help with the deisgn-flat from 20-100Hz (out of room anyway)

For the towers I have a mix of drivers available:

Dynaudio 8" woofer/midbass from Volvos x4
(have mislaid the TS spec, pulled off using WT3, will post when I find them-they're used IB in the Volvo parcel shelf)
Focal Utopia 6w2 x2
Paramètres haut-parleur de THIELE et SMALL, sans filtre ni ampli
Dali Ribbon/Tweeter module x2
pair Famous DAL** IKO***Ribbon+Dome integrative tweeter | eBay

And was planning on using two Dyns, one focal and one ribbon/tweet for each tower-am I over doing it?

Would you go from the 8" down to a 5.25" or 4" or not bother with anything between the 8" and the Ikon ribbon/tweets? I could also sub in the Dyn MW162 instead of the Focal and drop the Focal into my car to replace the MW162!

The cab will be a home made affair, woodwork isn't my best skill, but should be sturdy and good looking enough to pass the missus test. Crossovers are going to be a little more of a challenge-a blind amputee can solder better than me-but should prove entertaining.

What would you build?

[DrDyna]

Have you tried simming a crossover for any of them?

I bet it would look pretty slick as a WMTWW with the Dyns top and bottom and the Focal and Tweeter in the middle.

It's probably going to be a fairly complicated crossover though, could take a lot of work to get it right. I'm curious to see where this goes.

[TheBaronGroog]

Haven't even thought of the crossover yet, let alone simming one-what software is available for that?-all I've found is fairly basic online calculators. Being a car audio geek I have, of course, thought about running it all active-but with a poor selection of stuff available in the UK some big passives might work out easier long term.

With regards to the cabs I was thinking of a shared chamber for the Dyns and a sealed separate chamber for the Focal-the ribbons and tweets can be "banged anywhere" as they're sealed units. Ease of construction is a bonus-limited tools (skils) and time (work 6 days and have no covered space to build so have to wait for the sun to come out) means that any over complexity will severely delay proceedings

[DrDyna]

Originally Posted by TheBaronGroog

Haven't even thought of the crossover yet, let alone simming one-what software is available for that?-all I've found is fairly basic online calculators.

I use speaker workshop, but it's got a learning curve to it. Online calculators are pretty much all but useless, unless you're crossing over a pair of resistors instead of drivers.

Originally Posted by TheBaronGroog

Being a car audio geek I have, of course, thought about running it all active-but with a poor selection of stuff available in the UK some big passives might work out easier long term.

Active may certainly be easier, however if you're doing the crossover yourself from the ground up, it's no easy task to get it right. You're going to need to measure the drivers and calculate the crossover taking a lot of things like baffle size, driver spacing, offset, edge distances, etc etc. There's a sticky at the top of the forum that might help when thinking about designing crossovers from scratch, as well as this: crossovers

Originally Posted by TheBaronGroog

With regards to the cabs I was thinking of a shared chamber for the Dyns and a sealed separate chamber for the Focal-the ribbons and tweets can be "banged anywhere" as they're sealed units. Ease of construction is a bonus-limited tools (skils) and time (work 6 days and have no covered space to build so have to wait for the sun to come out) means that any over complexity will severely delay proceedings

The cabinet can really be made in a variety of ways, it's all going to come down to how much care is put into crossover design that's going to determine the outcome. Check out some of the great tools here:

FRD Consortium

[TheBaronGroog]

Food for thought, thanks-I'll certianly have a closer look at the links provided

If going the passive route I was going to try and keep things simple to start with and then improve from thereif needed-I sell car audio and the very simple X362 crossovers from Dynaudio's 3-way kit does an admirable job.

Active doesn't phase me as much, run my car active as is, though the cost of amplifiers and processors might put me in the dog house...

[mondogenerator]

if you use the frd tools Dyna posted, you can make frd and zma files for your drivers from the plots that are usually with the specs. Personally i use Boxsim and WinISD, which are both free. I havent used speaker workshop but i expect it has similar capabilities as Boxsim, and i dont think its free. Without the spec or at least ts parameters you may have a hard time. Fine tuning and more CAN be done without sims, AllenB has a great sticky which covers the subject well.

[DrDyna]

IMO, the easiest way to go active would probably be:

Adcom GFA-7607 7 Channel Amplifier | eBay

plus

miniDSP 2x8 kit | miniDSP

The only trouble with the X362 crossover is the same trouble with all off the shelf crossovers, they're designed assuming a purely resistive load most of the time and when driving a real speaker, it's usually pretty terrible. At least the X362 has level adjustments, so you might even end up with something listenable.

It'll "function", but it'll be leagues away from "good". That's my opinion, anyway, fwiw.

[DrDyna]

Originally Posted by mondogenerator

I havent used speaker workshop but i expect it has similar capabilities as Boxsim, and i dont think its free.

It is free, it just hasn't been updated in a while. It still works like a champ though.

Speaker Workshop

[mondogenerator]

cool! I stand corrected may have to try it myself. U can never have too many tools.

[TheBaronGroog]

Originally Posted by DrDyna

IMO, the easiest way to go active would probably be:

Adcom GFA-7607 7 Channel Amplifier | eBay

plus

miniDSP 2x8 kit | miniDSP

The only trouble with the X362 crossover is the same trouble with all off the shelf crossovers, they're designed assuming a purely resistive load most of the time and when driving a real speaker, it's usually pretty terrible. At least the X362 has level adjustments, so you might even end up with something listenable.

It'll "function", but it'll be leagues away from "good". That's my opinion, anyway, fwiw.

$800=passives-lol! Trying to put this together on a budget, the Dyn mids cost me £45 a pair, the B139 around the same, the Ikons around £50, the Focals were a swap for some NOS DEI Studio comps (which I paid trade less 40% for) so my biggest expenditure will be MDF/PLY!

Originally Posted by mondogenerator

if you use the frd tools Dyna posted, you can make frd and zma files for your drivers from the plots that are usually with the specs. Personally i use Boxsim and WinISD, which are both free. I havent used speaker workshop but i expect it has similar capabilities as Boxsim, and i dont think its free. Without the spec or at least ts parameters you may have a hard time. Fine tuning and more CAN be done without sims, AllenB has a great sticky which covers the subject well.

Will check those out, thanks

I already own WT3 so can design the crossovers to function at the desired freq by looking at the impedence at the freq in question. The Ikons I've already found a good link for the crossover: Dali Ikon ribbon tweeters from eBay - The Art of Sound Forum so didn't figure the rest would be too hard to piece together