Balancing a 3 way

[VictorG]

Okay people, last summer i finished up a set of ESL hybrids... and boy do i love em. Now I am interested in making a very loud set of speakers that I can play everyday music though (i.e. all music that doesnt require me sipping an import and sitting on focus). To that end I realize the first quality i should be looking into is efficientcy. I want higher. Thats easy, now my next problem

In my various searches I have found mids and tweets that are super high sound producers. (105db say for the tweet and 94db for the mid). Yet about the best I can find that is at all affordable in the bass is 91 or 90.5. And maybe this is just a limitation of sound.

Now my first question. How much power of a total input power goes to tweet, mid and bass? I will need this to match up speakers so that a i get the same db about of all components right?. Or do i want the Tweeter to be a little louder relativly? or bass?

I will be using a basic first order butterworth for the sound and a 220w/ch amp. Given this, as my lowest componenet is rated at 90.5 db/w, i should get 110 db right? How do I measure the total efficientcy of a system.

For my specific example, assume driver is a 2ohm, mid a 2ohm, and tweet an 8ohm.

I want balanced volume! Help!

Thanks!
Brian

[SkinnyBoy]

you can get quite high, cheap, instrument speakers.. meant for guitar amps and stuff... they won't give you really low bass, and need quite a big box (from what I have seen anyway) but 97dB for a 12inch driver should be possible and quite cheap...

Heres an example of one available in Australia..

http://www.wescomponents.com/Speaker...00/IS12000.htm

it will need a 180 litre box tuned to 40Hz to get a -3dB response of just under 40Hz, but that may be all you are looking for... these would really be best suited to parties and stuff, where you are all half drunk, and the music sounds drowned anyway.. lol

[VictorG]

thats actually the purpose. freshmen this year!

[SkinnyBoy]

well.. its time you started looking for some instrument speakers locally.. hehe

there was something else I was going to say...

AHH thats right...

18mm MDF and abit of bracing should be enough... ne need to go overboard.. hehe

[Centauri]

As far as power split goes, this depends on crossover points and how much of the audio spectrum each speaker is covering. As a generalisation, if you have a 3-way system split such that each driver is covering roughly same bandwidth (around 2.5 octaves), and each driver has same sensitivity, then mids are usually 1/3 power of lows and highs 1/3 power of mids. Scale these appropriately for different bandwidths / sensitivities.

Cheers

[Wes Marquenie]

PHL drivers are very efficient. And the cheaper Eminence drivers also have efficienty around 100dB.