reference WMTMW projects?

[joz]

HI, Iwant to build a referense WMTMW loudspeaker ,using the best possible drivers (woofer 10 or 12 inches, midbass 6 or 7 inches, and a ribbon tweeter)
What drivers do you suggest?
What sites in europe offers the best prices on the net?
Any projects of this type?

[sobazz]

Well, this SS woofer certainly is nice. I don't have any experience with it, though. And it is expensive: retailing for around 250-270€ in Europe, I believe.

http://www.d-s-t.com/scs/data/26w_8861t00a.htm

[paulspencer]

This project is quite an undertaking!!!

I think you will find that the best drivers won't sound like the best drivers unless they have a well designed crossover, and crossover design is not trivial, it can be quite involved!

You really should start with a simple two way using inexpensive drivers like Vifa P17, which are easy to use. I am assuming that you have never designed a crossover before. If you have, then please disregard the above. I haven't designed a crossover myself yet, but I know enough to know that it is not trivial, and you can end up wasting a lot of money on drivers that won't sound as good as they could due to a crossover that isn't well designed.

On the other hand, if you find a good design, and use the same drivers and crossover, it is then only a matter of sourcing the parts and building it. Quite achievable.

Another approach is to find an MTM design, bi-amp it, adding a pair of woofers. So you will have a biamped 3 way design.

Here are a few examples worth looking at:

http://www.kingston.neostrada.pl/

Projects 7,8, 11 and 12 have crossover info on them.

Hope this helps,

regards,
Paul

[Pan]

When someone says "reference" I think low distortion, transparency.

The best drivers for your layout depends on many things.. spl demands and the choice of x-over slopes are some of them.

However, I would suggest the Raven ribbons or ESG ribbons. The most tranparent 6-7"ers I´ve heard are the Seas Excel and Accuton units.
Bass drivers, again depends on how high you want to play... around 90-96dB the Excel 10" seems to be one of the lowest distortion drivers around. If you want more output chose TC sounds monsters or Aura sound. Scanspeak has new 8" and 10" with great excursion capabilitys and could be somewhere in between the woofers earlier mentioned.

/Peter

[joz]

Most probably i will use an active xo, so i like to focus on the drivers quality. My ideal speakers are the type of the focal grand utopia.

[Pan]

Not that it´s worth much however if I would build a speaker like this, I´d chose the following drivers;

10" Seas Excel
7" Excel or Accuton
Raven 2/ESG or Accuton

Hourglass (or seriusly rounded angles) shape to push the diffraction step up in frequency and also for more even dispersion.

/Peter

[planet10]

Don't forget to look at the Jordan drivers -- 4 x JX150, 2 x JX92 and an Aurum-Catnus (aka ESG) would make a fine system. The bottom XO point should be active & there is a well worked out XO in one of the threads here that could be leveraged.

dave