While there are quite a few awesome coaxial parts out there, they're all virtual unobtainium to the average DIYer (i.e. TAD / Pioneer EX / KEF R / Genelec) and are better-suited to three-ways anyways. There are some prosound coaxes i.e. BMS / B&C / Radian but their ragged response requires extensive on-and-off axis testing and arguably active equalization. Besides, pre-existing crossover schematics don't really exist, and OP lacks the equipment needed for the design.
I still recommend a basic ~4" mid + ~3/4" tweeter two-way though FWIW for a first build. Full ranges have their place, but so do two-ways.
Just say no to Full Rangers
Since I still have all my hearing I still want tweeters. The Full Rangers I have bought and heard just lack sparkle. The (older) men who have promoted them here must be partially deaf and not even remember what treble sounds like. There I said it. The Emperor has no clothes .... or hearing.
The single Full Range driver thing did get me into this hobby though. The wonderful Tangband w3-871 being the gateway drug. I did listen to it full range for awhile. Maybe I HAVE lost my high frequency hearing as I now just use them as a mid in a 3-way.
Since I still have all my hearing I still want tweeters. The Full Rangers I have bought and heard just lack sparkle. The (older) men who have promoted them here must be partially deaf and not even remember what treble sounds like. There I said it. The Emperor has no clothes .... or hearing.
The single Full Range driver thing did get me into this hobby though. The wonderful Tangband w3-871 being the gateway drug. I did listen to it full range for awhile. Maybe I HAVE lost my high frequency hearing as I now just use them as a mid in a 3-way.
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With an xmax of a couple of mm and a resonant frequency of 125Hz is bass enhancement wise? I suspect a more effective sell would be more along the lines of these drivers only cost $10, do not require a crossover, need only a tiny cabinet of a few litres suitable for a desk or a real bookshelf and sound a bit better than you might expect.
that almost deserves no response - but be prepared for some
At the SPLs to which many younger dudes abuse their hearing on a continual basis, I'd opine that age alone is no indicator of either frequency response, or more importantly, resolution acuity - for which the argument could be made that years of experience is beneficial.
Of course, it won't take much searching to find that I'm personally enamored of a particular brand of Full Range driver - but that's after well over a decade of building systems that have included multi-ways with tweeters certainly not lacking in extension and sparkle - (Linn ceramic domes , Heil AMT, HiVi Ribbon, Fostex horns., etc.) There are still things that a good widebander can do very well indeed, and they shouldn't be discounted out of hand for a newbie's list of candidates.
I think we should spank GA. What say Chris?
I have to admit I was in those shoes at one point and while FR's are not the best it's because there is no best. All are a compromise and it's up to the listener which of those they are willing to accept. I'm not a preacher but a convert. There are some FR's that really do amaze me.
I have to admit I was in those shoes at one point and while FR's are not the best it's because there is no best. All are a compromise and it's up to the listener which of those they are willing to accept. I'm not a preacher but a convert. There are some FR's that really do amaze me.
Good guess xrk, but actually, if permitted to nominate a limited production driver, it'd have to be the Mark Audio MAOP7, in the FH3- I think there are readers here who heard these at the recent event at Dave's place who might want to comment on that combination, particularly when caressed by something as delicate and resolving as nerdora's 6BG4 P/P amp. Personally, I can't really talk about a FR speaker in isolation from the amp- cause they don't really work that way.
The FE166 was not quite my cuppa tea - the new FF /WK series, on the other hand, I could live with - well, absent exposure to aforementioned Mark Audio driver, that is.
The FE166 was not quite my cuppa tea - the new FF /WK series, on the other hand, I could live with - well, absent exposure to aforementioned Mark Audio driver, that is.
Due to the laws of physics a 3.5" direct radiating driver is unable to produce bass at standard levels in a room. It sized for the upper midrange in a conventional design optimised for sound quality. A $10 3.5" driver has a set of properties that are attractive and a set of properties that are unattractive. Taking an unattractive one but giving the impression it is not an issue or possibly even a benefit is common in advertising (e.g. how comfortable is airline travel?) but is likely to be misleading for people unfamiliar with the field. Even the name "full range" rather than "single driver" is misleading in this way.
Now the OP was looking at modest solutions to get started and a $10 3.5" driver in a small cabinet seems a perfectly reasonable option to me so long as one has realistic expectations about the results. However, the OP picked up on more expensive single drivers hence the suggestion to have a listen first in order to understand what they can and cannot do relative to the more conventional 2 ways he initially cited. Having looked up the €86.90 Mark Audio drivers he mentions this is for a delivered pair which looks like a modest price to pay for easy to build modestly performing speakers to get started.
Yes, it was me who suggested the CHR70, amongst the other drivers and within the mini Karlsonator thread is a design that I made for Greg B using dual CHR70's (which are 4in drivers - not much bigger than dual 3.5in TC9FD). There are measurements of the frequency response and certainly the cabinet produced sufficient bass for the user. What SPL level is sufficient of course varies depending on use. Certainly 89 to 90dB at 2.83v sensitivity for bass down to 80Hz is sufficient for many people in home listening when running at 4 volts or so. But to simply say the physics of a 3.5in or 4in driver won't allow it to produce adequate bass is not true. Sure, the HD may be a lot higher than using a 8in woofer to reach bass levels down there.
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Good evening everybody, it seems the thread is growing fast, that's the magic of this forum.
I "choose" the CHR70 for a simple reason, I can get them in Europe, cheaper drivers in the parts-express or madisound would be the same price or even more expensive because all the shipping options start at 50$, at that price, stopping in the customs and having a 23% VAT added to the price plus at least 15$ of handling fees put the cheap 10$ drivers at 80-100$ delivered(yes, its a rape in Portugal to import anything).
I'm still very divided between a "cheap" two way and a "cheap" full range, but given that the only speakers that I have are some 7.1 Creative bought 10 years ago, I bet anything will be better, and given that the "tweeter" in the two main speakers are just dummy pieces of chrome plastic, even a full range will have better treble response, the only thing that I might fell like is lacking is bass, because the Creative speakers really add a bit to the low end.
I will research a bit more about european shop's, but the one in Germany that was suggest literally just changes the values of the US speakers directly to € and them add some more, so I take "cheap" with a pinch of salt, lets say that I'm OK with the drivers being in the 100-140€ ballpark, the crossovers(if needed) will be bought later after I have the cabinets made(this will be cheap, maybe 50€ I hope), all in all it will be speakers with a 200-250€ price tag all things accounted for, I know that for that kind of money I might buy something, but this way feels better to me(and also I can buy/make them in steps and not need to have all the money upfront).
About the suggested software, hornresp confuses me a lot, WinISD seems easy to use, Akabak simply doesn't run in my PC(windows 7 64 bits).
About the acronyms, what does BLH mean?
Best regards and thanks for all the input.
I "choose" the CHR70 for a simple reason, I can get them in Europe, cheaper drivers in the parts-express or madisound would be the same price or even more expensive because all the shipping options start at 50$, at that price, stopping in the customs and having a 23% VAT added to the price plus at least 15$ of handling fees put the cheap 10$ drivers at 80-100$ delivered(yes, its a rape in Portugal to import anything).
I'm still very divided between a "cheap" two way and a "cheap" full range, but given that the only speakers that I have are some 7.1 Creative bought 10 years ago, I bet anything will be better, and given that the "tweeter" in the two main speakers are just dummy pieces of chrome plastic, even a full range will have better treble response, the only thing that I might fell like is lacking is bass, because the Creative speakers really add a bit to the low end.
I will research a bit more about european shop's, but the one in Germany that was suggest literally just changes the values of the US speakers directly to € and them add some more, so I take "cheap" with a pinch of salt, lets say that I'm OK with the drivers being in the 100-140€ ballpark, the crossovers(if needed) will be bought later after I have the cabinets made(this will be cheap, maybe 50€ I hope), all in all it will be speakers with a 200-250€ price tag all things accounted for, I know that for that kind of money I might buy something, but this way feels better to me(and also I can buy/make them in steps and not need to have all the money upfront).
About the suggested software, hornresp confuses me a lot, WinISD seems easy to use, Akabak simply doesn't run in my PC(windows 7 64 bits).
About the acronyms, what does BLH mean?
Best regards and thanks for all the input.
Back loaded horn. You can find some examples just by searching that term on google images.
Edit: RE: Hornresp. Yeah, it looks daunting when you first open it up, but once you get the hang of what all the input boxes mean, it's not that bad.
Now Akabak on the other hand....is probably the most complicated and user unfriendly piece of loudspeaker software that exists..extremely powerful once learned, but for your purposes, it'd probably be best to leave it alone.
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Of course, while there's nothing wrong with knuckling down and investing whatever time and treasure is required to "master" any particular modelling software ( if you like that sort of thing 
) another action plan for a first project could be to build any of the very wide range of extant field tested enclosure designs that you see chatted about at these forums.
That certainly works for me
) another action plan for a first project could be to build any of the very wide range of extant field tested enclosure designs that you see chatted about at these forums.That certainly works for me
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