El cheapo afternoon upgrade = surprise!

[neutron7]

1 afternoon work (not including previously made boxes)
i know its pretty "rough and ready" looking but there is no one here to complain about such things



El cheapo dayton 5"1/4 woofer
El cheapo dayton 1 1/8 silk dome tweeter

besides the drivers and the inductors
all hardware and wood i had "in stock".
capacitors were from something else, where i bought extras

Linkwitz-Riley 2nd order xover @ 2200 hz
(values calculated with on line crossover calculator)
http://ccs.exl.info/calc_cr.html
self wound air core inductors
wood bobbins made and cable wound on taig mini lathe.
(inductors calculated with online inductor calculator)
Bennic "mt" 5% capacitors. metal film? not sure.. non electrolytic)

panel on front of other front panel because I had the boxes from some oval car speakers (sealed box) and i am lazy. I did route the edges round, but I am sure it doesnt do much considering its on another panel. also i may decide to put them on stands, in which case the panel can be inverted.

Computer fan guard to protect the tweeters (LOL!) reason for this is they are on the floor, and i have rambunctious cats
I like it , im going to get bigger ones for the woofers as well. they "ping" a little if they are plucked with fingernail i damped them by forcing some other spacers under the edges but i will use rubber isolators i saw at a surplus store.

So after quick testing with an ILP amp module swept through the range with sines (from creamware scope card) and no nasty dips or resonances.
I really was not expecting much. just to sound better than what was in those boxes before (old sony oval car speakers). especially without properly designing the box dimensions or anything (the box is almost exactly 2x the size recommended by dayton/PE for sealed enclosure)

anyways I hooked it up the old marantz "twenty five" which i use for the satellite TV/vcr/DVD and put on some of the "radio stations" they have on there. now i am not sure how good that is as a source, but it is as good as my el cheapo DVD player and that it what they are going to be used with.



sound impression:
bass is mostly very good "tight" but because they are sitting directly on the floor a bit of LF is transmitted to the wood floorboards and odd things start to happen at high volume.
(I will lathe up some nice pointy legs for them) all in all i am very happy with the bass because the previous ones were really annoying and boomy.

sound stage is not great but much better than i was expecting considering the price of the drivers, kludge box, and compromised position of the speakers. you can close your eyes and the musicians appear to be spread across a stage although most things i tested it with were so processed you could not Tell wtf was going on

voices are really good. you can hear what singers are doing in songs where the voice is low in the mix and it is not nasal i was kind of worried about that because of the crossover frequency.

highs are pretty good as can be expected with the budget tweeter. with music there is no sibilance on hihats and there is "space" when there is supposed to be , for TV/movies sound effects, foley and background sounds have a nice crisp sound without overpowering anything.

during the time i was listening, i was listening to a lot of "classic rock" which i do not own but have heared zillions of times on the radio, I could hear a lot more detail in guitar and background sounds I did not hear before, it was nice

I am very happy with them for the price! i will build a pair of "rears" and "center" with same drivers for when I go with proper surround "home theater" setup

for real stereo I have a pair of EPI 201a which i am rebuilding to use with some gainclones.

upstairs where i do some electronic production, i have event 20/20/BAS they are about 10000000 times better



now i am testing the theory that beer makes your hearing different

[sreten]

http://www.speakerbuilder.net/web_fi...ts/DBP/dbp.htm

Should help you design a better crossover if the drivers are the same.
Or more to the point if they are the same use this crossover.

The crossover calculator you have used is far too simplistic,
the above crossover will work well, whilst I'm afraid to say
your calculated crossover is far from what is needed.

edit : a serious coating of paint will damp the fancovers somewhat.

sreten.

[5th element]

Rambunctious cats. LOL

Nice to hear they turned out better then expected, not bad for an afternoon project.

[Hybrid fourdoor]

Sadly those "el cheapo" drivers would be "ideal budget" for someone like myself

Nice work though, and yes very dirty. But hey if they work, they work.

[SY]

Since you have reflective and uncarpeted floors, here's an anti-cat tweak to try: put bumpers on the front of the speakers of sufficient height to stand proud of the panel and driver frames by a centimeter or a little more. Take off the fan. Then lay the speakers face down on the floor. This can give a surprisingly nice sound; I did this with some NHT Super Zeros on a concrete floor and was astonished at the HUGE soundstage I got.

[5th element]

Anti cat tweak ; buy a dog woof!

SY that sounds slightly similar to B&O wave guide stuff which they use in their flagship darleks.

AHA anti cat tweak no2 : EXTERMINATE!

[neutron7]

LOL daleks

I love em..i even modelled some and put them in a bf1942 map

anyhow the face down trick sounded like crap. they are just for the tv anyways so i am not really fussed

[Cal Weldon]

Originally posted by neutron7 now i am testing the theory that beer makes your hearing different

Without a doubt my friend. It also helps speed up the break in period of your drivers.

And thankfully the sound always seems a little sweeter

Cal