first budget WTW garage speaker build thread
Long story short, I've built a couple subs already (both ported and sealed), but never a multi-way with a crossover. I had ordered the drivers below to start a WTW project once, but eventually lost steam once I realized I was pretty much SOL without a real REQ mic and software. Recently, I ended up breaking down and getting Dayton UMM-6 mic and Room EQ Wizard to eq my truck's head unit a little better. Now that I've got some proper measurement capabilities, I figured I might as well pick up my project again since I have no real excuse not to.
Drivers I had already purchased and have laying around:
2x Dayton DC160 6.5" 4-ohm
4x Dayton DC28F 1 1/8" 8-ohm
My goals for these speakers are generally pretty lax as these will probably live in my garage and play rock, alternative, jazz, and 'chill' music at ~70-80dB when I'm wrenching on cars - not a critical listening environment at all. My current speakers are a 3-way no brand something with an 8" woofer and mids that don't play any more on either speaker, so it's not hard to get significantly better than that. I want the low-end to have good punch for a kick drum as well as some extension into the 30's for a full sound. For the crossover, I'd like to build a reasonably decent one without going all crazy on it. Maybe 5-10 xo component per speaker.....something like that, but measurements are king. The build is generally based off some concepts from the Classix and Classix II builds, but with some modifications for a WTW setup, of course.
I've modeled up a 1.75 ft^3 box, made a CAD drawing, and a cut list using 3/4" MDF already. I'll post those up later when I get home.
Long story short, I've built a couple subs already (both ported and sealed), but never a multi-way with a crossover. I had ordered the drivers below to start a WTW project once, but eventually lost steam once I realized I was pretty much SOL without a real REQ mic and software. Recently, I ended up breaking down and getting Dayton UMM-6 mic and Room EQ Wizard to eq my truck's head unit a little better. Now that I've got some proper measurement capabilities, I figured I might as well pick up my project again since I have no real excuse not to.
Drivers I had already purchased and have laying around:
2x Dayton DC160 6.5" 4-ohm
4x Dayton DC28F 1 1/8" 8-ohm
My goals for these speakers are generally pretty lax as these will probably live in my garage and play rock, alternative, jazz, and 'chill' music at ~70-80dB when I'm wrenching on cars - not a critical listening environment at all. My current speakers are a 3-way no brand something with an 8" woofer and mids that don't play any more on either speaker, so it's not hard to get significantly better than that. I want the low-end to have good punch for a kick drum as well as some extension into the 30's for a full sound. For the crossover, I'd like to build a reasonably decent one without going all crazy on it. Maybe 5-10 xo component per speaker.....something like that, but measurements are king. The build is generally based off some concepts from the Classix and Classix II builds, but with some modifications for a WTW setup, of course.
I've modeled up a 1.75 ft^3 box, made a CAD drawing, and a cut list using 3/4" MDF already. I'll post those up later when I get home.
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Almost the same drivers as the DIII, assuming 4 woofers and 2 tweeters.
The D III | Parts Express Project Gallery
The D III | Parts Express Project Gallery
Alright. I've gone through some of my maths again and have some models and cads.
Here's the WinISD graph of a pair of speakers in a 1.556 ft^3 box tuned to 38.5Hz using a 9x1x8 inch rectangle port. The F3 is 34Hz and it will supposedly play at 103dBdown to 35Hz without bottoming out while keeping port velocity under 19m/s max.
Here is a general cad rendering of the box with some measurements. I may end up rolling it with bed liner or something if I'm going to leave it in the garage.
I've already got the MDF downstairs too, so now I just need to find me some motivation to start cutting.
Here's the WinISD graph of a pair of speakers in a 1.556 ft^3 box tuned to 38.5Hz using a 9x1x8 inch rectangle port. The F3 is 34Hz and it will supposedly play at 103dBdown to 35Hz without bottoming out while keeping port velocity under 19m/s max.
An externally hosted image should be here but it was not working when we last tested it.
Here is a general cad rendering of the box with some measurements. I may end up rolling it with bed liner or something if I'm going to leave it in the garage.
An externally hosted image should be here but it was not working when we last tested it.
An externally hosted image should be here but it was not working when we last tested it.
I've already got the MDF downstairs too, so now I just need to find me some motivation to start cutting.
I'd thought about that, but I also want to leave them flexible enough that they don't have to stay in the garage either (and I work with my garage door open half the time anyways). That's just where I'd put them to start with. I'd rather be turning bass down than up anyways should the acoustics be in my favor.
I've noticed a lot of MTM speakers with the tweeter offset as well. I've never been able to figure out why though other than they just wanted to build it that way. Seems like the speaker would be a little brighter on one side than the other that way...?
Good point on the MiniDSP. I'll have to give that some thought.
Good point on the MiniDSP. I'll have to give that some thought.
Couple of reasons for the horizontal offset:
- Breaks up diffraction from the baffle edges, since its now asymmetrical.
- Gets the woofers closer together, so the vertical polars will likely improve towards the crossover point.
FWIW I'd probably also drop the port tuning. For an experimental setup, you could get one of those extendable ports to play with the tuning in your situation. Or, if you like slot ports, you could put bits of wood in there to reduce the area and play around.
Chris
- Breaks up diffraction from the baffle edges, since its now asymmetrical.
- Gets the woofers closer together, so the vertical polars will likely improve towards the crossover point.
FWIW I'd probably also drop the port tuning. For an experimental setup, you could get one of those extendable ports to play with the tuning in your situation. Or, if you like slot ports, you could put bits of wood in there to reduce the area and play around.
Chris
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I totally see where you are all coming from on lowering the port tuning, but I'm still a bit hesitant. Mostly, I really really want to avoid finishing up these speakers, plugging them in only to find out they lack some low end punch and could stand to have a subwoofer. I really want these to have good, solid bass from kick drums and some electric type music - even if it's not crazy low 20-something Hz. It would be super easy to mod the port. I may build it as-is, then play around with stuffing some shims in the side of the port as Chris suggested to decrease it from 9" wide to 8.5" wide, or something like that.
I haven't broken out the saw yet - might start on that this weekend, but I've been doing some more thinking and I've got 2 thoughts that might be interesting.....or stupid.
1) I'm not a crossover guru and I really don't have experience measuring this, measuring that, comparing the slope derivative against the slope of a turquoise honey badger taking into account the coriolis acceleration of an african laden swallow carrying a coconut, etc... Anyways, if I buy a minidsp, or use my iNuke 1000 dsp, could I set up my crossovers and such on there, get it all tuned up pretty nice, then "simply" design a crossover that gives a very similar eq pattern?
2) This is probably a silly question, but I know the woofers ought to be broken in for a bit before I go to measure them in the box to set up my xo stuff. I've got an iNuke 1000 dsp split off of my computer, so I'll probably just daisy-chain those up and run it for a handful of hours or something. Do the tweeters need any sort of break in period as well?
1) I'm not a crossover guru and I really don't have experience measuring this, measuring that, comparing the slope derivative against the slope of a turquoise honey badger taking into account the coriolis acceleration of an african laden swallow carrying a coconut, etc... Anyways, if I buy a minidsp, or use my iNuke 1000 dsp, could I set up my crossovers and such on there, get it all tuned up pretty nice, then "simply" design a crossover that gives a very similar eq pattern?
2) This is probably a silly question, but I know the woofers ought to be broken in for a bit before I go to measure them in the box to set up my xo stuff. I've got an iNuke 1000 dsp split off of my computer, so I'll probably just daisy-chain those up and run it for a handful of hours or something. Do the tweeters need any sort of break in period as well?
Tweeters don't have a spider that needs to be flexed. Assuming your MTM is two 4 ohm woofers in series, keep it simple copy the DIII x-o and add a 10 ohm series resistor after the tweeter circuit's parallel cap and resistor.
The series mtm will be about 6 db less than the original. The 10 ohm resistor will pad the and tilt down the DC28's top end
The series mtm will be about 6 db less than the original. The 10 ohm resistor will pad the and tilt down the DC28's top end
Thanks for the info on this thread. This is not a thread jack, as I have the same components. I have posted on the parts-express forum also, for building advice. I would like to use the components to build a version of the Curt Campbell TriTrix MTM or MTM TL. The TriTrix uses the DC135-4 rather than the DC160-4 woofers. I have no time restraints on building, so have lots of time for modeling and analysis. If there are other builds one can consider with the DC160-4 and DC28F, I would be welcome to suggestions.
Myles
Myles
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