I hope I'm posting this to the right forum. If not I apologize, I'm new here.
I'd really love to build one of these:
https://shop.symbolaudio.com/products/tabletop-hifi
I am very confident with the woodworking / design / finishing aspect of making this, but as far as wiring speakers, amps, and related electrical I am a novice. I can solder, it's just I need guidance as to parts to use, and how to lay out the speakers, if that makes sense.
Thank you in advance.
I'd really love to build one of these:
https://shop.symbolaudio.com/products/tabletop-hifi
I am very confident with the woodworking / design / finishing aspect of making this, but as far as wiring speakers, amps, and related electrical I am a novice. I can solder, it's just I need guidance as to parts to use, and how to lay out the speakers, if that makes sense.
Thank you in advance.
Your not going to get very far looking for help to poach someone's livelihood/design. It would be different if you had a sound bar and a T amp and wanted someone to help build a decorative housing for them. Look around for a free design for a small folded horn or T line (maybe a Cornu horn on it's side) and look to modify it and add an amp somewhere in the horn mouth.
As noted in the above post no one is going to back-engineer the product you have asked about in the above link but if you are willing to design your own version that's another thing where you might get help.
Here's a link to an SB kit that you might use or use their components to roll your own of sorts.
SB Acoustics :: Micro Kit
If you move your mouse's cursor over the kit components listing it will highlight the parts you will need for the crossover. The kit is likely to be cheaper than the parts bought individually so that might be a start for you in your own design.
C.M
Well at least the OP was sincere enough to reveal some of his intents with this project in mind and the fact is that this commercial offering is nothing special and really overpriced. Ruark Audio R4 is better and cheaper.
AudioSF, if you search the fora for FAST (full range assisted subwoofer technology) you will find information how to build one and design passive XO filters. The usual range where one wants to place the XO point should be low enough so the subwoofer appears non directive (100 Hz) and the full range still has enough output not to create a hole in the response. Any full range project basically needs a single RLC network consisted of one resistor, one capacitor and one inductor, all three in parallel with each other and as a whole in series with the full range driver to compensate for the boost of midrange frequencies that comes from the enclosure baffle. Once you have sorted this you need to low pass the woofer, passively or actively and high pass the full range, actively or passively along with equlizing the levels of woofer and full range. Since woofers of this kind ( 5" hifi model) are quieter than full range units, it needs to be amplified with volume control to meet the others two. Each unit has to be in its own enclosure volume, full range in a sealed and rather small one to try to achieve the right high pass response in order to try to avoid the electrical high pass. People usually like to keep the cost down by purchasing cheap 2.1 d-class Chinese amps but this is not a high quality solution, although good enough for the everyday use. Enough said for now.
AudioSF, if you search the fora for FAST (full range assisted subwoofer technology) you will find information how to build one and design passive XO filters. The usual range where one wants to place the XO point should be low enough so the subwoofer appears non directive (100 Hz) and the full range still has enough output not to create a hole in the response. Any full range project basically needs a single RLC network consisted of one resistor, one capacitor and one inductor, all three in parallel with each other and as a whole in series with the full range driver to compensate for the boost of midrange frequencies that comes from the enclosure baffle. Once you have sorted this you need to low pass the woofer, passively or actively and high pass the full range, actively or passively along with equlizing the levels of woofer and full range. Since woofers of this kind ( 5" hifi model) are quieter than full range units, it needs to be amplified with volume control to meet the others two. Each unit has to be in its own enclosure volume, full range in a sealed and rather small one to try to achieve the right high pass response in order to try to avoid the electrical high pass. People usually like to keep the cost down by purchasing cheap 2.1 d-class Chinese amps but this is not a high quality solution, although good enough for the everyday use. Enough said for now.
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Bookshelf speakers are wrong in the way you position them: they should not be posed on shelf, like the name or topology suggests.
So two speaker cabinets on a shelf look and sound horrible. Indeed they should be called freestanding. Where the source is little ( compared to the wavelenght of the sound it's reproducing ) it resembles a point source, which is good for the brain to reconstruct the origin and the position of it.
In stereo the sources are two, and in the example I see one table with two speakers attached.
So two speaker cabinets on a shelf look and sound horrible. Indeed they should be called freestanding. Where the source is little ( compared to the wavelenght of the sound it's reproducing ) it resembles a point source, which is good for the brain to reconstruct the origin and the position of it.
In stereo the sources are two, and in the example I see one table with two speakers attached.
So you might think that a single box would cause less harm, being less intrusive ( has less corner than two boxes ) and doin' the job of diffusing the sound thru the speakers.
That's fine as long as you listen to compressed files or you don't care about critical listening...
There is no problem, you can choose what you want, and we would say to you how to connect it if needed.
It seems to be a great small stereo loudspeaker, imaging should be fantastic.
It was never my intent to try and "poach someone's livelihood/design" as 5string replied. I liked the look of this design, and since I have a woodworking background I knew that aspect of the build is something I could accomplish. I have lots of Baltic Birch ply, and MDF in my shop, as well as some beautiful exotic woods that would make a nice face for the enclosure. My original thought was since I had these woods already, and can do the construction myself, I could assemble something like this for much less than $2,000 - I was thinking the speaker components, etc. would run around $200 or less (Parts Express quick estimate).
I understand if someone came to this forum saying I want to copy this exactly, and mass produce them at a lower cost, as that wouldn't be very respectful. I do not have $2,000 to purchase one, so I guess I thought building one myself for less money was ok to do. I can assure you, I'm making a total of ONE of these for my personal use.
If I have offended anyone, I apologize.
I understand if someone came to this forum saying I want to copy this exactly, and mass produce them at a lower cost, as that wouldn't be very respectful. I do not have $2,000 to purchase one, so I guess I thought building one myself for less money was ok to do. I can assure you, I'm making a total of ONE of these for my personal use.
If I have offended anyone, I apologize.
I have just watched the options mini dsp offers and it seems reasonable to avoid passive circuits and simply EQ the sattelites ( full range) and use the linkwitz transform for the woofer part with a high pass for extra low frequencies to protect it from overexcursion. 80 bucks mini dsp + plugin 2.1 and microphone. That's my suggestion and some decent amps.
So to the question of "something along the lines of ..." - I'd opine that any DIY speaker project should include application / venue at the top of the list of calculus factors.
A simple "sound bar" with full range drivers up to approx 4", a single 6" or so mid-bass and small class D 2.1 channel amp should be easy enough to achieve . There are probably dozens of examples in these fora - the builder's choice of components will of course most likely represent their personal tastes.
I happen to quite like the Mark Audio and Fostex family of drivers for FR, Peerless for affordable mid bass, and Sure or YJ for the 2.1 amp board. https://www.parts-express.com/yuan-...lifier-board-2-x-25w-1-x-50w--320-6510http://
A simple "sound bar" with full range drivers up to approx 4", a single 6" or so mid-bass and small class D 2.1 channel amp should be easy enough to achieve . There are probably dozens of examples in these fora - the builder's choice of components will of course most likely represent their personal tastes.
I happen to quite like the Mark Audio and Fostex family of drivers for FR, Peerless for affordable mid bass, and Sure or YJ for the 2.1 amp board. https://www.parts-express.com/yuan-...lifier-board-2-x-25w-1-x-50w--320-6510http://
I'm gearing up right now to build something similar. I plan to use it for campouts, so will be battery driven (or AC) and use high efficiency class D power amp boards that I got at Parts Express. It will have two Peerless TG9FD1008 3.5 inch full range drivers, and two Peerless 3.5 inch passive radiators, no actual woofer, but will have a line out in case I want to add a separate woofer later. The TG9's are low efficiency (85dB), but are very Hi-Fi. It will have only an AUX in and a blue tooth receiver, so my smart phone can act as a remote control and store all the music (or pull it in off the web if that's obtainable). I'm not wild about using passive radiators to get more bass, but I wanted to keep the project real small. Those TG9's at $22 each (at Madisound) compete well with the very best out there.
The enclosure will be the weak link - it needs to be non-resonant. Parallel walls should be avoided if possible. Good internal acoustic padding will make all the difference. I glue thick felt (or equivalent) to all internal surfaces (with liquid nail glue or equiv.), then I glue some foam rubber on top of that, then loosely fill the rest with synthetic fiberglass fluffed up, thereby creating a somewhat "gaussian" energy dissipater for the back waves. It won't do low bass, but should be enjoyable enough. Getting good low bass outdoors takes a lot of power. There's no walls to reinforce the bass energy.
With no background in electronics, it will be challenging to get that part right, but it's doable.
I haven't personally tried one of these, but I hear good things about this amp:
https://www.parts-express.com/lepai...io-mini-amplifier-with-power-supply--310-3000
At $30 it seems worth trying. It has bass and treble controls (thank god) but no built in bluetooth. BT receivers are available at Parts express separately. The BT receiver probably needs a 5 volt supply, and the amp needs at least 12VDC and can probably run on a higher supply (up to 26 volts DC according to the chip spec sheet - I wouldn't go above about 20 volts though for better reliability) for more wattage (volume). So you'd need to include a 5 volt regulator circuit (7805 reg chip, a series resistor and caps) for the bluetooth circuit. A spec sheet on the web will show you how to wire that up. Don't "daisy chain" ground connections. Tie them all to a common point at the power supply where there's a big filter cap (at least 1000uF) across whatever power source you use. Oh, and if you want to run on batteries, Lithium costs 5 times more than lead acid, but lasts 10 times longer, and weighs MUCH less. Apparently the 18650 Lithium batteries are what many people are using and happy with. PE has those as well as a charging circuit board (KAB-BE) optimized for those batteries.
Since I'm picky about the sound, I plan to use a 4 section Baxadall tone control circuit I designed and built for the preamp, and I've got some class D pwr amp boards from PE that actually work well (2 out of 3 different models didn't). I'm also might use some high efficiency (switch mode) voltage booster boards from PE so a 12 volt battery will actually supply about 20VDC to the pwr amp boards, for significantly more power.
The enclosure will be the weak link - it needs to be non-resonant. Parallel walls should be avoided if possible. Good internal acoustic padding will make all the difference. I glue thick felt (or equivalent) to all internal surfaces (with liquid nail glue or equiv.), then I glue some foam rubber on top of that, then loosely fill the rest with synthetic fiberglass fluffed up, thereby creating a somewhat "gaussian" energy dissipater for the back waves. It won't do low bass, but should be enjoyable enough. Getting good low bass outdoors takes a lot of power. There's no walls to reinforce the bass energy.
With no background in electronics, it will be challenging to get that part right, but it's doable.
I haven't personally tried one of these, but I hear good things about this amp:
https://www.parts-express.com/lepai...io-mini-amplifier-with-power-supply--310-3000
At $30 it seems worth trying. It has bass and treble controls (thank god) but no built in bluetooth. BT receivers are available at Parts express separately. The BT receiver probably needs a 5 volt supply, and the amp needs at least 12VDC and can probably run on a higher supply (up to 26 volts DC according to the chip spec sheet - I wouldn't go above about 20 volts though for better reliability) for more wattage (volume). So you'd need to include a 5 volt regulator circuit (7805 reg chip, a series resistor and caps) for the bluetooth circuit. A spec sheet on the web will show you how to wire that up. Don't "daisy chain" ground connections. Tie them all to a common point at the power supply where there's a big filter cap (at least 1000uF) across whatever power source you use. Oh, and if you want to run on batteries, Lithium costs 5 times more than lead acid, but lasts 10 times longer, and weighs MUCH less. Apparently the 18650 Lithium batteries are what many people are using and happy with. PE has those as well as a charging circuit board (KAB-BE) optimized for those batteries.
Since I'm picky about the sound, I plan to use a 4 section Baxadall tone control circuit I designed and built for the preamp, and I've got some class D pwr amp boards from PE that actually work well (2 out of 3 different models didn't). I'm also might use some high efficiency (switch mode) voltage booster boards from PE so a 12 volt battery will actually supply about 20VDC to the pwr amp boards, for significantly more power.
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Hi neighbor.
Hmmm, how about using some nice coaxials from Seas?
You could do it as a bar, or you could build two small speakers.
Here is one of several examples:
https://www.madisoundspeakerstore.com/coaxial/seas-prestige-l12re/xfc-h1602-5-alum/fabric-coaxial/
The crossover is done for you. All you have to do is create an enclosure of the right volume, and you could do 2 in one box, if you isolate the space. Click on the "application notes" and you'll have ready made speakers. You just have to adapt the box a little.
Best,
E
Hmmm, how about using some nice coaxials from Seas?
You could do it as a bar, or you could build two small speakers.
Here is one of several examples:
https://www.madisoundspeakerstore.com/coaxial/seas-prestige-l12re/xfc-h1602-5-alum/fabric-coaxial/
The crossover is done for you. All you have to do is create an enclosure of the right volume, and you could do 2 in one box, if you isolate the space. Click on the "application notes" and you'll have ready made speakers.
You just have to adapt the box a little. Best,
E
More over, the thing is doable but not hifi. It works with little power but when it comes to shaking walls, I mean...from the particular: wood itself is not a good acoustic barrier.
Many layers are needed to make an enclosure acoustically inert.
An easy solution is to make two separate enclosures, eh ?
Many layers are needed to make an enclosure acoustically inert.
An easy solution is to make two separate enclosures, eh ?
It is surprisingly easy to make a low power system, like the one in the link. It is more like Lego than electronics.
AMP:
https://www.parts-express.com/21-hi-fi-class-d-audio-amplifier-board-2-x-15w-30w-10-18-vdc--320-608
this or similar. Power it for free by re-using the power brick from an old appliance.
SUB:
https://www.parts-express.com/dayton-audio-dc160-8-6-1-2-classic-woofer--295-305
Good enough. For this budget / power, "real" subs that handle tons of power are not sensible.
MAINS:
The original $2,000 TABLETOP HIFI looks like it uses this TangBand 4"
https://www.parts-express.com/tang-band-w4-1337sd-4-titanium-driver--264-848
Some other possibilities (you can look them, and many more, up on this forum):
Visaton B80
Scan Speak 10F
I'd suggest staying with these (or other SIMPLE full range drivers that have pretty flat response), so there is nothing to calculate or 'fix'. You won't have to learn how to do build crossovers.
The only fine tuning you'll really need to do is to adjust the gain of the sub.
---
Other notes:
An active and configurable (miniDSP) build is cool, but there's a learning curve + it would murder your $200 budget.
Other solutions (two separate enclosures) will be more flexible / possibly sound better. But don't overthink it - particularly for a first time builder, you could do a lot worse than just cloning the $2,000 TABLETOP HIFI for $200.
I say just go ahead and make yourself a pretty little system.
Erik's idea of using Seas co-axials is pretty cool and one don't have to bother with adding a mini subwoofer. A little bit more expensive with a potential to build the sound bar from 3 pieces of enclosures that can be joined together for saving space or detached for better stereo imaging if occasion permits.
edit: Dayton Audio offers some cute little 3,5" full range woofers with Fs around 70 Hz and Vas 1,5 litres and when you add an ND25FN-4 dome tweeter with only 41 mm diameter, makes it possible to build a compact sound bar costing not too much and one could model a XO filter with factory curves.
edit: Dayton Audio offers some cute little 3,5" full range woofers with Fs around 70 Hz and Vas 1,5 litres and when you add an ND25FN-4 dome tweeter with only 41 mm diameter, makes it possible to build a compact sound bar costing not too much and one could model a XO filter with factory curves.
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Maybe this is what you're looking to build?
http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/full-range/307779-noiseplank-simple-folded-tl-tg9fd10.html
Mike
http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/full-range/307779-noiseplank-simple-folded-tl-tg9fd10.html
Mike
You are looking for a laid back sound (medium oriented typical daylong radio listening), without immersive bass and trebles (more physical and fatiguing listening) ?
This design is for you !
What kind of sound are you looking for ?
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