Hey all! Been reading for awhile and very excited for my first venture into speaker design. My woodworking skills have grown in my modest, but expanding, workshop, and I commission and test critical electrical/electronic systems professionally. So I have the tools and at least the fundamental knowledge going for me. I just need to develop the finer art of speaker/crossover design, and understand that will take time and tinkering. Nothing like hand-on learning.
I'm wondering what I can expect in terms of performance and budget, relative to a finished product I can buy. What I am looking to build are LCR 3-way bookshelves, all identical, for my home theater. On paper I like what Axiom M5HP speakers can do and look to build something similar in design, although perhaps more sensitivity and I don't really need that much power handling. If I built something using, say, all Scan-Speak Discovery drivers, how would they compare? That should put me somewhere around 65-70% of the cost, including x-over and box.
I'm wondering what I can expect in terms of performance and budget, relative to a finished product I can buy. What I am looking to build are LCR 3-way bookshelves, all identical, for my home theater. On paper I like what Axiom M5HP speakers can do and look to build something similar in design, although perhaps more sensitivity and I don't really need that much power handling. If I built something using, say, all Scan-Speak Discovery drivers, how would they compare? That should put me somewhere around 65-70% of the cost, including x-over and box.
Hi there,
I'll give you a piece of advice to take a chance and get some units that you believe sound promising and start doing voicing of these as soon as you grasp the basics in loudspeaker design. Crossover design has great influence on how it will sound in the end. Drivers are not that important, assuming they are decently built. In general you can't trust hifi loudspeaker power dissipation figures for they are rather misleading. I would advise to build something more interesting like 3 way WMT, woofer being a woofer specialist of great Xmax capability, low Fs, strong motor and for a midrange 2" dome mid mated to a 3/4" dome tweeter. Crossover points about 650 Hz, 4 kHz. A good idea would also be to first simulate a virtual loudspeaker. This work could keep you busy for a quite some time.
Take a look at this interesting thread.
A Test. How much Voltage (power) do your speakers need?
Good luck!
I'll give you a piece of advice to take a chance and get some units that you believe sound promising and start doing voicing of these as soon as you grasp the basics in loudspeaker design. Crossover design has great influence on how it will sound in the end. Drivers are not that important, assuming they are decently built. In general you can't trust hifi loudspeaker power dissipation figures for they are rather misleading. I would advise to build something more interesting like 3 way WMT, woofer being a woofer specialist of great Xmax capability, low Fs, strong motor and for a midrange 2" dome mid mated to a 3/4" dome tweeter. Crossover points about 650 Hz, 4 kHz. A good idea would also be to first simulate a virtual loudspeaker. This work could keep you busy for a quite some time.
Take a look at this interesting thread.
A Test. How much Voltage (power) do your speakers need?
Good luck!
Thanks for the suggestions. I had already mentioned I wanted to build a 3-way, but hadn't considered using a dome midrange. I'll look into that. For the past 9 months I have been using WinISD, XSim, FPGraphTracer, Boxycad, Response Modeller, and others. I don't have any questions on software simulation at the moment, I just want to move forward to hands-on, hence my question on driver selection. I'm going to build 2-way desktop monitors for my PC first, then move on to the 3-way LCR's for the HT.
I understand how critical the crossover is. But the drivers must contribute to the performance, no? There is a massive selection to choose from that sit in an equally massive price range. Even looking at all the 15cm mid-woofers can be overwhelming. Had my eyes on the Scan-Speak Discovery drivers and wonder (assuming they had a good crossover) where in terms of performance would they sit compared to something manufactured?
Either way I'm going to have to get some parts in and see what I can do with them.
I understand how critical the crossover is. But the drivers must contribute to the performance, no? There is a massive selection to choose from that sit in an equally massive price range. Even looking at all the 15cm mid-woofers can be overwhelming. Had my eyes on the Scan-Speak Discovery drivers and wonder (assuming they had a good crossover) where in terms of performance would they sit compared to something manufactured?
Either way I'm going to have to get some parts in and see what I can do with them.
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