Newbie speaker design

[Wingfeather]

I completed my first audio project a month or so ago (Titanic 15" mkIII-based equalised subwoofer, along with a P68 500W amplifier from ESP) and it went pretty well. Since then I've been considering where to go next - and I think it's going to be some smaller two-way speakers to mate with it. I've never built any speakers before nor used any speaker measuring equipment (I'm doing an EE degree, so I know how to use the tools themselves, just not in the context of speaker design) and I realise that I have a lot learning ahead of me. I'm about to purchase the Loudspeaker Design Cookbook, by Dickason (getting ahold of this in the UK isn't possible. I have to order it from the US... gah.) - are there any other recommended texts someone like me should look at?

As for driver selection, I've looked through the LDSG and parts express - and the Vifa P13WH-00 5" woofer and the Vifa PL27TG-35-06 1" soft-dome tweeter look like they're both well-respected and will both work together. They also aren't too expensive, since I'm bound to make some mistakes along the line here.
A crossover point of around 3kHz seems nice, though I could well be missing something. Any thoughts on this choice of driver, and also what gradient of crossover slopes to use? At the moment I only really have L-R type crossovers available, second order or fourth order. Are they suitable?

I need the speakers to go down to about 80Hz - at which point I'll cross over to the sub. Also I need them to have a cohesive nearfield since they will be used with my computer. I'm using them with my computer for several reasons - one being that I'm at the thing an awful lot of the time, and the second being that I can use my soundcard as a digital crossover/EQ, with what appear to be unlimited possibilities in that department (certainly as my assembler skills improve, since I can start programming the DSP myself). I will of course have to build four channels of amplification to go with this. Might try a gainclone.

However, despite the need for a good nearfield, I'd also like them to perform properly as a 'normal' pair of bookshelf speakers. I mostly listen to music but I watch films pretty regularly, too. However, since I don't have a full surround system I don't know if that qualifies as 'HT'. Ideally though, the speakers should be able to handle both quite nicely.

Since the speakers are nearfield, I'm not after particularly high SPL (I'll be less than a metre away nearly all the time).

As for the enclosure, I'd ideally like to have it all sealed - since these speakers need to couple smoothly with the subwoofer. I don't see how ported enclosures with their frankly quite nasty rolloff characteristics can provide this for me. Digital equalisation of the woofers is not a problem, if their low-end is a bit on the quiet side (xmax and power handling allowing, of course). However, that may introduce problems (perhaps phase/group delay/something) I'm unaware of.

I don't think that's asking for a lot! Is it? Oh.. wait. Yeah.

Thanks in advance,
MR

[Dave Jones]

There are a number of proven designs that use the P13WH-00-08. Google around. I have a set of Ariels (MTM transmission lines) that employ it along with a ScanSpeak 9000/9500 tweeter. There's a bass reflex version of it called the Me2 (pronounced "me too"). You might want to take a look at that one. If you want to go two-way, take a look at the Okara II. I'm sure there are several others.

[dvdwmth]

Hi,

Have you looked at the newbie reference project that was hashed out a while ago. It uses the p13 and the d27.

diyAudio reference speaker project

http://www.diyaudio.com/wiki/index....=Vifa+P13%2FD27

Also, there is a Vifa studio monitor kit at Madisound.

Im not recommending either cause I dont know, but they're there to check out.

[dvdwmth]

that second link might not work

http://www.diyaudio.com/wiki/index.p...Vifa+P13%2FD27