Peerless speaker project

[GRexer]

Hi guys, i'm new to this home audio scene. Recently bought myself an old school Pioneer A-300R integrated amp which was in mint condition(looks brand new except for the slightly discoloured(turning yellowish from the original white) box. Well... later on i got around with a pair of Peerless #850136 8" CSC-X drivers and i found some crossover info from WES components before they took those files offline.

It was recommended that i run a Peerless #811827 tweeter with the 8" CSC-X but no box value was written, hence i'm thinking of trying to run the maximum ported box size wif 60 litres of volume as i don't plan to have a subwoofer in the setup, and apparently i could have a port tuning of 40Hz by using the 60 litre box, which is low enough for most applications. i'll also be making the cabinet as a tower(not too sure what height, but i guess roughly about 1-1.5 meters tall).

I'm very new to this, hence i'm very much open to suggestions in the tweeter selection and crossover design. But one thing i have in mind, is to replace the #811827 tweeter with the #811435 tweeter instead, but what changes would i have to do with the crossover design?

And also, are there any differences if i were to use a TM(tweeter on top, mid below) or MT(mid on top, tweeter below) design.

Do note that i've already got those 8" CSC-X and don't exactly want to get other drivers at the moment, the choice here is the crossover design, cabinet design and also the tweeters choice. And also that i'm from Malaysia and i'll probably be ordering my parts from Madisound in US instead. Thanks in advance.

BTW, click here for the PDF file containing the crossover info.

[sreten]

Hi,

the crossover design does not include / account for baffle step
correction and diffraction effects of a target box design, doesn't
seem to include driver response either.

It is therefore next to useless and I'm afraid you'll have to start
from scratch (with any tweeter you fancy) unless you can find a
good design using the drivers.

60L sounds excessive but bass alignment is up to you.

/sreten.

[rabbitz]

I think you will find some box suggestions in the PDF.

These are some of the 850136 suggestions from Peerless.

Driver: 217 WR 33 102 SD AL 8 ohm. CAT. NR. 850136.

F(ratio) for this driver is 99, and the driver is very suitable for vented boxes.
25 ltr box. 1 port. Diameter 70 mm. Lenght 120 mm. Tuning freq 50 Hz. Response, - 3 dB appr at 52 Hz.
40 ltr box. 1 port. Diameter 70 mm. Lenght 85 mm. Tuning freq 45 Hz. Response, - 3 dB appr at 45 Hz.
60 ltr box. 1 port. Diameter 70 mm. Lenght 65 mm. Tuning freq 40 Hz. Response, - 3 dB appr at 40 Hz.

Cross-over freq from 1500-3000 Hz is recommendable for this model.

MT is suitable on 1st and 3rd order crossovers due to downward polar tilt.

[GRexer]

Hm... so how do i go around designing a passive for these? I'm planning to use them in a 60L box. Probably thinking of pairing these with the Peerless 53 NDT #811435 tweeters instead as it seems that i remember reading that Zaph said there were the only tweeters to actually considering from Peerless.

[JohnSz]

GRexer,

You caught my eye with that CSX driver. Someday I will use that in a project. Most likely either redesigning a current 8" Peerless 2 way, or redoing my brothers Geniss 33 cabinets. The 8" two way, use to be a very popular combination for a very musical speaker. With todays multi-channel and subwoofer systems, it has gone by the wayside.

I have a couple of suggestions, based on the assumption this is one of your first speaker projects, and you do not plan to use measurement and analysis S/W. ie most of your tweaking will be done by ear, and maybe a test tone CD.

- For an 8" 2 way, I would prefer to crossover at 1500-2000Hz range. This requires a more expensive tweeter, and a multi-pole (complex) crossover (like the one you posted). I did a quick google search, but didn't find any projects using this CSX. I would recommend scouring the net more thoughly. Maybe there is already a design out there.

- If the search is fruitless, and you are back to the Peerless crossover and tweeter, expect to do allot of of adjusting and tweaking. As sreten said, the crossover appears not to use any baffle step correction. Maybe it is only a textbook derived crossover??? Without any correction, the bass will most likely be very lean. IMHO, the easiest way for you to deal with it, would be add-on components vs adjusting the existing ones. Search the net, there was a number of good articles on this. A coil and resister in parrellel which is in series with the woofer, and a series resister added in the tweeter circuit, I believe would be the easiest for you to tweak. The resister would contol the amount of correction, and the coil the frequency at where the correction starts. Resisters would be in the 2-4 ohm range. Coil probably in the 2-3mH range. Plan on external crossovers, until all the tweaking is done.

- Before going to such a large box, make sure you plot what max excursion will be. Many times the larger box will reach xmax at low power levels. If this happens at listening levels, lower than what your prefered level is, it would be more detremental than losing the 10hz of lower extension. At the minimum, if you do go with the large box, design in a crossmember, such that if it did become a problem, you could seal off a smaller chamber, without having to make new boxes. I did preliminary number crunching on this driver, a few years ago. From my fading memory, a box of 1 cubic ft was pretty decent, which would be close to smallest box recommended by Peerless.

Good luck and prepare youself for the addiction you are starting on!

[JohnSz]

Probably thinking of pairing these with the Peerless 53 NDT #811435 tweeters

A quick check in my PE catalog shows a fs of 1334Hz, which IMO is too high to mate with a 8" driver. At a very minimum, fs of the tweeter should be 1/2 your expected crossover frequency, preferably lower. Not sure what drivers, you have easy access to, but the Morel MDT-30 might be a good match.

[newfinish]

I use the csx 176 and it rocks!!with a vifa 27tg45 excellent match.
all this is powered with some serious stuff

[GRexer]

Sorry i didn't reply earlier on. Was cut off from internet access for a while as i was at my parents' place which is without internet.

JohnSz, thanks for your reply, very informative for me actually Well... i got this CSX driver for dirt cheap(about USD50 a pair) locally, but am limited in terms of choices for tweeters as i'll be getting them from Madisound in US and will be shipped to my location in Malaysia, hence, the Peerless 811435 caught my attention due to the price and weight(less shipping costs) The Morel MDT-30 does seem like a good tweeter but it'll burst my budget for the tweeters.

There's a lot needed to be disgested from that posting u wrote as well

newfinish, nice to see that you've got success pairing the Peerless 176H and the Vifa D27TG45, do u mind sharing the whole setup? I'll be powering my speakers via a Pioneer A-300R which ain't a very beefy amp.

[newfinish]

I just went to a distributor who has a sale here in montreal,on speakers.Dali,Pierre Etienne Leon,Powered with 10000$ worth of Naim electronics,and boy sound good...but not as good as I would imagined.The stuff I bought used and the speakers I made sounded much better.the speaker I heard were in the price range of 1500$-3300$ a pair before cuting the price in half.And I can still say that my speakers made held to the task.
my pre amp is sp9 audio research,amp hafler dh500,and cd transport sonic frontier sft1,and converter sonic frontier sfd2,all Mit cables,(all bought used)saved a fortune on these.Here are the prices new and used of my equipement cdn dollars:
SP-9 2800$.......800$
Hafler 500 2500$.....450$
sonic frontier cd and dac 10000$......1600$
Mit speaker cables mh750 700$......100$
Mit interconnect shot gun(both cd and preamp)2700$......500$
so the kit comes to 3450$ instead of 18700$ all bougth in a 6 months period,when you go to the store and say I want a kit for 3450$ tax included you won't get much these days.But hey that's just my point of view

So all this to say that peerless and morel or vifa have a lot of potential and that I had them for a while with my old set up Yamaha cd and receiver and sound slighty better than my paradigm book shelf,but when I hook them up with the rest OUCH!!!Never nknew Celine dion could sing like that!!?
Which by the way is NOT my cd....(cough)incredible stage detail and warmth of sound.

Oh and box I used is 30L ported 2"x4" I made tower

[JohnSz]

GRexer,

That is a good price on the 8" CSX. The MDT-30 is a little pricy, but is more forgiving to crossover "errors" or design mis-steps.

I still recommend finding and coping an existing design, over designing a crossover on your own, for the first project. Here is a site (if you haven't seen it) with a number of useful tools,if you end up down the design path. FRD Consortium