Can anyone recommend the best 3 or 4 way DIY or kits for under $2,500? I'm thinking ~$2,000 for drivers and xo (passive or dsp) and the remaining for carpentry, etc (I have a retired carpenter on hand). Since I went to high school in the 80's, I mostly listen to classic rock and vocals. No rap, metal or classical music. This will be my 2nd home DIY (recent - Seas paper cones - seems more matched for classical music), and I also have experience with auto installs from my college days. I'm considering the Selah Ottavos and the LX521, but I'm not sure if the LX would be a good match for my musical taste. Also considering the Statements II. 😕Thanks, J
Check this out. $ 995 for a pair, drivers and filters included.
https://www.madisoundspeakerstore.c...o-sb12.3-sb-acoustics-12-dual-midrange-3-way/
https://www.madisoundspeakerstore.c...o-sb12.3-sb-acoustics-12-dual-midrange-3-way/
If your carpenter is up to it, the troels next 4 is pretty much a speaker-for-life.
Some serious financial savings can be made on the xo without affecting the sound, not sure how much it adds to but should be near
Some serious financial savings can be made on the xo without affecting the sound, not sure how much it adds to but should be near
It is sufficient budget for some nice speakers but the examples you give do not indicate a specific type beyond largish floor standing. What is the configuration of your current SEAS speakers and what is it about them that you are looking to improve upon? I don't understand the comment about SEAS paper cones being suitable for classical music.
How large is the room they will be in and will they be used with or without subwoofers? This will give some indication of the requirements for the woofers.
The choice between active or passive is important. An active crossover offers greater flexibility and performance to some extent but requires more power amplifiers which may or may not add to the cost depending on what you have available. What would need to be included in the budget?
Hi,
There is the "best" and the "best value" for under $2500.
The "best value" 3 way IMO is Zaph's ZDT3.5,
Speaker Project - ZDT 3.5 -- 8/23/2011
and an honourable mention for the Sunflowers :
https://sites.google.com/site/undefinition/diy-sunflowers
rgds, sreten.
There is the "best" and the "best value" for under $2500.
The "best value" 3 way IMO is Zaph's ZDT3.5,
Speaker Project - ZDT 3.5 -- 8/23/2011
and an honourable mention for the Sunflowers :
https://sites.google.com/site/undefinition/diy-sunflowers
rgds, sreten.
My listening room is approximately 24' x 22' x 8'.
The Seas was a 3 way with TDFC soft dome tweeters, 15RCY mids and 26RNX woofers. All in a sealed box, with passive xo made by Madisound. The speakers sound good and neutral, but not as "high" and revealing as others I've had, such as the Infinity Kappa 8.1s or Alphas.
I do have a pair of 12" sealed subs (Dayton HF) with thick custom cabs, so that's an option. I can go active xo because I have a bunch of amps I'm not currently using (2x Parasound HCA1000, HCA 750, Zamp, 3X Marantz 6100, Carver TFM 25 and Crown 2000) but I don't know how to measure the freq with a mic for a DSPMini, which I'm assuming is the best option for active.
Paul Carmody's Tarkus built page.
https://sites.google.com/site/undefinition/tarkus
It uses module mid-high section to avoid wide baffle. The paper cone drivers were optimized for guitar reproduction. The paper cones and second order crossover will be inexpensive to buy. It is excellent value for way under $2500. Not sure about the "best".
Joel Wesseling's Elsinore and Troels Gravesen's Jenzen Illuminator both worth a look.
Elsinore Speakers DIY
Jenzen-Illuminator
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halibutman, Are you feeling a little horny?
There may be a waveguide or horn loaded compression driver tweeter in your future... Maybe even an AMT like the Beyma TPL-150H tweeter.
Sketch your room with 90-degree and 60-degree polar pattern control speakers and judge if they could remove early wall reflections which can affect your sound stage.
You could add an SEOS-12 two way on top of your 12" sealed subs.
You could add a Beyma TPL-150H + (10" or 12") midbass two way on top of your 12" sealed subs. If you love the dynamics, you could expand this to something like the Tweek Geeks BMF-1 3-way build.
For $1200 you could build BIG like the Maximus-18. Maximus-18 DIY Sound Group
The speaker brands available in your country for fair prices will affect your plans.
There may be a waveguide or horn loaded compression driver tweeter in your future... Maybe even an AMT like the Beyma TPL-150H tweeter.
Sketch your room with 90-degree and 60-degree polar pattern control speakers and judge if they could remove early wall reflections which can affect your sound stage.
You could add an SEOS-12 two way on top of your 12" sealed subs.
You could add a Beyma TPL-150H + (10" or 12") midbass two way on top of your 12" sealed subs. If you love the dynamics, you could expand this to something like the Tweek Geeks BMF-1 3-way build.
For $1200 you could build BIG like the Maximus-18. Maximus-18 DIY Sound Group
The speaker brands available in your country for fair prices will affect your plans.
Attachments
A well executed speaker using those standard range drivers is going to leave only a small amount of room for improvement. But how well executed was the speaker? If it was a simple electrical design without regard to the baffle, driver bumps and dips, off axis radiation, etc... then there may have been room for significant improvement.
A well executed speaker using premium range drivers with better motors may bring small improvements but I would not expect big ones compared to the same well executed design using good standard range drivers.
Measurement is a requirement for good quality DIY results. If you still have your SEAS DIY speakers then trying them active vs passive might be an excellent place to start before moving onto a more expensive design using premium drivers.
It sounds like a fairly high quality setup you already have.
Is it a pretty old Madisound kit? What does the crossover look like? It would be very difficult to get a better kit under $2000 (less cabinet) it the Madisound crossover is one of their older, but high quality offer.
It the crossover is a Madisound custom designed for your drivers, it may be a different story. The Madisound crossover custom design service is inconsistent at best.
I totally agree with Andy that the clue may be in the crossover and enclosure execution. Assuming that they are not the source of your dissatisfaction, you may focus on improving/replacing the tweeters.
The Seas TDFC soft dome tweeter is one of the better respected soft dome with very linear response and low distortion. Getting the right HF crossover may be all you need. If you are looking for more analytical sound or treble with a raising treble end, you may want to look at a Berrylium dome tweeter. (I don't have experience about berrylium dome to share because I can't afford them.)
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As long as you have enough room behind the speakers..
-they are over-damped IMO, but really - it's tough to do better as long as you can factor-in the price of the amplifiers.
If you want something that has a bit less of a "damped" behavior, (tonally not as "thin"), but perhaps lacking quite the quality of the low bass of the LX521:
NaO Note II RS
-it also happens to be a fair bit less expensive as well. 🙂
The xo was a custom job - I only received it about 2 months ago. They were printed on separate boards for each speaker. I recall the tweeters had Clarilty ESA caps, the mids Solen and an in house brand for the woofers. My 25 year old Kappas have Solen all the way around, and I think it still sounds clearer especially in the highs. Not sure about the mids though.
These look interesting.
Speaker Design Works
They also have some smaller siblings.
umm - just realised you had this in your OP...
build em and let us know!
Speaker Design Works
They also have some smaller siblings.
umm - just realised you had this in your OP...
build em and let us know!
Yes, the Statements II got high marks for rock music. Definite consideration! It was one of my original 3 considerations, and a lot cheaper than the other two. About half price! Thanks, John
The brands of the capacitors, although not wholly irrelevant given the size of non-linearities (which you can effectively removed by going active), is unlikely to be a major part of what the crossover contributes to the sound. You do not say if the crossover was developed for your exact design of speaker but, given there is no kit using those drivers on the Madisound site, my guess is probably not. This means, for example, the crossover will not compensate for the effect of the cabinet in the way a commercial speaker or a good DIY design would. It will also also probably not consider using small changes to the the on-axis response or changes in the crossover slopes in order to help compensate for off-axis unevenness in the way some commercial and good DIY speakers do.
When you put drivers in a particular cabinet the size of the baffle around the drivers will influence how the sound changes with frequency from being omnidirectional at low frequencies to mainly beaming forward at high frequencies. This is a background 6dB change plus a typical 1-3dB bump/wiggle at the high frequency end. This is a substantial change and a well executed speaker will give significant attention to how to handle it well in the crossover. Was it part of your custom design crossover?
In addition the edge of the baffle, the other drivers and sometimes the driver's own metal work (e.g. a non-flush mounted tweeter) will diffract the sound causing audible bumps and dips of typically a few dB. In a well executed speaker the designer will work with the baffle shape, layout of the driver and small changes in the crossover to even things out taking into consideration the off-axis behaviour.
Measuring the on-axis and off-axis behaviour will establish how well some of these things have been addressed in your current speaker. Without determining what is right and wrong with your current speakers how will you determine what to look for to make things better? Following the enthusiasms of posters on DIY forums is an option but I would suggest it is not particularly reliable one.
If, as seems likely, you find there are some noticeable lumps and bumps in the response then addressing them may be a more worthwhile way to build your knowledge and progressively improve your sound rather than spending $2500 on new speakers. Some options such as using your computer to compare compensated and uncompensated sound will have zero cost apart from time and effort but longer term fixes are likely to involve purchasing hardware. Of course people's interests differ and this sort of thing may be of little interest to you. Some people clearly enjoy listening to a sequence of speakers and speculating on their relative performance without linking it to technical performance in the way an engineer would. Nothing wrong with that.
Sorry, should have been more clear. Madisound designed the xo specifically for my drivers, and compensated for the baffle width. I remember, because I told them how wide my baffle was. They also designed the tweeters and mids with reverse phase. Maybe because I was using a sealed design, they also designed the xo to run at 4 ohm around 100hz to keep it linear.
I think the mids sound fine. The tweeters sound too laid back, or muted compared to my other speakers. The bass is a little on the weak side, but I don't mind that too much.
The only thing I did different was to use solid 25cm Indian teak instead of MDF or ply, since this is what they use here (I'm an American expat living in India, and veneer is reportedly very expensive - so they prefer to use solid teak which is cheaper). But I lined the inside with 1" acousta egg crate foam all the way around except for the tweeter chamber (stuffed it with poly foam since the hole was too small). John
I don't think so. No such question was asked. I knew that solid wood wasn't the best for speaker material, but it's very nice looking - furniture quality. And I read that teak has one of the lowest movements for all woods, and that it's even used for boats and other outdoor stuff.