I am listening for SICA 5.5 coax at similar distance from time to time. That is ~1meter, right? I agree that is WAY too close to make sound source that is wide as in your project. But coax at this distance works! I even can make it sound very very sweet and neutral if rotate baffle at 10-30 degrees of angle. I had small 2-ways on my table some time ago - they were smaller than yours, and they did not sound good and coherent at that distance. It just does not work.
My personal recommendations:
1. Make speaker position much further, 1.5-2m away, then you will not hear highs and lows as from separate sound sources.
2. Small coax, with subwoofer or couple assistance. I have heard with my own ears for longer time only up to 5.5 inches, I can say that experience is positive at small listening distances
2. Bigger coax may work too. See no reason why not. Do not know in practice. Maybe you can cross subwoofer pretty low then
3. Good full range speakers of 3 inch class with subwoofer(-s). It MAY work, if you find one, that is good from ~120Hz and up.
4. 2-way with small 4-4.5 inch + 0.75-1inch tweeter close physically to midwoofer + separate subwoofer. That has to be really small compact baffle speaker. https://www.audiosciencereview.com/...chano23-open-source-diy-speaker-review.54066/ - this one probably is borderline one that may work for you. Also passed my mind top 2 from https://en.toutlehautparleur.com/brands-page/kartesian-speakers/type/kits.html , or https://www.whathifi.com/reviews/elac-debut-reference-dbr62 - the idea of cutting tweeter into woofer deserves attention.
Disclaimer: haven't heard any of them or affiliated with them in any way.
Classic 2.1 computer system is pretty much exactly for your listening conditions. Cambridge SoundWorks 2.1 is a very good system even in today standards: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/...rks-old-2-1-system-measurements-and-eq.37782/
In your room - you have still ~50cm free space at the right, use it. Also, you will get crazy bounces from table surface, corners and so on. That is a separate issue, which is not 100% solvable, but I would put speakers higher from table surface above those screens to eliminate at least 1 ugly bounce.
And printed stuff is ok, as long as you do make it heavy, stiff and airtight from inside. If you do gluing - it has to be VERY precise. For simple shapes combo of wooden bowls glued to printed stuff can make your project much cheaper and quicker to build, I do it all the time for prototypes: some parts cheap MDF, some - 3D printed.
My personal recommendations:
1. Make speaker position much further, 1.5-2m away, then you will not hear highs and lows as from separate sound sources.
2. Small coax, with subwoofer or couple assistance. I have heard with my own ears for longer time only up to 5.5 inches, I can say that experience is positive at small listening distances
2. Bigger coax may work too. See no reason why not. Do not know in practice. Maybe you can cross subwoofer pretty low then
3. Good full range speakers of 3 inch class with subwoofer(-s). It MAY work, if you find one, that is good from ~120Hz and up.
4. 2-way with small 4-4.5 inch + 0.75-1inch tweeter close physically to midwoofer + separate subwoofer. That has to be really small compact baffle speaker. https://www.audiosciencereview.com/...chano23-open-source-diy-speaker-review.54066/ - this one probably is borderline one that may work for you. Also passed my mind top 2 from https://en.toutlehautparleur.com/brands-page/kartesian-speakers/type/kits.html , or https://www.whathifi.com/reviews/elac-debut-reference-dbr62 - the idea of cutting tweeter into woofer deserves attention.
Disclaimer: haven't heard any of them or affiliated with them in any way.
Classic 2.1 computer system is pretty much exactly for your listening conditions. Cambridge SoundWorks 2.1 is a very good system even in today standards: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/...rks-old-2-1-system-measurements-and-eq.37782/
In your room - you have still ~50cm free space at the right, use it. Also, you will get crazy bounces from table surface, corners and so on. That is a separate issue, which is not 100% solvable, but I would put speakers higher from table surface above those screens to eliminate at least 1 ugly bounce.
And printed stuff is ok, as long as you do make it heavy, stiff and airtight from inside. If you do gluing - it has to be VERY precise. For simple shapes combo of wooden bowls glued to printed stuff can make your project much cheaper and quicker to build, I do it all the time for prototypes: some parts cheap MDF, some - 3D printed.
What are you getting all bent out of shape about?
I just said I have the space. Space isn't an issue. It's the melding of the drivers I am inquiring after.
I tried there not too long ago. Sadly, they also have the minimum order in place. It's a shame because I would very much like to use those. I have a Peerless SDS 8 in another build and it is a fantastic driver
I can do this but the further away I put the speakers, the shallower the angle. At a certain point they will be facing directly at one another. I would have to mount them above. No sure how that would work out with reflections off of the desk
This I can do. I haven't looked into coax as I have always been disappointed in the in automotive applications. Maybe the hifi versions are much better. I will look into this.
This was one of my first considerations but I ruled it out. I have some full range builds and 3 way builds. When played side by side the 3 ways are so much more dynamic.
This is what I currently have minus the Subwoofer. I have a 1" tweeter with a 4" woofer. It's pretty good but I am looking for a more dynamic sound. Possibly I just need better drivers. That was the first 2 way I ever built so I wasn't willing to throw much money at it.
This is interesting. I will look into this as well
This is why I think the 8 inch woofer is a good idea
I have extensive experience here. We never use glue. We use closed cell gaskets and heat set inserts when combining prints.
This enclosure is designed so that it can printed as a single piece. It will have printed bracing and ribbing built in. I can even run it through stress simulations as I have that software. PETG is the best filament to use as it does ring. It has similar Acoustics properties to plywood actually. Most other filament are too brittle or too flexible. PETG is the goldilocks filament
The reasonable listening angle can be 0 to ~45 degrees. There are speakers which are sounding better not at 0 degrees, the example is Sica coax I am playing right now, its sweet spot is ~20-30 degrees, the same is for some Seas coax. As you are designing speaker from scratch - you can measure, simulate and build speaker which can sound good at any reasonable angle of your choice. VituixCAD is the tool for it and it is very very worth using.
Usual automotive designs are NOT the true coax: they are woofers with some pod attached in front with 1 or multiple high freq tweeters. True coax uses woofer cone as a weveguide, its tweeter acoustic center is close to woofer a c. The whole point is to mimic one good behaving driver, acting and sounding like true full range with 2 separate drivers (and crossover).
Professional ones also not suitable - they are used for stage monitors and have different requirements to hifi ones.
There are not many hifi coax to choose from: 1 from Satori, 2 from Sica, 3(?) from Seas and that's pretty much it. All the others are either professional or not worth mentioning. In my mind bigger Sica or another with at least 6 inch woofer will have decent low end extension and act like true point source.
Yes, you are right! 3-ways most or the time blows away 2-ways, 4-ways - 3-ways and so on. But you are playing music at a such small distance, that you get listening artefacts because the distance between speaker drivers c-c is WAY too big. How bad it will be? 5-10cm movement of the head will distort sound so much, that you will get headache. That is why in your case 3inch fullranger from ScanSpeak + couple of subwoofers in a good location can be true audio nirvana, and you can even stand up from your chair and dance a little while listening to the same sound, not the comb filtering chaos you get from separate drivers.
Idea of cutting tweeter into woofer is another extremity at diy space - haven't done. The distance c-c from drivers is a huge topic, and it may work or work not case-to-case.
As long as it is a coax OR it is a subwoofer playing up to 120-200Hz depending on different variables. Much more experienced and smart guys than me already commented about this, I would listen to their suggestion.
Btw, you can test comb filtering in your office: get any typical 3-ways speaker box and place it on your table. Play some music, move head or walk around. It is your preference after all. But if you think that yours custom built will sound better because you will make distances between drivers little closer - you are wrong. It may sound even worse.
Another 2 unrelated things to consider: you are thinking about metal cone woofer - that is a bad idea. In theory and measurements it may be close to perfection, but this is just one part of the truth: most likely metal cones are very very tiresome to listen, uncontrollable breakup modes, subtle parasitic ringing somewhere in 3 to 7kHz range, dominant distortion is 3rd order and the sound is just harsh. It is a good thing for showrooms, for couple energetic songs, but for 5+ hours listening I would not recommend it. Choose paper woofers. You will loose a little, but gain a lot. SBA has Norex and Satori egyptian papyrus cones. Second option probably could be polypropylene. Kevlar is not pleasant for long listening too. CF, GF and other extremities may be even worse. Tweeter most pleasant for me is cloth. YMMV
Your music source probably will be computer. For crossovers I would recommend doing active crossovers in computer software, EQ APO can do this and even more including many if not all DSP functions, so 7.1 external soundcard, and 2-3 amp blocks of your choice may be everything you need, no modeling of crossovers, no "esoteric" bee wax coils and so on. You can change crossover configurations with a mouse click.
IMO, the problem here is that you're going to be able to hear the locations of each driver quite easily. Vertically-aligned drivers are harder to differentiate, but our hearing system is excellent at pinpointing the horizontal location of things.
FWIW, I have a pair of Genelec 8030C, and a similar listening distance to yours. If I have the speakers horizontal, the different location of woofer & tweeter is obvious/distracting/wrong. Put them the usual way up, and that problem disappears.
My sincere recommendation, then, would be to move this project to something like a 3-4" coaxial and a 5-6" woofer, vertically aligned. You could maybe move up to an 8" driver if you could find an interesting way to mount it. Perhaps the woofer could be up-firing, resulting in a similar arrangement to the Linkwitz Pluto.
Chris
FWIW, I have a pair of Genelec 8030C, and a similar listening distance to yours. If I have the speakers horizontal, the different location of woofer & tweeter is obvious/distracting/wrong. Put them the usual way up, and that problem disappears.
My sincere recommendation, then, would be to move this project to something like a 3-4" coaxial and a 5-6" woofer, vertically aligned. You could maybe move up to an 8" driver if you could find an interesting way to mount it. Perhaps the woofer could be up-firing, resulting in a similar arrangement to the Linkwitz Pluto.
Chris
Hello,
I expect that the sealed enclosure that you have selected for your 8 inch ceramic driver is too small. the compromised Liters will limit the bass response to less than if you used a 6 inch driver. The limited size of the enclosure is a high pass filter.
Thanks DT
I have decided you are right and since I am sick of thinking about this I ordered some Epique 5.5" drivers. Small enough that I can them close to the other drivers and small enough with a low enough QTS that I can run them with small volume and still get down to where I want.
I have only seen one set of measurements on these so I'm biting the bullet here. They were on sale and I had a coupon to actually this is costing me about $70 a drivers. Not too bad if they work out. I am hoping the fancy magnet technology keeps the distortion in check under high throw. Possibly they will muddy the mids. We shall see. They will be played at low volume so I am hoping the long throw doesn't cause an issue.
I'll measure them up when I get them. If they measure out horribly I'll just return them I guess. Or I can use them in something else.
I think you made one of better choices with Epique. Now you need to decide final toppology of your drivers, what to add next? 1.1/4-1.1/2 dome tweeter, 2-3 inch fullrange or go full 3-way.
Bmsluite, the main question is - what are you expecting to achieve by making a small nearfield 3-way speaker with expensive drivers?
If you need lots of low freq spl, use 1 or 2 good subwoofers and compact 2-way (coaxial) speakers (you will need good dsp to match them to mains and to equalize response)
What amplifier do you use, will the new speakers be passive or active, perhaps with dsp-xo?
Perhaps just buy a pair of good monitors and make a new cabinet?
Adam T7V https://www.audioholics.com/bookshelf-speaker-reviews/adam-audio-t7v
- I have a pair ot these and they do sound as good as a 2-way mid size speaker can. If you plug the port and use dsp, you can extend low end to 30's in your case.
- "Anyone looking for powered speakers that look nice and don’t cost a fortune should give them a try. A simple stereo pair of T7Vs in a room where space is at a premium would far outperform any soundbar or Bluetooth speaker. They would work great on a desktop PC system where there is no room for a subwoofer on account of their substantial bass performance. The T7Vs can give you a good, detailed sound with plenty of bass from a nice-looking cabinet and do not cost a fortune. "
If you need lots of low freq spl, use 1 or 2 good subwoofers and compact 2-way (coaxial) speakers (you will need good dsp to match them to mains and to equalize response)
What amplifier do you use, will the new speakers be passive or active, perhaps with dsp-xo?
Perhaps just buy a pair of good monitors and make a new cabinet?
Adam T7V https://www.audioholics.com/bookshelf-speaker-reviews/adam-audio-t7v
- I have a pair ot these and they do sound as good as a 2-way mid size speaker can. If you plug the port and use dsp, you can extend low end to 30's in your case.
- "Anyone looking for powered speakers that look nice and don’t cost a fortune should give them a try. A simple stereo pair of T7Vs in a room where space is at a premium would far outperform any soundbar or Bluetooth speaker. They would work great on a desktop PC system where there is no room for a subwoofer on account of their substantial bass performance. The T7Vs can give you a good, detailed sound with plenty of bass from a nice-looking cabinet and do not cost a fortune. "
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Oh the other drivers are already chosen. Not so much as chosen but some drivers I wanted to play with. This is all just to build something experimental.
I using a anar mid and ribbon tweeter. I've never heard drivers like that so I want to see what happens. They measure out well below 0.5% distortion. They are a bit difficult to use so it's a challenge.
Not expensive at all. The tweeter is $65, the mid is $60, the woofer is $75. They are jsut exotic drivers so I want to play around with them. They probably won't stay my monitors. They are probably going to be too much for being that close.
I'm just having fun designing and building them in my free time.
I'm going to see how low I can run them before they mess up the 500-800 vocal range. From there I'll dial it back and cross to a sub.
My couch needs a coffee table. That coffee table needs to be 9' square. Two 12" push push oriented GRS subs on opposite ends of said "table" gets me down to 18 Hz flat when ported. I think that should do it for the low end.
That couch and subs are not in the same room as the near field monitors that you are speaking about.
The Scan Speak Discovery 10" and 12" have the same genetics as the Peerless XLS/XXLS.
If you do consider coaxial, the Bamboo coned ones from Tang Band should also be considered, W4-2315 especially.
The woofer to the side and mid and tweeter stacked should in theory be okay if the xover is below 1kHz from woofer to mid.
With regard to ribbons, and I mean the true variety, not planar or AMTs, you MUST have a capacitor in series with them because at low frequencies they are a virtual dead short. Ie- amp directly to ribbon, even if actively crossed, equals dead amp. Something in the 25-30uF range should suffice as these smaller true ribbons are usually good to roughly 3k and no lower.
If you do consider coaxial, the Bamboo coned ones from Tang Band should also be considered, W4-2315 especially.
The woofer to the side and mid and tweeter stacked should in theory be okay if the xover is below 1kHz from woofer to mid.
With regard to ribbons, and I mean the true variety, not planar or AMTs, you MUST have a capacitor in series with them because at low frequencies they are a virtual dead short. Ie- amp directly to ribbon, even if actively crossed, equals dead amp. Something in the 25-30uF range should suffice as these smaller true ribbons are usually good to roughly 3k and no lower.
Wolf,
I have that tang band in my pool room in a ported enclosure. Amazing driver.
I will take a look at the scans peak. Usually very expensive. It's a shame Peerless is going away from the DIY community. You get a lot of driver for your money with them.
Yes, I did see the note about the ribbon tweeter. I tested it with a 20 uf in series and it didn't blow up. I also have a 47 uf film and foil. Going to have to do some tests to see how that effects the vituixcad software. Should I just leave in series whatever capacitor I used for testing and then add the other filter components after it?
I haven't seen this explained in detail anywhere
I have that tang band in my pool room in a ported enclosure. Amazing driver.
I will take a look at the scans peak. Usually very expensive. It's a shame Peerless is going away from the DIY community. You get a lot of driver for your money with them.
Yes, I did see the note about the ribbon tweeter. I tested it with a 20 uf in series and it didn't blow up. I also have a 47 uf film and foil. Going to have to do some tests to see how that effects the vituixcad software. Should I just leave in series whatever capacitor I used for testing and then add the other filter components after it?
I haven't seen this explained in detail anywhere
For the big speakers in the other room with line level crossovers that use "Bi-Amps", sure I use a protection capacitor and hard wired L-Pad to protect the $500 dollar JBL compression driver.
A protection capacitor is always a good idea.
A protection capacitor is always a good idea.
Unless you ordered the W4-2315 from Europe, you likely have the 6" or 8" coaxial, or maybe one of the older NLA 4". This is not a full range driver.
Yes, I would use what you used as the 20uF is about right. The 47 is pretty big.