The quest for a new DIY-speaker kit

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#121
Elfriede said:
Hello all.

I am looking for a DIY speaker kit. Maybe someone of you has an idea with DIY kit could fit to the following requirements.

1. Music: mainly Jazz, chamber Music, Old Music (Bach, Handel etc), Vocals, sometimes big orchestral music. some Rock and Pop
2. Smallish room (12. sqm, 3x4 meteres),
3. Near and mid-field listening, 2 meters (sometimes 1,5 meters, sometimes 2,5 meters)
3. listening mainly medium or lower volume level
4. Ideally 89db or a bit more. not difficult to drive
5. I prefer 3-ways systems

Thank you.
Christian
Click to expand...
These are clear-enough (similar to mine) but musical/audiophile-leaning as opposed to the Multiway Forum's typical requirements (objectivist refuse-the-sweet-spot louder-is-better), so you've come here. Sorry about the horn definition argument (at least dating back to MJK vs Scottmoose). I have no "diy kit" (except maybe what I call TLonken Supravox/Maevan, with blueprints). But I learned by doing and listening, that time-alignment of mid/hi drivers' acoustic centers made everything better and much simpler (~20 experiments posted to the Photo Gallery). So if you consider breaking up mid/hi you might try a simple experiment first: listen to a multiway from the sweet spot and slowly tilt your head both ways forward-back (thus changing the baffle-ear tilt relationship) and listen for best imaging/depth. As for high-passing the midrange, in my very limited experience I've not found monster caps (mainly paralleled large Jantzen Standard) to sound as good as without; so I try other means like small-sealed (Fostex FE108eΣ) or highly-damped aperiodic or just choosing the right (fast-decay) drivers.

p.s. In my limited experience, TLonken (tapered slot-loaded ML-TL minimizing cab size for a given quarterwave resonance frequency) for low-Qts drivers such as Fostex F200A; MLhorn (ML-TQWT) for high-Qts fullrange drivers. These are my terms, pronounced t'LONken and m'Lorn.
 
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#122
As a purely historical observation (no offense intended) 'Mass Loaded Horn' (a.k.a. MLHorn) is a term that has been around & used for many, many years, although if you want to pronounce it as 'm'Lorn' that part is certainly your exclusive. 😉 I'm not sure many people would call an F200a a 'low Qts driver' though. 0.32 is far from unusual, and above the 0.312 point established by Small as providing maximum extension for minimum box size.
 
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#126
The SB Acoustic Arya kit is a great one that fits your setup i think. I know people who use it (strlctly classical music) with a 35w tube amp (older Prima Luna EL34 based amp) in a decent size living room and they don't lack nothing they say. They also got a few subs that are now living in the attic as they don't need it anymore in their living room ...

That kit is sold here (from NL): https://www.soundimports.eu/en/sb-acoustics-arya-rosewood-hg-kit.html (and probally other places also, google it for the best price). It's all in one, and the cabinet is already finished i thought.

It's a popular design, and when i heared it it sounded very neutral and clear without being sharp. I did not see measurments of it yet, but i don't think it's very coloured or bad designed. It's good at short distances (like you wish), not for a very big space at loud volume.
 
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#128
btw, i see many mention full range drivers, and they can do that also but need bass support, even listened close, to really give all the dynamics that classical music can give. A single small driver can't do that, and the big ones are mostly very resonant because of cone break up in the middle of the passband where our hearing is the most sensitive. I use a Mark Audio Alpair 10.3 (out of production) and a Scanspeak 26W woofer in a 2 way setup, and listen also a lot to classical music on it from about 2-3m distance. I cross at 300Hz 4th order (now, before i did 250hz with low ordrer) and it's a good way to have true point source (like a single driver fullrange) but still realtive clean top and strong bass (like a multiway). With a single driver (i have a few boxes like that) it never can give the big dymaic changes that a lot of clsssical music has, it just can handle that and compresses. But if you take the bass away from the fullrange it changes a lot.
 
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#129

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#130
waxx said:
btw, i see many mention full range drivers, and they can do that also but need bass support, even listened close, to really give all the dynamics that classical music can give. A single small driver can't do that, and the big ones are mostly very resonant because of cone break up in the middle of the passband where our hearing is the most sensitive. I use a Mark Audio Alpair 10.3 (out of production) and a Scanspeak 26W woofer in a 2 way setup, and listen also a lot to classical music on it from about 2-3m distance. I cross at 300Hz 4th order (now, before i did 250hz with low ordrer) and it's a good way to have true point source (like a single driver fullrange) but still realtive clean top and strong bass (like a multiway). With a single driver (i have a few boxes like that) it never can give the big dymaic changes that a lot of clsssical music has, it just can handle that and compresses. But if you take the bass away from the fullrange it changes a lot.
Click to expand...
Yes, i also thought about Joseph Crowe‘s no. 1630

https://josephcrowe.com/products/speaker-no-1630-plans

I have also a small Diy speaker with a Mark Audio CHP90
No woofer, when the music is to complex it doesn’t work anymore
 
#131
I don't know that design, but i don't like that supertweeter on top of it. A fullrange driver in such a combination must be good enough to do all the treble. That's why i rather use Mark Audio drivers (or similar) than this one (i think a Fostex 108N) that is way to resonant in the top for my taste. That is why Joseph uses the supertweeter. There are better designs with a small fullrange and woofer like the one from XRK971: https://www.diyaudio.com/community/threads/10f-8424-rs225-8-fast-waw-ref-monitor.273524/

Joseph is mainly good at making horn tweeter based systems i think, not fullrange cabinet.
 
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#133
It's hard to tell wihtout seeing the room, but it looks a lot like it's the room mode from their measuring room. You also see that in the spec sheets of the individual drivers. But at least they don't smooth the graph out like most do to hide resonances. The woofers i used from that barand are solid performers, on the higherst level of hifi drivers (comparable to Scanspeak and Seas and so).
 
#135
Just a little feedback from my side. I had 2 listening sessions of comercial speaker designs. This speakers were not really my cup of tea. I don't want to mention them here, cause on my opinion they are not well design. But that' just an opinion of a technical noob.

In the next weeks and beginning of next year, I plan to have some listening sessions for different DIY speakers. I will post the outcome in this threas.

Thank you, Christian
 
#136
After some more listening sessions this week, two DIY Speakers and two commercial speakers, I have realized, that the journey for a new speaker will take some time. From the designs I had the change to listen in the last weeks, non of them was 100% my cup of tea.

I plan to get a DIY-speaker. I just listen also to comercial designs to have a reference.


Two DIY designs:

The first one was a closed speaker. I listed to this one not at a dealer. Overall it was nice, good soundstage, details and also good for near-field listening. The timbre of the instruments was ok, but could be a tad better. Drawback is, that the tweeter is not available anymore.

The second speaker was a vented 12"-Coax with a horn tweeter. The dispersion of the horn tweeter is very narrow. Near-field listening didn't work well with this speaker. But on the right distance (3 meter stereo triangle) the speaker got the timbre of the instruments right. A piano sounded like a piano, a cello like a cello. And, most important e.g. for a piano or cembalo the speaker emissioned not only the sound of the piano or cembalo string but rather the wooden body. But, as I said, near-field listening didn't work to well.


Two comercial designs.

Both of them were pricy, at least for my wallet. Both were vented 2-way-designs. One with TMM and all ceramic drivers with 89db (according to the manufacturer). The other one MTM with a soft-dome tweeter and paper woofers with 94db (according to the manufacturer). Well, the second one ran on 300B Monos (8 Watts) quiet well. The first one ran on a push-pull valve amplifier.

The ceramic drivers (tweeter and woofers), sounded very detailed, airy, crisp. The speaker created space and sounded very controlled. BUT, it didn't get the timbre of the instruments right. At least not for classical music and natural instruments. It seemed like the pianist played on a stripped piano without a wooden body. Near-field listening worked. Price tag Euro 10,400 retail, 😂

The second speaker did quiet well. Correct timbre, not as detailed and airy as the other one with the ceramic drivers, but the timbre of the sound was right. Near-field listening worked. Price tag Euro 10,250 retail, 😂


To be continued...
 
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#137
If you really want a clean neutral sound you better go look at some top studio monitors. Neumann makes monitors that in my experience are very popular among classic musicians and listeners. Especially the KH310 is popular. They are active altough and not build for hifi systems (so the input is balanced xlr and AES). I know many classical musicians who own Neumann monitors and don't want nothing else anymore. Genelec is the main contender and has a bit a harder sharper sound and more popular for pop & co studio's and listeners and as expensive.

This is not impossible, but very hard to diy, and not cheap to buy. But more neutral you won't find than those two brands (as tested by various websites).

That neutral can also be a turnoff, it is for many, But on your comments i think you should try them, they may be what you're after.
 
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