Last year I held an activity fund in the shop. It was a lot of fun. I designed a relatively simple 2 way, they got a small presentation about speaker design and how it works, and then we build the units. They came with a little amplifier they had to put together.
Full disclosure we are an engineering consulting company. We have, clearly, a shop (that I run and is now more than twice the size as these pics), an automation team, a test and measurement team, an embedded team, an appdev team, and an electrical engineering team (which I am also a part of). Total of 300 people in 14 locations across the country.
Last year I used the little dayton 4 inch midbass and the 1" dayton tweeter. Very hard to beat that combo at that price point. At that same price point I can't do the same with different woofers so this year I'm getting rid of the amplifier to give me some more dough to play with.
I basically have $60 to spend per unit. 30 units. I'm thinking a $20-25 woofer, a $10-15 tweeter, keep the XO super simple and minimize use of inductors, and that leaves a little bit left for wood and 3d printing materials for the ports. The wood I can roll into shop expenses so we don't need to worry about that so much.
If anyone has any recommendations I am all ears. I know some of ya'll know about woofers that I never see since I'm mostly shopping on PE and Madisound. What else is out there?
Here's what I'm thinking.
Peerless 5.25 in a 0.5 cubic foot ported box.
https://www.parts-express.com/Peerless-830656-5-1-4-Paper-Cone-SDS-Woofer-264-1078?quantity=1
Goldwood Horn Tweeter - I don't know much about this tweeter but reviews are good and the price point looks ok. The horn gives it some hifi flare so thats cool.
https://www.parts-express.com/Goldwood-GT-520-1-Soft-Dome-Horn-Tweeter-270-180?quantity=1
Designing these ultra budget speakers are a major challenge. Usually we can just throw a little bit of money at a design constraint or flaw. I can't do that here. An extra cap costs $30 more, no big deal. An extra inductor costs $4 more, thats $120 out of my total budget.
I will attach some pictures of last years event. My unit is the one with the switch on the side. This switch was for demo purposes. Position one is the woofer only, two is the tweeter only (and a cap so it didn't explode), 3 is the woofer and tweeter with no XO, and the fourth position is through the full XO. This was to show them how everything works. You can talk all you want but unless they can hear it, they won't quite get it.
Thanks to White Dragon for helping me last year when I had very little experience. He helped polish off this design so it is actually good. I have since measured this with REW and its pretty much ruler flat which is incredibly impressive at this price point.
Full disclosure we are an engineering consulting company. We have, clearly, a shop (that I run and is now more than twice the size as these pics), an automation team, a test and measurement team, an embedded team, an appdev team, and an electrical engineering team (which I am also a part of). Total of 300 people in 14 locations across the country.
Last year I used the little dayton 4 inch midbass and the 1" dayton tweeter. Very hard to beat that combo at that price point. At that same price point I can't do the same with different woofers so this year I'm getting rid of the amplifier to give me some more dough to play with.
I basically have $60 to spend per unit. 30 units. I'm thinking a $20-25 woofer, a $10-15 tweeter, keep the XO super simple and minimize use of inductors, and that leaves a little bit left for wood and 3d printing materials for the ports. The wood I can roll into shop expenses so we don't need to worry about that so much.
If anyone has any recommendations I am all ears. I know some of ya'll know about woofers that I never see since I'm mostly shopping on PE and Madisound. What else is out there?
Here's what I'm thinking.
Peerless 5.25 in a 0.5 cubic foot ported box.
https://www.parts-express.com/Peerless-830656-5-1-4-Paper-Cone-SDS-Woofer-264-1078?quantity=1
Goldwood Horn Tweeter - I don't know much about this tweeter but reviews are good and the price point looks ok. The horn gives it some hifi flare so thats cool.
https://www.parts-express.com/Goldwood-GT-520-1-Soft-Dome-Horn-Tweeter-270-180?quantity=1
Designing these ultra budget speakers are a major challenge. Usually we can just throw a little bit of money at a design constraint or flaw. I can't do that here. An extra cap costs $30 more, no big deal. An extra inductor costs $4 more, thats $120 out of my total budget.
I will attach some pictures of last years event. My unit is the one with the switch on the side. This switch was for demo purposes. Position one is the woofer only, two is the tweeter only (and a cap so it didn't explode), 3 is the woofer and tweeter with no XO, and the fourth position is through the full XO. This was to show them how everything works. You can talk all you want but unless they can hear it, they won't quite get it.
Thanks to White Dragon for helping me last year when I had very little experience. He helped polish off this design so it is actually good. I have since measured this with REW and its pretty much ruler flat which is incredibly impressive at this price point.
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On Sale right now at Madisound...
Silver Flute 5" woofer W14RC25-08 $21
HiVi Q1R Tweeter $15
Yes, I know that is $72 a pair. But Madisound usually offers 10% off if purchasing 10 or more. While I don't know 100% that they will do that for the sale price, it does still indicate that discount on both product pages.
By the way the Peerless 830656 is on sale at Madisound for $14.50 and you can probably get 10% off that if purchasing 30.
Note PE also discounts just about everything if purchasing 10 or more. Even if you get the drivers at Madisound, PE's crossover parts are cheaper AND get discounts for 10+ qty.
Silver Flute 5" woofer W14RC25-08 $21
HiVi Q1R Tweeter $15
Yes, I know that is $72 a pair. But Madisound usually offers 10% off if purchasing 10 or more. While I don't know 100% that they will do that for the sale price, it does still indicate that discount on both product pages.
By the way the Peerless 830656 is on sale at Madisound for $14.50 and you can probably get 10% off that if purchasing 30.
Note PE also discounts just about everything if purchasing 10 or more. Even if you get the drivers at Madisound, PE's crossover parts are cheaper AND get discounts for 10+ qty.
Oh yeah that would be a super nice combo. I'll have see how much bass I can get out of the silver flute in a smallish enclosure. I'm actually running these woofers in two of my cars
They do offer the discount on top of the sale.....
If you go with that combo, I'll be jealous. When they went on sale I thought that would be a lot of value and wanted to get them. But I know they'd just sit on my shelf for 12-16 months.
I think I'm going to run this combo. Having a bit of trouble getting the XO point higher for the tweeter without getting an annoying dip in the mid range but I'm sure I'll figure it out. I'll attached the traced data in case you, or anyone else, wants to play around.
This is where I am currently. I threw this together really quick before bed last night.
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How about this woofer. It's 4 ohm, which may not be ideal, and It may need to cross low, but, it's a lot more woofer for the money I suspect.
https://www.parts-express.com/6.5-Aluminum-Cone-Woofer-Truncated-Frame-80W-4-Ohm-299-2129?quantity=1
https://www.parts-express.com/6.5-Aluminum-Cone-Woofer-Truncated-Frame-80W-4-Ohm-299-2129?quantity=1
Good recommendation. That is basically the SIG180-4 (that retails for $50) but a truncated version used in the Dayton Audio powered M6 speaker. In qty 10 or more they are $20 and there is probably a 10-12% promo coming up at Valentine's Day or Presidents Day.
The only draw back is someone reported getting a pair where a ring is clearly visible on the cone where the voice coil is attached. But not everyone is reporting that.
The only draw back is someone reported getting a pair where a ring is clearly visible on the cone where the voice coil is attached. But not everyone is reporting that.
I almost bought a pair of these a while ago just to see what they would do. At that time they didn't have any specs at all up. I see there is a decent amount of data they have posted on the listing. I will certainly investigate this option. Thanks for the recomendation.
Those 6.5 truncated ones do sort of work but they have such a high sensitivity that they are outdoing the even the Q1R. No resistors needed at least. I worry the truncated frame is going to good wood challenged amatuers some trouble.
I have identical 6.5" Peerless baskets, and use them without countersinking.
This one is 5.25".
This one is 5.25".
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Thats a good idea. I don't think these need to be countersunk. We didn't countersink the last ones and they sound just fine
I just found out the budget can be around $3k.
I don't want to use that whole amount but I have a little bit more flexibility with the drivers. I could go maybe $30-35 on the woofer and maybe $20 on a tweeter. Any recomendations with these parameters?
I'm looking at this dayton 7". I could run it sealed in a pretty small enclosure and still get the same bass output as the smaller drivers I was looking at in larger, ported designs.
I don't want to use that whole amount but I have a little bit more flexibility with the drivers. I could go maybe $30-35 on the woofer and maybe $20 on a tweeter. Any recomendations with these parameters?
I'm looking at this dayton 7". I could run it sealed in a pretty small enclosure and still get the same bass output as the smaller drivers I was looking at in larger, ported designs.
This is a pretty good tweeter, that normally is not available. I have a pair. I would cross at 2.5k, although it measures good even lower.
https://www.parts-express.com/Peerl...eeter-with-Waveguide-6-Oh-264-1386?quantity=1
https://www.parts-express.com/Peerl...eeter-with-Waveguide-6-Oh-264-1386?quantity=1
That tweeter looks awesome. I love peerless stuff. Little bit out of the price range even with the larger budget. Definitely gonna use that in one of my own builds though.
I use the regular version of this silk dome in my very first project (which was a 3 way because I am ambitious) and I am still impressed with it.
I think running two truncated drivers would be pretty cool.
https://www.parts-express.com/Dayto...ilk-Dome-Truncated-Tweeter-275-076?quantity=1
Here's an old measurement. I can't find the 3rd order. Both were quite good. I want to use mine soon. I flattened the response with a passive filter to measure all the way to 1k at the same spl. I don't always get consistent results. This was one of the lowest measurements I think I've made. I should measure again with REW.
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The DA175 is a nice budget woofer, but the sensitivity is quite low. I wouldn't normally care about this, but I'd assume that the people building these don't necessarily have big beefy amps so a higher sensitivity speaker might be a better choice. I'd probably go with the 6" Silver Flute NOT on sale over the DA175 if you really want to go larger than 5". The Silver Flute probably has better sound quality, even though it won't go as low.
But if you can go surface mounted or deal with the truncated frame, you are not going to be able to beat that buyout SIG180.
If you were going with the 830656, I was going to suggest you look at matching it with the Vifa BC25TG which was $18, however, they're out of stock at PE and Madisound. Those drivers are pretty easy to work with and sound good together. One of the budget friendly SB tweeters like the SB19ST (3/4" dome, $23) could probably work with the 830656 just as well.
From your first post, I assume you want to develop something new rather than use an existing project.
Within your budget and drivers which I know sound good, there are the 6" Peerless SDS 830657 or SDS160 ($22), which unfortunately need a large cabinet to give their best; or the SB Acoustics SB16 ($36 - too expensive?) . I only mention those because I've used both and like them, but IMHO will probably need a 1" tweeter as they need to be crossed around or below 2,000Hz.
I haven't used the Silver Flutes - n/a in Oz anyway - but have only seen nice things about them.
http://zaphaudio.com/6.5test/Silver Flute W17RC38-045
Geoff
From your first post, I assume you want to develop something new rather than use an existing project.
Within your budget and drivers which I know sound good, there are the 6" Peerless SDS 830657 or SDS160 ($22), which unfortunately need a large cabinet to give their best; or the SB Acoustics SB16 ($36 - too expensive?) . I only mention those because I've used both and like them, but IMHO will probably need a 1" tweeter as they need to be crossed around or below 2,000Hz.
I haven't used the Silver Flutes - n/a in Oz anyway - but have only seen nice things about them.
http://zaphaudio.com/6.5test/Silver Flute W17RC38-045
Geoff
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