So I may be touching a controversial topic here (Car audio drivers for home audio), but it's worked well for me and so just wanted to share my experience.
I have been looking for a set of bookshelves for my home and I liked the Polk Audio S20 sound signature.
Long story short, I decided to make my own bookshelves. Had no experience in making speaker systems so took this as a learning opportunity. I know it could have ended not so well, but I was willing to take the risk.
First step was driver selection. Where I live, there is a good presence of car audio drivers/component systems and since I like to "touch and feel" the stuff that I am buying, decided to go in for what was available rather then order online and get surprises.
I homed in on the Hertz ESK 165.5 two way component system as the driver set, which was affordable and had suitable TS Parameters. Moreover, it was a component system with matching woofers, tweeters and crossover. This actually solved 70% of the design for me. This turned out to be one of the advantages of going with a car component system. All I needed now was a properly designed box.
Used UniBox to come up with the box volume and port design. Used MDF as the box material. Hand polishing after creating a faux wood grain took care of the exterior looks.
I for sure wanted a front facing port since I did not want placement issues against walls. Yes, ideally, the woofer and tweeter ought to be next to each other, but I went with this arrangement since I felt it looked better. I didn't find any issues with the sound based on this arrangement.
The ports are hand made by heating & shaping the flare on a calculated length of PVC pipe.
I have been looking for a set of bookshelves for my home and I liked the Polk Audio S20 sound signature.
Long story short, I decided to make my own bookshelves. Had no experience in making speaker systems so took this as a learning opportunity. I know it could have ended not so well, but I was willing to take the risk.
First step was driver selection. Where I live, there is a good presence of car audio drivers/component systems and since I like to "touch and feel" the stuff that I am buying, decided to go in for what was available rather then order online and get surprises.
I homed in on the Hertz ESK 165.5 two way component system as the driver set, which was affordable and had suitable TS Parameters. Moreover, it was a component system with matching woofers, tweeters and crossover. This actually solved 70% of the design for me. This turned out to be one of the advantages of going with a car component system. All I needed now was a properly designed box.
Used UniBox to come up with the box volume and port design. Used MDF as the box material. Hand polishing after creating a faux wood grain took care of the exterior looks.
I for sure wanted a front facing port since I did not want placement issues against walls. Yes, ideally, the woofer and tweeter ought to be next to each other, but I went with this arrangement since I felt it looked better. I didn't find any issues with the sound based on this arrangement.
The ports are hand made by heating & shaping the flare on a calculated length of PVC pipe.
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Nice work, especially on the faux wood grain finish. 😎
I just had to look up the components you used: ESK 165.5 - Hertz Energy car audio systems
Happy listening!
I just had to look up the components you used: ESK 165.5 - Hertz Energy car audio systems
Happy listening!
Thank You!
BTW, Herts Mille Series may be even better. It's just that it was beyond my budget.
I’ve used car audio kits at home a few times with little luck, they tend to sound very bright (probably because the crossover are designed with the car itself as a boosting factor if mid bass area). How did it turn out for you? Can you measure? Great work on the cabinet btw.
Nicely done finish. I am also guilty of deploying automotive drive units but the filter was mine. Anyone interested, there it is at multy way sticky thread System Pictures & Description, page 335.
Yes, you are right that the car components tend to be bit on the bright side. On this particular topic I have the following to say:
a) I like bright. Soft-bright. 🙂
b) Also, the particular Hertz components that I went along with have the feature on the crossover to choose between three different tweeter settings (-2db, 0db, +2db). I felt the -2db was more accurate, but of course I preferred the 0db setting 🙂
c) I also tuned the box to as low as I possibly could (45Hz) bearing in mind the TS Parameters of the woofers. That also helped mask (or should I say round off) the brightness of the sound. Corner placement of these speakers totally rock in terms of bass.
I have recently acquired DATS as well as a measurement mic and will be posting the measurements soon. I do have the UniBox frequency response graph that I can post in the interim.
Thank you for appreciating the cabinet! To be honest, I did have professional help on that front to get those looks 🙂
Nice work on the boxes with the finish.
Hertz makes some really good stuff, I've had a couple of their subwoofers in my car and they sound amazing.
Hertz makes some really good stuff, I've had a couple of their subwoofers in my car and they sound amazing.
Thank You!
Hertz does indeed make good stuff, and that's why I evaluated the drivers on the TS Parameters alone and ignored the "Car Audio" label.
One significant thing to consider however is the 4 Ohm Impendence standard for Car Audio. This can be a challenge for some Home Amps. This was not an issue for me however, so it didn't matter.
As a matter of fact, I am running these on a car amp at home, so its a perfect match! But then that's a different story...
Interesting!
I am currently powering the bookshelves through a car amp and using a good quality Bluetooth module as the "preamp". Makes the entire arrangement a very convenient and good quality "Bluetooth Speaker" that anyone in the family can connect to via their mobile phones and play.
Typically phones also contain digital equalization that can be leveraged and the best part - Since everyone has their own phones, the individual listening preferences are set and preserved on each individual phone. Same with playlists.
Moreover, streaming services (Spotify, etc.) also run on mobile phones making it a pretty convenient way of enjoying music for the entire family.
Yes, I know sharing video recordings is a bad idea since it cannot accurately capture and reproduce the live experience, but then something is better than nothing 🙂
BookShelves01.mp4 - Google Drive
BookShelves02.mp4 - Google Drive
BookShelves01.mp4 - Google Drive
BookShelves02.mp4 - Google Drive
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