A few months ago I'd decided I was ready for a change in my center channel speaker from craigslist. The Acoustech PL-28 was a poor timbre match to the rest of my front stage (currently a pair of Infinity Qb speakers, a large 3-way), and I had the itch to try my hand at a full range speaker with my own crossover design after building a few speaker kits in the past. After some reading and thinking I decided to focus my search for drivers on coaxial drivers for the localized imaging they inherently offer.
Fast forward to December and I'd basically landed on the Satori MT19CP as the driver I was most interested in. Large enough that it should have headroom at higher SPLs, and frequency response modeled down to 60Hz (my desired crossover point) in a reasonably sized vented enclosure. Over Christmas break I noticed that the drivers were on sale through Madisound so I pulled the trigger on three of them (more on how I'll use the other two some time later on) and started working on the enclosure and crossover designs in earnest. I landed on an enclosure that was 9"H x 24"W x 15"D with two front facing ports tuned to around 53Hz. This was also my first experience with VituixCAD and modeling with baffle step in consideration as well. After a few revisions on the crossover and enclosure I ordered the remaining electronics and mapped out my cuts for the enclosure.
I decided to overbuild a bit, and doubled up the 3/4" MDF for the front baffle. Gluing had to be done indoors since the temperature in the garage wasn't high enough:
Cutting was kind of a pain too, with an atmospheric river coming through Portland at the end of December and into January.
Crossover mockups (longer layout for to allow it to pass through the driver opening in case I want to change it up later on):
Bevel in the baffle:
Mocked up with the dowels holding things into place. I'd change my approach to dowel layout and the assembly order if I were to do it again, but they turned out OK:
I finally finished assembly this last weekend. I totally forgot to take pictures of the interior with the egg crate foam installed, but it's in there.
I took some measurements with REW after I got the enclosure together. If you sit off center even slightly you can't hear any of the dip you see at 9K Hz. I was surprised about the dip in the low to mid-200Hz range, then dipping again right below 100Hz and falling off a fair amount under 80Hz. Surprisingly (and missing from these measurements), there seems to be a good amount of room gain down in the 30Hz region, without taxing the driver too hard. I wouldn't leave it to handle those frequencies or anything, but it was not something I ever would have expected.
My impressions listening to it have been very positive so far. Vocals all sound lovely on the test tracks I threw at it, highs are crisp and despite the way the SPL chart the low end was nice as well (though it's definitely lacking under 70Hz or so).
Anyway, that's the project so far. I'm going to let the speaker break in a little more and then measure again. Definitely interested in thoughts from the community. When the weather warms up I'll be learning how to veneer the cabinet and work on the execution of the project that uses the other drivers.
Cheers!
Fast forward to December and I'd basically landed on the Satori MT19CP as the driver I was most interested in. Large enough that it should have headroom at higher SPLs, and frequency response modeled down to 60Hz (my desired crossover point) in a reasonably sized vented enclosure. Over Christmas break I noticed that the drivers were on sale through Madisound so I pulled the trigger on three of them (more on how I'll use the other two some time later on) and started working on the enclosure and crossover designs in earnest. I landed on an enclosure that was 9"H x 24"W x 15"D with two front facing ports tuned to around 53Hz. This was also my first experience with VituixCAD and modeling with baffle step in consideration as well. After a few revisions on the crossover and enclosure I ordered the remaining electronics and mapped out my cuts for the enclosure.
I decided to overbuild a bit, and doubled up the 3/4" MDF for the front baffle. Gluing had to be done indoors since the temperature in the garage wasn't high enough:
Cutting was kind of a pain too, with an atmospheric river coming through Portland at the end of December and into January.
Crossover mockups (longer layout for to allow it to pass through the driver opening in case I want to change it up later on):
Bevel in the baffle:
Mocked up with the dowels holding things into place. I'd change my approach to dowel layout and the assembly order if I were to do it again, but they turned out OK:
I finally finished assembly this last weekend. I totally forgot to take pictures of the interior with the egg crate foam installed, but it's in there.
I took some measurements with REW after I got the enclosure together. If you sit off center even slightly you can't hear any of the dip you see at 9K Hz. I was surprised about the dip in the low to mid-200Hz range, then dipping again right below 100Hz and falling off a fair amount under 80Hz. Surprisingly (and missing from these measurements), there seems to be a good amount of room gain down in the 30Hz region, without taxing the driver too hard. I wouldn't leave it to handle those frequencies or anything, but it was not something I ever would have expected.
My impressions listening to it have been very positive so far. Vocals all sound lovely on the test tracks I threw at it, highs are crisp and despite the way the SPL chart the low end was nice as well (though it's definitely lacking under 70Hz or so).
Anyway, that's the project so far. I'm going to let the speaker break in a little more and then measure again. Definitely interested in thoughts from the community. When the weather warms up I'll be learning how to veneer the cabinet and work on the execution of the project that uses the other drivers.
Cheers!
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