Was given what looked like a cheap more modern Phillips stereo with two two way speakers awhile back and with my recent success with open baffle speakers decided to test these drivers to see if they would sound good.
Here's the woofer. Looks like it will be fine for open baffle
Here's the tweeter.
I had the parts I needed to connect up a two way 6dB/octave crossover and the speaker seems to sound pretty good. Bass response seems decent for the driver size.
Here's the crossover schematic
Here's the temporary mounting for the drivers.
Now these paired with a 10-20 watt stereo amp will make a nice pair of computer speakers.
The only thing I don't like is that the cone tweeter doesn't really output anything above about 12.5kHz.
I do have 90% of a box of 200 Onkyo dome tweeters I bought for $10 over 10 years ago from Parts Express which were meant for certain models of GM vehicles and they are close enough to the measured impedance of the cone tweeter to where I can connect it up to the temporary crossover to see if it's output needs to be padded down any with an l-pad and how good it sounds.
Normally I'd use the cone tweeter then cross the dome over at 12-13 kHz, however I want this to be a smaller build so I'll leave off the cone tweeter.
It may not be easy to do given how close the speaker mounting holes are to one part of the speaker, but I'll try to front mount the woofers. I could then find some grills to put over the woofers if so desired.
I'll then need to find a decently small reasonably priced solid state amplifier.
Ok so it looks like I'm either going to buy a dome tweeter that plays down to 3.2kHz or I will need to take the cheaper route and use the stock tweeters and cross in a dome at 12kHz. Doing a brief test by using the cone tweeter and using a 2.5uF cap in series with the dome definitely shows some improvement.
C1 is 1.39uF and the tweeter zobel is 1.4uF. Can get a 1uF and .33uF cap. The 5% tolerance will be enough to compensate.
I honestly think some of the all in one type systems with detachable speakers like the Phillips I got these drivers from may often have decent drivers with the problem being that the implementation of said drivers leaves a lot to be desired.
The phillips speaker has a rear round port and a front port. It has a woofer and cone tweeter. It also has what looks to be like two piezo elements attached to the plastic beside the tweeter. Have no clue what those are for as they don't seem to make any sound that I can hear. Oh it also has a plastic piece on top with two fake dome tweeters in it. They were oh so close with the piezo elements. Just about 4" higher and they could have placed them where the domes are so that they could at least add to the sound.
Here's the drivers in their original box. Absolutely horrible and it sounds about as bad as the graph looks.
Here's the woofer. Looks like it will be fine for open baffle
Here's the tweeter.
I had the parts I needed to connect up a two way 6dB/octave crossover and the speaker seems to sound pretty good. Bass response seems decent for the driver size.
Here's the crossover schematic
Here's the temporary mounting for the drivers.
Now these paired with a 10-20 watt stereo amp will make a nice pair of computer speakers.
The only thing I don't like is that the cone tweeter doesn't really output anything above about 12.5kHz.
I do have 90% of a box of 200 Onkyo dome tweeters I bought for $10 over 10 years ago from Parts Express which were meant for certain models of GM vehicles and they are close enough to the measured impedance of the cone tweeter to where I can connect it up to the temporary crossover to see if it's output needs to be padded down any with an l-pad and how good it sounds.
Normally I'd use the cone tweeter then cross the dome over at 12-13 kHz, however I want this to be a smaller build so I'll leave off the cone tweeter.
It may not be easy to do given how close the speaker mounting holes are to one part of the speaker, but I'll try to front mount the woofers. I could then find some grills to put over the woofers if so desired.
I'll then need to find a decently small reasonably priced solid state amplifier.
Ok so it looks like I'm either going to buy a dome tweeter that plays down to 3.2kHz or I will need to take the cheaper route and use the stock tweeters and cross in a dome at 12kHz. Doing a brief test by using the cone tweeter and using a 2.5uF cap in series with the dome definitely shows some improvement.
C1 is 1.39uF and the tweeter zobel is 1.4uF. Can get a 1uF and .33uF cap. The 5% tolerance will be enough to compensate.
I honestly think some of the all in one type systems with detachable speakers like the Phillips I got these drivers from may often have decent drivers with the problem being that the implementation of said drivers leaves a lot to be desired.
The phillips speaker has a rear round port and a front port. It has a woofer and cone tweeter. It also has what looks to be like two piezo elements attached to the plastic beside the tweeter. Have no clue what those are for as they don't seem to make any sound that I can hear. Oh it also has a plastic piece on top with two fake dome tweeters in it. They were oh so close with the piezo elements. Just about 4" higher and they could have placed them where the domes are so that they could at least add to the sound.
Here's the drivers in their original box. Absolutely horrible and it sounds about as bad as the graph looks.
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Decided to whip up a 6dB/octave crossover just to see how the drivers would sound together before I ordered the parts for the 12dB/octave crossover.
The speaker sounds decent enough to where I feel comfortable going ahead with the build. I got a 2' X 3' wood sheet like I used for the other three open back speaker builds.
Here's the measurement data. I suspect the impedance near the upper end of the graph will increase some when I use the 12dB/octave crossover.
It would be nice if someone made a three channel solid state mono amp of at least 30 watts for the woofer, 20 watts for the midrange and 10 watts for the tweeter with a built in 24dB/octave three way crossover that can set the crossover frequencies using plug in resistor/capacitor modules with one trimpot per channel to vary the output so that drivers can be matched in output. I could then make powered open baffle speakers.
The speaker sounds decent enough to where I feel comfortable going ahead with the build. I got a 2' X 3' wood sheet like I used for the other three open back speaker builds.
Here's the measurement data. I suspect the impedance near the upper end of the graph will increase some when I use the 12dB/octave crossover.
It would be nice if someone made a three channel solid state mono amp of at least 30 watts for the woofer, 20 watts for the midrange and 10 watts for the tweeter with a built in 24dB/octave three way crossover that can set the crossover frequencies using plug in resistor/capacitor modules with one trimpot per channel to vary the output so that drivers can be matched in output. I could then make powered open baffle speakers.