I think this is worth investing effort in. The result of (e.g. crossover) simulation software is as good as the data (frd) you feed it. Unreliable frd data leads to an incorrect crossover and a not-that-great sounding speaker.
What software are you using? Do you know how to do time gated measurements?
I am using Arta, which is well worth the € 79 license fee. The learning curve is steep so it is helpful to have someone show you what buttons to press. Tutorials are also available.
I did try Holm Impulse at one point, but I was "informed" its not always best to let it figure stuff out. And you should get better at taking measurements first then use something like Holm.
I guess the sound in my head would be point source with bass. @JMFahey I have demoed speakers- I just cant afford Kef/Tannoy. Seems concentric with added mid woofers for bass is a luxury item. I used to go to a record store a few years back when I lived in the Atlanta area- they had some top dollar speakers there and id always just stick with the Kefs they had. I used to own some used tonnoys and was in love with concentric drivers with bass.
I guess the sound in my head would be point source with bass. @JMFahey I have demoed speakers- I just cant afford Kef/Tannoy. Seems concentric with added mid woofers for bass is a luxury item. I used to go to a record store a few years back when I lived in the Atlanta area- they had some top dollar speakers there and id always just stick with the Kefs they had. I used to own some used tonnoys and was in love with concentric drivers with bass.
Ah, sounds like you're a "time align" fellow. The word "concentric" gave that away. Try one of the woofer assisted wideband designs, as those have a couple advantages, one of which being "time aligned" by matter of fact. Another is not having an xover in the - some say critical - 1k to 7k range.
Sure, you give up some aspects by going this route, but if your ears like "time align" better than something like "polar response", it's all a "giving up this/that" compromise to get what you feel is best for happy listening. I like "time align". The speakers I like to listen to most have that. They'd die in the polar measurements arena; I know that and I dont care.
GOOD.
At least we are starting to see the light.
It´s very important to identify the target, then you can worry about how to reach it.
Agree with searching for a point source, one fist approach would be to sell/trade all the stuff you piled up and get a couple coaxials/concentrics.
Which being complex and needing high precision manufacturing by that very reason are expensive
Focus on getting a couple such drivers, best you can afford, deign and build a couple cabinets and later you can add a couple subwoofers to extend them downrange.
Even if by definition those subs will be a certain distance from your point source, no big deal at those very low frequencies.
Plan B would be making a time aligned very compact cabinet with something of what you already have.
Or accept the full range speaker suggestion, again supplementing it at deep bass frequencies which will NOT affect your imaging.
Again: guess trying to clone or approach those Kef/Tannoy would be the known success path.
I am not sure why a coax would be any more time aligned than a regular two way with separate drivers. Yes the tweeter is physically further back in a coax, but a tweeter waveguide does the same. Even for a flat baffled two way, you can use the crossover to add group delay to the tweeter around the crossover frequency.
Geometry, on both counts.
1) tweeter voice coil is 1 magnet thickness away from woofer one.
Not easy with separate drivers.
2) even if you send tweeter deep inside the cabinet to be in same plane as woofer VC, (using a really LONG waveguide, much closer to a horn), they would still be side by side on an certain plane, they would NOT be a single point source but a dipole, and alignment would hold only along an axis perpendicular to said plane; losing synchronicity as you move away from that ideal axis.
Concentric speakers are .... concentric.
Admittedly most of us accept drivers physically distant from each other .... apparently not the OP .
1) tweeter voice coil is 1 magnet thickness away from woofer one.
Not easy with separate drivers.
2) even if you send tweeter deep inside the cabinet to be in same plane as woofer VC, (using a really LONG waveguide, much closer to a horn), they would still be side by side on an certain plane, they would NOT be a single point source but a dipole, and alignment would hold only along an axis perpendicular to said plane; losing synchronicity as you move away from that ideal axis.
Concentric speakers are .... concentric.
Admittedly most of us accept drivers physically distant from each other .... apparently not the OP .
What are you listening to? Strumma strumma singer songwriter is undemanding top & bottom, smooth mid-range a must. Wood Piano, pipe organ require all the frequencies, and low distortion. What does your room look like? hard surfaces, soft surfaces, odd shape, big cathedral ceiling, parallelpiped shape with speakers at narrow end? I have the latter, and the reflections of my room are such that 50-25 hz is only 10 db down from the -3db 54 hz point my speaker advertises. How loud do you listen?
I've heard some home built speakers that were awful. I've heard some in showrooms that were awful. There is nothing in showrooms I can listen to within 200 miles that is not awful. So much for driving around to showrooms. In my state, the bigger the buzz in the trunk, the more punters are willing to pay.
I notice your collection maxes out at 10", if I read the part #'s right. You do know 15" moving <.1" at <5 watts produce almost no distortion? Look that the datasheet for the SP2(2004) I bought. HarmonicDistortion 20 db down from response 54-12 khz. If you are a trained musician and know what instruments sound like, HD and IMD drive us crazy. Pop, rock, metal, house, it is all done in the mastering console, who knows what that stuff is supossed to sound like? Reason 99.99% of CDs have dynamic range of < 10 db, to drive the driver of the car in the next parking space crazy with your sound. I test speakers with piano CD's because I know exactly what a Steinway grand sounds like, from 26 hz to overtones in the 14 khz range (I'm deaf above that). They have one at a local church I can listen to. A speaker that can sound like that, is accurate.
You don't have any metal cones, any weird stuff in your collection do you? The brands seem mainstream. Stay away from cone breakup with your crossover, don't make drivers pump massive amounts of air except subs, kill the internal reflections, sympathetic vibrations, resonances of your box, you ought to be able design & build something pleasant. The more inductors & capacitors in your crossover the more phase shifts you induce. Try for simple. Tips, I listen at 2m to 4 m away from speaker, that is where I will measure outdoors. Time alignment, the speakers I like the best have .48 ms delay tweeter to woofer. Is that great or awful?
I've heard some home built speakers that were awful. I've heard some in showrooms that were awful. There is nothing in showrooms I can listen to within 200 miles that is not awful. So much for driving around to showrooms. In my state, the bigger the buzz in the trunk, the more punters are willing to pay.
I notice your collection maxes out at 10", if I read the part #'s right. You do know 15" moving <.1" at <5 watts produce almost no distortion? Look that the datasheet for the SP2(2004) I bought. HarmonicDistortion 20 db down from response 54-12 khz. If you are a trained musician and know what instruments sound like, HD and IMD drive us crazy. Pop, rock, metal, house, it is all done in the mastering console, who knows what that stuff is supossed to sound like? Reason 99.99% of CDs have dynamic range of < 10 db, to drive the driver of the car in the next parking space crazy with your sound. I test speakers with piano CD's because I know exactly what a Steinway grand sounds like, from 26 hz to overtones in the 14 khz range (I'm deaf above that). They have one at a local church I can listen to. A speaker that can sound like that, is accurate.
You don't have any metal cones, any weird stuff in your collection do you? The brands seem mainstream. Stay away from cone breakup with your crossover, don't make drivers pump massive amounts of air except subs, kill the internal reflections, sympathetic vibrations, resonances of your box, you ought to be able design & build something pleasant. The more inductors & capacitors in your crossover the more phase shifts you induce. Try for simple. Tips, I listen at 2m to 4 m away from speaker, that is where I will measure outdoors. Time alignment, the speakers I like the best have .48 ms delay tweeter to woofer. Is that great or awful?
Rs225 are alum- no I dont have anything "strange" in my arsenal. And I haven't ventured past 10" woofers yet. I prefer paper cones sound vs metal- as I listen to a lot of Jazz/Opera/tenor/classical and a huge 80s fan lol.
Any classical at all and you'll find 100 hz-14 khz totally necessary, 54 hz to 20 khz even better. I've gotten okay sound from a KLH23, one 10" paper woofer and one 3" paper cone tweeter, one capacitor crossover, 11" deep 14" wide 25" tall OD cabinet. Better was a Peavey 1210 with two 10" paper woofers parallel (16 ohms each) and 3 motorola piezo tweeters pointed 3 different directions. Better yet was a Peavey SP2-XT with 15" paper woofer & RX22 1.4" titanium horn tweeter, 7"x14" horn, crossover 1200 hz. Thats at 1/8 to 50 w, not the 300-500 watt they will put out in a bar. Better yet in front Peavey SP2(2004) 15"+1.4"CD with the low distortion spec at 5w, but they don't spread the sound evenly over +-22.5 deg from front the way the SP2-XT did. Peavey took the CD down to 1200 hz on the XT and to 2000 hz on the (2004), where it is low distortion. Modern SP2 not recommended for hifi, rated at 1000 w per cabinet and instead of 500 of (2004) and no distortion or spread specs.
I've never heard a KEF and probably never will in this flyover state. Lots of nice words about them. Only 3 way I liked was an AR3 in 1976? but store was demonstrating on Simon & Garfunkle, which is not difficult material. 500-5000 hz maybe? KLH5 was okay on same visit, but I bought 2 way LWEIII which was $150 each cheaper and sounded pretty good. I've heard enormous Meyer Sound speakers at the Brown theater and thought range was good but the violins were slightly screechy. Could have been the recording (of Tchaikovsky Sleeping Beauty)
Look at your collection, find 2 or 3 drivers that cover the spectrum but aren't in breakup high (woofers) or overdriven low, See if you can put together a smooth band 54 hz to top of your hearing (mine is 14 khz, why I like Peavey SP2 which misses 17-20 khz). Put them in a golden ratio cabinet, read about bracing & stuffing to prevent resonances & reflections. Then use graphic equalizers (analog) or dsp (cell phone required) and 2 or 3 amp channels to achieve a balanced +- 3db low distortion response. Measure at 2 m, not 15", IMHO. You'll have to match the sensitivity with the volume knob then write down what voltage for each produces smooth response. Outdoors, screw the gates IMHO, just get a good take with no cars airplanes or lawnmowers. With good biamp or triamp response, then you can dive off into designing passive crossovers long term if you want to save electricity and amp waste heat in your room. Sensitivity matching with passive involves resistors series or parallel with tweeters usually. Don't forget tweeter protection for cable pull outs, feedback howls, or mike drops, and subsonic protection for woofers if you use a turntable or record changer. I lost the woofer on the KLH23 walking around the room on a wood floor (ribbon tear) and I lost the tweeters on the LWEIII I don't know how with a ST70 tube amp. (35 w/ch).
Oh, and ignore all the moderators bleating about BSC. If you're putting the speakers at the front of a stage in an auditorium, you need BSC. I back my speaker up to the hard wall and have only 10 db down to 25 hz, on speakers -3 db at 54 hz.
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I can see a 3-Way in those drivers using the Dayton woofers + the Dayton 4" as dedicated mids but I would be using 4 woofers per cabinet side firing and back to back as an experiment or even in a baffle angled at 45 Just for fun mind you
If it's any consolation, I'm on your path, just more at the beginning. I currently have 2* DSA135-8 and 2 RS180P-8, and then some tweeters as well. And a DATS v3. And an audio interface. And a measuring microphone and a box with parts.. Also, I'm in the process of trying to build something that doesn't hurt my ears 😎
When doing crossover design and measuring, it seems that there are a lot of things to take in consideration. And then there are people on Parts Express that have some random cabinet with a busted driver, they replace it with another driver that might or might not look like the old one and then it sounds absolutely great. Like you can do just about anything and get a good result. Maybe they have less sensitive ears or something 🤣
And sites like PE are the opium of the DIY speaker people unfortunately
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Here is FRDs 6.5" and CD in cab.. feel like they're garbage. I cant get anything cleaner
D220TI
SDS woofers X2
D220TI
SDS woofers X2
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Surely you can afford it. Just look what you already invested in your DIY endeavor in time and money? US is a country of hedonistic, unscrupulous consumption on a massive scale and with a little patience you can buy anything suitable on a budget on used market. What's wrong with subwoofers anyway? They are the base of Home Theater sound. I agree that some hefty well integrated midbass drivers are nice thing to have in a design and hard to find in times of 4-5" farting toys used in modern designs. You seem young enough to be able to compromise unlike us old farts who really don't have much time left for compromises. I learned that from an old Jewish lady bless her heart 🙂 All the best