Used to play with a lot of cheap speakers like this when I first started. My experience was that any inductance in series with the woofer was better than none.
Based that you're talking pounds, I presume you're in the uk? I have loads of old cheap inductors laying around. You're welcome to them at a cheapo price if you wanna play around, got a few electrolytic caps too...
Based that you're talking pounds, I presume you're in the uk? I have loads of old cheap inductors laying around. You're welcome to them at a cheapo price if you wanna play around, got a few electrolytic caps too...
Thanks Nannoo, I forgot to mention some inductance to roll out the woofer is probably advisable.
A woofer driven past it's higher frequency capability can exhibit breakup modes and cause harshnesss/distortion.
Sajarvis, see what you can achieve with the J Risch approach and keep us posted.
Dan.
Next steps
Hi,
Firstly, I would like to thank everyone for their input. With the exception of setting the speakers on fire(!), I will try various combinations of all suggestions.
Just to let you know "where I'm coming from", I thought that I would give you some background about my view of "good sound".
The main speakers that I use at home are Diapason Adamantes (below) and they sound great. The problem is that everything else that I listen to sounds inferior by comparison. I use 2 x mono 150w AVI amps to power them.
Diapason Adamantes III - [English]
I also have a selection (3) of cheaper "DJ style" amps, all power and no finesse. I never mix my home hifi with my Disco stuff.
The Speakers in the thread are now just project speakers as I've got hold of a decent pair of 300w cabinets and they sound OK.
To be honest, the cheap XL-1350 aren't as bad as I'm making out, they just sound too harsh for my liking (I've never had a complaint......yet), and I've now become interested (just for fun really) in seeing if I can improve on the sound. If I can get to the point where they sound OK, I'll probably just use them in the garden for parties...a benefit of not having any neighbours!
Anyway, I've read the J Risch article and ordered some components (just for the piezo's at this stage). They haven't arrived yet, so I'll try out the wadding and series/parallel options first.
HOWEVER!
Does anyone have any feedback on my planned experiments (below)? I was surprised to find that my "8 ohm" Bass drivers are in fact 6R2 when I measured them. My Amps go to 4ohm only (not 2) so I would prefer not to cook them if I can help it. I understand that Piezo's don't put much load on an amp, but I would welcome an expert opinion now that I'm starting to build a crossover! [So I probably won't set fire to them yet]
I'm starting with a 22ohm resistor as per J Risch - who seems very "pro piezo" BTW.
6R2 (bass driver) + 22R in parallel equates to something like 4.84 Ohms -- that's pretty close to 4 so I am a bit concerned.
...Once I get my mind around the high freq crossover I'll start to look at inductors for the bass units.
Just to reiterate, the current set up is 1 x bass driver, 4 x piezo tweeters, 1 x piezo horn. No crossover, just a 51R 20W resistor in series to the parallel-chained piezo drivers....Oh, and no need to give me a hard time, this is just for fun ;-)
Hi,
Firstly, I would like to thank everyone for their input. With the exception of setting the speakers on fire(!), I will try various combinations of all suggestions.
Just to let you know "where I'm coming from", I thought that I would give you some background about my view of "good sound".
The main speakers that I use at home are Diapason Adamantes (below) and they sound great. The problem is that everything else that I listen to sounds inferior by comparison. I use 2 x mono 150w AVI amps to power them.
Diapason Adamantes III - [English]
I also have a selection (3) of cheaper "DJ style" amps, all power and no finesse. I never mix my home hifi with my Disco stuff.
The Speakers in the thread are now just project speakers as I've got hold of a decent pair of 300w cabinets and they sound OK.
To be honest, the cheap XL-1350 aren't as bad as I'm making out, they just sound too harsh for my liking (I've never had a complaint......yet), and I've now become interested (just for fun really) in seeing if I can improve on the sound. If I can get to the point where they sound OK, I'll probably just use them in the garden for parties...a benefit of not having any neighbours!
Anyway, I've read the J Risch article and ordered some components (just for the piezo's at this stage). They haven't arrived yet, so I'll try out the wadding and series/parallel options first.
HOWEVER!
Does anyone have any feedback on my planned experiments (below)? I was surprised to find that my "8 ohm" Bass drivers are in fact 6R2 when I measured them. My Amps go to 4ohm only (not 2) so I would prefer not to cook them if I can help it. I understand that Piezo's don't put much load on an amp, but I would welcome an expert opinion now that I'm starting to build a crossover! [So I probably won't set fire to them yet]
I'm starting with a 22ohm resistor as per J Risch - who seems very "pro piezo" BTW.
6R2 (bass driver) + 22R in parallel equates to something like 4.84 Ohms -- that's pretty close to 4 so I am a bit concerned.
...Once I get my mind around the high freq crossover I'll start to look at inductors for the bass units.
Just to reiterate, the current set up is 1 x bass driver, 4 x piezo tweeters, 1 x piezo horn. No crossover, just a 51R 20W resistor in series to the parallel-chained piezo drivers....Oh, and no need to give me a hard time, this is just for fun ;-)
Thanks Nannoo Yes. Based in Kent. Thanks for the offer! that would be really great. What sort of price did you have in mind?
You can use an L-pad (a resistor in series like the current 51R, another parallel to the tweeters like 22R) in order to attenuate too much highs. Another option that was already mentioned is to connect the piezo tweeters in series. It could be that not the tweeters but the mid horn is causing the harshness, you can attenuate it independently by an L-pad as above. You may want to play with the R values, swap them etc.
Update
OK, so my components from Maplins haven't arrived yet so I thought that I would see what I could by trying the different options suggested so far. (options that don't need crossover components...)
I tried different combinations of tweeters and horn and the best (so far) is to remove the horn completely and series / parallel the 4 tweeters.
It seems as though it was the "mid" horn that was causing the painful harshness. Putting the 4 tweeters in series made them too quiet and drum symbols were lost. However connecting them in series / parallel had made a difference (as per sretens suggestion!). It's removed the "painful" pitch as high volume.
If anyone reads this post with the hope of making their cheapo speakers sound a bit better then these are the best free / zero cost things to do:
1) pad the inside of the cabinets with some thin foam (I used an old (clean) pillow that unrolled easily when I removed the stuffing.
2) disconnect the horn (but leave it in place) - leave it disconnected - it adds nothing, expect a harsh / brashness on vocals.
3) Disconnect the tweeters (mine were all connected in parallel) - and reconnect in series / parallel. (as per Pulsar Developments Ltd - Piezo Tweeter Application Note)
Not perfect - but certainly better!
more to follow...
OK, so my components from Maplins haven't arrived yet so I thought that I would see what I could by trying the different options suggested so far. (options that don't need crossover components...)
I tried different combinations of tweeters and horn and the best (so far) is to remove the horn completely and series / parallel the 4 tweeters.
It seems as though it was the "mid" horn that was causing the painful harshness. Putting the 4 tweeters in series made them too quiet and drum symbols were lost. However connecting them in series / parallel had made a difference (as per sretens suggestion!). It's removed the "painful" pitch as high volume.
If anyone reads this post with the hope of making their cheapo speakers sound a bit better then these are the best free / zero cost things to do:
1) pad the inside of the cabinets with some thin foam (I used an old (clean) pillow that unrolled easily when I removed the stuffing.
2) disconnect the horn (but leave it in place) - leave it disconnected - it adds nothing, expect a harsh / brashness on vocals.
3) Disconnect the tweeters (mine were all connected in parallel) - and reconnect in series / parallel. (as per Pulsar Developments Ltd - Piezo Tweeter Application Note)
Not perfect - but certainly better!
more to follow...
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