There is no rule saying we can't have both, 4pi and bookshelf (2pi like) crossover versions.
You made several good points. I enjoyed your post !
Yes that is true.
Here is a post I did last year which compares two systems with very different directivity performances, but which both use very high quality drivers.
I switch between these two systems every 2 to 3 months. I am currently listening to the Satori Textreme driver system. My experience with these two is major factor in my views towards directivity performance.
Thanks for that link. I noticed the DI on your Purifi PTT6.5M04-NFA + Satori TW29BNWG looks pretty steep. Kimmo Saunisto wrote a document that included some discussion on DI and mentioned DI can become too steep. I may be wrong, but my conclusion would be your Purifi PTT6.5M04-NFA + Satori TW29BNWG was so steep the smooth directivity lost advantage. My current understanding is directivity is very important as long as it isn't too steep. But if you had two speakers with DI slope between +0.9 & +1.2 the speaker with the smoother DI would be the better speaker (all else being equal).
If you didn't have EQ options then you are making other compromises too, so just accept the boominess if you go with near wall placement. The way I think you'd want to compensate in a design like this (monkey box) would be to place the ports on the front so that it's ok to push it all the way against the front wall. Will the woofer play low enough in a 3-way like this that it won't cause problems with high frequencies leaking out?
I wonder if that's why Wharfedale place them in back. Maybe because their 8 inch woofer plays too high?
- crossover frequency: 630Hz & 2.4kHz
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Peerless SLS 12 is supposed to be sealed in this project.
If you closely observe the Linton Heritage baffle, then I'd bet the reason Wharfedale
decided to put the vents in the back was aesthetical.
If you closely observe the Linton Heritage baffle, then I'd bet the reason Wharfedale
decided to put the vents in the back was aesthetical.
It has two ports so that would definitely impact the looks if they were placed on front. I don't understand port design, is high frequency leakage a thing?
Genelec places their ports on both back and front but I don't know why they make their choices between the two.
Genelec places their ports on both back and front but I don't know why they make their choices between the two.
In my country Lintons are priced at 900€/pair wo stands and 1200€/pair with stands.
I bought mine used for 650€ - they are in perfect condition and were about 1yo when i bought them.
There is no chance that i'd be able to diy perfect walnut, mirror veneer finish for the money i've spend on Lintons. Performance is quite achievable bit with hell of alot effort (measuring, simulating, building) and time invested. I actually think Lintons can measure even better than Erin presented with a rework in crossover. But i don't see myself doing that anytime soon. These have furniture grade finish and sound good enough (when placed properly) and my wife and kids use them daily, myself included, so i'm not eager to change anything for now.
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Hello everyone! I am following closely this thread everyday and I wouldn't comment up until now, because I'm a total amateur and my knowledge of speakers is very basic. I am a woodworker with some soldering skills.
This is one of my favorite threads because ,if this project goes well, I can finally make a beautiful 3 way speaker set resembling one of my favorite classic speakers (JBL L100) without spending a huge chunk of money. I always wanted to make something from Mr. Gravensen's site but because of the cost, this was a plan for the next five years to a decade. This is what discouraged me from the other thread that's similar to this one.
What I would like to comment on is the fact that a lot of people are comparing this project to premade speakers such as the Lintons and in my opinion this is wrong. First of all, not a lot of people can justify a cost like that at once. Yes, for some of us even 1000 euros is a lot of money to spend at once. My plan for a project like this would be to buy some quality mdf/plywood and gather the rest of the parts along the way, piece by piece. This is a debate that people that fix/tune cars know a lot about (buy a 20.000 euro car VS buy a 10.000 car and spend 10.000 euros tuning it) and prefer the second, just because the total upfront cost is prohibitive for them.
Second, for a lot of us the second-hand market is a non-existent choice. Here in Greece you can either find very cheap speakers or absurdly expensive sold by aficionados. There's no middle ground for budget choices. Also I could find a one-off deal and finally buy the speakers that I want, but I wouldn't be able to get them for a friend of mine for the same price if I liked them. DIY gives you repeatability for a successful design if the chosen drivers don't fall off the face of the earth for the foreseeable future.
Third, I would be extremely content if this speaker is a killer deal for its price range. You 're talking about 300$ per speaker so for a set it's going to cost 600$. I don't care if the 1000$ Lintons are better because they are 400$ more where I am. You can buy a very nice amp for that kind of money. Also if you can find the Lintons cheaper than 1000$, the same goes for drivers. You can score a better deal if you find them on sale, or if you can buy most of the parts from the same shop and get free shipping.
I also would finally like to add that the customization alone would be a huge plus for most because it is far cheaper to make a robust, beautiful speaker with mdf/plywood than paying for a speaker that you don't like aesthetically and trying to modify it. These kind of speakers are a statement, you can't hide them so you better like them as they come. It is far more expensive to mess with a finished speaker than to modify a cheap enclosure that you made and throw it away if it doesn't turn out good enough. Even though I know a lot about finishes and veneers, I wouldn't touch a 1000$+ speaker that easily. A lot of things can go wrong.
Anyway, that's my 2 cents, thank you for your time and effort. Please keep up the good work!!! (sorry for any mistakes, English is not my native language)
This is one of my favorite threads because ,if this project goes well, I can finally make a beautiful 3 way speaker set resembling one of my favorite classic speakers (JBL L100) without spending a huge chunk of money. I always wanted to make something from Mr. Gravensen's site but because of the cost, this was a plan for the next five years to a decade. This is what discouraged me from the other thread that's similar to this one.
What I would like to comment on is the fact that a lot of people are comparing this project to premade speakers such as the Lintons and in my opinion this is wrong. First of all, not a lot of people can justify a cost like that at once. Yes, for some of us even 1000 euros is a lot of money to spend at once. My plan for a project like this would be to buy some quality mdf/plywood and gather the rest of the parts along the way, piece by piece. This is a debate that people that fix/tune cars know a lot about (buy a 20.000 euro car VS buy a 10.000 car and spend 10.000 euros tuning it) and prefer the second, just because the total upfront cost is prohibitive for them.
Second, for a lot of us the second-hand market is a non-existent choice. Here in Greece you can either find very cheap speakers or absurdly expensive sold by aficionados. There's no middle ground for budget choices. Also I could find a one-off deal and finally buy the speakers that I want, but I wouldn't be able to get them for a friend of mine for the same price if I liked them. DIY gives you repeatability for a successful design if the chosen drivers don't fall off the face of the earth for the foreseeable future.
Third, I would be extremely content if this speaker is a killer deal for its price range. You 're talking about 300$ per speaker so for a set it's going to cost 600$. I don't care if the 1000$ Lintons are better because they are 400$ more where I am. You can buy a very nice amp for that kind of money. Also if you can find the Lintons cheaper than 1000$, the same goes for drivers. You can score a better deal if you find them on sale, or if you can buy most of the parts from the same shop and get free shipping.
I also would finally like to add that the customization alone would be a huge plus for most because it is far cheaper to make a robust, beautiful speaker with mdf/plywood than paying for a speaker that you don't like aesthetically and trying to modify it. These kind of speakers are a statement, you can't hide them so you better like them as they come. It is far more expensive to mess with a finished speaker than to modify a cheap enclosure that you made and throw it away if it doesn't turn out good enough. Even though I know a lot about finishes and veneers, I wouldn't touch a 1000$+ speaker that easily. A lot of things can go wrong.
Anyway, that's my 2 cents, thank you for your time and effort. Please keep up the good work!!! (sorry for any mistakes, English is not my native language)
When I linked Wharfedale Lintons, discussion was about directivity smoothness in mid-tweeter xo. It has more axial spl where DI is high, which is the old school way to balance the farfield/room response. Lintons have only 8" woofer, but this project has 12" so please don't do direct comparison over price/cost.
In seventies many passive 3-way speakers had adjustment for woofer and tweeter spl (stepped resistors), to adapt placement in the room. BR speakers can use vent plugs to tame bass. Also amplifiers had tone controls, even a loudness switch and they were used without shame.
IMO a sealed 12" hifi-speaker should not have full BSC (for flat 4pi response). In a normal room and placement on a short stand near the wall 2-3dB compensation is best compromise and the extended low bass with low GD will give the oomph and bottom that the listener expects from a large woofer. This also gives higher system sensitivity. Race for best looking anechoic/CEA curves should not be the goal, but "performance" and tonality in typical listening conditions.
A sidenote about high DI, I know Saunisto's diy speaker history and he made several very sophisticated high DI speakers (even with horns) for himself to fight against the room, but then found them exhausting to listen to for long periods at home. I have a friend who made huge MEHs, but got tired of them as well. Studio monitors and PA speakers must be designed differently. And yes some people love that kind of "precision" at home too...
In seventies many passive 3-way speakers had adjustment for woofer and tweeter spl (stepped resistors), to adapt placement in the room. BR speakers can use vent plugs to tame bass. Also amplifiers had tone controls, even a loudness switch and they were used without shame.
IMO a sealed 12" hifi-speaker should not have full BSC (for flat 4pi response). In a normal room and placement on a short stand near the wall 2-3dB compensation is best compromise and the extended low bass with low GD will give the oomph and bottom that the listener expects from a large woofer. This also gives higher system sensitivity. Race for best looking anechoic/CEA curves should not be the goal, but "performance" and tonality in typical listening conditions.
A sidenote about high DI, I know Saunisto's diy speaker history and he made several very sophisticated high DI speakers (even with horns) for himself to fight against the room, but then found them exhausting to listen to for long periods at home. I have a friend who made huge MEHs, but got tired of them as well. Studio monitors and PA speakers must be designed differently. And yes some people love that kind of "precision" at home too...
You can see port self resonance approximation shifting in Unibox (Excel spreadsheet) while changing vent measures, Fb...etc.
The wider the vents and the lower the tuning (Fb) the more they become apparent.
Well this thread has attracted a lot more responses than the one I opened a decade ago.
Personally I think an 8inch or 200mm woofer would work better for a project such as this; and a smallish sealed box for later integration with a pair of subs when funds and space allowed. Such easy integration perhaps already done with the "Kairos" project or similar.
My first true Hi-Fi purchase was a pair of IMF Supercompacts and midrange drivers and tweeters have come a long way since then
Personally I think an 8inch or 200mm woofer would work better for a project such as this; and a smallish sealed box for later integration with a pair of subs when funds and space allowed. Such easy integration perhaps already done with the "Kairos" project or similar.
My first true Hi-Fi purchase was a pair of IMF Supercompacts and midrange drivers and tweeters have come a long way since then
Yes, for some it would have worked better but the group of those ready to contribute felt more excited about the way
it's heading right now.
it's heading right now.
I think we need to make a BSC matching how builders will use it.
I personnaly don't know anybody able to put a speaker at 1m of the wall but it's almost always possible to put them on the wall.
Someone having place for this or a dedicated room will probably never build a BUDGET Monkey coffin.
Morover, if eq is needed I would préfère to boost bass and keep mid and tweet sensitivity higher rather than killing sensitivity for BSC ...
2 feet from baffle to front wall seems to me a good start: more or less aligned with a TV bench and you can play to boost/decrease bass according to your room ...
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The reason I think this is true (at least partially) is that DIY 8 inch three-ways are not rare, although they may be rare in the "monkey coffin" format. For a 10" or especially 12", the DIY choices are pretty limited. I'm sure there are some that I don't know about, but I'll say that Troels Gravesen's are closed source and mostly use drivers above budget class, while Paul Carmody's use budget drivers that for just a little more money can be exceeded. So I think, as designers, this is a fun challenge to undertake together.
@WeirdBeard - thank you for your comments and perspective. As we continue with discussions regarding cabinet size, placement near a wall, etc. please feel free to share you opinions on how you would use such a speaker. As you may have noticed, a lot of the contributors to the build are not necessarily going to build a pair for themselves, so having the input of somebody who may actually build them is important to take into account.
@A4eaudio Thank you for taking my comments into consideration! I'm not very active in this thread because I know very little about the advanced stuff you 're talking about. I can make a box, I can assemble a crossover, but I have no idea about spinoramas, phase alignment etc.
I am willing to offer my opinion on this design as someone who isn't too involved in these things. I can only give you a perspective of what more common people would want. I am more knowledgeable about other things DIY and it is very often that I find myself get carried away and lose sight of what the common folk have in mind. It's a slippery slope and I've been a victim of this.
Personally I don't have a problem with the final size of the speaker because like I've said in the previous post, these will be on full display. They are not like my studio monitors that are discreet and can be out of sight. So I would go full out and make them as big as they need to be.
One other thing is that most of the common people would not add a subwoofer to their house. It's a matter of research, dsp settings, eq and more tuning that I myself would not bother. So I really like that you went with a 12" driver that can produce enough, clean bass.
I would also take more into consideration the anechoic measurements, because I can live with adjustments and limitations based on the placement of the speakers and it's "signature sound" so I wouldn't go crazy trying to tame it. Personally I love a clinical, uncolored sound signature, but most people don't like that, so you can't please everyone. Also, anyone who wants to build this kind of speakers will surely know that they are big and they can't be placed anywhere and be done with it. I already know that I'll have to make place for them and I'm ok with that. I don't know how this affects the amount of BSC you 're talking about, that's how I think about speakers.
Lastly, and I can speak only for myself, I can live with a slightly worse driver versus a better one, if that means that they are readily available and they 'll continue to be. It's a big problem here in Europe and on top of that, countries like mine have even more charges when you order from third party countries (cost + shipping + tax on both cost and shipping price + separate tax bracket markup according to the category of the imported item). So its item + shipping + 25% (item + shipping) + 3- 5% (item + shipping). So a lot of the drivers that are available for US citizens, are a no-go for a lot of us. Thank you for making this a priority!
There's also this kit I was considering but there are no measurements. Some of you might not have seen it so I'm leaving it here. Maybe we can borrow elements of this design ( https://sbacoustics.com/product/gema/ )
Please let me know if there's any way I can be helpful!! Thank you!
I am willing to offer my opinion on this design as someone who isn't too involved in these things. I can only give you a perspective of what more common people would want. I am more knowledgeable about other things DIY and it is very often that I find myself get carried away and lose sight of what the common folk have in mind. It's a slippery slope and I've been a victim of this.
Personally I don't have a problem with the final size of the speaker because like I've said in the previous post, these will be on full display. They are not like my studio monitors that are discreet and can be out of sight. So I would go full out and make them as big as they need to be.
One other thing is that most of the common people would not add a subwoofer to their house. It's a matter of research, dsp settings, eq and more tuning that I myself would not bother. So I really like that you went with a 12" driver that can produce enough, clean bass.
I would also take more into consideration the anechoic measurements, because I can live with adjustments and limitations based on the placement of the speakers and it's "signature sound" so I wouldn't go crazy trying to tame it. Personally I love a clinical, uncolored sound signature, but most people don't like that, so you can't please everyone. Also, anyone who wants to build this kind of speakers will surely know that they are big and they can't be placed anywhere and be done with it. I already know that I'll have to make place for them and I'm ok with that. I don't know how this affects the amount of BSC you 're talking about, that's how I think about speakers.
Lastly, and I can speak only for myself, I can live with a slightly worse driver versus a better one, if that means that they are readily available and they 'll continue to be. It's a big problem here in Europe and on top of that, countries like mine have even more charges when you order from third party countries (cost + shipping + tax on both cost and shipping price + separate tax bracket markup according to the category of the imported item). So its item + shipping + 25% (item + shipping) + 3- 5% (item + shipping). So a lot of the drivers that are available for US citizens, are a no-go for a lot of us. Thank you for making this a priority!
There's also this kit I was considering but there are no measurements. Some of you might not have seen it so I'm leaving it here. Maybe we can borrow elements of this design ( https://sbacoustics.com/product/gema/ )
Please let me know if there's any way I can be helpful!! Thank you!
Given that Super Linton is available now, i expect more Linton 85's to become available in SH market.
I do think it is worth to DIY a 3way loudspeaker such as this if you have time, patience and drive to do it. I'm short on all three at the moment but i do enjoy in other people fruition of their hard work. I have few ideas of my own for a big 3way but that spans beyond this topic.
I talked of the 85 anniverssary !
If it is good with a 8", that means if the size of the 12" sealed is too big (66 Liter Qt0.8/9) the 10" option is not ridiculous for an average living room perhaps.
If it is good with a 8", that means if the size of the 12" sealed is too big (66 Liter Qt0.8/9) the 10" option is not ridiculous for an average living room perhaps.
Today i've had that same conversation with my friend, compadre, brother in arms regarding hifi and diy.
I've made about 10-12 speaker projects in last 15 years i consider worth mentioning. Lintons sound better than some and worst than others.
Thinking about Linton 85's commercial success (they are best selling loudspeaker for a company that exists more than 85 years and that says something) my opinion after these few years spent with them is they are jack of all trades but master of none - and i think that's ok and the key of their success.
I can write a book about aspects of sound that they don't do great but they can not be called bad by any standard or measure. They do everything good enough for user to not be bothered and to be able to enjoy the music. They are far less revealing than modern loudspeakers (i listened and compared LS50 meta next to it out of pure boredom) but i guess revealing enough to be considered audiophile. They demand to be pulled out from the walls or the bass will swallow you. On the other hand, almost all of the loudspeaker i listened or made have made me shrug my shoulders or wink at least once when there is some passage in music not mixed and/or mastered right. Especially with new compressed music (my kids do not care for loudness war). Not once it happened to me with Lintons. They have deep but well defined bass and authority i thoroughly enjoy. Their finish is great and they look very good next to sideboard, to me and my wife at least. They are large enough to be able to accommodate 8" bass, but not large enough to dominate the room. They are easy on the eyes, ears and on the soul, i can listen many hours without any fatigue and really enjoy. I plan to get NAD C 3050 which has that vintage look but with all the bells and whistles of modern era (amp, streamer, dac, dirac) and be done with it. I named it "i'm tired system". It's supposed to be a -one button play- system that my kids can easily use and to get them used to a good sound (not that garbage smart phone scream or sound bar murmur). On the other hand, when i get home late from work and my kids are sleeping, i don't want to listen something that bothers me and where i must turn on 5 devices to be able to play some music. I just want to relax maybe half an hour listening to music before i go to bed : )
So, imo Lintons are gold standard for - not exceptional but good enough-. I'm sure some people will dislike their sound - but that can be said for all the speakers existing.
I will surely also make something large and atrocious looking but much better sounding than Lintons very soon 🙂 I am a diy-er after all 🙂
Sorry guys for the OT.
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