Hey Guys
I’m looking to build a pair of speakers for my living room. They will be mounted on the back wall. The room is 60 m2 with 5 meter ceiling height. So pretty big room🙂
I using a sub from about 100 Hz and down, and the speaker drivers will be high-passed.
The speakers will be active with a Hypex module or similar.
I’m looking for a 10” or 12” coaxial driver that will work in a sealed cabinet.
I’ve tried a couple of PA coaxial drivers and they all have this thin or shrill quality that I don’t like. I’m looking for a driver that sounds warmer than that.
I’m hoping some of you have the perfect suggestion for me. I don’t mind buying used. Maybe there’s even an old Altec or JBL coax that will work?
Hope you can help🙂
Kind regards,
Mads
I’m looking to build a pair of speakers for my living room. They will be mounted on the back wall. The room is 60 m2 with 5 meter ceiling height. So pretty big room🙂
I using a sub from about 100 Hz and down, and the speaker drivers will be high-passed.
The speakers will be active with a Hypex module or similar.
I’m looking for a 10” or 12” coaxial driver that will work in a sealed cabinet.
I’ve tried a couple of PA coaxial drivers and they all have this thin or shrill quality that I don’t like. I’m looking for a driver that sounds warmer than that.
I’m hoping some of you have the perfect suggestion for me. I don’t mind buying used. Maybe there’s even an old Altec or JBL coax that will work?
Hope you can help🙂
Kind regards,
Mads
hi
For 10 and 12 coax I can’t think of anything but PA. which drivers did you test? What type of crossover was used? Passive or active? Eq? L-pad?
There are many options depending on your requirements. Loud? Efficient?
I think the Eminence Kappalite coaxials looks promising fitted with the PSD2013 screwon CD. But quite pricey. At that price you can probably get some Beymas or BMS ones. Faital have some interresting ones too. Personally I was rather happy with a Celestion but in a sealed I’m not so sure. I also find the cheaper Eminence quite ok but require some extra attention to crossovers.
Look for Tannoy 3133 or 3139 drivers from DMT12 or Series1200 speakers. They are fantastic coax drivers from the early 2000’s. They really are the best sounding coax drivers I’ve used. They need about 74 liters cabinets or in wall chambers. They are very efficient too at around 95Db and crossed over at 1300hz. You can sometimes find them used on the bay. They are full sounding not shrill like PA drivers at all.
Hi, I've only used a couple of different B&C 15" coaxials. And they were just painful to me. But I'm a complete novice so it could well be that I made some fundamental flaws. I used the passive crossover that B&C made themselves. I'll look into the Kappalites and Beymas. Thanks
That's error 1. The factory jobs are minimally functional to get the job done and make sound, not sound good. Second, even with a large format coax the cone is the waveguide and getting as little cone movement out of it is best for best SQ. I would cross the coax at 200-300Hz and use a large pro audio driver from there down to whatever. If you need lots of SPL below 40Hz, then you're heading to 4 way.
I've done lots of these builds with Tannoys and other pro drivers, coax and LF, and I wouldn't bother any other way any more.
Brett,
With a couple of 15"s being used down to 100Hz, very high SPLs can be achieved with minimal cone excursion.
My recommendation would be to spend £100 on some measurement gear and fix what's already there. Another coaxial & pre-built crossover is another roll of the dice.
Chris
With a couple of 15"s being used down to 100Hz, very high SPLs can be achieved with minimal cone excursion.
My recommendation would be to spend £100 on some measurement gear and fix what's already there. Another coaxial & pre-built crossover is another roll of the dice.
Chris
Thanks, but I have good measurement gear and have been doing this for a long time now.
This*, or it's 12" sister, is a very good driver to use with an additional bass driver. You will have to account for the difference in acoustical centers and use an L-pad or balanced T-attenuator of course. There's a thread over in the PA systems section giving you a lot of info on implementing it:
https://www.diyaudio.com/community/threads/bms-10c262-coaxial-build.376450/
No idea how it would perform in a IB configuration though. Try and cross it at about 1.2k and make best use of the IIR filters in the Hypex and it will perform very well. Like people have said above high-passing it a bit higher than 100Hz will help with cone excursion. You will definitely need some measurement gear though and remember to not try and measure it too close, 50cm out is really the minimum in my experience.
*BMS 10C262, drawings courtesy of manufacturer.
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The recommendation of measurement gear was intended for the original poster. Apologies.
Chris
Structurally that looks really good. Maybe when the other projects are finished, I might have to order a pair as I'm fond of coaxes and not gonna pay stupid vintage Tannoy prices.
The stock crossovers are usually designed for driver protection first and foremost, the vendor assume that the user do have EQ/DSP to tune to any PA application or build passive crossover themselves for the particular use (floor wedge monitor is the most normal case). For home use a much lower crossover frequence should be possible giving much smoother response and you can deal with the driver breakups as well as correcting much more LPADing. Ive used the stock crossover from Eminence the 2k5cx with quite good results. I think it actually cuts much lower than 2,5 for the LF.