No strict rules, only suggestions and ideas based on personal experience.
Mount drivers as close as possible. Use as wide BW drivers as you can find.
For mid-woofers:
Paper membrane for clarity and speed.
Poly for smooth roll-off at the top end, but a bit coloured.
For tweeters:
your choice of soft dome, metal dome, ribbon, all with low res freq., or compression drivers for low x-over, most importantly high SPL.
Use a tweeter with a waveguide.
Depending on the quality of drivers use a 1st order series x-over (my personal choice), with a BSC circuit in place.
Being a 2-way your mid woofers should not be any bigger than 6.5", unless you can cross your tweeter at around 1 kHz, maybe around 1.5 kHz (difficult, I know).
Many other things that I'm sure other people will suggest.
Mount drivers as close as possible. Use as wide BW drivers as you can find.
For mid-woofers:
Paper membrane for clarity and speed.
Poly for smooth roll-off at the top end, but a bit coloured.
For tweeters:
your choice of soft dome, metal dome, ribbon, all with low res freq., or compression drivers for low x-over, most importantly high SPL.
Use a tweeter with a waveguide.
Depending on the quality of drivers use a 1st order series x-over (my personal choice), with a BSC circuit in place.
Being a 2-way your mid woofers should not be any bigger than 6.5", unless you can cross your tweeter at around 1 kHz, maybe around 1.5 kHz (difficult, I know).
Many other things that I'm sure other people will suggest.
Opps! I just learned a valuable lesson; be open and forthcoming right from the getgo.
I don't mind being ridiculed, so let's start.
Tweeter; Mundorf AMT 25CS2.1-R 8 ohm, 96dB, crossed around 4.5K Hz to
Midrange; Accuton C51 (x's 2) 8 ohm, 93dB, crossed around 1K Hz to
Acoustic Elegance TD8M (x's 2) 8 ohm, 94dB, crossed around 210 Hz to
Acoustic Elegance TD15H (x's 2) 8 ohm, 94dB.
Making this a 7 driver, 4-way mWMTMmWWW?
Attached is a picture of my present speakers.
I like building speakers.
Most drivers are in house. Acoustic Elegance have been ordered. Delivery, 6-8 months. I have time to 'learn'.
I don't mind being ridiculed, so let's start.
Tweeter; Mundorf AMT 25CS2.1-R 8 ohm, 96dB, crossed around 4.5K Hz to
Midrange; Accuton C51 (x's 2) 8 ohm, 93dB, crossed around 1K Hz to
Acoustic Elegance TD8M (x's 2) 8 ohm, 94dB, crossed around 210 Hz to
Acoustic Elegance TD15H (x's 2) 8 ohm, 94dB.
Making this a 7 driver, 4-way mWMTMmWWW?
Attached is a picture of my present speakers.
I like building speakers.
Most drivers are in house. Acoustic Elegance have been ordered. Delivery, 6-8 months. I have time to 'learn'.
Attachments
Thank you Charles, I should've guessed that on my own. Bandwidth is one of the reasons I build 4-ways. None of the drivers are stressed, so concert hall levels are still crystal clear.
Stanislav. Yes to series crossovers. I use a dual cascade x-over. I believe that makes it a second order? Here's a link I like.
New Crossover Designs . Near the bottom is the 4-way Series-Shunt circuit. It is a first order. When I start my build (6-8 months) I'll start a new thread. I use a second order 4-way Series Shunt.
Stanislav. Yes to series crossovers. I use a dual cascade x-over. I believe that makes it a second order? Here's a link I like.
New Crossover Designs . Near the bottom is the 4-way Series-Shunt circuit. It is a first order. When I start my build (6-8 months) I'll start a new thread. I use a second order 4-way Series Shunt.
The narrow vertical directivity of the AMT might come to the rescue here. There are some MTMs with AMTs and ribbons etc that work quite well because of the narrow directivity of the tweeter even if they don't follow the D'Appolito rules for vertical spacing relative to the wavelength at the crossover frequency.
Regards
Charles
Edit: Even with narrow vertical tweeter directivity 4.5 kHz is definitlely on the high side for 20cm CTC distance.
Regards
Charles
Edit: Even with narrow vertical tweeter directivity 4.5 kHz is definitlely on the high side for 20cm CTC distance.
OK Billy, we are talking about a 4-way after all.
That changes the approach a bit.
One important detail to remember is:
the centre of your HF driver should be approx. 0.9 - 1.0 m above the floor.
That makes it a massive speaker, tall and heavy.
Maybe you have a forklift to move it around.
Study the work of the late John Dunlavy, first with Duntech, and then with DAL. He was a great advocate of 1st order networks and symmetrically arranged multi-way speakers.
Duntech Sovereign Review
Also check Jamo and Dynaudio (Confidence), they made some similar speakers in the past.
Or maybe take a hybrid approach like Amphion Krypton.
Regarding x-over, series one will be very tricky with a 4-way, too many inter dependable relationships that will spoil your final result.
Series x-overs require very careful balancing of all the drivers in respect to SPL, impedance and phase variations.
When you include BSC in it becomes even more complicated.
Series X is best with 2-ways, and can be successful with 3-way if the other conditions are met.
Good luck.
That changes the approach a bit.
One important detail to remember is:
the centre of your HF driver should be approx. 0.9 - 1.0 m above the floor.
That makes it a massive speaker, tall and heavy.
Maybe you have a forklift to move it around.
Study the work of the late John Dunlavy, first with Duntech, and then with DAL. He was a great advocate of 1st order networks and symmetrically arranged multi-way speakers.
Duntech Sovereign Review
Also check Jamo and Dynaudio (Confidence), they made some similar speakers in the past.
Or maybe take a hybrid approach like Amphion Krypton.
Regarding x-over, series one will be very tricky with a 4-way, too many inter dependable relationships that will spoil your final result.
Series x-overs require very careful balancing of all the drivers in respect to SPL, impedance and phase variations.
When you include BSC in it becomes even more complicated.
Series X is best with 2-ways, and can be successful with 3-way if the other conditions are met.
Good luck.
Last edited:
Thank you Stan.
I'll start reading.
The woofer section will be one box, with the mWMTMmW in the other. Yes, the top section will be brutally heavy.
As to BSC, my midwoofer drivers will be on a 20" wide baffle. That width might change once testing is started. I'll try to get the baffle width to coincide with the crossover frequency to the woofers.
Billy
I'll start reading.
The woofer section will be one box, with the mWMTMmW in the other. Yes, the top section will be brutally heavy.
As to BSC, my midwoofer drivers will be on a 20" wide baffle. That width might change once testing is started. I'll try to get the baffle width to coincide with the crossover frequency to the woofers.
Billy
Hi Billy,
That's one very wide baffle, more like OB design.
For BSC it is better to multiply the x-over freq. by 0.707, that way you'll be closer to the desired result.
Don't forget that your woofers / mid-woofers need to have at least 3dB higher SPL, otherwise you'll have to pad the rest down.
This looks like one very ambitious project and I'll keep monitoring it with interest.
Best
Stan
That's one very wide baffle, more like OB design.
For BSC it is better to multiply the x-over freq. by 0.707, that way you'll be closer to the desired result.
Don't forget that your woofers / mid-woofers need to have at least 3dB higher SPL, otherwise you'll have to pad the rest down.
This looks like one very ambitious project and I'll keep monitoring it with interest.
Best
Stan
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