infinia said:
That's not necessarily true. Using that calc and the impedance plots for the individual drivers will give as accurate results as can be had without measuring the drivers. I have seen published designs that use the drivers nominal impedance for filters and Zobel. How bad do they sound?
You need to make use of the tools available and put into play your knowledge. N10 is just starting out and he doesn't have all of the facts yet but is enthusiastic about building.
Different tweeter...options
Alright, these are "super tweeters" but they are 8 ohms, and cover the frequency ranges needed.
Here is what I came up with.
1. Pyle Pro PDBT38 Titanium Super Tweeter
2. Pioneer AHE60-51F 3-1/2" Horn Tweeter
3.Selenium ST350 Super Tweeter
The SPL's are higher then the mid/woofer, will that be a problem?
As far as what I want out of this system. I want decent sound, nice bass response and to learn as much as I can, that's probably the most important. I agree with not building a kit, I don't think I'd learn much...I built my own computer from scratch, I'd like to think I could tough out a speaker system...half the fun of DIYing is in the trial and error. I'm not afraid to fail, or to get a little confused. I'm over my head already and I'm loving it.
Alright, these are "super tweeters" but they are 8 ohms, and cover the frequency ranges needed.
Here is what I came up with.
1. Pyle Pro PDBT38 Titanium Super Tweeter
2. Pioneer AHE60-51F 3-1/2" Horn Tweeter
3.Selenium ST350 Super Tweeter
The SPL's are higher then the mid/woofer, will that be a problem?
As far as what I want out of this system. I want decent sound, nice bass response and to learn as much as I can, that's probably the most important. I agree with not building a kit, I don't think I'd learn much...I built my own computer from scratch, I'd like to think I could tough out a speaker system...half the fun of DIYing is in the trial and error. I'm not afraid to fail, or to get a little confused. I'm over my head already and I'm loving it.
3 way
Hi N10,
Without necessary equipment and experience it is difficult to build quality passive crossovers. It is much easier to use active crossovers at the expense of more PAs but in domestic workshop environment you will get much better results.
Secondly, I'd go for a better midrange driver such as audax hm130co. It's also best if all drivers should have roughly the same sensitivity to avoid attenuation circuits. I bought my hm130cos as temporary drivers and have been surprised by their quality. I measured them having 90.5dB at 2m at 1kHz at 2.83V boxed.
For midranges I always choose spherical enclosures due to best linearity oferred. They are much easier to built than one would intuitively expect. There are two basic approaches.
1. you build a normal box but fill that inn with layers of high density polymers used to pack heavy but fragile objects. Using cutters and coarse sand papers you shape them to have an internal spherical shape. The sphere has to be internal to the driver. The other approach is to buy a rubber ball (kids play that) of proper size. You cut one side to make it match perfetly with the driver cut out, put that in the box, glue it to the cut out and fill in the external parts of a box with wood chips mixed with plaster and water of course. Once dry you eal the box'es top/side cover and you have a perfect spherical enclosure.
Hi N10,
Without necessary equipment and experience it is difficult to build quality passive crossovers. It is much easier to use active crossovers at the expense of more PAs but in domestic workshop environment you will get much better results.
Secondly, I'd go for a better midrange driver such as audax hm130co. It's also best if all drivers should have roughly the same sensitivity to avoid attenuation circuits. I bought my hm130cos as temporary drivers and have been surprised by their quality. I measured them having 90.5dB at 2m at 1kHz at 2.83V boxed.
For midranges I always choose spherical enclosures due to best linearity oferred. They are much easier to built than one would intuitively expect. There are two basic approaches.
1. you build a normal box but fill that inn with layers of high density polymers used to pack heavy but fragile objects. Using cutters and coarse sand papers you shape them to have an internal spherical shape. The sphere has to be internal to the driver. The other approach is to buy a rubber ball (kids play that) of proper size. You cut one side to make it match perfetly with the driver cut out, put that in the box, glue it to the cut out and fill in the external parts of a box with wood chips mixed with plaster and water of course. Once dry you eal the box'es top/side cover and you have a perfect spherical enclosure.
MJL21193 said:
Hi
Your example is quite a bit larger than an EBS design i.e. 80 liters 33 Hz?
IMO... I'd shoot for 70-80 liters tuned at 30Hz the bass should be tighter (dry) shows much better group delay at the expense of a few Hz extension. Since there is no Q for 4th order BR look at GD. Getting the lowest frequency response from a speaker is highly overrated for music.
Just another man's opinion.
infinia said:
Depends on what your musical tastes are. Much modern music doesn't sound good without adequate low bass.
I was just trying to show N10 the ropes. Yes, there are other viable options for that driver. Better yet there are other drivers that will give better results. It's all a matter of what you want.
janusz said:
It's nice if you can pick up some baffle step correction with a higher efficiency woofer. 3-4db is good.
sound quality and speakers
Hi John and audio lovers,
In times when I used to build audio equipment I arrived at about 2dB difference between midrange and woofer being close to optimum. Tests done with musicians were responsible for choosing that figure. That stayed in my memory since then. Four dB seems to me a bit high as a starting point but I may be wrong.
One more comment. although it is known to all more or less experienced speaker builders but not necessarily to beginners is that the quality of the midrange driver is crucial for the quality of the system. It does not imply that the other drivers can be poor but simply our hearing is most sensitive and discerning when it comes to human voice and secondly, other sounds covering that frequency at which our hearing is most sensitive.
When we did tests (AB and ABC blind tests) with panels of musicians to identify priorities and quality of audio sources and choose best drivers the importance of midrange (roughly 300-500Hz to 4-5kHz) stood out. Among other things they were comparing their own live performances - vocals and classical instruments with recordings of these. The only truly valid subjective test in my opinion.
Nevertheless there is one problem. Our brains do not work and interprete external sources (sound, light etc) exactly the same way so even musicians differed in their choice of the most faithful speaker drivers.
The good side is that, if not too old, musicians are capable of picking up tiny differences other people are not capable off noticing at all.
As a matter of fact our blind tests showed that most people cannot tell apart most amplifiers and preamplifiers - provided that the quality of equipment does not differ vary much using electronic measurements. The easiest to tell apart were speaker systems, then cartridge-arm combinations but cartridges came first etc.
All these tests were done before CD players became worth of listenning to.
cheers,
Hi John and audio lovers,
In times when I used to build audio equipment I arrived at about 2dB difference between midrange and woofer being close to optimum. Tests done with musicians were responsible for choosing that figure. That stayed in my memory since then. Four dB seems to me a bit high as a starting point but I may be wrong.
One more comment. although it is known to all more or less experienced speaker builders but not necessarily to beginners is that the quality of the midrange driver is crucial for the quality of the system. It does not imply that the other drivers can be poor but simply our hearing is most sensitive and discerning when it comes to human voice and secondly, other sounds covering that frequency at which our hearing is most sensitive.
When we did tests (AB and ABC blind tests) with panels of musicians to identify priorities and quality of audio sources and choose best drivers the importance of midrange (roughly 300-500Hz to 4-5kHz) stood out. Among other things they were comparing their own live performances - vocals and classical instruments with recordings of these. The only truly valid subjective test in my opinion.
Nevertheless there is one problem. Our brains do not work and interprete external sources (sound, light etc) exactly the same way so even musicians differed in their choice of the most faithful speaker drivers.
The good side is that, if not too old, musicians are capable of picking up tiny differences other people are not capable off noticing at all.
As a matter of fact our blind tests showed that most people cannot tell apart most amplifiers and preamplifiers - provided that the quality of equipment does not differ vary much using electronic measurements. The easiest to tell apart were speaker systems, then cartridge-arm combinations but cartridges came first etc.
All these tests were done before CD players became worth of listenning to.
cheers,
Tweeter.
Alrighty, I think i've found the tweeter to match everything.
Morel MDT-22 1" Neodymium Tweeter
Frequency range from 1800-25000 hz.
Impedance of 8 ohms.
SPL: 89 db 1W/1m
I think i'll try and model an enclosure with Unibox for the mid a bit later on this evening and post it here for your review.
Alrighty, I think i've found the tweeter to match everything.
Morel MDT-22 1" Neodymium Tweeter
Frequency range from 1800-25000 hz.
Impedance of 8 ohms.
SPL: 89 db 1W/1m
I think i'll try and model an enclosure with Unibox for the mid a bit later on this evening and post it here for your review.
N10 said:
Hi,
There's not a whole lot you can do in Unibox for the mid as it will not be producing much in the bass region.
Since you are not looking for bass response from this driver, you'll use a closed box. Here Unibox can show you how it looks for a certain size closed box, you'll see that you are not cutting the lower response with a box that is too small or having other problems like peaks in the response.
This is about as good as it gets for this driver used as a midrange - a 4 litre sealed box.
Play with the box volume size in Unibox to see what happens to the response if you make the box too small or too big.
Attachments
N10,
I am going to advise you to build an established design. It is based on your original midrange selection, which is an excellent choice:
http://www.zaphaudio.com/ZDT3.5.html
I am going to advise you to build an established design. It is based on your original midrange selection, which is an excellent choice:
http://www.zaphaudio.com/ZDT3.5.html
Viability of what I picked vs. the kit suggested.
I'm just wondering, which do you think is more viable to complete and do properly MJL21193? The kit, or the sort of there collection of parts we've come up with for the 3-way?
As I said before, I'm not afraid to have it all not work at first, but as far as this working out ok, I'm just wondering. If an enclosure can be built that'll work for the speakers we've picked then I'm all for that, its a crossover then that needs to be completed, if the enclosure's just going to be too difficult/not-feasible then perhaps the kit mentioned there is better?
If i read everyones post's correctly, the enclosure for the 3 drivers we chose was between 80-100 liters (vented) and then for the mid, 4 liters (sealed).
If that's all ok, and settled, then what about crossovers?
If it's not, then is it worth continuing to tweak, or should I be looking at this design (or others).
I don't want to waste your time with it if we'll ultimately end up stuck in a rut.
I'm just wondering, which do you think is more viable to complete and do properly MJL21193? The kit, or the sort of there collection of parts we've come up with for the 3-way?
As I said before, I'm not afraid to have it all not work at first, but as far as this working out ok, I'm just wondering. If an enclosure can be built that'll work for the speakers we've picked then I'm all for that, its a crossover then that needs to be completed, if the enclosure's just going to be too difficult/not-feasible then perhaps the kit mentioned there is better?
If i read everyones post's correctly, the enclosure for the 3 drivers we chose was between 80-100 liters (vented) and then for the mid, 4 liters (sealed).
If that's all ok, and settled, then what about crossovers?
If it's not, then is it worth continuing to tweak, or should I be looking at this design (or others).
I don't want to waste your time with it if we'll ultimately end up stuck in a rut.
Hi,
The world is made up of different people and different types of people. There are those who take the sure path and put their fate is others hands and there are those who go off on their own to do their own thing, often in the face of logic and good sense.
When you talk to me, you get my perspective and I firmly fit in the second type. I have built only one speaker that I didn't personally design and I can't say that I was overjoyed with the results, but that goes for a couple of the ones I did design.
It boils down to what you want out of the exercise? - to build a possibly outstanding speaker that you had no part in the design of or to build, be it good or bad, something that you were part of from the start?
You don't have to get it right the first time, not many do.
You don't have to worry about what other think, it's your speaker after all.
The world is made up of different people and different types of people. There are those who take the sure path and put their fate is others hands and there are those who go off on their own to do their own thing, often in the face of logic and good sense.
When you talk to me, you get my perspective and I firmly fit in the second type. I have built only one speaker that I didn't personally design and I can't say that I was overjoyed with the results, but that goes for a couple of the ones I did design.
It boils down to what you want out of the exercise? - to build a possibly outstanding speaker that you had no part in the design of or to build, be it good or bad, something that you were part of from the start?
You don't have to get it right the first time, not many do.
You don't have to worry about what other think, it's your speaker after all.
N10,
Assuming you have the woodworking skiils to build a cabinet (you can even buy premade cabinets), properly designing the XO is far more difficult and will have a much greater impact on the sound than the cabinet.
Even if you do take up this hobby seriously (and it is a great hobby) having a well designed speaker as a reference will only help you evaluate your own designs. A design by someone like John Kruetke, Dennis Murphy, Rick Craig, Curt Campbell etc. will sound great and give you a benchmark to learn from. And there is a lot to be learned in just the construction of a speaker.
I still have my first two way speaker from probably 10 years ago designed by John Kreskovsky and use it as the reference for all my designs to evaluate vocals.
regards,
Dennis
Assuming you have the woodworking skiils to build a cabinet (you can even buy premade cabinets), properly designing the XO is far more difficult and will have a much greater impact on the sound than the cabinet.
Even if you do take up this hobby seriously (and it is a great hobby) having a well designed speaker as a reference will only help you evaluate your own designs. A design by someone like John Kruetke, Dennis Murphy, Rick Craig, Curt Campbell etc. will sound great and give you a benchmark to learn from. And there is a lot to be learned in just the construction of a speaker.
I still have my first two way speaker from probably 10 years ago designed by John Kreskovsky and use it as the reference for all my designs to evaluate vocals.
regards,
Dennis
N10,
Dennis is right. Passive XO design is much more difficult than building close to perfect enclosures. As Dennis said XO has much more substantial impact on the sound quality than the enclosure. To be on the safe side you may follow sdclc’s advice and build the suggested zaphs system, which looks really good to me.
You may follow mjlj’s steps (and my own – from times when I was young and not very resolute) and come up with your own design. The price will be a lot of sweat and swearing as designing passive crossovers without fully equipped workshop your chances to get them right are not much higher than climbing some 6000 plus metre peak without oxygen bottle. Nevertheless, it will be your own sweat and you may gain some experience from it.
Alternatively, you may go for active system. Active system is much easier to build and will result in much better sound quality/fidelity than your passive XO. Moreover, it will be better than most commercial passive XOs designs, but that will come at a substantially higher cost. Don’t worry, it will not drain your super fund the way the current financial meltdown did. You may also choose to do some savings here if you go for two way active (bass to mid) and two way passive – mid to high. Cheaper solution but involves more s&s.
Cheers,
Dennis is right. Passive XO design is much more difficult than building close to perfect enclosures. As Dennis said XO has much more substantial impact on the sound quality than the enclosure. To be on the safe side you may follow sdclc’s advice and build the suggested zaphs system, which looks really good to me.
You may follow mjlj’s steps (and my own – from times when I was young and not very resolute) and come up with your own design. The price will be a lot of sweat and swearing as designing passive crossovers without fully equipped workshop your chances to get them right are not much higher than climbing some 6000 plus metre peak without oxygen bottle. Nevertheless, it will be your own sweat and you may gain some experience from it.
Alternatively, you may go for active system. Active system is much easier to build and will result in much better sound quality/fidelity than your passive XO. Moreover, it will be better than most commercial passive XOs designs, but that will come at a substantially higher cost. Don’t worry, it will not drain your super fund the way the current financial meltdown did. You may also choose to do some savings here if you go for two way active (bass to mid) and two way passive – mid to high. Cheaper solution but involves more s&s.
Cheers,
janusz said:
It doesn't need to measure well, it needs to sound good. You don't need a shop full of equipment to do that.
Chances are N10 would build this with a relatively stock crossover and love the results. I'm willing to bet on it actually.
It's only after he has been hanging out here for a while and learning how his speakers can't possibly sound good because they were not properly designed that he will come to believe just that.
N10, if you have any interest in learning this, start reading. Not here though. There's a lot of good stuff here, but you need to be better informed to sort out the bad stuff.
Get a couple of good books on the subject - David Weems or Vance Dickinson or Joe D'Appolito.
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