Hi folks, I've been out of the speakers from raw drivers + ideas hobby for about 10 years, no particular reason, just other responsibilities (and some space issues). Now I'm looking to design a few things and hopefully share some good designs too. I regret not putting some quality designs out there after having spent so many years learning the craft in audio forums. Anyway, 10 years is a century for software and I'd really appreciate anyone willing to skim the following and chime in with their suggestions.
This is how I work / what I know how to do; I'm wanting to hear what people with similar processes like to use for software:
1. concept/purpose - usually I just gather candidates for driver(s) based on what is needed for the idea, attempt to simulate bass and sometimes full in-cabinet response with diffraction/etc. all from factory data (so have to trace curves unless I have measurement files). I would also be interested in simulations of generic sources at this stage for horns/waveguides, rooms, crazy acoustic filter ideas, etc., but didn't get much further than partially learning Hornresp back in the day.
2. get drivers (and take my own driver measurements if suspected necessary), verify cabinet design works physically, build cabinet
3. take in-cabinet measurements of individual drivers: impedance/electrical, nearfield response, gated 1M response 0-90°, confirm acoustic centers of drivers, confirm max. SPL in bass.
4. repeat steps 1-3 until fatal flaws in cabinet design and/or driver selection are fixed.
5. simulate complete speaker and xover using in-cabinet measurements (preferably with polar/directivity in the sim) until satisfied with xover, verify results, adjust and repeat.
P.S. if you're curious, I was mostly using PCD (the simulator that only worked with outdated Excel) for design and ARTA for measurements. I also used Boxsim pretty often for general messing around with ideas. I can't remember the bass cabinet sim I used most the time. I had loads of other software but these were 99% of the time.
This is how I work / what I know how to do; I'm wanting to hear what people with similar processes like to use for software:
1. concept/purpose - usually I just gather candidates for driver(s) based on what is needed for the idea, attempt to simulate bass and sometimes full in-cabinet response with diffraction/etc. all from factory data (so have to trace curves unless I have measurement files). I would also be interested in simulations of generic sources at this stage for horns/waveguides, rooms, crazy acoustic filter ideas, etc., but didn't get much further than partially learning Hornresp back in the day.
2. get drivers (and take my own driver measurements if suspected necessary), verify cabinet design works physically, build cabinet
3. take in-cabinet measurements of individual drivers: impedance/electrical, nearfield response, gated 1M response 0-90°, confirm acoustic centers of drivers, confirm max. SPL in bass.
4. repeat steps 1-3 until fatal flaws in cabinet design and/or driver selection are fixed.
5. simulate complete speaker and xover using in-cabinet measurements (preferably with polar/directivity in the sim) until satisfied with xover, verify results, adjust and repeat.
P.S. if you're curious, I was mostly using PCD (the simulator that only worked with outdated Excel) for design and ARTA for measurements. I also used Boxsim pretty often for general messing around with ideas. I can't remember the bass cabinet sim I used most the time. I had loads of other software but these were 99% of the time.
Today I would guess the leading maintained and evolving free (for hobbyists) speaker software is currently something like:
There is of course other software that was written years ago and is no longer maintained, that performs one or two tasks perhaps a bit better, a lot of 3D software that has yet to be adopted,... From the list I personally only use REW a bit preferring other software. I couldn't really identify a leading CAD program from the commonly used ones.
- REW for measurements
- VituixCAD for 0D simulations
- Hornresp for 1D simulations
- AKABAK for 3D linear acoustic simulations
- CAD?
There is of course other software that was written years ago and is no longer maintained, that performs one or two tasks perhaps a bit better, a lot of 3D software that has yet to be adopted,... From the list I personally only use REW a bit preferring other software. I couldn't really identify a leading CAD program from the commonly used ones.
For someone looking to adopt software whether a package is maintained or not does matter. WinISD is an example of unmaintained software that still works sort of some of the time that a newbie would be better to avoid in preference to maintained software like vituixcad or various other current packages. Another is Jeff Bagby's software which may well have been the goto software when the OP last took an interest. People that adopted this kind of software decades ago and it still does what they want today have no need to change and relearn something else but they are in a different situation to a newbie. Keeping old unmaintained software going often involves installing old version of OS's, old versions of dependent software like excel or other calculation engines, running within virtual environments, etc... which current software typically doesn't. Someone starting out or restarting like the OP is usually better off adopting and learning how to use current maintained software that does the job now and stands the best chance of doing so into the future.
Of course there are lots of other factors that can steer one away from current "goto" software. Not using Windows is a common one which applies in my case. Being familiar with alternative software due to other activities is another fairly common one which also applies in my case. A preference for open source code rather than free binary is a preference that many older folk have learnt from experience.
Of course there are lots of other factors that can steer one away from current "goto" software. Not using Windows is a common one which applies in my case. Being familiar with alternative software due to other activities is another fairly common one which also applies in my case. A preference for open source code rather than free binary is a preference that many older folk have learnt from experience.
Basta!
http://www.tolvan.com/index.php?page=/basta/basta.php
http://www.tolvan.com/index.php?page=/edge/edge.php
ARTA, LIMP
https://www.artalabs.hr/
All unmaintained, all great, intuitive, easy to use, with a lot of documentation.
http://www.tolvan.com/index.php?page=/basta/basta.php
http://www.tolvan.com/index.php?page=/edge/edge.php
ARTA, LIMP
https://www.artalabs.hr/
All unmaintained, all great, intuitive, easy to use, with a lot of documentation.
I was a Speaker Workshop user until that just wouldn't run anymore. I even recompiled the source and managed to salvage some old projects but writes would fail (even as administrator on Win10+)
I jumped to VituixCAD v2 and haven't looked back. Brilliant piece of software for active and passive crossover modeling, including spinorama, diffraction and enclosure modeling (more advanced than WinISD IMHO)
I jumped to VituixCAD v2 and haven't looked back. Brilliant piece of software for active and passive crossover modeling, including spinorama, diffraction and enclosure modeling (more advanced than WinISD IMHO)
Learning to use a well-featured software package like VituixCAD, which covers many aspects of loudspeaker system design, would be time well spent. A new user can progressively improve their knowledge over time, and the questions that crop up along the way have a reasonable likelihood of being answered because of the extensive size of the user base.
If one needs an easier introduction to crossover design, then XSim could be the first port of call. Once a user is proficient in applying XSim, then it would be quite easy to use VituixCAD as well.
As was I. I liked the way it would display multiple plots together, and could calculate differences between responses then add those to others to create target curves. For one thing I could measure my equaliser after a voicing session and add it to the current crossover plot, then modify it.
Yes. Although VCad allows you to save overlays (not quite as good as SW chart), VCad unlike SW cannot do any simple response arithmetic. I have to switch to REW for that (export / import - combine - export / import)... a bit of a hassle sometimes.
Sorry, you don't mean component power, right? Because I know that's there. Quite handy. You must mean power response?
Member
Joined 2003
You can't be serious, there's an entire calculator tool in VCAD dedicated to "simple response arithmetic".
Hi, My process is quite similar to those 4 steps.
This is where my process takes a different tack.
I use active mutli-way processing that's fast and easy enough such that it eliminates any need for continued modeling to determine xovers, ect.
Setting optimal xovers, EQs, levels, delays, etc, while verifying on & off axis response, is all accomplished directly via measurements.
(If going passive, I totally see the need for continued modeling.)
This "tune by measured response" technique puts a premium on fast, easy to use real-time measurement software.
And is where proaudio dual channel measurement software has come to shine, largely I guess due to the time constraints put on system engineers setting up live sound events.
Such measurement software coupled with proaudio filter design software, that can import a driver's measurement, and then automatically generate a filter set that matches a specified acoustic response target, is what's evolved greatly over the last 10 years, ime.
I've found value of the ability to create filter sets quicky and easily, that align drivers to whatever type & order of acoustically complementary xovers, at whatever frequency gives best polar response, to be simply invaluable.
I think measurement and filter generation are where big advances in software have occurred. (along with overall acoustic design modeling advances)
Once I've used the overall acoustic design software to get going (such as Hornresp or Vcad) I see no need for further sims given active.
If you have any desire to consider going active DSP, I'll post some of the proaudio measurement and filter generating software I've had good luck with.