I've split my 3-way speaker to multiple constructs that are optimized for their passband. Tweeter has no box at all but a good waveguide, mid is in a minimal box. These two do not need bass extension and benefit having small construct for what I think better acoustic performance, also easier to build, prototype.
Woofer has its own box, optimized for woofer duty. I think its fourth version of a bass box, and the mid and waveguide both have also had at least few versions, and few versions yet to come to actually finish them with a polish 🙂 Separation of concern.
Since it all is about aesthetics too, might not be good solution for many. You could build "small two way box" that sits on top of a woofer box, or what ever feels logical to you! 🙂
Hope it helps!
edit: I suggest to shift mode of thinking from "I'm building speakers" to "I'm building a speaker system". I would also include room to the mix because that is what you hear, pressure variations in a room. You are evaluating a playback system with you hearing system in a room. Likely goal is to get some satisfaction from the experience, joy from daily sensory input for many many years.
Woofer has its own box, optimized for woofer duty. I think its fourth version of a bass box, and the mid and waveguide both have also had at least few versions, and few versions yet to come to actually finish them with a polish 🙂 Separation of concern.
Since it all is about aesthetics too, might not be good solution for many. You could build "small two way box" that sits on top of a woofer box, or what ever feels logical to you! 🙂
Hope it helps!
edit: I suggest to shift mode of thinking from "I'm building speakers" to "I'm building a speaker system". I would also include room to the mix because that is what you hear, pressure variations in a room. You are evaluating a playback system with you hearing system in a room. Likely goal is to get some satisfaction from the experience, joy from daily sensory input for many many years.
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Don’t pick a simple rectangular box shape. Chamfering big time really works, see here and have a look at the off-axis response of this design. Whatever you do, think about the optimal placement of drivers on a baffle. Use VCad, Boxsim, The Edge and other tools available to design first and build later. That is of far more importance than buying expensive drivers. Although you could argue a RS150 or RS125 and a RST28A would have been better choices for a studio monitor, if you’d stay in the Dayton department. The XT25 plus WG300 you already have give an excellent starting point though, so I’d start with that one if I were you.
those chamfers are hard for me to do and not sure how to make them without a table saw. I did try once with circular saw but it came out wonky.
dayton rst seems like fairly meh driver, why a go to for monitoring? ime I haven't heard a flat flange dome that sounded nearly as good as wg tweeters for that purpose. just my experience. I'm open to whatever meets my goals. xt25 wg300 is nice but idk how I feel about the super narrow top.
the room is 18x25 the back wall goes into a kitchen and hallway so probably acoustically a little larger. my listening distance is probably 5 to 6ft from the speakers. I have some 4 inch absorbers on the sides and triangle shaped ones in the corners, never really achieved what I'd call good imaging in here so I'm thinking wide dispersion might not be the best I'm this space fwiw.
I have thought about making individual boxes, especially for the woofer. elevaion becomes a concern though. gotta raise the subs to get the tops up which can look a little funny. that's one reason the vbs 10.2 appeals to me, I can stack them on some dayton pa380 subs i have and be done. Can one achieve similar polars to vbs 10.2 with as easy of cabinet construction with more typical home hifi drivers at similar cost?
dayton rst seems like fairly meh driver, why a go to for monitoring? ime I haven't heard a flat flange dome that sounded nearly as good as wg tweeters for that purpose. just my experience. I'm open to whatever meets my goals. xt25 wg300 is nice but idk how I feel about the super narrow top.
the room is 18x25 the back wall goes into a kitchen and hallway so probably acoustically a little larger. my listening distance is probably 5 to 6ft from the speakers. I have some 4 inch absorbers on the sides and triangle shaped ones in the corners, never really achieved what I'd call good imaging in here so I'm thinking wide dispersion might not be the best I'm this space fwiw.
I have thought about making individual boxes, especially for the woofer. elevaion becomes a concern though. gotta raise the subs to get the tops up which can look a little funny. that's one reason the vbs 10.2 appeals to me, I can stack them on some dayton pa380 subs i have and be done. Can one achieve similar polars to vbs 10.2 with as easy of cabinet construction with more typical home hifi drivers at similar cost?
Crisply formed chamfers do require a table saw, generally speaking. However, a radius of any size can be made by sanding. If I was working without access to a table saw, I would use a hand held power sander with 60 grit to form a large radius. I would cut a template from cardboard with the correct radius shape, and use that as a guide while sanding.
Doesn't really seem worth the effort when one can just use a waveguide and round overs. Only chamfer speaker with waveguide I've ever seen is dxt mon. Seems to have most benefit with flat faceplate tweeters.
Can’t find the pics right now, but you can chamfer the baffle with help of two wooden guides and a hand saw. Yo have to sand the result of course, but with a circular saw you’re not freed from sanding either.
From my experiences with a lot of waveguides, chamfers, faceting and roundovers.....
1. Tweeters without WG and tweeters with very small WG like DXT do really benefit from faceting or larger (R50) roundovers.
2. Tweeters in small WG like Jantzen WG, Monacor WG300, Visaton WG148R, generally 5-7" waveguides, perform well in baffles with 20mm chamfering only if the baffle is as narrow as possible. Any increase of width creates mild diffractions in 2-3kHz region. R30 solves those issues and leads to perfect results, but again, baffle should be as narrow as possible. R30 is generally better then 20mm chamfering.
3. >=8" WGs are less susceptible to the baffle edges but it still pays off to pay attention to baffle width and edge treatment. Again, simple R30 roundover is usually what is needed.
1. Tweeters without WG and tweeters with very small WG like DXT do really benefit from faceting or larger (R50) roundovers.
2. Tweeters in small WG like Jantzen WG, Monacor WG300, Visaton WG148R, generally 5-7" waveguides, perform well in baffles with 20mm chamfering only if the baffle is as narrow as possible. Any increase of width creates mild diffractions in 2-3kHz region. R30 solves those issues and leads to perfect results, but again, baffle should be as narrow as possible. R30 is generally better then 20mm chamfering.
3. >=8" WGs are less susceptible to the baffle edges but it still pays off to pay attention to baffle width and edge treatment. Again, simple R30 roundover is usually what is needed.
@wafflesomd - if you are really going to start from scratch, and you want our assistance, it might be good to review for us what are the design goals for this project.
a) How loud does it need to play ?
b) How deep does the bass need to go ?
c) Are there size or shape constraints (i.e. must be no wider than xy inches, etc) ?
d) What is the budget for drivers and crossover parts ?
e) anything else you can think of...
j.
a) How loud does it need to play ?
b) How deep does the bass need to go ?
c) Are there size or shape constraints (i.e. must be no wider than xy inches, etc) ?
d) What is the budget for drivers and crossover parts ?
e) anything else you can think of...
j.
I prefer large roundovers. But...simple chamfer is more practical if using veneer that doesn't handle curves well. Facets come in handy in that they allow you to get the roll-off closer to the tweeter but not treating as much around the midrange/woofer where it is not needed and thus keeping the speaker narrower. Whether narrow is good or bad for imaging not being taken into consideration, but narrower is often desired for aesthetics.
a.) I mostly work with electronic music clients, as well as write my own so testing things loud is generally something I try to do. Certain issues seem to present themselves when things our loud. I don't sustain these levels for long, and I've never really measured. The current big speakers reached the levels I needed just fine.
b.) ~30hz sounds fine to me, I've never desired anything below that really. c.
c.) Not really, I have a partner who doesn't really care what goes in the spaces. Smaller things eat less wood which is nice.
d.) Not a lot really. I generally draw the line at about $80 per driver. Granted some stuff has really shot up. I think when I got my PA380's they were $70 each, now $134!
Honestly my research is telling me a big three way is probably not the best way to go. Bass seems to work best with distributed subs. I though my preference was everything coming from one spot but after hearing subs spread about I'm converted to multisub, best bass I've heard so far. I've also just kinda grown very, very tired of the measurement process. While fairly easy to streamline I don't have access to a good environment and it kinda drives me nuts. I enjoy the construction process far more than the design portion.
At this point I think it's going to be hard to convince me to not build the VBS 10.2. It meets a lot of criteria and the dispersion looks incredible for the cost to me. The build is simple, uses minimal wood compared to a large three way, parts are very cheap. They are a comparatively easy move. I contacted Matt Grant with a few questions about the design and if I like his responses, that's what I'd to pursue.
On a side note if anyone wants to hear stuff I write check these songs out.
I've been doing some more mixing this week but on the Amigas in the same room, I think I'm hearing a lot of the same problems so I'm going to have to admit to being wrong and that the resonance isn't really a problem with the speaker but my space.
For the sake of not throwing everything away, I would like to work on passive filters for these speakers but I cannot do it without the help of the users here. I will do my best to get measurements of the drivers and provide some FRD and ZMA and let people give it a shot. These speakers may not deliver genelec level performance but I think there may still be value in them.
I think in general I need to take a vacation before diving in more.
For the sake of not throwing everything away, I would like to work on passive filters for these speakers but I cannot do it without the help of the users here. I will do my best to get measurements of the drivers and provide some FRD and ZMA and let people give it a shot. These speakers may not deliver genelec level performance but I think there may still be value in them.
I think in general I need to take a vacation before diving in more.
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I attended parts express design competition today. It was a good experience meeting ppl and talking about something so niche, seems were all just a special kind of dork.
Things I learned
1. my speakers sounded a lot better than any of the ones I heard, I perhaps am too hard on myself and have very high expectations.
2. my speakers are just way too big for my spaces. The room the demos were in were larger and I felt they would fill that space perfectly. I definitely need to downsize, an 8 inch three way would be more than enough.
3. costly drivers are no substitute for proper integration, kinda new this already.
4. our ears are pretty forgiving of issues
5. the cheaper entries were more interesting, maybe because it was cool to see what people can get out of cheap stuff.
I'm in the back of a police car because my car got a flat on the way home on a single lane highway with concrete barriers...... I have good luck it seems 🙂 can't wait to get home and plan a smaller three way.
Things I learned
1. my speakers sounded a lot better than any of the ones I heard, I perhaps am too hard on myself and have very high expectations.
2. my speakers are just way too big for my spaces. The room the demos were in were larger and I felt they would fill that space perfectly. I definitely need to downsize, an 8 inch three way would be more than enough.
3. costly drivers are no substitute for proper integration, kinda new this already.
4. our ears are pretty forgiving of issues
5. the cheaper entries were more interesting, maybe because it was cool to see what people can get out of cheap stuff.
I'm in the back of a police car because my car got a flat on the way home on a single lane highway with concrete barriers...... I have good luck it seems 🙂 can't wait to get home and plan a smaller three way.
your cabinets look great!
I have a sweetspot for the ATC retro like look. Issue with offset of drivers is uneven power response - Sound dispersion is not the same on left and right side.
In regards to damping: Like Troels Gravesen, I like to cover almost every internal panel with thick felt around 10 mm. Then go on from there. Of course polyester-fill can be used, but I avoid it. It is not dense at all. Wedged foam is often times too closed, so what it does the most is reduce volume.
To kill resonances a much better choice would be Basotect. It is dense yet has an open cell structure. Though bit expensive, I think it is the most efficient one could use.
For midrange chamber I like to use real carted (clean) wool.
To much damping simply kill dynamics.
The simplest and cheapest hack to stiffen a cabinet I have found is to combine bracing with threaded rods - You then place threaded rod where you feel vibration. Of course you should not expand the cabinet to much. To avoid the rod drifting I do this: dampingmat + small piece of wood+ rod.
As for you preference for reflex sound. Have you tried closed box + EQ similar to reflex? A simple + notch below 100 hz may do. Or Linkwitz Transform with a relatively high Qtc at 0.8-1.0.
I have a sweetspot for the ATC retro like look. Issue with offset of drivers is uneven power response - Sound dispersion is not the same on left and right side.
In regards to damping: Like Troels Gravesen, I like to cover almost every internal panel with thick felt around 10 mm. Then go on from there. Of course polyester-fill can be used, but I avoid it. It is not dense at all. Wedged foam is often times too closed, so what it does the most is reduce volume.
To kill resonances a much better choice would be Basotect. It is dense yet has an open cell structure. Though bit expensive, I think it is the most efficient one could use.
For midrange chamber I like to use real carted (clean) wool.
To much damping simply kill dynamics.
The simplest and cheapest hack to stiffen a cabinet I have found is to combine bracing with threaded rods - You then place threaded rod where you feel vibration. Of course you should not expand the cabinet to much. To avoid the rod drifting I do this: dampingmat + small piece of wood+ rod.
As for you preference for reflex sound. Have you tried closed box + EQ similar to reflex? A simple + notch below 100 hz may do. Or Linkwitz Transform with a relatively high Qtc at 0.8-1.0.
I've tried sealed and eq. still just doesn't sound as good as ported to me.
bastect would be nice but hard to find for me and seems expensive.
bastect would be nice but hard to find for me and seems expensive.
Sonex is also melamine foam. Still more expensive than polyurethane acoustic foam, but typically pretty easy to find in the US.
Given where things wound up, I'm not sure foam type is really a relevant topic at this point.
Given where things wound up, I'm not sure foam type is really a relevant topic at this point.
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I'm cheap I use the foam from Amazon and stick tooth picks in it and stack it like a brick wall also techlite on zoro you can get a huge sheet for $80 or so.
Looks like it's just a part of the DS315, it's there in PE's measurements. Seems a lot of larger woofers can often have a problem around there.