Firstly a quick overview of the project, I set out wanting to build a pair of budget stereo speakers to setup a listening room for music only, cinema duties are taken care of elsewhere. The intention is to use this build of speakers as a test bed to develop & slowly upgrade as I build / buy new components.
The speakers are 3 way, open baffle multi driver mid (8 drivers per side), multi driver tweeters (2 drivers per side) & a single 12" woofer per side in a ported box. The drivers are robbed from an old pioneer surround sound system I had lying around, so the build has cost basically nothing so far, but I do appreciate that the drivers are by no means specifically suited to this application.
I have never listened to an open baffle system before, or a very high end system for that matter which I am going to try & remedy as soon as possible, however I chose an open baffle design because I like the idea of the 'open' sound they generate, coupled with the ported subs because I like to have full & deep bass when I'm listening.
The build is in the early stages so there are a load of other questions I have / will come to as I progress & this is by no means the most relevant at the moment however what I am curious about is related to amplification wiring & setup.
I am aware of the benefits of choosing a pair of monoblock amps over a stereo amp with regards to separating power supplies & reducing noise caused by multiple signal channels etc., but if there are more than 2 monoblocks in a system, how are they wired, what is the best way to split the source signal into more than 1 left & 1 right channel?
I ask as my idea for my system was to keep each speaker 'way' as separate as possible, so the theoretical setup would be as follows;
A music source (most likely an mp3 player or pc, I'm not into vinyl (yet)), would feed into 6 monoblock amplifiers (3 left & 3 right), which would then individually feed the low, mid & high range drivers of the speakers (via their respective low pass, band pass & high pass crossovers).
Would there be any benefit in doing this, & what would be the best way to split the source signal into 3 left & 3 right channels, I've seen rca splitters, but doing this twice to get 3 channels seems a bit crude??
Or is the better solution to have only a pair of larger monoblocks running the speakers, where there are 3 cables coming from each amp into the 3 speaker 'ways', & then the individual crossovers?
Or a pair of monoblocks with 1 speaker cable each going to the speakers & the full range signal being handled at the speakers with a 3 way crossover?
This seems like a really basic question, but having not physically seen any high end setups with monoblocks I don't know how this would normally be handled, & I have searched the forum for a thread on the subject but I haven't found anything.
Any advice would be much appreciated, or if anyone has seen a thread on this, please share!
The speakers are 3 way, open baffle multi driver mid (8 drivers per side), multi driver tweeters (2 drivers per side) & a single 12" woofer per side in a ported box. The drivers are robbed from an old pioneer surround sound system I had lying around, so the build has cost basically nothing so far, but I do appreciate that the drivers are by no means specifically suited to this application.
I have never listened to an open baffle system before, or a very high end system for that matter which I am going to try & remedy as soon as possible, however I chose an open baffle design because I like the idea of the 'open' sound they generate, coupled with the ported subs because I like to have full & deep bass when I'm listening.
The build is in the early stages so there are a load of other questions I have / will come to as I progress & this is by no means the most relevant at the moment however what I am curious about is related to amplification wiring & setup.
I am aware of the benefits of choosing a pair of monoblock amps over a stereo amp with regards to separating power supplies & reducing noise caused by multiple signal channels etc., but if there are more than 2 monoblocks in a system, how are they wired, what is the best way to split the source signal into more than 1 left & 1 right channel?
I ask as my idea for my system was to keep each speaker 'way' as separate as possible, so the theoretical setup would be as follows;
A music source (most likely an mp3 player or pc, I'm not into vinyl (yet)), would feed into 6 monoblock amplifiers (3 left & 3 right), which would then individually feed the low, mid & high range drivers of the speakers (via their respective low pass, band pass & high pass crossovers).
Would there be any benefit in doing this, & what would be the best way to split the source signal into 3 left & 3 right channels, I've seen rca splitters, but doing this twice to get 3 channels seems a bit crude??
Or is the better solution to have only a pair of larger monoblocks running the speakers, where there are 3 cables coming from each amp into the 3 speaker 'ways', & then the individual crossovers?
Or a pair of monoblocks with 1 speaker cable each going to the speakers & the full range signal being handled at the speakers with a 3 way crossover?
This seems like a really basic question, but having not physically seen any high end setups with monoblocks I don't know how this would normally be handled, & I have searched the forum for a thread on the subject but I haven't found anything.
Any advice would be much appreciated, or if anyone has seen a thread on this, please share!
Yes you can split it but you have to do the math on the ohm out (dac) to in (amps). There are rules of thumb ... range you need to be in. Picking the amps I would try to use amps with the same gain. That makes one less variable when upgrading. And the xo can be configured to be used with 1,2 or 3 amps as you go if all the amps have the same gain.
Hi, thank you for the advice.
I have read, in passing, about the need to match the DAC to the amps in terms of ohms out & in so I will certainly give that a more detailed look when I come to it.
The gain point is a useful tip, thanks.
So it is physically OK to do, but is it worth doing? Or is that something I'll just have to experiment with?
I have read, in passing, about the need to match the DAC to the amps in terms of ohms out & in so I will certainly give that a more detailed look when I come to it.
The gain point is a useful tip, thanks.
So it is physically OK to do, but is it worth doing? Or is that something I'll just have to experiment with?
If one ‘way’, bass for example, is a heavy load then yes it definitely helps to have its own amp and not add to the load with all the other drivers. I see a lot of people using two amps per speaker to help with the bass. Tough case for three amps though unless your xo and drivers are really out of the ordinary...
It will be a while before my xo's & drivers are 'out of the ordinary'! Also the better the drivers are i.e. their efficiency, they'll need less & less power to drive as I upgrade so as you say having 3 amps is probably excessive.
I suppose my original thoughts were centered around the signal quality, but if the amps are good, and the signal is being processed by the xo's after anyway, improving those is going to make a bigger difference.
Thanks for the reply!
I suppose my original thoughts were centered around the signal quality, but if the amps are good, and the signal is being processed by the xo's after anyway, improving those is going to make a bigger difference.
Thanks for the reply!
I am by no means an expert but I feel like this is going to be a mess. Do you have a microphone and measuring software or are you just throwing drivers on a board and hoping for the best? I don't mean this disrespectfully but it just sounds like a plan for disaster. First of all, the crossovers (if taken from the original speakers) were designed for the enclosures they were put in so they will not work well for your new design. Second, most of the time when you run multiple amps to power a single multi-driver speaker, the crossover comes before the amps (active setup). So maybe consider something like miniDSP and a Umik1 mic and learn to use REW. Sending a full range signal to an amp and then taking a large portion of the signal away between the amp and the driver doesn't make much sense. Again, I am new to this too but I just don't want to see you waste a lot of time and effort.
Hi, thanks for the reply. Yes you are absolutely correct, it is a bit of a mess! The question was aimed more at the wiring of a system in the future based on this speaker setup, I just explained what I have currently thrown together as a kind of background.
Multiple amps wont be applied to the current drivers, as you say they are not suitable or designed for an open baffle setup, I just built these as they were available & free.
I’m aware that when I put different drivers in, the sound & character of the speakers will change completely, however I thought I’d have a play anyway to see what an open baffle setup would sound like.
I am using the original crossovers for the tweeters & mids (two way crossover that was built into the surround speakers), just because that got me up & running quicker, I just built 200hz crossovers for the woofers. I do plan on building new crossovers for the tweeters & mids to experiment with. I’ve never tuned crossovers before so it will be good practice for when I design a system around new drivers with new crossovers.
Your point regarding removing a large part of the signal between the amp & driver is interesting, thanks for that, I had not thought about it in that way before.
My further reading into this has brought me across active speakers, so I am factoring whether or not to go down that road or not. Studiophone suggested above that 3 amps driving 3 ways is excessive, & having thought more about it, it doesn’t make a huge amount of sense to drive the tweeters from their own amp, so 2 per speaker is probably where I’ll be.
Multiple amps wont be applied to the current drivers, as you say they are not suitable or designed for an open baffle setup, I just built these as they were available & free.
I’m aware that when I put different drivers in, the sound & character of the speakers will change completely, however I thought I’d have a play anyway to see what an open baffle setup would sound like.
I am using the original crossovers for the tweeters & mids (two way crossover that was built into the surround speakers), just because that got me up & running quicker, I just built 200hz crossovers for the woofers. I do plan on building new crossovers for the tweeters & mids to experiment with. I’ve never tuned crossovers before so it will be good practice for when I design a system around new drivers with new crossovers.
Your point regarding removing a large part of the signal between the amp & driver is interesting, thanks for that, I had not thought about it in that way before.
My further reading into this has brought me across active speakers, so I am factoring whether or not to go down that road or not. Studiophone suggested above that 3 amps driving 3 ways is excessive, & having thought more about it, it doesn’t make a huge amount of sense to drive the tweeters from their own amp, so 2 per speaker is probably where I’ll be.
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