I very highly disagree with this.
It gives a very good idea on what is important and what is not.
So it provides a bigger picture as well as a sense of priority.
It also gives us a good reference point to start with = a speaker with at least a good freq resp and directivity.
(especially the last part is still not even considered by many)
From there you can just fill in the gaps accordingly.
It's not a book with detailed technical aspects, that's true.
But there is more than just only technical details to design a good loudspeaker.
I do agree that Toole is skimming over certain parts way to quickly and easily.
Brushes those off as if it's not important in some cases even.
Which is rather bizarre, because the biggest audio noob would be able to hear some nasty resonances or similar issues.
Depending on the design, those can be the hardest to tackle.
Or are actually often overlooked even by the "big brands".
Again, see Erin's measurements.
Btw, I am not talking about subtle problems here, but big major issues.
Having a good reference point to work from is essential 😉
Point I was trying to make is that it's an example that is being brushed over by Toole.
But not that obvious and easy in practice.
For a lot of companies (and people), having a good reference point to start from, seems to be already the problem.
Speaking as an electrical engineer, having worked as a professional speaker designer, and as a very experienced hobbyist….
….only 5% of high end speaker manufacturers are in ANY WAY SHAPE OR FORM advancing the state of the art. The vast majority of the industry is stuck in the 1990s catering to audiophile voodoo. Selling to customers who frankly are not willing to upgrade their expectations to the 2020s.
Some notable exceptions are Purifi; Hypex; Dutch and Dutch; Dirac; Bliesma.
Companies like these have a very serious marketing problem, which is: it’s not possible for the average audiophile to really grasp what they do or why it matters.
Case in point: there was a front page editorial about Purifi in Stereophile magazine a few months ago, very laudatory, but it never actually explained WHY their drivers are so advanced. It only stated that they were. It wasn’t clear to me that the writer even understood.
Most companies with super elegant sophisticated solutions to anything have this problem.
I see the advantage of DIY as the opportunity to use and enjoy state of the art technologies without spending $100K. I’ve admittedly invested $100,000 worth of my time instead, but I did so enjoying the discovery and sense of adventure.
….only 5% of high end speaker manufacturers are in ANY WAY SHAPE OR FORM advancing the state of the art. The vast majority of the industry is stuck in the 1990s catering to audiophile voodoo. Selling to customers who frankly are not willing to upgrade their expectations to the 2020s.
Some notable exceptions are Purifi; Hypex; Dutch and Dutch; Dirac; Bliesma.
Companies like these have a very serious marketing problem, which is: it’s not possible for the average audiophile to really grasp what they do or why it matters.
Case in point: there was a front page editorial about Purifi in Stereophile magazine a few months ago, very laudatory, but it never actually explained WHY their drivers are so advanced. It only stated that they were. It wasn’t clear to me that the writer even understood.
Most companies with super elegant sophisticated solutions to anything have this problem.
I see the advantage of DIY as the opportunity to use and enjoy state of the art technologies without spending $100K. I’ve admittedly invested $100,000 worth of my time instead, but I did so enjoying the discovery and sense of adventure.
This is true. It is very fun to make them. It also takes a long time so it fills my dead time at work. Nothing to do for a few hours? I can just go sand my newest enclosure or take some measurements.
The other thing I enjoy about this hobby is that you get to share it with people through the listening experience. A lot of hovvies you cannot share in that same way.
You've brought up another question I have:
How much does the crossover component quality matter?
I can get a non polar capacitor for a dollar. Alternatively I can buy an expensive capacitor for $30 on digikey.
I question any of these components sold as "audio grade" considering they sell "audio grade" resistors that are only 5% spec when I can buy, for a $1-2, a 1% resistor off of digikey.
We do a lot of test and measurement builds at work. Things like rocket testers and sensitive military applications. We do not use expensive components. As long as it meets the spec we order it, install it, and it performs.
So I question how much any of this matters. I am not a T&M engineer though I do know quite a bit about the discipline. You seem to know far more so I'd like to hear, and possibly see, more about your measurements on said components
This is BY FAR the best forum I have ever joined. The people here are awesome. Close second would be bobistheoilguy (I am an oil nerd as well).
The stark difference in civility between this forum and every car forum I am on (I sell motorsports aero parts on the side to pay for my track car) has caused me to literally stop participating in discussions in car forums. They are so rude there, and people are so cordial here, that I have come to realize how toxic those places are.
I thank everyone here for helping me realize that and be such a help to me in this hobby
To add to the above -
This forum certainly helps and inspires me, and I'm sure many others to have a go, learn from more experienced folk, those who have trod similar paths already and sometimes push the boundaries much quicker and more effectively than we would without such a collective knowledge forum.
I concur folk here are very helpful and cordial - long may it remain so.
Measure twice, see what DIYaudio thinks, cut once🙂
This forum certainly helps and inspires me, and I'm sure many others to have a go, learn from more experienced folk, those who have trod similar paths already and sometimes push the boundaries much quicker and more effectively than we would without such a collective knowledge forum.
I concur folk here are very helpful and cordial - long may it remain so.
Measure twice, see what DIYaudio thinks, cut once🙂
Very good? Or OK but well below what might be expected for the price given the often superior technical performance of well engineered speakers at a small fraction of the price. Designer handbags are normally functionally OK as handbags but are criticized (by some though not all) for other reasons.
I don't understand the question. A cabinet would have to be spectacularly badly designed to directly generate anything audible at low frequencies given the low level of sound radiated at these frequencies and the absence of diffraction effects due to the long wavelength.
There is no need for opinion. Sound radiated by cabinets is a matter of fact not opinion and could be simulated to a reasonable level of accuracy by those with an interest. Measuring is also possible though it is awkward and time consuming and rarely if ever performed by DIY folk.
Adequate rather than heavy bracing is used in the better speaker cabinets and then only where needed. Passive isolation between separate woofer and midrange cabinets is a good idea but using damping material to do it is not. This is an example of the sorts of things DIYers tend to get wrong by following what others do rather than following the physics (passive isolation requires a soft spring to be effective but damping will add a force that couples the two cabinets).
Mildly relevant for a (poor) cabinet that contains only air and internal resonances falling within the passband. Irrelevant for a (good) cabinet that contains some stuffing since this will absorb the resonances (rule of thumb: quarter of a wavelength of stuffing to effectively damp sound).
The external shape of a good cabinet will follow what is required to optimise the radiated sound. Sometimes a sharp edge is what is needed (e.g. DXT lense) and sometimes a generous roundover results in a poor radiation pattern (e.g. B&W). The form needs to follow function.
Guiding the sound around a driver to create the desired radiation pattern is always desirable and this often involves a waveguide but I would be hesistant to say always rather than usually.
The baffle should be as stiff as practical. Stiffeners and ribs tend to be more effective than thick everywhere. MDF is cheap and easy to work with but is not a particularly stiff material. Plywood is likely to be a significant improvement. Aluminium likely even better though it will need some damping.
Any speaker that uses a passive crossover is exchanging optimising technical performance for something else. It may be a perfectly reasonable thing to do given the objectives for the speaker. Most (though not all) extremely expensive audiophile speakers have passive crossovers...
Midwoofers are not midrange drivers (or at least not well optimised ones). A driver designed for midrange operation will be more efficient, smaller deflection, smaller less diffracting surround, stiffer better damped surround, more likely to have a phase plug, more likely to be underhung, etc... Such drivers are increasingly scarce. Home audio drivers are different to pro drivers in broadly trading efficiency for a smoother less resonant response. Dayton doesn't manufacture drivers but have them manufactured to their spec by driver manufacturers which is something DIYers in a group could do.
This is not as big an advantage as most people think. When I worked at Jensen I had the luxury of building anything I wanted as long as it didn’t require tooling and I could even take it home and use it (perk of the job).
IMHO you can get anything you need buying off the shelf drivers, and the only reason most manufacturers buy custom drivers is that the engineering cost of a heavier cone or different length VC winding is low and the suppliers make small batches anyway.
The range of drivers any of us can buy off the shelf is immense and more than adequate in my view.
The only glaring exception I can think of right now is tweeters with waveguides. You have to resort to 3D printers to get what you want with those.
Hello
Point taken with drivers how about the "Tool box" and the of course the designers with years of successful designs?
I see that as a decided advantage over your typical DIY builder.
Rob 🙂
I agree with many things said so far. But I want to provide a counterpoint.
What's that saying? Reading does not a writer make...
Yes we are lucky to have access to some nice parts. Sure we can buy nice drivers and amplifiers etc and build our own cabinets.
But remember, just because we can buy a microscope, guitar or drums, build a coffee table does not maketh us a scientist, musician or carpenter.
And so too, we should respect the seasoned professionals, I mean someone who does this for a living- 40+ hours a week, 5+ days a week, week in week out, collaborating in real-time in teams, learning and growing and thriving with their peers.
Here's something made over a decade ago by a vertically integrated company that designed and built their own speakers.
I managed to measure one of it's cousins, with the original yellow coloured cone. I inserted a filter to created an acoustic LR4 high pass at 400Hz, and LR2 low pass of 3KHz, typical of what the manufacturer could have done, then measured with the microphone at 40cm, with a gate of 8ms to cut down room reflections. If you are familiar with REW, you will know that the fundamental is 1/24th octave smoothed, and a gate of 8ms affects the appearance below 1KHz, making it appear a little ragged. In reality, it is smooth, as you would expect when when taking a nearfield measurement (not shown here).
Anyway, without further ado...
FAQ #3: Why 0.318V? Well 2.83V gave a blistering 112 dB at the microphone @1KHz -> ~104dB @1m
My IB estimation is 100dB/2.83V (4 ohm)
Let's keep it real. Have fun, learn, share, grow.
I tip my hat off to the #realengineers amongst us at diyAudio.
What's that saying? Reading does not a writer make...
Yes we are lucky to have access to some nice parts. Sure we can buy nice drivers and amplifiers etc and build our own cabinets.
But remember, just because we can buy a microscope, guitar or drums, build a coffee table does not maketh us a scientist, musician or carpenter.
And so too, we should respect the seasoned professionals, I mean someone who does this for a living- 40+ hours a week, 5+ days a week, week in week out, collaborating in real-time in teams, learning and growing and thriving with their peers.
Here's something made over a decade ago by a vertically integrated company that designed and built their own speakers.
I managed to measure one of it's cousins, with the original yellow coloured cone. I inserted a filter to created an acoustic LR4 high pass at 400Hz, and LR2 low pass of 3KHz, typical of what the manufacturer could have done, then measured with the microphone at 40cm, with a gate of 8ms to cut down room reflections. If you are familiar with REW, you will know that the fundamental is 1/24th octave smoothed, and a gate of 8ms affects the appearance below 1KHz, making it appear a little ragged. In reality, it is smooth, as you would expect when when taking a nearfield measurement (not shown here).
Anyway, without further ado...
FAQ #3: Why 0.318V? Well 2.83V gave a blistering 112 dB at the microphone @1KHz -> ~104dB @1m
My IB estimation is 100dB/2.83V (4 ohm)
Let's keep it real. Have fun, learn, share, grow.
I tip my hat off to the #realengineers amongst us at diyAudio.
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When i was working hifi it was rarely that hight. When we bought alot (say 100 Large Advents) there was 40 points from cost to retail (minus shipping), buy less and it was typically 33 points. Things like cartridges & cables often have much higher margins.
We always worked from cost and things typically went out the door having yielded us about 25 points.
But at the retail shop, the stuff being sold often had distributor margins, and 2 shippings. Sometimes more. Sometimes we could go stariught to the maker and skipthe distributors slice.
And a manufacturer has to buy boxes, do accounting, pay rent …
The best diy rival or better the best (note: no such thing as best), are speciafically targeted at a specific space and ancillary gear and will not have teh (necessary) compromises a maker has to take since they willendup in an unknown space and uer need. And they all to often target what the customer sees and not what they hear.
The poorest diy builds are often very poor.
dave
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Even though they all have faithful and enthusiastic fans, a majority of recognizable brand names are merely profit boxes made by major corporations that have CEOs, shareholders, and a board of directors. The more speakers I peeked inside of, the more respect I lost for most, including some that I used to lust over. Few, if any, of those companies are in it for the love of great sound and advancing speaker technology....it's a source of revenue, and the corporate structure is similar to the corporate structures of many other products. The marketing, accounting, and purchasing departments have significant input on what reaches the consumers, and at what price point. Most brand name speakers have six-sided thin walled boxes that resonate, have square corners, lots of reflective surfaces, have great looking drivers that may or may not be good performers, and the crossover parts are as cheap as they can be sourced. Appearance, market perception, and of course sales/profit likely get more scrutiny than how the speakers sound. They also have to be manufacturable in volume. None of that applies to a DIYer, so while we may pay more for the same parts, which parts to use is not dictated to us, and we don’t need to build it for 20%-25% of MSRP. Cheap six-sided boxes don’t apply to a DIYer either, so we're free to be creative and build incredible boxes if we're able.
If you have sufficient desire, talent, skill, and/or experience, a DIYer should get encouraging results that could very well outperform what many folks have, including many audiophiles. Speaker building is largely a matter of being willing to solve a multitude of problems without giving up, but it often takes trial and error to identify what the issues are. At some point many top designers were DIYers too. We all start somewhere. Computer programs have never been better or more obtainable than they are now, so even modest skill levels can obtain a good starting point, and kits all be assure some level of success. Anyone who can understand T/S parameters and input them into a program and come up with a reasonable success. If you also have talent, determination, and some skills, a gifted DIYer can go much farther and do amazing things with speakers. And best of all, you can tailor the sound to your room with your equipment just they way you like it.
If you have sufficient desire, talent, skill, and/or experience, a DIYer should get encouraging results that could very well outperform what many folks have, including many audiophiles. Speaker building is largely a matter of being willing to solve a multitude of problems without giving up, but it often takes trial and error to identify what the issues are. At some point many top designers were DIYers too. We all start somewhere. Computer programs have never been better or more obtainable than they are now, so even modest skill levels can obtain a good starting point, and kits all be assure some level of success. Anyone who can understand T/S parameters and input them into a program and come up with a reasonable success. If you also have talent, determination, and some skills, a gifted DIYer can go much farther and do amazing things with speakers. And best of all, you can tailor the sound to your room with your equipment just they way you like it.
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The ones i lived with had a topend that would tear your head off … later ones were better.
dave
Technically feasible.
Metal powder. Then depositing the powder, then fusing process of the powder by the laser
Google "metal 3d printing service europe". There are a few bureus in Italy 🙂
George
This looks like a wonderful speaker. 👍 😎
It also reminds me of where things go wrong with the majority of the clients I consult and why Toole's bigger picture is such an important tool.
Btw, beforehand I am definitely not saying that was the case here, I am just saying that it reminds me of something!
Where it goes wrong with most companies in my opinion, is that they laser focus on one specific bit of technology.
Sometimes a very wonderful bit of technology, often just a tiny piece of an enormous puzzle.
Because the fact is that a commercial loudspeaker is more than just one tiny bit of technology.
In practical reality it's quite a challenge and tango dance to get stuff right, even more so when you consider a loudspeaker a bit of a lifestyle product as well.
A lot of people don't like to admit that last part, but for a commercial product it's a pretty huge factor.
Or in very simple blunt words; if the consumer thinks it doesn't look right, they won't buy it.
Meaning that form often goes before function.
Small things here can sometimes determine the ENTIRE course!
Besides, one very super amazing driver would work very well in one specific case, scenario and context.
But maybe not so much in something else.
I very often see that companies kinda forget all the other important parts because of this laser focus.
Again, see Erin's video, he has multiple examples of just fundamental basics that are just not right from the start.
The end result can be that you have a super high quality driver or idea, but the total performance is still not great because it's swamped by other issues.
Which kind of defeats the entire purpose of having that amazing technology te begin with.
I have seen solutions with Purifi drivers with a severe mismatch in directivity, bad diffraction issues, horrible port resonances and not a great crossover optimization overall as well as some internal cabinet resonances (standing waves).
So wonderful and amazing performing speakers, yet still a bad implementation.
I think there is a case to be made that all these effects could be even more noticeable with speakers that have such low distortion. (less masking)
What I am always trying to tell people is to first think of a great design, fill in the drivers later according to budget that is available.
Instead of thinking of a great driver and trying to build a design around it.
That way it forces you into thinking about all the possible problems beforehand!
It's at least my design philosophy.
As already mentioned, there are some really great companies that make very great products that don't only perform very well, but also like very elegant at the same time. 👍
Once again, I am not saying that it's the issue in this case, it just reminded me of these stories.
I do agree with you that as a company you do have to luxury to really tailor, tweak and tune your drivers for a specific use case.
Unless very specific cases, but I personally consider that more like the cherry on the cake.
Although that cherry can sometimes also just be for profit or production/assembly reasons.
Sometimes it's also because there isn't much available that suits, or you just simply want to have a unique product, instead of having similar components like everyone else has.
These can sometimes be good reasons as well of course! 🙂
I had a fairly early pair of Acoustat-X, and then several years later got a second pair. Can't say they sounded any different, but I did make sure both pairs had the same IC opamps.
Here's the pair I still have. Close mic, indoors, no gate.
Red is HF gain all the way up. Green is all the way down.
Like any planar or line-array capable of true VHF/HF "line source", flat will be very bright sounding.
I generally like the X's set about halfway between the above curves.
Green sounds downright dull....
Crossovers are “evil” and as far as i am concerned the hardest part of the loudspeaker.
One area where diy dominates is in loudspeakers that solve the XO problem by not having a crossover. Single driver, 1-way loudspeakers.
just here you will find hundreds of solid designs, commercially there are only a handful.
And for many a surprising number of people’s needs thosedesigbs handily outdo commercial loudspeakers costing much more. They have there drawbacks (as dooes everything) but for many, their needs means they never explore thoe limits given their needs.
with diy you can satisfy YOUR requirements and not someone else's guess as to what you need.\
And as said more than once, with diy part of it is the journey.
dave
One area where diy dominates is in loudspeakers that solve the XO problem by not having a crossover. Single driver, 1-way loudspeakers.
just here you will find hundreds of solid designs, commercially there are only a handful.
And for many a surprising number of people’s needs thosedesigbs handily outdo commercial loudspeakers costing much more. They have there drawbacks (as dooes everything) but for many, their needs means they never explore thoe limits given their needs.
with diy you can satisfy YOUR requirements and not someone else's guess as to what you need.\
And as said more than once, with diy part of it is the journey.
dave
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