Hi all, I’m a complete novice to speakers and DIY. I’m researching speaker designs to build. One thought crossed my mind...
Instead of two boxes, each with three speakers (tweeter, mid, woofer) and a crossover (and maybe sub in another box)...
Could you put each driver in its own box, and put an equalizer on each box, and use no crossovers? This way you’d tune each speaker so e.g. the tweeter is playing the highs and not the lows... In my mind this means the setup is effectively a configurable crossover. I suppose there may be some extra cost associated with building so many enclosures, and needing many equalizers. Ignoring the cost, would it work well?
Instead of two boxes, each with three speakers (tweeter, mid, woofer) and a crossover (and maybe sub in another box)...
Could you put each driver in its own box, and put an equalizer on each box, and use no crossovers? This way you’d tune each speaker so e.g. the tweeter is playing the highs and not the lows... In my mind this means the setup is effectively a configurable crossover. I suppose there may be some extra cost associated with building so many enclosures, and needing many equalizers. Ignoring the cost, would it work well?
An electronic crossover with variable frequencies, gains, etc. (all active) instead of "equalizers". Some say the best active crossovers cost in excess of $1000 and those designed for pro and tour use aren't nearly as good high fidelity speaking. I, myself, have all of my drivers in separate enclosures so I can adjust the time alignments, and play with various configurations horizontal and vertical plus any "tilt" angle. Mine are all passive right now since I can't afford a full active system just now. My sub-woofer has it's own plate amp which does have active bass management. Each pair of my drivers is driven by a separate amplifier though so this is the next best thing to all active I can get right now.
Do some searches on active/electronic crossovers for home/HiFi use; you'll get the idea.
Do some searches on active/electronic crossovers for home/HiFi use; you'll get the idea.
pontoon, yes you can go that way and likely get better results if you really know what you're doing. Only major problem is separate boxes inevitably increase spacing between driver sections, which is never good.
As oldspkrguy said, you'll need crossovers as well as EQs to do it.
It's not a novice type project, imo.
@ oldspkrguy,
I strongly, oh so strongly, think pro-audio speaker management processors blow away anything available in home audio.
Look at Lake, Linea Research, Meyersound, BSS, QSYS, Symetrix, Ashly, etc... they all make home audio processors appear as sticks in the mud.
Computer interface programs, typically FIR generators can exceed those prosound processors just mentioned....but not when you bring needed I/O interfaces in to account.
However, they are at admittedly at higher price points than DIY....although not necessarily higher priced than crazed "high end home audio" products.
As oldspkrguy said, you'll need crossovers as well as EQs to do it.
It's not a novice type project, imo.
@ oldspkrguy,
I strongly, oh so strongly, think pro-audio speaker management processors blow away anything available in home audio.
Look at Lake, Linea Research, Meyersound, BSS, QSYS, Symetrix, Ashly, etc... they all make home audio processors appear as sticks in the mud.
Computer interface programs, typically FIR generators can exceed those prosound processors just mentioned....but not when you bring needed I/O interfaces in to account.
However, they are at admittedly at higher price points than DIY....although not necessarily higher priced than crazed "high end home audio" products.
I was referring to the $100 units, not the higher end ones. I have zero experience in this myself; I was basing my comments on what others have said elsewhere. Sometimes you get what you pay for, sometimes you don't. That's why forums such as this are so valuable; we can all learn from one another; good choices and bad choices made both.
Some high end home stuff is just big on advertising and not necessarily the actual best in high fidelity; that's for sure!
Some high end home stuff is just big on advertising and not necessarily the actual best in high fidelity; that's for sure!
Wouldn't a DSP unit do exactly what pontoon is looking for? Relatively inexpensive and a TON of info available.
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Active Crossovers : miniDSP 2x4 HD
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Active Crossovers : miniDSP 2x4 HD
A very cheap way to have active EQ
When I first read the title of your post, I feared someone wanted to build a Bose 901 clone 😀 If this is actually the case, and you live in Florida, PM me as I have a few pairs gathering dust.
This is a proposal. I defy anyone to find a cheaper active EQ and multi-channel amp system. Note that I've done the PC and the JRiver part, but used a different solution for the multi-channel amps.
If you can use a PC as a source, you could do something like:
Cheap "TV Box" Windows PC. I use a Pipo X9. Must have HMDI out for this scheme to work (see below). Cost ~ $150.
Music software AND active EQ solution. There may be others but the only one I know of (and use) is JRiver Music Center ~ $50
Home Theater receiver of your choice. These are available in 5.1, 7.1, etc. The key is the number of channels. For example, a 7.1 gives more than enough amplifier channels for stereo 3-way system. Cost perhaps $200 up to ridiculous.
The only really tricky part here will be to design and wire your speakers. With HTRs I've owned, there was a minimum impedance of 6-8 Ohms per channel, so that will limit what drivers you can use, but not severely. The active crossover will be set in JRiver. One limitation of this is that you can't do normal surround sound -- you are re-purposing the HDMI audio channels for specific driers and frequency ranges. You can still watch videos, but you may need to use a separate player (I use VLC) and capture the audio with JRiver's "loopback" feature.
Another limitation may be the per channel watts of the HTR. Unless you are going for big and loud, I suspect even a modest unit will supply the watts you would need.
When I first read the title of your post, I feared someone wanted to build a Bose 901 clone 😀 If this is actually the case, and you live in Florida, PM me as I have a few pairs gathering dust.
This is a proposal. I defy anyone to find a cheaper active EQ and multi-channel amp system. Note that I've done the PC and the JRiver part, but used a different solution for the multi-channel amps.
If you can use a PC as a source, you could do something like:
Cheap "TV Box" Windows PC. I use a Pipo X9. Must have HMDI out for this scheme to work (see below). Cost ~ $150.
Music software AND active EQ solution. There may be others but the only one I know of (and use) is JRiver Music Center ~ $50
Home Theater receiver of your choice. These are available in 5.1, 7.1, etc. The key is the number of channels. For example, a 7.1 gives more than enough amplifier channels for stereo 3-way system. Cost perhaps $200 up to ridiculous.
The only really tricky part here will be to design and wire your speakers. With HTRs I've owned, there was a minimum impedance of 6-8 Ohms per channel, so that will limit what drivers you can use, but not severely. The active crossover will be set in JRiver. One limitation of this is that you can't do normal surround sound -- you are re-purposing the HDMI audio channels for specific driers and frequency ranges. You can still watch videos, but you may need to use a separate player (I use VLC) and capture the audio with JRiver's "loopback" feature.
Another limitation may be the per channel watts of the HTR. Unless you are going for big and loud, I suspect even a modest unit will supply the watts you would need.
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It is, but not a very good one. And it would be no better than a real crossover, likely worse because it won't roll off as much as needed.
I've actually heard this done on several sets of very high end speakers and it wasn't very good.
Yes, you can use a screwdriver as a hammer or a chisel, but it's a poor version of either.