Hello all, being a total noob to speaker building I thought I'd start small and not spend to much just to play. I have some speakers from an old Zenith console I'd like to use for speakers.
2-10" woofers 10 ohm
2-3.5" tweeters 45 ohm
2- tweeter horns 6.4 ohm
I also have the crossover that was used in this console, but I do not intend to use it, I just mention it to maybe help determine what parts I need for a new pair of crossovers.
So on to the project. I'd like to make 2 speaker cabinets to house these I know they are not going to be Heresy's or anything special but it will give me some experience. What kind of cabs do you think will work best with these old gems?
The speaker have differing impedances so can someone explain how I can use them in a speaker or point me to something not to technical I can read?
I grasp the basics of crossover design but I have no idea what the specs are on these. Does anyone know what these speakers can do. The part numbers are clearly visible in the photos. I also included a pic of the original crossover. (Notice it is both left and right on a single board)
I look foreword to all your comments as well as any advice on this project & please forgive this noob for all the questions I'm sure to ask along the way but remember we were all noobs once! Lol [emoji53]
2-10" woofers 10 ohm
2-3.5" tweeters 45 ohm
2- tweeter horns 6.4 ohm
I also have the crossover that was used in this console, but I do not intend to use it, I just mention it to maybe help determine what parts I need for a new pair of crossovers.
So on to the project. I'd like to make 2 speaker cabinets to house these I know they are not going to be Heresy's or anything special but it will give me some experience. What kind of cabs do you think will work best with these old gems?
The speaker have differing impedances so can someone explain how I can use them in a speaker or point me to something not to technical I can read?
I grasp the basics of crossover design but I have no idea what the specs are on these. Does anyone know what these speakers can do. The part numbers are clearly visible in the photos. I also included a pic of the original crossover. (Notice it is both left and right on a single board)
I look foreword to all your comments as well as any advice on this project & please forgive this noob for all the questions I'm sure to ask along the way but remember we were all noobs once! Lol [emoji53]
open baffle leaning back a "bit" - the woofer's motor is probably even weak for a sealed box which would put resonance high at any rate - they look light enough to mount on laminated cardboard for evaluation - if one assumes the engineers knew best then just reuse the crossover's coils with new cap - were the horns side-firing? you could play with the parts as 2-way or 3 way with the best tweeter in the bunch to hear various possibilities
I agree with the open baffle, that was my first thought when i looked at these speakers.
As far as the crossovers, I can replace the caps and use them i guess, but i'm still trying to figure out just how these were hooked up. There is a separate cap on the horns which is last in the curcuit, but the way this was chopped up before it was sent to me I have no idea how it was utilized. Remember I am complete noob to this.
The harness has been cut between the woofer and the first tweeter, and i do not know if the woofer was directly connected to the tweeter or if there were connectors in between that allowed the crossover to be used in between or if it was one harness with the crossover at the very beggining like a HPF.
Though I don't know how that would have worked.
I am beggining to think I am missing the real woofers. it makes more sense that there was a 15" woofer as part of each set, making the 10" that I have the mids with 2 tweeters rounding out the whole. then this crossover would be the HPF and the harness would make more sense. At this point I have read so much that I do not know if I am making sense, information overload, with no one to bounce it off of, my head hurts!
Anyway take a look at the crossover it has a Cap, resister, and inductor all going to one connector on one side and to separate connectors on the other.
Anyone understand how this was hooked up to the speakers? Please enlighten me if you would.
re:"how these were hooked up"
probably: amp in (the bottom tag ) to inductor to woofer +; amp to cap to mid +; resistor to tweeter cap to tweeter +; all- terminals to amp ground
probably: amp in (the bottom tag ) to inductor to woofer +; amp to cap to mid +; resistor to tweeter cap to tweeter +; all- terminals to amp ground
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It would be logical, if only there is not a shorting wire between inductors (between black wires) at the top tags.
Maybe that crossover is not even correct, idk, this was a buy from that auction site.....
Also I know its not obvious from the pics but those speaker are daisy chained. The two tweeters are for sure, the woofer was cut but the wires match up. So I can t be positive but am pretty sure they were all in a long string.
This mystery is why I would rather scrap this crossover and make a new one but idk the specs on the speakers.lol
Also I know its not obvious from the pics but those speaker are daisy chained. The two tweeters are for sure, the woofer was cut but the wires match up. So I can t be positive but am pretty sure they were all in a long string.
This mystery is why I would rather scrap this crossover and make a new one but idk the specs on the speakers.lol
Oh and I forgot to put the pic up but there is a cap on the + side of the horn separate from the rest of the crossover. You can see it in the photo of all three speakers.
TBH I would use the woofer and the tweeter and ditch the piezo ; then I'd add a .5 woofer of some sort to take some of the bass out of the big driver
Then, the crossover is not a part of the Zenith console. Indeed, on the fourth photo woofer and 3.5" (piezo?) tweeter seems to be hooked directly to the amplifier, and horn tweeter via capacitor (first-order HP filter). You can try it as it is.
LoL that has to be one of those one in a million photos!! You see I was trying to match the wires between the woofer and little tweeter just prior to taking this pic, it is actually cut but just held together by luck making it appear to be one solid run!
As I mentioned this might be what it was supposed to be but can't be sure as the wire IS cut.
If it were supposed to be cut then the crossover would make more sense to you guys? Then it would work? Well hopefully someone that had these or ones like them will chime in.
Maybe. You might (or might not) be able to build a better crossover. They didn't have the tools we do today - even a sound card impedance measurement is probably beyond what they used to design that one. Careful listening and playing with an equalizer can tell you where to put filter roll offs to make a driver sound its best. Again, a computer and free software can be used to emulate a 31-band EQ (don't even have to buy one anymore). Free circuit simulators replace long hand math. Full blown acoustic measurments are tough for a newbie and require more investment so for something like this I'd do it more the old-fashoined way, but leveraging new technology that you probably already have on hand.
That old crossover probably fed the signal in through the cap, and the horn off the resistor. It would need padding. The coils go to ground - as they are common between channels. The paper cone tweet lay have tapped before the dropping resistor or directly in parallel with the horn. The woofer probably ran full range.
Well, that explains the mystery, so I am very positive that wg_ski has the right answer:
There was no proper midrange driver; I see a " squeaker" which is the closed back driver as it was the fashion in those days.
So the 8 uF/ 1mH (probably, around...) is the HP for the horn.
Arguably, the woofer will sound best with LP filter and in a U-frame ( box-with-no-back ) and any old portable stereo radio speakers in the range 3/10 W ( 4" fullranges ) would serve as a real midrange driver. HP Fc would need to be halved, so C is going to be in the 10/20 uF range ( and the coil accordingly ...).
I would leave the tweeter horn for other projects; at that time they couldn't manage to design something that now performs 100 times better at the same price ( 10 $ !?! )
So the 8 uF/ 1mH (probably, around...) is the HP for the horn.
Arguably, the woofer will sound best with LP filter and in a U-frame ( box-with-no-back ) and any old portable stereo radio speakers in the range 3/10 W ( 4" fullranges ) would serve as a real midrange driver. HP Fc would need to be halved, so C is going to be in the 10/20 uF range ( and the coil accordingly ...).
I would leave the tweeter horn for other projects; at that time they couldn't manage to design something that now performs 100 times better at the same price ( 10 $ !?! )
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