Hi to all,
12 years ago I have bought Dynaudio floorstanders. They have proven to be very bad for rock /disco music that I occasionally listen. At the time I was younger and inexperienced to notice what a terrible choice I made.
Over time I have listened to home speakers that suited my taste. Among them were Cerwin Vega and Klipsch. They were speakers that could provide me round / focused / punch bass that hits me in the chest. I was also DJ and I got addicted to that sound. I need to have that punchy kick bass in 100-300Hz that makes me move.
Trying to find a better replacement on the internet I found this site. I see you create nice speakers similar to what I need. But so far I could not find exactly what I need so somebody could point me where to look. My targets and limitations are:
- For home listening but also could be for small clubs (50-100 people). So it needs to be a mix of Hi Fi and PA.
- Max width could be 18", so if there is 15" bass design that could suite this - great. Otherwise 12" is OK.
- I prefer 3-way
- Bass should go bellow 40Hz.
- It has have nice audiophile features - hi fi details, 3D, warm mids, not harsh at highs,....basically a sound that is as “hi-fi ” as reasonably possible and to show some PA attributes.
- My budget is up $1,200 for parts
Bob Crites CS-1.5 and Darren Kuzma's design of The Blue Wonders are the ones that are interesting. But, 1st is 2-way and goes to only to 40hz and the 2nd is too big.
Your opinion is the one I would appreciate.
Vladimir
12 years ago I have bought Dynaudio floorstanders. They have proven to be very bad for rock /disco music that I occasionally listen. At the time I was younger and inexperienced to notice what a terrible choice I made.
Over time I have listened to home speakers that suited my taste. Among them were Cerwin Vega and Klipsch. They were speakers that could provide me round / focused / punch bass that hits me in the chest. I was also DJ and I got addicted to that sound. I need to have that punchy kick bass in 100-300Hz that makes me move.
Trying to find a better replacement on the internet I found this site. I see you create nice speakers similar to what I need. But so far I could not find exactly what I need so somebody could point me where to look. My targets and limitations are:
- For home listening but also could be for small clubs (50-100 people). So it needs to be a mix of Hi Fi and PA.
- Max width could be 18", so if there is 15" bass design that could suite this - great. Otherwise 12" is OK.
- I prefer 3-way
- Bass should go bellow 40Hz.
- It has have nice audiophile features - hi fi details, 3D, warm mids, not harsh at highs,....basically a sound that is as “hi-fi ” as reasonably possible and to show some PA attributes.
- My budget is up $1,200 for parts
Bob Crites CS-1.5 and Darren Kuzma's design of The Blue Wonders are the ones that are interesting. But, 1st is 2-way and goes to only to 40hz and the 2nd is too big.
Your opinion is the one I would appreciate.
Vladimir
Notes
For gigs the order of importance is as follows:
1: Portability
2: Reliability
3: Sound Quality
Use DSP and Separate Amps.
Double up the speech range (mid bass) drivers. (Say a pair of 10/12” in both Right and Left feeds)
For the sub, double your budget for a superior disco sound. You need to move some air here.
Pair of 15” drivers, Minimum, in Separate BR Enclosures for Portability (to be stacked at venue).
Use P-Audio SD drivers to maintain the low budget while keeping reliability high.
The at-home requirement is trivial by comparison.
The system will be operated at a very low level there.
Regards,
WHG
For gigs the order of importance is as follows:
1: Portability
2: Reliability
3: Sound Quality
Use DSP and Separate Amps.
Double up the speech range (mid bass) drivers. (Say a pair of 10/12” in both Right and Left feeds)
For the sub, double your budget for a superior disco sound. You need to move some air here.
Pair of 15” drivers, Minimum, in Separate BR Enclosures for Portability (to be stacked at venue).
Use P-Audio SD drivers to maintain the low budget while keeping reliability high.
The at-home requirement is trivial by comparison.
The system will be operated at a very low level there.
Regards,
WHG
Another way to see it, reversely... the rebirth of the SE triode and
the low power available with that application had made possible to bring
inside homes some overgrown speakers that are the ones capable of making
> 90 dB air pressure with 1 W.
But usually those aren't the people that likes to be hit in the chest & stomach
by the bass line.
Basically, it's a matter of max power that each speaker can sustain, then there's the efficiency
and the sum of each's ; that's also the big division between home Vs. pro speakers
and the need to control each speaker in its working band, trough accurate crossover-ing or
DSP ( which wasn't particularly accurate 10 y. ago and analogic manipulation has always failed ...)
The power in the system can be fractioned in sub+sat so same specialization can be directed
also toward a three way speaker system. It's just a matter of crossover slopes and peaks that
can be managed by a speaker, and I wouldn' go for a > 7-8'' woofer inside a room
Last edited:
I would look into something like the Econowave - a big 12" or 15" woofer, and a compression driver tweeter in a waveguide. This can probably get you close to 100dB sensitivity, although they most likely won't play as deep as you might like, and would probably require a subwoofer. Will certainly play loud enough for PA though.
I have a pair of speakers with a vented Eminence Beta-12 woofer and an Eminence PSD-something compression driver in the Dayton 12" circular waveguide. They play nice and loud with a couple hundred watt amp, and sound pretty good at home. But they definitely need a subwoofer for dance music.
I have a pair of speakers with a vented Eminence Beta-12 woofer and an Eminence PSD-something compression driver in the Dayton 12" circular waveguide. They play nice and loud with a couple hundred watt amp, and sound pretty good at home. But they definitely need a subwoofer for dance music.
for that budget I would say to go for BEC Cornscala. they perfectly match your budget and I could bet no other project can reach this high SPL as Cornscala does. they can go down to ~32Hz or so. 100db of efficiency makes you able to play them using low wattage amplifiers. but guess what, they are not PA speakers, they play pretty well in a hi-fi setup too, specially with SE tube amps.
Thank you guys for these helpful insights. It seems that I have to choose in which way the speakers should be more oriented - so I choose more Hi Fi over PA. Since they will mostly work in my room, I don't want my ears to heart from PA sound. So quality is 1st, reliability 2nd and portability 3rd.
Cornsala is very interesting design but its too large and heavy. If I could somehow reduce it dimensions up to Wmax=18" and 70lbs then would be ok. Also I live in a small country and these American parts are not available to me. What would be suitable replacements?
Perhaps Bob Crites CS 1.5 is more what I need. By making them taller what positive and negative side effects could I expect? I was thinking of extending them so I can get more deeper bass. If I rearrange them into 3-way speakers would it help to get bellow 40hz?
Cornsala is very interesting design but its too large and heavy. If I could somehow reduce it dimensions up to Wmax=18" and 70lbs then would be ok. Also I live in a small country and these American parts are not available to me. What would be suitable replacements?
Perhaps Bob Crites CS 1.5 is more what I need. By making them taller what positive and negative side effects could I expect? I was thinking of extending them so I can get more deeper bass. If I rearrange them into 3-way speakers would it help to get bellow 40hz?
Hi Vladimir,
you don't mention what country precisely you live in, but I assume you are in Europe, I think Thomann ships to most of Europe, and they have a good selection of drivers from companies like Eminence.
I'm curious why you want the speakers to go deeper than 40Hz if it's for rock/disco music. Have you analyzed the frequency of the music you want to play? I would be surprised if you need the speaker to go any deeper than about 40-50Hz, depending on how steep the bottom cutoff is.
The Crites CS-1.5 would seem to me like it should suffice, and is very much similar to the econowave style speakers I suggested. Threeway designs would be possible, but they are quite complicated compared to a 2-way, if you don' have a design to copy exactly.
you don't mention what country precisely you live in, but I assume you are in Europe, I think Thomann ships to most of Europe, and they have a good selection of drivers from companies like Eminence.
I'm curious why you want the speakers to go deeper than 40Hz if it's for rock/disco music. Have you analyzed the frequency of the music you want to play? I would be surprised if you need the speaker to go any deeper than about 40-50Hz, depending on how steep the bottom cutoff is.
The Crites CS-1.5 would seem to me like it should suffice, and is very much similar to the econowave style speakers I suggested. Threeway designs would be possible, but they are quite complicated compared to a 2-way, if you don' have a design to copy exactly.
Yea, I live in Serbia. I could get parts from Europe, but Bob Crites parts are over the ocean, his 2x15" in particular. That's why I asked for replacements.
I have a huge collection of different kind of music. It goes from downtempo / lounge / acid jazz /deep house / soulful house.../pop/...rock / heavy metal. So if you see it as left to right, most of my music is from the left and about 30% is rock / metal. I am a music lover more than a audiophile. 90% of it is flac (16/44.1), 5% is mp3 320 and 5% is Hi Res.
I got used also that my Dynaudio reproduces sounds that go bellow 40hz, there is not much of them, but anyway its annoying that I know that there is music there that is not reproduced. Some songs in jazz and house music are all about this deep bass.
Also I am all for quality, I don't want any bass I want very tide / focused bass. So lets say I could extend my wallet over 1200 dollars, can I get 3-way speakers within what I want? Is it worth it?
I have a huge collection of different kind of music. It goes from downtempo / lounge / acid jazz /deep house / soulful house.../pop/...rock / heavy metal. So if you see it as left to right, most of my music is from the left and about 30% is rock / metal. I am a music lover more than a audiophile. 90% of it is flac (16/44.1), 5% is mp3 320 and 5% is Hi Res.
I got used also that my Dynaudio reproduces sounds that go bellow 40hz, there is not much of them, but anyway its annoying that I know that there is music there that is not reproduced. Some songs in jazz and house music are all about this deep bass.
Also I am all for quality, I don't want any bass I want very tide / focused bass. So lets say I could extend my wallet over 1200 dollars, can I get 3-way speakers within what I want? Is it worth it?
I suggest you to design your own speaker. look for a good 15" woofer with sensitivity around 95-100db. also a compression driver 1 or 2 inches and proper horn and a tweeter if the CD won't go that high. you can build your own XOver
The German DIY speaker magazines Hobby HiFi and Klang& Ton frequently has speakers that is in the Pop and Rock genere. All the components can be bought from various vendors in EU such as Europe Audio. Many of these boxes does drop below say40 Hz or so. To get 20 Hz from a efficent 15" driver the box (or the Eq) has to be huge.
perhaps something like the Fab four in Klang & Ton 2010-1
perhaps something like the Fab four in Klang & Ton 2010-1
I am not an audio expert, but how can a 2 way speaker with 7" driver go way to 40hz? Like some dynaudio models do. Is it because they are not PA designed? A speaker with 15" driver should go much easier bellow? Am I correct?
I went to Klang & Ton, there is no 2010-1 issue. What is Fab four? Speakers, model? Can't find it.
Thank you for helping me.
I went to Klang & Ton, there is no 2010-1 issue. What is Fab four? Speakers, model? Can't find it.
Thank you for helping me.
Any speaker can go to 40Hz. The difference is how loud they go at 40Hz. This depends on how much air the speaker can move. a 15" speaker is about 4 times the surface area of a 7" speaker. So for a 7" speaker to go as deep as a 15" speaker and go equally loud, the 7" speaker would have to move 4 times as far back and forth - unlikely.
Why can't a 15" driver reach 40Hz then? Well, they could, but usually they are optimized to not play so deep. It's a trade off, the deeper you go, the less loud. For every octave you want to play deeper (= divide lowest frequency in half) you lose 12dB in output.
So a lot of these big driver designs you see, by only playing to 80Hz instead of 40Hz, they go 12dB louder (sound about twice as loud to the human ear). A worthwhile tradeoff if you're trying to fill a big club with sound.
Look at this image:
The volume referred to in this image is the surface of the driver cone multiplied by how far the cone moves.
EDIT: I should add, these values are for closed box / direct radiator only. With a vented box, you only need 1/4 of the displacement to get the same level, horns are even more efficient.
Last edited:
You might want to have a look at the 4PI speakers at Pi Speakers - unmatched quality and state-of-the-art performance
@DrBoar - Just found many issues on the internet. I will check them all. Need time for that, many interesting solutions.
@Don Bounce - Yea, good ideas from them but I live in Europe. Thanks.
@Don Bounce - Yea, good ideas from them but I live in Europe. Thanks.
How about the HiFi-PA speaker from HobbyHiFi? It's a 3-way consisting of Monacor and Celestion drivers. The 12" woofer works in a volume of 145 liters and reaches 46 Hz (-3 dB). Unfortunately the width of the cabinet is 50 cm, but a slight reduction to 45 cm should be possible, provided the tuning is adjusted accordingly.
Strassacker, Komponenten: Lautsprecher, Frequenzweichen, Bauelemente
Strassacker, Komponenten: Lautsprecher, Frequenzweichen, Bauelemente
Nice speaker, but not a good performer under 40Hz, in my book... (F-4 dB@40Hz), or a more rounded 145L version with less low freq. extension (F-3 dB@36 Hz) if you look at the roll-off. I know better 10"s doing that LF extension. 😱 Mid looks like is a good performer for that type of pro-sound speaker. Interesting but for me it's back to basics...
Monacor Schweiz AG - Lautsprecherchassis: PA-Basslautsprecher (SPA-112PA)
PA-Basslautsprecher img Stage Line SPA-112PA: Amazon.de: Elektronik
LF Pressed Chassis / Ferrite - TF0818 - Celestion - Guitar, Bass & Pro Audio Speakers
Celestion TF0818 Replacement PA Speaker (100 Watts) at zZounds
MONACOR INTERNATIONAL : MHD-220N/RD
MHD-220N/RD - PA horn tweeter - Europe Audio
Attachments
the classic 1951 Karlson "K15" design would be good - - P-Audio 15CXA or 15CXHA if still available would work - those run ~$265 each in the US including the BMD440 compression driver. The form factor at 33" tall by 22.5" side by 18" is a bit chunky.
HiFi-PA, Standbox in Hobby HiFi 5/2012 is also very interesting project. Thanks for the link. Unfortunately can't find the pdf anywhere so I can see how are the boxes divided. Do the wires only connect them through a small hole?
I was thinking of mixing to worlds. To use Eminence Definimax 4018 from the PA world and a mid and tweet from Hi Fi. Is this a good idea? Can they mix? For my goals do they all have to be PA?
Can you suggest me some nice combinations of drivers up to 800 euros that could do me a good job? Thanx.
I was thinking of mixing to worlds. To use Eminence Definimax 4018 from the PA world and a mid and tweet from Hi Fi. Is this a good idea? Can they mix? For my goals do they all have to be PA?
Can you suggest me some nice combinations of drivers up to 800 euros that could do me a good job? Thanx.
SB Acoustics has a bunch of distributors in Europe. I bet you could source all the parts for these:
The Madisound Speaker Store
The Madisound Speaker Store
Vladimir,
Let's start with something different in the same line of thinking, but from a different perspective.
Choose your mid first, this is going to be your main driver (sensitivity, f.range and all).
This is going to be the one you like but as an example the TF0818 - Celestion from the previous post, notice how it's sensitivity is high 94dB in almost all his bandpass range. This one decision can impact your later ones, for the final design. For woofers look at my latest post here with a complete list.
http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/multi-way/237850-my-snail-speaker-pheonix.html#post3559569
For mids, notice it's various sizes, also as an example only:
FaitalPRO | LF Loudspeakers | 6PR150
FaitalPRO | LF Loudspeakers | M5N8-80
EAW 6" Woofer 299-194
Celestion Neodymium 5" Full Range Woofer 8 Ohm 299-416
Home Page
H1262-08 MCA15RCY
Fane International Ltd Loud Speakers
Audax HM130Z0 Aerogel 13cm 5.25" woofer
http://profesional.beyma.com/pdf/5G40 NdE.pdf
Legacy Audio Midrange Driver Demonstration - YouTube
http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/mult...range-what-do-we-have-here-2.html#post3263943
http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/multi-way/236268-need-5-mid-8ohm-91-92db.html
Altoparlanti Midrange - Sica
http://www.rcf.it/c/document_librar...9b-fb28-4ac3-b9cf-f912e9cf3050&groupId=216492
Dayton Audio DS115-8 4" Designer Series Woofer 295-424
_Resuming, if you don't know how to design a speaker 😎 you should stay with an established kit, this is going to make your life (and ours) easier: (NPI, and example only) 😀
Strassacker: Speaker Building, Components
Design of the Month
Duetta - April 2012 - Loudspeakermagazine 2012 | Loudspeakerbuilding
http://www.solen.ca/v1/domont/eton11/eton11x.gif
Bass*-*Home-HiFi*-*Products*-*Eton GmbH
Let's start with something different in the same line of thinking, but from a different perspective.
Choose your mid first, this is going to be your main driver (sensitivity, f.range and all).
This is going to be the one you like but as an example the TF0818 - Celestion from the previous post, notice how it's sensitivity is high 94dB in almost all his bandpass range. This one decision can impact your later ones, for the final design. For woofers look at my latest post here with a complete list.
http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/multi-way/237850-my-snail-speaker-pheonix.html#post3559569
For mids, notice it's various sizes, also as an example only:
FaitalPRO | LF Loudspeakers | 6PR150
FaitalPRO | LF Loudspeakers | M5N8-80
EAW 6" Woofer 299-194
Celestion Neodymium 5" Full Range Woofer 8 Ohm 299-416
Home Page
H1262-08 MCA15RCY
Fane International Ltd Loud Speakers
Audax HM130Z0 Aerogel 13cm 5.25" woofer
http://profesional.beyma.com/pdf/5G40 NdE.pdf
Legacy Audio Midrange Driver Demonstration - YouTube
http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/mult...range-what-do-we-have-here-2.html#post3263943
http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/multi-way/236268-need-5-mid-8ohm-91-92db.html
Altoparlanti Midrange - Sica
http://www.rcf.it/c/document_librar...9b-fb28-4ac3-b9cf-f912e9cf3050&groupId=216492
Dayton Audio DS115-8 4" Designer Series Woofer 295-424
_Resuming, if you don't know how to design a speaker 😎 you should stay with an established kit, this is going to make your life (and ours) easier: (NPI, and example only) 😀
Strassacker: Speaker Building, Components
Design of the Month
Duetta - April 2012 - Loudspeakermagazine 2012 | Loudspeakerbuilding
http://www.solen.ca/v1/domont/eton11/eton11x.gif
Bass*-*Home-HiFi*-*Products*-*Eton GmbH
- Status
- Not open for further replies.