Hi All!
After some good advice and areas to look further into after my first post on the forum, I think I've selected a pair of drivers for my 2.0 build and hope that others might be able to take a look and let me know if I've overlooked anything or might be leaving performance or money on the table.
I plan to use Peerless D27TG35-06 Tweeter and Peerless 835025 6-1/2" Aluminum Cone HDS Woofer with a passive crossover that I will build around 2.5kHz.
I've calculated a vented box volume of 0.553 ft^3 with a 2" D, 4" L flanged down-firing port. I selected down-firing based on the location the speakers will need to be placed in; roughly 3' from listening position with 1.5' of space from the wall for one and window for the other on the side, and 2' from the back for another wall and window. Overall room size is about 10'x8'x11' which I will be treating after getting the setup together.
I'm currently in the process of building the Leach Amp to power this setup.
Looking forward to any feedback!
After some good advice and areas to look further into after my first post on the forum, I think I've selected a pair of drivers for my 2.0 build and hope that others might be able to take a look and let me know if I've overlooked anything or might be leaving performance or money on the table.
I plan to use Peerless D27TG35-06 Tweeter and Peerless 835025 6-1/2" Aluminum Cone HDS Woofer with a passive crossover that I will build around 2.5kHz.
I've calculated a vented box volume of 0.553 ft^3 with a 2" D, 4" L flanged down-firing port. I selected down-firing based on the location the speakers will need to be placed in; roughly 3' from listening position with 1.5' of space from the wall for one and window for the other on the side, and 2' from the back for another wall and window. Overall room size is about 10'x8'x11' which I will be treating after getting the setup together.
I'm currently in the process of building the Leach Amp to power this setup.
Looking forward to any feedback!
Long story short: use this woofer instead! The alu cone’s breakup will give you crossover headaches.
I wouldn’t worry about a specialized port exit given your placement.…….2x the port diameter to boundary is fine
Using Peerless drivers will be problematic if a driver needs replacing a few years down the road…..they’re getting out of the non OE market segment and what’s available now is existing quantities
I’m guessing this is a narrow/petite tower speaker….something like a Totem? If so, you need to be mindful of pipe resonance when you attempt to use the entire cabinet volume.…..overlapping standing waves to simplify it…..when the bass driver plays the tone(s) , the resonance will be excited. You’d need to stuff the enclosure volume to prevent or ‘tune’ this to your advantage otherwise. Ported systems output would be unpredictable in this case…..lots of trial and error. I’d only consider around 24” of the enclosure’s internal volume useable to avoid all of this……or maybe you’ve factored that in by using the downfiring port and stuffing around the tube?……..that might work…….just make sure the port is 4” off of the floor to keep from developing more unwanted resonance. You can google the Polk audio power port…..I think the design white paper is still out there and Polk still uses this design today.
Good advice, I wasn't aware of this!
I have a feeling I'll be bitten by this bug for a long time to come so I may end up using this setup for a bit then build some more substantial after getting out of school and learning what I like and dislike just from this project.
I'd been thinking about that because I am particular to the look of floor standing, but my research seemed to bare out that my room would be too small for that to be a good decision, so my thoughts were a stand mounted speaker with a stand I'd build that supports the back two corners and front midpoint like a triangle to allow for the port to do its thing.
Would that be ill advised and a narrow floor standing is viable for my space?
I was planning on buying some foam to try different placements within the enclosure (back only/plus sides/plus top/plus surrounding the port tube) based on some feedback I'd read on other port related questions and foam padding.
The surrounding the tube was purely intuitive as my audio course didn't cover what to do around the port, only how to calculate it based on driver and enclosure parameters.
While this is a viable argument, there never has been certainty about this with a lot of drivers and brands. And I almost never had to replace drivers in my life because of ‘problems‘ (only abuse from party use). Repair or replace because of ageing yes, but at that point new identical drivers never were available.
What happens below the enclosure doesn’t matter if the dimensions are nearly the same, so a bookshelf speaker on an open stand would be no different than if the stand were a closed box. Narrow tower speakers as Totem has been doing for decades literally disappear into the soundstage and the extra enclosure volume typically allows for lower or cleaner bass response. If it were me, i wouldn’t hesitate on the tower.
Interesting, I only briefly looked before, but the images had me thinking the Totem 2way was over 4' but it's actually shorter. I'm concerned if I went that short the edges of my desk would interfere with propagation.
I'll have to do some measurements to see how short I can make them such that there isn't interference and I can slightly angle like the Totem to reach my head.
If those dimensions end up being too much box, are you suggesting closing off the area I don't need and stuffing it? That makes sense given the fact I don't require a down firing port
I'll have to do some measurements to see how short I can make them such that there isn't interference and I can slightly angle like the Totem to reach my head.
If those dimensions end up being too much box, are you suggesting closing off the area I don't need and stuffing it? That makes sense given the fact I don't require a down firing port
I guess I’m a bit lost now…….you’re building a set of 2 ways for desktop use?……or are you building a set of two ways adaptable to multiple environments hoping to support them with stands where necessary?
Ah yes, explaining further is probably helpful. Picture is worth a thousand words:
This was my current plan with the box volume I'd calculated.
Here is what my reply was saying, assuming I'd keep the same VAB of these, but just close off the 'stand' into looking like a floor standing:
They'd be stationary in this position.
Oh boy…….you’ve got some challenges here with corner loading anything like that and then cross firing them?……you‘re listening experience is going to be akin to a giant pair of headphones. I’ve done this May years ago……and i would strongly suggest you abandon the mission. Stereo masters are NOT engineered to work well in that use case at all…..the cross phase cancellations at the LP (inside your head) become extremely fatiguing after 20 minutes as your brain is working overtime to make sense of it all.
DIY is your friend here and the ultimate solution when designing to fit a specific environment/use case. In your environment, a forward firing system is all I would ever consider. Bass will take care of itself quite easily on the cheap here…..tuck a small sealed subwoofer in each corner to the left and right of the desk and you’re done. Now all you need to handle is 100hz and up…..you don’t need much space to do that effectively in the nearfield.
I can tell you as a recording engineer, to date I have found no system better for a small nearfield monitoring solution
https://www.sweetwater.com/c405--Ac...ASWgyMk33gk_oAhze2RoCGSkQAvD_BwE&gclsrc=aw.ds
If this were me, I’d suggest you instead purchase this and then build your subs and manage those with DSP as well. The performance value will outshine anything you could possibly build as a 2 way in your space and as your placement is currently intended. Add in that the solution I propose is in fact adaptable to many environments if the need arises in the future.
DIY is your friend here and the ultimate solution when designing to fit a specific environment/use case. In your environment, a forward firing system is all I would ever consider. Bass will take care of itself quite easily on the cheap here…..tuck a small sealed subwoofer in each corner to the left and right of the desk and you’re done. Now all you need to handle is 100hz and up…..you don’t need much space to do that effectively in the nearfield.
I can tell you as a recording engineer, to date I have found no system better for a small nearfield monitoring solution
https://www.sweetwater.com/c405--Ac...ASWgyMk33gk_oAhze2RoCGSkQAvD_BwE&gclsrc=aw.ds
If this were me, I’d suggest you instead purchase this and then build your subs and manage those with DSP as well. The performance value will outshine anything you could possibly build as a 2 way in your space and as your placement is currently intended. Add in that the solution I propose is in fact adaptable to many environments if the need arises in the future.
Common wisdom tells us that for a perception of the stereo image the base of the listening triangle (distance between speakers) should be more or less equal to that between speaker and listener.
Yeah it is a pretty terrible environment, but I'm hoping to work with what I've got and why I'm leaning into the DIY of it.
Here's a mock up of the entire space:
https://www.diyaudio.com/community/...ing-a-2-0-or-2-1-studio-monitor-setup.408984/
I'm not opposed to this suggestion, however I'm hoping to keep the budget somewhat tight (~$400 for the speakers to leave budget for room treatment and amp), is DIY'ing something like those you linked realistic, even if somewhat worse performance at the benefit of cost saving? Would the Leach amp be way overkill here and I should instead be looking at something like the ACA Mini. I'm an EE at GaTech now, so there is some nostalgia to building it, but I don't want to let emotion overtake reality.
Alternatively, would suspending from the ceiling and decreasing the distance between each speaker offer any alternatives? I imagine there's a whole host of other considerations at that point which are introduced.
To give you some inspiration this design offers the response published mounted on-wall. So no need to pull them out and have the inevitable comb filter cancellations from the reflected wave from the front wall. These happen in the low midrange region. Which is quite crucial when recording and mixing. Just a thought…
I ended up going down a bit of a side path reading about on wall positioning after trying to search for info on the hanging idea.
I didn't happen upon these specific builds and like the look of them and the performance is promising. If I were to go this route, does it end up becoming a 2.2 system with tweeters on the wall and subs in traditional enclosures on either side?
I didn't happen upon these specific builds and like the look of them and the performance is promising. If I were to go this route, does it end up becoming a 2.2 system with tweeters on the wall and subs in traditional enclosures on either side?
You can always build the Heissmann design. Just have to pay for the receipt, which is only fair. Don’t underestimate the difficulty in designing a crossover! Without your own measurements you won’t get close to any quality.
I'm tempted to do that, however it looks like the tweeter is currently backordered and the woofer is priced individually at probably my max per pair. I'm afraid if I were to try with new drivers I'd end up needing to redo a lot of what was determined from the originals.
Is there a more important T/S value that I should look to match if I'm trying to make a budget version?
For measurements I have access to an impedance analyzer to verify driver parameters as well as 2x Behringer ECM8000 mics. Do you think this would be enough to try and design crossovers? The actual filter I'm confident in as that's all I've really studied for my degree
Is there a more important T/S value that I should look to match if I'm trying to make a budget version?
For measurements I have access to an impedance analyzer to verify driver parameters as well as 2x Behringer ECM8000 mics. Do you think this would be enough to try and design crossovers? The actual filter I'm confident in as that's all I've really studied for my degree
Do you possess a sound card (any old card would do, it should not be fancy) with synchronous AD/DA and a mike input with +48V? Plus a microphone stand? If so and if your impedance analyser (what's that?) works properly, you have all you need to measure everything you will need to design a crossover. That really makes things easier. The Heissmann enclosure can be copied and with relatively cheap drivers you could get excellent results. Like:
This woofer
This tweeter
and, if you dare (but you'll get things really right, then):
This waveguide plus some appropriate mounting device (I think Heissmann gives clues for that on his site).
This woofer
This tweeter
and, if you dare (but you'll get things really right, then):
This waveguide plus some appropriate mounting device (I think Heissmann gives clues for that on his site).
I do have an external sound card, the Scarlet 2i4, which I think has everything you've mentioned.
I'm not sure if the impedance analyzer will be that relevant aside from checking to see how far the drivers I receive stray from the manufacturer specs given most of what I'll be correcting for in the crossover will be related to the room and enclosure rather than the physical characteristics of the driver. You hook up the leads to the driver and it will sweep from 20hz up to 1mhz if you want and give a graph of the driver's impedance across that range. We used it in a class to derive T/S parameters of an unknown driver based on the graph.
I was recommended looking into waveguides on my first post here, so I think I'll also dive further into that topic
I'm not sure if the impedance analyzer will be that relevant aside from checking to see how far the drivers I receive stray from the manufacturer specs given most of what I'll be correcting for in the crossover will be related to the room and enclosure rather than the physical characteristics of the driver. You hook up the leads to the driver and it will sweep from 20hz up to 1mhz if you want and give a graph of the driver's impedance across that range. We used it in a class to derive T/S parameters of an unknown driver based on the graph.
I was recommended looking into waveguides on my first post here, so I think I'll also dive further into that topic