Hi to You all ! 🙂
Sorry for the weird question but one of my recurrent doubt for a long term 3 ways speaker project is the decision of the cut frequency between the woofer and the mid that i have decided will be a cone mid.
I was talking to a friend who sustains that there are slow bass and fast bass. And that a good design choice would be to send the slow ones to the woofer and the fast to the midrange.
I have already seen in this forum some graphs showing some TID products when a same cone is asked to reproduce a strong low Hz bass and a tone around 1kHz ... there are many spikes in between the two frequencies. Not good at all.
Problem is where slow basses finish and fast ones start. This for me is the very fundamental choice that influences any other choice from drivers to x-over ... and also cabinet, but this is another issue (i would like to keep the woofer in a separate enclosure in order to deal more easily with its huge vibrations. It should be a powered woofer almost certainly).
In some very high level commercial products i see 150Hz. So i guess it should be a good choice ?
Then i read about another design choice to reproduce all human voice spectrum with a same driver .
But this would extend the mid range down to 100 Hz or so up to 4kHz. Almost a mission impossible 😱
In conclusion, i am sincerely lost. Really.
Any kind suggestion ?
Thanks a lot.
gino
Sorry for the weird question but one of my recurrent doubt for a long term 3 ways speaker project is the decision of the cut frequency between the woofer and the mid that i have decided will be a cone mid.
I was talking to a friend who sustains that there are slow bass and fast bass. And that a good design choice would be to send the slow ones to the woofer and the fast to the midrange.
I have already seen in this forum some graphs showing some TID products when a same cone is asked to reproduce a strong low Hz bass and a tone around 1kHz ... there are many spikes in between the two frequencies. Not good at all.
Problem is where slow basses finish and fast ones start. This for me is the very fundamental choice that influences any other choice from drivers to x-over ... and also cabinet, but this is another issue (i would like to keep the woofer in a separate enclosure in order to deal more easily with its huge vibrations. It should be a powered woofer almost certainly).
In some very high level commercial products i see 150Hz. So i guess it should be a good choice ?
Then i read about another design choice to reproduce all human voice spectrum with a same driver .
But this would extend the mid range down to 100 Hz or so up to 4kHz. Almost a mission impossible 😱
In conclusion, i am sincerely lost. Really.
Any kind suggestion ?
Thanks a lot.
gino
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I think "fast and slow" bass comes from car audio, with subwoofers way back in the trunk, not time matched to the front drivers - nor phase adjusted. Can sound like ... slow bass, as the bass hits always lag behind the music.
If I where to build a speaker, I would do a nice "wide range" driver and 4 big *** subs (2x40-80Hz and 2x10-40. Tweeter? I guess we could do that.
Stay within the linear response range of your chosen drivers, build everything around plate amps and miniDSP (or similar) to do baffle step corrections, slopes, orders - you can try amost any xover with that. At least that is what I would do.
Sub xover at "depending on the speakers" 38 to 65
If I where to build a speaker, I would do a nice "wide range" driver and 4 big *** subs (2x40-80Hz and 2x10-40. Tweeter? I guess we could do that.
Stay within the linear response range of your chosen drivers, build everything around plate amps and miniDSP (or similar) to do baffle step corrections, slopes, orders - you can try amost any xover with that. At least that is what I would do.
Sub xover at "depending on the speakers" 38 to 65
Hi and thanks a lot for the kind and valuable reply.
I am not at all in car audio. I have found that music in car distracts me a lot, and the better the music quality the more i got distracted while driving.
This is partly what i am thinking as well. I would like to keep the 150-3000 Hz range on the same driver.
I was even thinking to a guitar speaker .... very efficient and maybe good also with the voice.
I understand that tweeter is a non issue. When they are used above 4 kHz many can do fine. Really it does not worry me particularly.
I am looking at a 3 ways solution anyway. 4 ways are too many.
Thank you very much indeed.
Regards, gino
P.S. as an example something like this here
but with the woofer mounted in a proper cabinet. The wideband driver can Always be completed in the highs with a decent tweeter.
From some graphs i have seen that even very cheap tweeters when cut at 4-5 kHz can do just fine in normal home condition (i.e. in rooms not too big).
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Music is not only bass, it has also mids and high frequency as well, and if you want to go so low with the bass, you need big speaker (minim 12inci) and big speaker can not go very low and very high (until 600-800hz) in the same time.
A mid that can be cut at 3Khz-4Khz need to be small - 3 max 4 inci and this kind of speakers can't go until 150hz, so you will need 4 way speaker or you will need to accept a cut between mid and tweeter at 2Khz-2.5Khz.
A mid that can be cut at 3Khz-4Khz need to be small - 3 max 4 inci and this kind of speakers can't go until 150hz, so you will need 4 way speaker or you will need to accept a cut between mid and tweeter at 2Khz-2.5Khz.
Hi and thanks a lot for the very helpful advice.
It looks like the options are limited.
I think i will live with a more conventional solution.
And give up with the lower Hz below let's say 40 Hz or something like that.
Thanks again, gino
It looks like the options are limited.
I think i will live with a more conventional solution.
And give up with the lower Hz below let's say 40 Hz or something like that.
Thanks again, gino
Many many moons and suns ago I did build something like that, the idea was to use a wideband ca. 4-5" as a mid element and upper crossover was set at something like 5kHz, considering the lowish budget of the build I got very good result with it.
Bache Audio calls their speakers an "extended full range" design. It uses the 8" Tang Band W8-1772 without its wizzer cone to cover 100-8,000Hz, with crossovers to a woofer and horn tweeter to properly fill out the full audio range. Model 01 is a 3-way design. Model 02AB is a 4-way design
Products | BACHE Audio | New York Based Custom Loudspeaker Company
Bache Audio 001 Loudspeaker Review
Products | BACHE Audio | New York Based Custom Loudspeaker Company
Bache Audio 001 Loudspeaker Review
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Fast and slow bass.
I also think most of it is from the 80hz crossover.
It has delay at 80hz, sweeping back to zero phase towards a few hz, so think 10ms or more delay at 50hz.
And cars resonate below 100hz, free gain. But they have to ring down.
Porteds are as quick as a sealed at twice tuning, so tune to 30hz and you'll be fine.
Alignment and phase adds transients and speed.
A deep sub can seem slower because it goes low.
I stuffed my ports, went from f3 tuning near 30hz to sealed a squeek smaller than .8 qtc, bass was less, not any quicker, a lot less bass, like 6db.
I find 2 way crossed at 750hz is awesomely fast, but i think that is due to no crossover time/phase problems in midrange and bass (maybe 300hz down).
But everyones opinion is affected by their journey.
I also think most of it is from the 80hz crossover.
It has delay at 80hz, sweeping back to zero phase towards a few hz, so think 10ms or more delay at 50hz.
And cars resonate below 100hz, free gain. But they have to ring down.
Porteds are as quick as a sealed at twice tuning, so tune to 30hz and you'll be fine.
Alignment and phase adds transients and speed.
A deep sub can seem slower because it goes low.
I stuffed my ports, went from f3 tuning near 30hz to sealed a squeek smaller than .8 qtc, bass was less, not any quicker, a lot less bass, like 6db.
I find 2 way crossed at 750hz is awesomely fast, but i think that is due to no crossover time/phase problems in midrange and bass (maybe 300hz down).
But everyones opinion is affected by their journey.
Hi ! thanks for the great advice. It is this obsession of reproducing most of all human voice spectrum with the same driver to try to get a particular coherence in the sound ? Thinking a little more a driver able to do this is very rare. Maybe some planar drivers ?
But it is true that the great majority of speakers have x-over cuts within the voice band. So it must be just an obsession of mine.
Hi thanks for the great advice. yes that was the idea. Given that 4 ways are needed for a good full range with conventional drivers it seems obvious that a 3 and even more a 2 ways speaker will have compromise.
Unless not conventional drivers are used. Maybe i should start studying planars. With a planar just a generous woofer is needed.
And it will be a simple 2 ways.
Hi thanks for the very valuable advice.
I think that the driver selection is the point.
Only a wideband driver can give me 100-3000 Hz range.
However it is true that very few conventional speakers have this wide midrange.
It is this coherence idea that fascinates me a lot.
Clearly dispersion will suffer on the midhigh but a WB plus woofer and TW ... maybe it works fine.
I have at the planars on youtube ... i really hate wide front baffle ... i like slim and tall.
Gino, welcome back home! All the issues, doubts, fairytale stories will disappear once you have a decent XO network for the intended drivers. If you state your thoughts in exact data, we may be able to offer concrete solutions and suggestions.
Hi ! thank you very much indeed for the kind welcome and valuable advice.
That is the first issue ... the intended drivers (i.e. the driver selection).
just to give some more information for me reproduction of voices is almost everything. I love voices. I need a great result with them.
As i said i have developed this obsession of this coherence issue .. not that i have clear idea.
But the idea of reproducing as much as possible of the voice band with a same driver sounds very good to me.
As it is an extremely challenging task the second best option is to set the cut frequency inside the voice band where it is less likely to create issues.
Speaking of 3 ways i see speakers with cone and dome mids.
I tend to prefer cones because this solution allows for a lower crossover point with the woofer.
In some experiments with an electronic x-over 24dB/octave i noticed that a small bookshelf was sounding quite better in the mid when it was cut at around 120 Hz.
The sound was coming out much cleaner (aside of course the lack of lower bass).
How much low is the question.
Then when crossover points are fixed, the drivers selection process can start.
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Okay Gino, I won't try to impose my vision of good engineering practice to not ruin your current idea of a single driver covering vast range of frequencies. You are left with the design decision how small of a midrange cone unit has to be to extend high enough and without break-up issues to meet your criteria of good sound and then choose one with low enough of an Fs and Xmax capability. Your turn.
edit: What do you say, XO frequencies=125 Hz; 4 kHz; that is 5 octaves coverage, a 4" unit in a sealed enclosure that would have a natural high pass at such XO point with minimum of XO parts, not counting necessary impedance flattening within a passive version, I don't know, have to simulate first. A Peerless 4" PPB cone is a good start.
edit: What do you say, XO frequencies=125 Hz; 4 kHz; that is 5 octaves coverage, a 4" unit in a sealed enclosure that would have a natural high pass at such XO point with minimum of XO parts, not counting necessary impedance flattening within a passive version, I don't know, have to simulate first. A Peerless 4" PPB cone is a good start.
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Hi and thanks again for the valuable advice.
I understand better now it is a mission impossible. Unless big planar drivers are used (those really can cover from 100 to 5000 without problem. I think to isodinamic drivers and electrostatic ones).
I am against electrostatic but not isodinamic. I will try to listen to them.
Thanks for the advice but i am afraid that a 4" driver will struggle a lot with high level signals at 125 Hz.
I have seen some distortion graphs and to get 100dB at around 1 meter with acceptable distortion at 125 Hz a much bigger 7-8" driver is needed.
For instance this one here
Peerless by Tymphany 830870 4" PPB Cone HDS Woofer
means that is usable down to about 200 Hz ... a Fs of 50 or lower is needed to get 100 Hz.
An externally hosted image should be here but it was not working when we last tested it.
i am even looking at stage monitors to find something really great with voices. The rest of the audio range below and above i do not feel as a big problem. Midrange is. Where the sound is made or broken.
Hi and thanks a lot for the very valuable advice.
Yes. I think this is a very good option and extremely cheap too 😀
above it almost any decent tweeter will be enough. And below it almost any decent woofer will complete the range.
Thanks again. 🙂
keep in mind that the better stage monitors are tailored for direct/nearfield response with respect to the primary boundary the floor they are on.
i agree 100% with the the statement "Midrange is where the sound is made or broken"
it's even more true when your a monitor tech.
flat on axis response and good narrow directivity is key to not having multiple sources interfere with each other.
i agree 100% with the the statement "Midrange is where the sound is made or broken"
it's even more true when your a monitor tech.
flat on axis response and good narrow directivity is key to not having multiple sources interfere with each other.
Hi ! thanks for the helpful advice. I have never listened from more than 2.5- 3 meters from the speakers. I do not know if this can be considered near field honestly.
What interests me more is the drivers used in these monitors just to get some ideas
my dream was to become a recording engineer ... i love that job. But here in Italy opportunities are almost not existing.
Good ! i am trying to fix some points. I am not worried at all about a maybe too narrow sweet-spot. I usually listen to music alone.
I think i am on the right track. As i said low bass and highs do not worry me much. That can be done quite easily. But midrange is critical.
Thanks a lot again.
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I really like the Peerless 830xxx based drivers for mids-woofers but they lack the top end that the Faital 5FE120 has, makind them more tweeter fussy.
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