Hello all,
I am a long time audio engineer and a noobie speaker builder.
I have seen some speakers that are stereo (two woofers in one enclosure each receiving a different signal left and right) with a single tweeter.
This seems simple enough, my issue though is that I have a BT receiver and amplifier in one circuit. So aside from messing with that circuit board, I will have a 50W left channel going to the left woofer and tweeter then a 50W right channel going to the right woofer and the same tweeter.
This doesn't seem correct to me. I'll be combining the positive from both sides providing a lot of power to the tweeter and possibly causing some other issues.
Obviously these things won't be rolling at full blast but I would still like to know the proper way to wire something like this...or is the only way to mix the signal pre amplification and send that to a different amp and then on to the tweeter.
Thanks!
I am a long time audio engineer and a noobie speaker builder.
I have seen some speakers that are stereo (two woofers in one enclosure each receiving a different signal left and right) with a single tweeter.
This seems simple enough, my issue though is that I have a BT receiver and amplifier in one circuit. So aside from messing with that circuit board, I will have a 50W left channel going to the left woofer and tweeter then a 50W right channel going to the right woofer and the same tweeter.
This doesn't seem correct to me. I'll be combining the positive from both sides providing a lot of power to the tweeter and possibly causing some other issues.
Obviously these things won't be rolling at full blast but I would still like to know the proper way to wire something like this...or is the only way to mix the signal pre amplification and send that to a different amp and then on to the tweeter.
Thanks!
In jukeboxes we used to do it the opposite. A common woofer and separate tweeters. The ear is much less directional on low notes. In commercial PA systems, the subwoofers are driven by a sum signal from left and right channels, again, the ear is not directional on low notes.
Nonetheless, you have what you want so we go with that.
I don;t follow your wiring. If you have the positive lead from each channel going to th tweeter terminals, the standard bridged connection, then the tweeter only sees the difference between the channels. If the signal is mono - same on both channels - then the signal on both outputs is the same and across a tweeter would be nothing.
If you are grounding one side of the tweter, and combining left and right to the hot side, than I hope you have some mixing resistors at least, otherwise you are shorting the channels together.
And one wownders if it is worth the extra effort to eliminate one tweeter. is there no room for two of them?
Nonetheless, you have what you want so we go with that.
I don;t follow your wiring. If you have the positive lead from each channel going to th tweeter terminals, the standard bridged connection, then the tweeter only sees the difference between the channels. If the signal is mono - same on both channels - then the signal on both outputs is the same and across a tweeter would be nothing.
If you are grounding one side of the tweter, and combining left and right to the hot side, than I hope you have some mixing resistors at least, otherwise you are shorting the channels together.
And one wownders if it is worth the extra effort to eliminate one tweeter. is there no room for two of them?
Yes this is exactly my issue. I would be shorting out the hot which I know is not a good call.
As far as why one tweeter, This is meant to be a desktop or living room bluetooth speaker. So while I can definitely build it any size I like to fit two tweeters, honestly I just like the look of a tweeter in the middle of two woofers. This was more a journey of education as I have seen speakers like this and it got me thinking if that's a stereo setup, but still only one tweeter, how is that wired?
Would you mind delving a bit further into the mixing resister? Is this just to place a load so you don't short out the hot between the left and right? Are there other better ways to do this?
I know ideally any summing to mono would be done before any amplification, but if I wish to keep the stereo image at all, I couldn't do that with this amplifier circuit.
And by the way this is with relatively small speakers. I forget the exact specs at this point but the woofers are around 200hz to 13kHz. So still a decent amount of high-mid and high in there for irrationality.
I am fine using both tweeters, but for educational purposes, any thoughts?
As far as why one tweeter, This is meant to be a desktop or living room bluetooth speaker. So while I can definitely build it any size I like to fit two tweeters, honestly I just like the look of a tweeter in the middle of two woofers. This was more a journey of education as I have seen speakers like this and it got me thinking if that's a stereo setup, but still only one tweeter, how is that wired?
Would you mind delving a bit further into the mixing resister? Is this just to place a load so you don't short out the hot between the left and right? Are there other better ways to do this?
I know ideally any summing to mono would be done before any amplification, but if I wish to keep the stereo image at all, I couldn't do that with this amplifier circuit.
And by the way this is with relatively small speakers. I forget the exact specs at this point but the woofers are around 200hz to 13kHz. So still a decent amount of high-mid and high in there for irrationality.
I am fine using both tweeters, but for educational purposes, any thoughts?
I'm really curious as to how you're so convinced the speaker you've seen actually used a stereo configuration for the bass drivers with 1 tweeter, as a setup like this would be pretty pointless and makes next to no sense whatsoever. If something like this actually does exist, I'd very much like to see it, as well as find out the reasoning behind it. If you want to use your pair of drivers with a single tweeter, design a relatively simple MTM or TMM, and bridge your amplifier to your chosen design (IF the amplifier is capable of running in bridged mode and can do so at the final impedance of the system). If the amp cannot operate in this fashion, or if the resulting impedance from the finished speaker is too low for the amplifier to drive in a bridged configuration, then choose between wasting an amp channel (I do not know why anyone would want to do this, given a choice), or just use both mids and tweeters to build a pair of small speakers, or have it contained in a single enclosure, operating as a stereo pair, utilizing both channels of your stereo amplifier in either case. Good luck. 
Yes well it very well could be a mono build truth be told. I'm not so convinced.
I'd like to not waste a channel. I just really enjoy the look of the single tweeter. I'm still in the design stage so I thought I would ask about utilizing stereo still while still keeping the look I enjoy of 1 tweeter. Purely aesthetic, which is a part of design.
I'll look into your given solutions and see if they work for me or if it's just wiser to build 2 woofers and 2 tweeters into one enclosure.
Appreciate the reply.
I'd like to not waste a channel. I just really enjoy the look of the single tweeter. I'm still in the design stage so I thought I would ask about utilizing stereo still while still keeping the look I enjoy of 1 tweeter. Purely aesthetic, which is a part of design.
I'll look into your given solutions and see if they work for me or if it's just wiser to build 2 woofers and 2 tweeters into one enclosure.
Appreciate the reply.
See here...
The stereolith has the configuration you describe - see here
http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/multi-way/10962-stereolith-loudspeakers-question.html. Somewhere in there there is a wiring diagram IIRC...
The stereolith has the configuration you describe - see here
http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/multi-way/10962-stereolith-loudspeakers-question.html. Somewhere in there there is a wiring diagram IIRC...
Oh awesome. Thanks very much. Again not sure how necessary it is to do it as I'm describing, I might get more stereo image with one woofer and two tweeters, but being new to building, I want to explore possibilities.
Thanks!
Thanks!
Hello, i have built a stereo loudspeaker with just one tweeter, see my blog. I had a more detailed topic describing it and its development in this forum, but social issues were stronger than technical ones, so it went down the drain. If thou are gonna build such a thing but passive (no seperate mono amplifier), then use a sensitive (at least 6dB louder than each woofer, so thou can use summing resistors big enuff) hand-sized wide-range driver as tweeter, place woofers left- and rite-hand of it as close as possible and use a crossover of first order around 1.7KHz. Good luck
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