Hey everyone, so I have built a few sets of speakers/amplifiers in the past, and recently got the urge to build a new set of speakers. This was all triggered after finding all the glowing reviews about the Tang Band W3-881SI drivers. I had always wanted to build a line array type speaker before, but they have always been too cost prohibitive; until I found the W3-881SI drivers. At $8 each making a set of line arrays becomes a lot more feasible. So I opened up WinISD and designed a set of ported enclosures that would house 9 x W3-881 Drivers each, wired in a series parallel configuration to maintain an 8 Ohm impedance with no corossover or filtering. The enclosures were designed to be 52.75" tall, 4.75" wide, and 12" deep and would use 0.75" thick MDF which made the internal volume about 1750 in^3. Tuning the ports to 70 Hz would give a decently extended and flat bass response. I was excited about these speakers and ordered everything online and built the enclosures and assembled them all (pic below) . However when I hooked them up I was very disappointed.
The bass response was decent as I expected it to be, but the rest just made me sad. The speakers just sounded dead, and lifeless, and somewhat echoey. Not pleasant to listen to at all. The off axis response was awful as well. Going from a standing to sitting position or from left to right changed the sound drastically. Especially the highs which seem almost non existent sometimes. Needless to say I am pretty disappointed. For future reference I am wondering if there is something I did wrong, or could do differently in the future. I am thinking that maybe some internal dampening (stuffing/felt/foam) might help some, but am wondering if there is something else I could do in addition to that. Currently I don't even want to use them, so I figured I might get some input form all of the experts on the forum before I put them away in the basement to rot.
Any advice you can give would be much appreciated.
Thanks for the help,
Charlie
Any advice you can give would be much appreciated.
Thanks for the help,
Charlie
