Using all the same brand of driver?

diyAudio Member
Joined 2007
Admittedly I'm a bit of a Vifa tragic but I had this feeling when I started building speakers that using all one brand of driver made for a more coherent sound, the various drivers seemed to me to have been made to work together.

I've now managed to acquire from various sales of S/H gear a Peerless old school 8" mid-bass, one of the very good 50mm domes and as of this week an almost new tweeter and I'm idly thinking about getting a woofer to handle the bass and immediately the 12" SLS 830669
Am I the only one? Or do others of you tend to use driver families when building speakers?
 
Many of my builds have used the same family of drivers: Dayton (TriTrix MTM, with DC28F and DC130B); Vifa BC25Tg with Peerless 830656 or SDS160; and "Zenvos" from a MAC/DIY member (Peerless DA25 and 830656). Michael Chua's Lark SM uses the BC25 with a SB16pfc mid, but its sound is very close to the SDS160, so it's sort of the same principle.

Using drivers from the same stable is almost a given in Oz as we only have local access to a few brands anyway.

Whether there's a 'house sound' for the various brands is an interesting point. The Peerless/Vifa pairings do seem to complement each other, but then the best sounding speakers we have combine Dayton and Morel.

Dayton might have a 'house sound' within its families of drivers, at least those few I've used, so that the 'Classic' DC130 and DC160 have a similar sound and work well with the DC28F. However, the RS180P has a very different sound to the Classic drivers.

What you're proposing looks a bit like Paul Carmody's "Tarkus" 3 way which uses the 10" 830668, your tweeter and the 830657; should be awesome.

Geoff
 
Any thoughts then on using the little Vifa DN 26 with the Peerless dome?
The original units not the modern iteration, small faceplate gives a better C2C, even if it will be right pain to route the holes
I'd then re-use the Peerless I already have in the new /other party boxes. And I just got a Jaycar 12" carbon fibre woofer pair at half the cost of the Peerless woofers so I'll use those. So Yes to a "Tarkus" inspiration with separate boxes stacked but thinking the 8" on top and the dome mid and tweeter below. I haven't yet modeled the Jaycar CW 2145 but the smaller 10" really give substantial thump in a small sealed box, these being my sheds bass speakers and I remember Andy Graddon giving them a vote for solid bass in one of his speakers; although his "Blackwoods " may have been the 10"
I'm thinking I'll need to get a decent small sub-woofer amp with DSP and do the bass digitally.
Any recommendations there??