Mini Karlsonator (0.53X) with Dual TC9FDs

They sound good while camping!

That's why I was in a hurry to finish them... I wanted to bring them along on this road trip. :)
 

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I should see how much it would cost to get the foam core laser cut to make 0.40X Karlsonator “flatpacks”. It seems to be a real pleaser of a speaker.

I have two fresh ones in plain old ugly white insulation sheathing.

I did make a free shipping order at PE. I use a 12" sub for this PC and it needs downsizing. Tang Band W5-2053 was on clearance. I'm going to try it in as little as 4 liters.

I connected the resurrected .4xs to this pc competing with Behringer 40USBs. I had to cross those at 115-120hz to avoid bad things around 110-113.

There's no competition. I've dialed the sub down to 80 with the Karlsonators. They're playing through an unmodified TPA3116. I'm sitting here with a huge smile on my face. All this talk about dispersion and room filling and sounding better at a distance; well, they're astounding near field on the deskop. They need black paint. ;)
 
Easy enough.

I used XPS foam for quick test builds, but they would really need wood or mdf to sound best.

The driver is the w8-1363sbf, with a low Vas and high X-max. They are in a sealed box. It was vented initially, but group delays were noticeable, so plugged it, and now it's much better. I'm only losing about 3Hz by going sealed in this case, so, the move was a good one.

I'm using a salvaged plate amp from Acoustic Research to drive them. Most of those amps have a boost bump at about 30Hz, variable gain, variable XO and phase. Easy to blend with most speakers, and certainly easy with the mini-k. I cross at about 80Haz in this case.

My pre has a sub out, so, full range goes to the mini-ks and sub out to the sub amp.

Very simple, but effective!
 
Check out this new 0.53x dual 3FE25 from Skylar88. Should be good for 97dB at 2.83v!

634541d1504988311-aca-speaker-short-list-capture-jpg


http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/atta...11-aca-speaker-short-list-karlsonator-053-pdf

Hello to everyone. Would it be ok to build this box and throw in 2 visaton frs8-8 that I have in hand, just to test the dual setup on mini karlsonator? Just to cross check, are the dimensions in mm and the thickness of material (maybe ply is used here) at 12mm?

I am here after xrk's suggestion on speaker selection for my living room. I have to test them before I order 4 3fe25 drivers. I know that the sound may not be optimal using the visatons, but I guess that I'll be able to see if I like them (I've showed a picture of them to my wife, she prefers the tabaqs, but that shouldn't be a problem)
 
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0.40x/TC9FD18-08

Just put together a pair Mini Karlsonators.
As advertised, the build was quick, easy, and also stress free; I mean we're talking about what, $30 worth of material here?
Hey, if I don't like them I'm not even out much time.

Hooked them up to WAV files from a 15 yr old laptop, through a stock Topping D-20 DAC to a home brew 12W RMS into 8ohm chip amp.
Gotta tell you, these things don't have any right to sound so good.

Strength is the mid/lower treble range which is consistent for what one should be able to expect of this driver.
Treble/bass regions are present enough in good quality to support the strength of the drivers. Well done Xrk971, and thank you for not trying to do too much in these outer areas and winding up with some flabby bass and harsh highs that would detract from what the drivers do the best.

Another surprise was the excellent sound stage. Lead vocals are centered, instruments and backing vocals biased to one side or the other.
Really cool.

I used MuddJesters 0.40 plans. Couldn't get the back/side section to fit quite right and wound up with 50% of the port area at the top.
1/8" thick felt behind the front baffle, 1/2" thick open cell foam in the indicated areas. Fill was fiberglass insulation batts.
Forgot the brace inside the inner chamber, so I left it out of the 2nd one.

Design is forgiving, indeed.
Anyone out there on the fence about trying this project, quit wondering and get busy.
 
My 1 watt tube amp drives these things like a champ off of an old beater laptop! It's insane that I'm hearing such bass and imaging out of some craft supplies and two speakers!

I've fallen in love with these things for sure. It's unreal how nicely they work! I like them so much I want to do a pair of the bigger ones, and build up a nice DAC to use with them.