Hi! I've been reading these forums for some time now and thought that maybe it is time for me to plunge into the DIY world of audio. Initially I planned on building a portable boombox but later decided to scrap the idea. Althought on my journey throught boombox threads I ran into Visaton BG 20. Interesting little FR driver that is so cheap even I could build something out of it. Then I remembered that I have a woodworking course coming up in about 3 weeks. Well I have to build something so it might as well be useful.
Now that the intro has been dealt with let's get straight to the point. I'm going to build a pair of (ported?) enclosures for the drivers mentioned above but have little knowledge about designing them. I fiddled a little bit with winISD but have no idea what i'm trying to achieve. I'm going to leave you a file that I came up with after 3hrs of learning winISD and audio stuff in general. Bear in mind that my driver parameters for the Visaton may be way off. If you have time go ahead and humor yourself with my enclosure design. Any help with the enclosure and port design will be greatly appreciated. I would mainly like to know if it's realistic to tune this driver to 35hz without excursion or other things causing failure and should I fill the space behind the driver to help reduce the higher frequencies that might come throught the port. Also this is my first post and I'm 16 and English isn't my native language so please don't go too hard on me. cheers
My first attempt at enclosure calculating (winISD file)https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=0B1ATJ0vDLqcdd3lZVXMxU2hpaTQ&usp=sharing
Now that the intro has been dealt with let's get straight to the point. I'm going to build a pair of (ported?) enclosures for the drivers mentioned above but have little knowledge about designing them. I fiddled a little bit with winISD but have no idea what i'm trying to achieve. I'm going to leave you a file that I came up with after 3hrs of learning winISD and audio stuff in general. Bear in mind that my driver parameters for the Visaton may be way off. If you have time go ahead and humor yourself with my enclosure design. Any help with the enclosure and port design will be greatly appreciated. I would mainly like to know if it's realistic to tune this driver to 35hz without excursion or other things causing failure and should I fill the space behind the driver to help reduce the higher frequencies that might come throught the port. Also this is my first post and I'm 16 and English isn't my native language so please don't go too hard on me. cheers
My first attempt at enclosure calculating (winISD file)https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=0B1ATJ0vDLqcdd3lZVXMxU2hpaTQ&usp=sharing
BG20 will also work in traditional Karlson enclosures such as "K12" plus has been used in the "Karlsonator 8" hybrid cabinet designed by Greg B.
The Karlsonator series in general have lower tuning and lower cutoffs compared to classic Karlson coupled-cavity type.
There are easy to read plans for the Karlsonator at Greg B's Stupid HiFi Tricks area.
the fake Druid or any tall ML-TL is nice if there's stuff in the way which would block a Karlson's wavefront.
Karlsonator8 with BG20
Karlson K12 size with BG20
The Karlsonator series in general have lower tuning and lower cutoffs compared to classic Karlson coupled-cavity type.
There are easy to read plans for the Karlsonator at Greg B's Stupid HiFi Tricks area.
the fake Druid or any tall ML-TL is nice if there's stuff in the way which would block a Karlson's wavefront.
Karlsonator8 with BG20
An externally hosted image should be here but it was not working when we last tested it.
Karlson K12 size with BG20
An externally hosted image should be here but it was not working when we last tested it.
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Have you already bought the driver? If not you might want to consider using another one as the BG20 has virtually no high frequency extension beyond 10kHz. Please see this following post
http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/full-range/260758-full-range-wall-home-theater-4.html#post4033460
Just download boxsim from visaton Downloads and you will be able to model enclouser with the exact data. I like the driver, but would not use it fullrange, just add some small tweeter and you will have a nice setup.
Here you have a ready made project with BG20 boxsim-db.de | Boxsim Projektdatenbank I hven't heard it, so I can't coment on sound. It is a 40 liters closed box. Here is a project with tweeter from K&T http://boxsim-db.de/ct230/
Here you have a ready made project with BG20 boxsim-db.de | Boxsim Projektdatenbank I hven't heard it, so I can't coment on sound. It is a 40 liters closed box. Here is a project with tweeter from K&T http://boxsim-db.de/ct230/
It isn't that bad, it is good driver for bass and midrange. I gues there is quite a bit extention over 10 khz, but it is hard to get it balanced.
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it might be cheaper and better to remove the whizzer and add a tweeter around 10KHz than to monkey with the LCR trap
other than rolling off on-axis above 10K, BG20 looks reasonably smooth - the other driver is L.Cao F6 with remarkable treble
extension considering there's no whizzer cone
it might be cheaper and better to remove the whizzer and add a tweeter around 10KHz than to monkey with the LCR trap
other than rolling off on-axis above 10K, BG20 looks reasonably smooth - the other driver is L.Cao F6 with remarkable treble
extension considering there's no whizzer cone
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No I haven't bought the drivers yet. Any recommendations in the 60-70€/pair price range? My main goal is to surpass the sound quality of my current speakers (Pioneer s-510) if that's possible with my budjet. The Pioneers are getting old and the woofer surroundings are falling apart plus one horn loaded ribbon is broken plus I'm not sure about the condition of the midrange drivers either. My current speakers are kinda my pc,music and movie speakers. They're on my desk and listening distance is about a meter. I now the placement is far from perfect but i've grown to like the 10" woofers that go fairly low. That's why i originally went with 8" fullrangers. Thought I could maybe get the same low end performance out of them.
Perhaps I should reconsider my approach to this build. Let's start with the basics. should I consider 4" drivers or other sizes and would they go low enough to compare to my current Pioneers? I guess the FR drivers still give me the most "bang for your buck"? I want the enclosure size to be something between 0 and 100 litres. I'm open to suggestions. Please help I'm drowning in DIY
P.S. Could someone confirm whether the Google drive link works or not because it's the first time I tried sharing files with it.
Here's the link:
https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=0B1ATJ0vDLqcdd3lZVXMxU2hpaTQ&usp=sharing
There's also a picture of my desk so you know the speaker placement. The bottom speakers are my pioneers and the top ones OR D33 if i remember the model correctly. I also put in the manual of the S-510 that has the frequency response.
8" will give you some decent SPL capabilities at the lower end but they will beam quite considerably at higher frequencies - might be a problem for near field listening. SPL requirements are lower when listening from only 1m away so you could go smaller (3" or 4") and have wider, smoother dispersion. The Peerless 3.5" designs look pretty good and are cheap. The money saved will buy you a sub in case you're missing low frequencies.
Hey
if you want to start less expensive you can try a FR10 from Visaton.
I know of two easy builds with the driver:
8Ohm version with a more complex correction network Visage (as a set ready to go)
and
the 4Ohm version as a "small pile of planks" (translation of german name "kleiner Bretterhaufen") with a simple correction network. Youtube
Regards
Ps: if you need help with translation send me a message
if you want to start less expensive you can try a FR10 from Visaton.
I know of two easy builds with the driver:
8Ohm version with a more complex correction network Visage (as a set ready to go)
and
the 4Ohm version as a "small pile of planks" (translation of german name "kleiner Bretterhaufen") with a simple correction network. Youtube
Regards
Ps: if you need help with translation send me a message
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I searched some and found that many people are using fostex drivers for their FR builds. I'm starting to feel that perhaps I shouldn't cheap out on the drivers. Would i see improvement in sound quality if i buy fostex instead of visaton bg 20 or FR 10? If so what size would you recommend? Are there any differences between the 3" 4" and 4,5"? (FE83En, FE103En and FE126En to be exact)
Hi Icehammer,
If I were you, I would skip the small Fostex drivers and go with this:
Strassacker: Speaker Building, Components
Better bass and more balanced response. There are more in Cheap trick magazine that are cheap and have reasonable crossovers.
The problem is that you had the 10 inch bass, no matter how bad implemented it may have been, going down to 3-4 inch will be shock, especially with Fostex that have minuscule displacement.
Regards,
Peter
If I were you, I would skip the small Fostex drivers and go with this:
Strassacker: Speaker Building, Components
Better bass and more balanced response. There are more in Cheap trick magazine that are cheap and have reasonable crossovers.
The problem is that you had the 10 inch bass, no matter how bad implemented it may have been, going down to 3-4 inch will be shock, especially with Fostex that have minuscule displacement.
Regards,
Peter
Tack Peter. Always nice to hear opinions and ideas from a neighbour country.
Were you trying to link a specific driver? I think the link isn't leading where you intended. I thought that maybe if i chose Fostex fe126en and built the kongo double mouth enclosure I would be able to go fairly low. I would like to go with a tested and proven design because I won't be upgrading anytime soon after the build. Any opinions about the kongo? How does it compare to other plans available for the fe126en? Would someone happen to know how low the fostex goes in it? I know I will probably have to make a sub for the lowest frequencies.
Funny how the thread title is now completely misleading. I have at this point dumped the idea of using the bg 20 for its somewhat bad performance in higher frequencies.
Hi Peter,
The speaker looks interesting but it's not exactly what I was looking for. I will keep that site in mind though. Seems it has some interesting and cheap designs that I could use in the future if I build a pair of smaller monitors. I would prefer to build cabinets bigger than the ones i'm currently using. It would give me some training in woodworking which I haven't done in a while. My mind also thinks that bigger enclosure always equals more low end oomph and better overall sound. By building big cabinets I instantly gain psycologigal advantage. And prove my mom wrong for thinking that my current speakers are big. Heh heh. She really thinks 50 litres per cabinet is big. I'll show her what we in the audio world consider big.
The speaker looks interesting but it's not exactly what I was looking for. I will keep that site in mind though. Seems it has some interesting and cheap designs that I could use in the future if I build a pair of smaller monitors. I would prefer to build cabinets bigger than the ones i'm currently using. It would give me some training in woodworking which I haven't done in a while. My mind also thinks that bigger enclosure always equals more low end oomph and better overall sound. By building big cabinets I instantly gain psycologigal advantage.
And prove my mom wrong for thinking that my current speakers are big. Heh heh. She really thinks 50 litres per cabinet is big. I'll show her what we in the audio world consider big. Aha, now I get it. You referred to "Kongo" Well, good luck! Been there, done that…
But I guess most have to go their distance in order to find their Holy Grail. Me personally, I have no understanding of the Fostex followers. Admittedly, I've not heard all of them…..
Buy a second hand subwoofer for the Boxschule and you have a cheap and good system.
Over and out for me!
Peter
But I guess most have to go their distance in order to find their Holy Grail. Me personally, I have no understanding of the Fostex followers. Admittedly, I've not heard all of them…..
Buy a second hand subwoofer for the Boxschule and you have a cheap and good system.
Over and out for me!
Peter
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