Hello,
as the title says, I am planning to build a 3" transmission line speaker. I want to make it as small as possible, to use them as speakers next to my PC screen on the desk. The choice for a transmission line has been made for two reasons: looks and the fact that I love the idea behind them.
I know that a TL is usually not the best choice if you want it compact, and that it will probably not be a simple design. I'm a phyiscs student and work with CAD quite a bit in my spare time, so I suppose I'll manage to build... something.
The speakers will only be used for watching youtube and some music while working on the PC, so it will kinda be a function-follows-form design.
I want to build something visually similar to those, but visually a bit more refined, properly calculated for my drivers and made from CNC milled stacked MDF sheets.
I want to get as close to an ideal design as possible without compromising too much on size, and then let the DSP do the rest to flatten the response curve.
Now, to my questions...
I have little to no experience with speaker design and have a hard time selecting suitable drivers for my application - do you have any recommendations? They should be available in europe (or with affordable shipping from overseas) and I'd like to stay at ~50 € max per driver. Some say any driver will work properly in a TL, others say only very few will work well. I am confused and don't know what TS parameters determine whether it is a good choice for me or not.
MJKs sheets are not working for Fs > 70 Hz, am I right? Most 3" drivers are at 100-110 Hz, any recommendations how I shall deal with that? I found this page, would it be a good idea to stick to those steps?
kind regards
as the title says, I am planning to build a 3" transmission line speaker. I want to make it as small as possible, to use them as speakers next to my PC screen on the desk. The choice for a transmission line has been made for two reasons: looks and the fact that I love the idea behind them.
I know that a TL is usually not the best choice if you want it compact, and that it will probably not be a simple design. I'm a phyiscs student and work with CAD quite a bit in my spare time, so I suppose I'll manage to build... something.
The speakers will only be used for watching youtube and some music while working on the PC, so it will kinda be a function-follows-form design.
I want to build something visually similar to those, but visually a bit more refined, properly calculated for my drivers and made from CNC milled stacked MDF sheets.
I want to get as close to an ideal design as possible without compromising too much on size, and then let the DSP do the rest to flatten the response curve.
Now, to my questions...
I have little to no experience with speaker design and have a hard time selecting suitable drivers for my application - do you have any recommendations? They should be available in europe (or with affordable shipping from overseas) and I'd like to stay at ~50 € max per driver. Some say any driver will work properly in a TL, others say only very few will work well. I am confused and don't know what TS parameters determine whether it is a good choice for me or not.
MJKs sheets are not working for Fs > 70 Hz, am I right? Most 3" drivers are at 100-110 Hz, any recommendations how I shall deal with that? I found this page, would it be a good idea to stick to those steps?
kind regards
The article you are linking to:
Read the RED headline. I have seen a video on how to make a TL based on this article. The video is, of course, misleading.
MJK workseets do not have the limit you are referring to. Where did you get that information.
About drivers, I would say that any driver with a Qts 0.4 or higher could be a candidate.
Regards Bjørn
Read the RED headline. I have seen a video on how to make a TL based on this article. The video is, of course, misleading.
MJK workseets do not have the limit you are referring to. Where did you get that information.
About drivers, I would say that any driver with a Qts 0.4 or higher could be a candidate.
Regards Bjørn
As Jim says, look at the Baby Labs.
Bad idea. 1st MDF is not the best material for making speakers. And translam construction means you are using the material in a way it was not intended, the walls will need to be much hicker than if you ised the (ply)wood in the manner it is bets used for. Given that in a small speaker the actual material takes up a greater proportion of the total volume, if you want small then this is not an approach to take. And translam is hugly wasteful of materials.
The small BabyLabs can be built with 12mm plywood (we assume quality plywood), whcih would be significantly smaller than if you did the same design translam.
The Baby Labs ar eproperly designed by someone who knows what they are doing when it comes to TLs, and they are well proven.
dave
Bad idea. 1st MDF is not the best material for making speakers. And translam construction means you are using the material in a way it was not intended, the walls will need to be much hicker than if you ised the (ply)wood in the manner it is bets used for. Given that in a small speaker the actual material takes up a greater proportion of the total volume, if you want small then this is not an approach to take. And translam is hugly wasteful of materials.
The small BabyLabs can be built with 12mm plywood (we assume quality plywood), whcih would be significantly smaller than if you did the same design translam.
The Baby Labs ar eproperly designed by someone who knows what they are doing when it comes to TLs, and they are well proven.
dave
I can feel your pain. To make selection simpler, I would recommend:
Vifa TC9
Faitalpro 3FE25
You can buy pair each, 4 units total, and stay under 100EUR in Europe.
No, I havent built MLTL with those drivers, currently in the process of it, but those 2 drivers are really exceptional. The first one produces very nice warm sound, especially in the voice zone, the second - is really impressive with the build quality and the punch, power, details in the whole range. The only negative to my taste: highs are a bit too harsh, but can be contained with basic eq. Exceptional value for the money.
This is my impression, but not in MLTL. The others will tell if they are suitable for the MLTL application. Also - check the dimensions and weight of drivers: the Faital I mentioned is huge!!!
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Looks like i looked too much at the content and not enough at the headline, lol. My bad.
His tables all go from 20-70Hz, so I supposed the method was only suited for that frequency range, and the excel sheet even complains if I enter a free air resonance frequency above 70 Hz.
That's something I can work with, thanks!
Oh, the Lance is basically what I am looking to build in terms of size and driver. I threw the specs at the leonard audio TL software and it shows quite weird response curves - I suppose that is because I did not enter any dampening (no clue how to add partial dampenings).
I suppose for a TL with a proper lower frequency the vent position (front as usual, rear as in the lance) does not matter much, as lower frequencies are not particularily directional anyway, and high frequencies (should) not pass the line?
Thanks a lot, I will have a more detailled look at them tomorrow!
Qts is above the value Bjørn recommended, prices are within my range. And yeah, that Faital has an enormous magnet for a 3" driver.
EDIT: Somehow, I totally missed daves comment - apologies!
Hm, I did not know that, and it is a quite annoying fact, as the milled translam (which I wanted to paint glossy black and apply 10mm plexiglass sides) was more of an optical choice. I suppose the plexi is garbage for this application, too?
That's quite a few points I can not offer. Looks like I'm best off building one of them, instead of trying to build something that may or may not work.
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I cannot recomend the TC9. It was very underwhelming, but given the mentioned source material it might be moot. The Faital i have boxes for, haven’t got drivers yet.
dave
Try the 0.40x Karlsonator with either the 3FE25 or TC9FD. It is a compact folded TL with nice full bodied sound. Very well liked by all builders, and many have built it with great success.
Mini Karlsonator (0.53X) with Dual TC9FD's
Mini Karlsonator (0.53X) with Dual TC9FD's
FWIW these are ducted port, i.e. box with a long vent, not a TL: https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:2500482
GM
GM
Greets!
The vent is a 1/2 WL resonator, but does have a 1/4 WL fundamental like all pipes, be it open, closed or tapered: Resonances of open air columns
Attached to a resonant cavity it's just a vented alignment until the pipe's fundamental dominates and the cavity become just a low pass filter. Some folks call them BLHs even though the 'vent' isn't tapered.
GM
The vent is a 1/2 WL resonator, but does have a 1/4 WL fundamental like all pipes, be it open, closed or tapered: Resonances of open air columns
Attached to a resonant cavity it's just a vented alignment until the pipe's fundamental dominates and the cavity become just a low pass filter. Some folks call them BLHs even though the 'vent' isn't tapered.
GM
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