For WAF (good looking stuff blended well into the room) + limited space + pleasure of DIY and research + good sound quality, you need to think out of a box. (or any box)
No interest in my #328 post? Pity.
No interest in my #328 post? Pity.
Anton, ALERT!
Europe-audio has special sale for this weekend, Dayton RSS265-HF for 135€, among others 50% off!
Europe Audio • bargain sale
Europe-audio has special sale for this weekend, Dayton RSS265-HF for 135€, among others 50% off!
Europe Audio • bargain sale
Beware of europe-audio.com
Beware of europe-audio.com as they become online fraud. E-mails are not working anymore and nobody is answering the phone. They never send me ordered and paid items.
Best regards Davor Pregl
Beware of europe-audio.com as they become online fraud. E-mails are not working anymore and nobody is answering the phone. They never send me ordered and paid items.
Best regards Davor Pregl
Good news everyone! [/Farnsworth voice]
I've finally come far enough with the media console project to start testing some speakers. I bought a 250 mm (~10") cardboard tube (for concrete molds) and cut it in half (~5 deg angle). This is what it looks like on the media console:
The point was to see if 250 mm is too wide and how ~63 cm high looks. Conclusion: 250 mm is fine, 63 cm is to short. They need to be higher, maybe 75 cm. And the 5 deg angle should be steeper.
My plan is to build some kind of test speakers out of these. I have decided on using the ScanSpeak D2604 (833000) after reading recommendations from Dave Pellegrene and others. This does look good:
8" round waveguide, EQd flat, XO at 1 kHz.
8x5" elliptical. (These two images are from Daves Picasa album located here)
I have access to a 3D-printer at work and plan to print waveguides, I probably wont get better results than Dave, but I'll learn (both about waveguides and about the 3D-printer). I'm also kinda hoping I could do a deeper waveguide and thereby get a more narrow pattern.
Crossover will be done by a MiniDSP nanoAVR HDA that is going through customs as I write.
A friend gave me 4 5" midbass drivers that I'll try for the first test build. To get a better match to the pattern from the ~210 mm wide waveguide I plan on rear-mounting and chamfering like this:
Rendered with a 20 deg angle (looks a lot better than 5 deg). It's a 2.5 way design to reduce energy sent to the ceiling. I'm contemplating if it's possible to design it so that the vertical pattern the waveguide creates is extended to lower frequencies by choosing the correct driver distance and order. This is a measurement of the vertical behaviour of a MTM design:
The woofer spacing gives the decreased vertical dispersion between 500 and 1500 Hz. With the waveguide I'm hoping to create there should still be some control at the XO between tweeter and mid. Has this been done and documented in a way that I can copy? Or should I play around in XDir to guess a starting point and build test-boxes?
I don't think these 5" drivers will be any good, so what to get instead? Requirements:
1. Over 85 dB sensitivity (over 90 if possible).
2. Fairly flat frequency response from below 100 Hz to above 1.5 kHz in a closed box without EQ.
3. Below $100 each.
4. 5" to 7" nominal diameter.
5. Possible to rear mount in a way that only shows surround and cone.
6. Aesthetically pleasing... No text on cone!
The best contender so far is the Faital Pro 6FE100:
Cheap, linear to 3 kHz (except dip around 350 Hz), easy to rear mount, 91 dB. And it is used in the Fusion-6 at diysoundgroup.com and they seem to know what they are doing. The rendering above actually uses the dimensions of the 6FE100.
Other possible candidates: SB acoustics SB17MFC (oddly beefy surround) and Dayton Audio RS180 and RS180P (more expensive than 6FE100, less discrete).
If you've come this far: Sorry about the very long post...
/Anton
I've finally come far enough with the media console project to start testing some speakers. I bought a 250 mm (~10") cardboard tube (for concrete molds) and cut it in half (~5 deg angle). This is what it looks like on the media console:
The point was to see if 250 mm is too wide and how ~63 cm high looks. Conclusion: 250 mm is fine, 63 cm is to short. They need to be higher, maybe 75 cm. And the 5 deg angle should be steeper.
My plan is to build some kind of test speakers out of these. I have decided on using the ScanSpeak D2604 (833000) after reading recommendations from Dave Pellegrene and others. This does look good:
8" round waveguide, EQd flat, XO at 1 kHz.
8x5" elliptical. (These two images are from Daves Picasa album located here)
I have access to a 3D-printer at work and plan to print waveguides, I probably wont get better results than Dave, but I'll learn (both about waveguides and about the 3D-printer). I'm also kinda hoping I could do a deeper waveguide and thereby get a more narrow pattern.
Crossover will be done by a MiniDSP nanoAVR HDA that is going through customs as I write.
A friend gave me 4 5" midbass drivers that I'll try for the first test build. To get a better match to the pattern from the ~210 mm wide waveguide I plan on rear-mounting and chamfering like this:
Rendered with a 20 deg angle (looks a lot better than 5 deg). It's a 2.5 way design to reduce energy sent to the ceiling. I'm contemplating if it's possible to design it so that the vertical pattern the waveguide creates is extended to lower frequencies by choosing the correct driver distance and order. This is a measurement of the vertical behaviour of a MTM design:
An externally hosted image should be here but it was not working when we last tested it.
The woofer spacing gives the decreased vertical dispersion between 500 and 1500 Hz. With the waveguide I'm hoping to create there should still be some control at the XO between tweeter and mid. Has this been done and documented in a way that I can copy? Or should I play around in XDir to guess a starting point and build test-boxes?
I don't think these 5" drivers will be any good, so what to get instead? Requirements:
1. Over 85 dB sensitivity (over 90 if possible).
2. Fairly flat frequency response from below 100 Hz to above 1.5 kHz in a closed box without EQ.
3. Below $100 each.
4. 5" to 7" nominal diameter.
5. Possible to rear mount in a way that only shows surround and cone.
6. Aesthetically pleasing... No text on cone!
The best contender so far is the Faital Pro 6FE100:
Cheap, linear to 3 kHz (except dip around 350 Hz), easy to rear mount, 91 dB. And it is used in the Fusion-6 at diysoundgroup.com and they seem to know what they are doing. The rendering above actually uses the dimensions of the 6FE100.
Other possible candidates: SB acoustics SB17MFC (oddly beefy surround) and Dayton Audio RS180 and RS180P (more expensive than 6FE100, less discrete).
If you've come this far: Sorry about the very long post...
/Anton
They are not the prettiest looking drivers but sound very nice. Look at Dayton PA130-8. 90dB and flat over range you speak of. In a Karlsonator I get 60Hz out of them. Quite loud too. $18 ea.
1. 250mm (10") x 80/85cm (32") would be about right. 100cm is too tall and 70cm too short.
2. I would prefer MMT over MTM. I got tired with the rather narrow (but tight) sweet spot the MTMs have compared to MMTs.
3. I like the SEAS Prestige L15RLY/P. It looks nice enough for my wife to tolerate it without grills on. If you could stretch your budget to $150 the Satori MW13P could be an option. If you can use a 18cm woofer then The SEAS ER18, U16/U18, LR18 all become viable. I have used the ER18 and LR18 in 2 ways.
P.S.
You are travelling on a similar road I did in 1995. In my case the subwoofers were Audio Concepts DV12 (2 per channel), the midwoofers were ScanSpeak 18W8546 and the tweeter was the 2905-9900 (MTM). I disbanded that system when we moved in 2004.
F3 of 161 Hz in a closed box seems a little high. A karlsonator will not work in the current design.
1. Alright 😊
2. I was thinking 2.5 way.
3. 18 cm is 7", so yes. It's actually the basket that can't be wider than 21 cm.
I would look at the ER18 as it is a well developed woofer and there is quite a bit of knowledge available. see these links.
http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/multi-way/114836-interested-mtm-w-810921-er18rnx.html
New DIY MTM Towers designed by Dennis Murphy and Paul Kittinger | Audioholics Home Theater Forums
Then a thought occurred to me...(why on earth did this not come to me before!) 😕
There are 2 CA18 based MMT designs already in the public domain!!!!
1. Zaph|Audio
2. CA18RNX
Now while the CA18 does not have as low distortion as the ER18 you got a better place to work with. Sadly the impedance curves of the two are different enough that one cannot substitute the ER18 for the CA18.
A number of people have already made similar speakers
SEAS-CA18RNX-2.5-Geoffrey
CA18RNX-2.5-Jonas
I hope this helps and apologise for the late thought. 😉
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