diyAudio reference speaker project

frugal-phile™
Joined 2001
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Variac said:
I don't keep up w/ all the Fostex, but is the FE127E good?

I haven't heard that one, but my buddy Chris was quite impressed (at VSAC) by the Pi Speakers bipole that uses a pr of these.

Personally i don't think you could much go wrong with almost any of the Fostex drivers. We've had some of the woofers thru here & they were very good, and i finally laid eyes on some 167s, pictures don't do them justice.

dave
 

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Variac wrote
Although some say that the Wiki isn't for a list of speaker plans links, I think it would be perfect for the job. While researching this thread I have come to the realization that there are a lot of beginner speakers out there. Maybe if you guys agree, you could start a Wiki on Speaker kits and plans links. Then we could all post our links, end up with a generous list, AND get non-threatening experience with the Wiki. I know I would be willling to explore the concept if all it involved was addin links to a list. If you need more moderator encouragement, compare the projects listed here with the sad number listed in the links area

Unfortunately, noone seems to know what to make of it yet. I have a feeling it will take a critical level contribution before many will wander in. I just went over there and poked around a little shyly myself. I'd love to see it work for building an interactive catalog.
I've been interested, for instance, in the HATT MkIII's from Tony Gee's humblehomemadehifi.com. I've saved the relevant information from his site. I've gotten price lists and availability on the drivers and crossover equivalents from a couple of suppliers, and I've got some alternative ideas for the cabinet design. I would love to have contact with others who have built this speaker as well as with others who might benefit from my groundwork as I go. I've learned a few basics of the wiki but haven't figured out yet how to make an entry. A HATT MkIII page in the loudspeaker wiki would enable me to kick it off with what I have so far and, if word got around, enable others to stop by and contribute or learn. A few projects later, the catalog might just start to breathe on its own.
As a preliminary question, are there legal tangles with proprietary designs? When is a clone, I don't know.. just a clone?
 
So, we've got more choices. Besides the P13/D27 combo, a single Fostex (167E?) is that the Grande 6? at 63$ per driver, its about the same price. A pair of FE127's in a TLb would run about $150. The FR graph shows significant improvement in this config.That's the vifa's right?

The Nebula....A tad pricier, but nice. Thanks Noknowlege, gotta like this testimonial," Great DIY when $300 speaker could keep up with $3K speaker." Anyone else want to chime in? The searches I did on the MG18/XT25 combo left me feeling like it would be a lot to sort out. Do we have a guesstimate on xover cost? Also a quick search found availability seemed to be a problem.

http://home.hetnet.nl/~geenius/HATT-III.html]The HATT MkIII sure is purty. Wish I could read Dutch.

Also, I noted this post of Raw's a while back which seems to be exactly what we're looking for, ie; A/B comparisons...

from here

After building the DIII's and alot of other designs.I will say for the money the DIII is not bad.
But after building the following all at the same time and listening to them all.

DIII's
MB1 or equal to the AV1 from GR
MT using MCM 1855-480
MT using the 1860 from MCM and the STW1 from Stryke

All good bang for your buck
The MB1 or AV1 has far claener and a better mix of mids over the DIII's.
Not my own words others have said the same.
But for a budget design that will blow your mind.

MT using the 1855 and 480 tweeter also from MCM.Cost $60.00 USD for all parts.
And they tune out at 68hz a good point for sub and the drivers are all shielded.

Al
http://quicksitebuilder.cnet.com/wr...lding/id13.html


I believe P10-Dave has his own TL design on his site for the 1855/480 called the "Snail" ...have you worked out the xover? I haven't heard any preferences yet, for a monitor size vs towers.

Do we have more opinions on the MB1 or AV1? I'd like to know if Raw's comparisons to the 1855/480 are more weighted towards bargain price.

I think we've got some good ideas in this thread, please keep them coming. I think I'll order the Vifa's (think about building them all) and go play in the Sandbox
 
I was a newbie a few years ago (not having built anything that involved my own xover etc) having built a two way design using two eminence 6.5" power drivers and two cheapy audax £5.99 plymer tweets, these were in boxes I already had with a stock xover in a box from maplins. I was about 13 so was impressed by these hehe. Anyway I then had one lil audax Hm80mo?? (paper cone not coated with a not round mouting) anyway I bought another one £13.99 and made my first two way xovering at about 5k with the poly tweets! yay for me cost next to nothing i was 15 then. They sounded fab simple text book 1st order over, I had these on the computer (had a pair of mission 752freedoms at the time on my hifi). Needless to say this first venture into DIY gave me the confidence to spend some more money on drivers. I had always wanted to buy some more costly kit but had always hesistated thinking will it be a waste of money. Building that small two way changed that.

So I bought two peerless(hah vifa ppl) 850467's and two morel MDT30s's, threw it together in a floorstanding cabinet with a text book xover again and it beat the missions hands down, well I was impressed so I sold the missions. I opted for the peerless driver because I wanted good bass (6.5") (didnt know at the time peerless had a rep for good bass), I didnt want a boring paper cone and the PHASE PLUG yay I was like a moth to a flame.

Then along came the scan 950000s to replace the MDT30's. The peerless 850146's then came along and it went three way. I then bought two Excel w15cy001's to replace the 850467's. This is still without any "proper" CAD software, I had used SPL trace and Aduas LSPworkshop. I had never doubted my ability to make something anyway after that first pair. Now I have a pair of XLS10" on the way to replace the 146's. The system is fully active with 80watts on the mids and tweets and 200 watts on the bass. Randy Slone rock on your amps are fabulous!, highly recommended to someone wanting to try something harder then a gainclone. Get his high power audio amplifier contruction manual, read it for a coupla months and then try making one of his amp designs. Oh and I now have LSPcad pro, Im ordering bits to make the Jig for it today, with more stuff to make another 200 watt mono bloc stereo pair for my mum and dad, im 19 on the 23rd of Jan.

Bottom line is this people who are interested in loudspeaker design DONT know what to do or know anything. People with some experiene in the field take for granted they know what a frequency response graph looks like and what it tells them. I can look at one and imediatly understand what it says, my friends upon being shown one are like what the hell is that! and even after I explain it, dont get it. We need to get Yahoo to get a link on their page with a neon sign. NEWBIES WHO ARE INTERESTED IN LOUDSPEAKER DESIGN GO TO DIYAUDIO.COM
Getting to DIYaudio can be a hassle aswell, I only found it about a year ago, I did find madisounds board tho.

I think that there needs to be a few designs for the first time builder, which are cheap and cheerful that offer BIG bangs for small bucks. Hey what about a fully charged cap into a tangband, big BANG:D or even dont bother with the speaker and just short the cap.

Seriously though say two cheap designs. One standmount using 5" bass and a soft dome tweet, one floorstanding using either 6.5" or 8" bass for the person who wants whoomp!

Then another kit of kewl looking and good sounding kits, SEAS metal cone with an XT. These should have two iterations aswell standmount and floor standing. I was strongly drawn to a phase plug and if the XT was available when the MDT30 was I would have got that.

What would be good though is if each DID have an upgrade path, Ie you can turn your L15's and XT25's into L15's XT's and a L21 in a three way if you want.

I think the amplifier is very! important too. One of the biggest improvements I got was building a four channel 80watt slone amp. This just improved the sound in a way I never thought possible.
 
Ok ill post again and summerise.

People lack confidence so need kits!!! kits kits kits, they dont want to spend big bucks incase it sounds crap. A kit that is well reviewed will change that as they are not worried it will sound smelly.

People will want a variety of kits. Small kits, larger kits, cheapo kits more expensive kits.

So I think all that needs to be done, which is already being done here anyway in a manner of speaking. Is all the kits that people have build need to be told about here!!!!! with a short review of how it sounds.

We have a couple of catagories, small cheap less then 150 bucks, large cheap same price. Small more expensive under 500 bucks large more under 500. And then just anything 500 plus blucks.

We get a short list of say two or three speakers in each catagory, and put them on a web site. The site has pics of built versions and a short review, with a description of how to build it.

The site link should be put in a sticky thread in the loudspeaker forum.

I think that that would satisfy almost everything for a begginer project.
 
diyAudio Editor
Joined 2001
Paid Member
I agree, we first need a list of kits and projects that make sense for beginners and more advanced.
They are out there- I know a lot more than I have mentioned to this point- let's get started- Dave , can you start a Wiki list?


I am proposing that first we just do a list of sites.
It certainly could be catagorized by price or something..
I'm willing to learn enough to add a site to the Wiki!!- once we get dragged into Wiki World, who knows what we''l do next:bigeyes:
 
I guess I might have something to add to this discussion. You see I am a newbie like so many others on this site.
Here is my story so far. I spent a great deal of time reading and studying trying to understand. I have a background in building so that was not a big deal thing for me. For me the issue was trying to figure just what I wanted. How do I figure out how something is going to sound in my living room with my existing equipment. There are so many options, so many appearing great designs, and so many complicated ideas that it is real easy to get lost and give up. During my quest I met a guy that built a kit from solens, he was happy with the kit but............. it did not give him the sound he expected. He gave the speakers to his son and went and bought a set of Sttaf speakers instead. This caused me some concern. I did not want to make an expensive piece of crap. I took this as a learning experience that I need to be clear as to what I want and what my expectations were.
It takes a lot of self confidence and determination to take that first step. I was lucky enough to contact Dave and his friend Chris and got a lot of encouragement and help.

So what is the learning experience from this message? I think there are a few key questions that a wana bee newbie needs to think about. These questions help guide what the newbie should consider or if they should consider DIY at all. For me the questions were (in no particular order): tower or sub-sat combo, with or without cross over, how much $$, what kind of music and how loud, furniture grade, cardboard box, or somewhere in between. the wife appreciation factor. Will this be the only set I make or is this the start of a new obsession. I am sure there are
many more questions that I forgot about.

So where did I end up. Well, I decided on a FE 167e in a ML TL. Dave gave me some good ideas for the box design and I added a few twists of my own. So far things are looking great and the boxes will be going together in the next few days. I hope to post pictures of the product when complete.

I hope this helps
 
finally, some people talking about messing with the wiki. I came here about 6 months ago knowing nothing, browsing around, andi stumbled onto the wiki. it had nothing in there that would help a total newbie. it was pretty much empty. so yes, any kind of list of projects/kits would be great.

I like the idea about diferent large/small cheap, large/small not so cheap. people come here with all kinds of budgets, from poor high school students on up.

just my 2 cents. i think this thread is great. somebody should have started it earlier.
 
Well, I decided on a FE 167e in a ML TL. Dave gave me some good ideas for the box design and I added a few twists of my own. So far things are looking great and the boxes will be going together in the next few days. I hope to post pictures of the product when complete.

Good for you. I'm sure I speak for many others when I say we look forward to your "show and tell." You make some very good points when describing you design considerations, and that's exactly why I'd like to see a "same speaker reference," so we can make more objectve recommendations for the for the newbie and their objectives.

Seems to me that the Fostex 167E is a wonderful driver for a first time FR project, and aptly comparable (in price) to the small two-ways that we've been discussing. I've long wanted to use a Fostex when I'm more confident with my modeling skills, and ready to purchase higher priced drivers.

Would it be too much to ask, for someone who is proficient with Martin King's worksheets to post a design?

I wouldn't recommend anyone build it verbatum -- some of the concepts in it are kinda nice thou.

Is the idea of the open terminus on the front of the cab one of them? It seems like a very efficient way of folding a TL, even if you give up the floor bass reinforcement, and a convienient(perhaps) future tweeter placement. Very tidy.
 
Well said, 5th element.

That first speaker project is so important. It's the confidence booster that the newbie needs and it helps if it's a good design. The newbie then has to sit back and then learn why it works.

The Vifa P13 & D27 design I listed must be perfect (hehehehe) as nobody's changed it.
 
Hi rabbitz

i too want to build something along the lines of the vifas, however with P17 & D27 or the D25

i had a chance to listen to a P17 and D25 in a vented floorstander with only a 5.6uf on the tweeter and they sounded fantastic in a 5m x 8m ish room. they were powered by LM1875s so im assuming very little power was going into them, i have a feeling that id easily blow then with the single cap crossover with my LM3875s.


has anyone come across any plans online for a a vented floorstander using these drivers?


have you seen this raymondaudio TL design using the P17?
http://www.raymondaudio.nl/projects/project10/project10.html
i assume the P13 / P17 are fairly similar

have a look particularly at his use, or lack of, this baffle step simulator in regards to your tweeter placement question
http://www.pvconsultants.com/audio/diffraction/downloadbds.htm

im looking at chris's folded TL, but they look like alotta work atm
http://www.t-linespeakers.org/projects/chris/

its good that the D27 & D25 and if you look hard enough the P17 is still available in Aus.
 
frugal-phile™
Joined 2001
Paid Member
x. onasis said:
Would it be too much to ask, for someone who is proficient with Martin King's worksheets to post a design?

Scott's box is based on Bob Brine's pipe.

http://geocities.com/rbrines1/Pages/FE167E-MLTL/Main.html

One can choose to run will the "limited" info on the web page, or pay for a package of very complete plans and details depending on your level of confidence (or if you feel it is only right to reward Bob & Martin for their work).

Is the idea of the open terminus on the front of the cab one of them? It seems like a very efficient way of folding a TL, even if you give up the floor bass reinforcement, and a convienient(perhaps) future tweeter placement. Very tidy.

No... the idea of the ML-TL (and ML-TQWT) was 1st expicitly expressed by Augspurger, practical examples shown by Martin King (and he showed that despite some similarities an ML-TL or ML-TQWT are not bass relexes), and used to some extent, almost by accident, in some classic designs.

This line is not folded, and if you don't resort to trickery -- like scott -- very easy to build.

dave
 
Hi phs

Someone correct me if I'm wrong but you should be able to use a standmounted design for the P17 & D25 in a floorstander and just seal off the volume you don't need. Had to seal off a section in a set of Peerless floorstanders where I needed 32 litres in a 36 litre box.

Here's a MTM floorstander design using the P17 & D25.
http://www.kaiaudio.com/diy2001/kaiopen.html

I'd say the D26's should hold up well with a single cap. I use series crossovers with only a 6 dB slope and have had no problems, but then I'm not stupid on the volume control either.