a friend of mine is possibly considering making some speakers. he is an experienced woodworker. i was showing him a parts express catalogue and telling him how he should make some speakers. but now we are stuck with many many descisons...
do we want to run 2 8's and a tweeter in a transmission line?
a tweeter, a 6 1/2, and a side firing sub?
satellites and a sub?
the more i think about this, it becomes apparent that there is more to consider... next is what drivers to use? we are looking pretty strongly at morel... maybe vifa... are focal and scanspeak justified in it's higher cost over the two aforementioned brands?
then i realize that this has to have a relatively flat respose... crossovers may or may not have to be built... if a sidefiring sub is done, then we would make them run off their own sub amps.
so probably what i am asking.. is, what are some reccomendations for making this first time venture into diy audio a pleasureable one? i could probably design these speakers with the help of some box design programs and your help... however i realize that there are also probably a lot of commonly done designs because they produce good results and have worked well in real world applications time after time... we don't have the time, or financial resources to do trial and error...
the goals of this project is to have a well rounded speaker, that can play all types of music, from classical, to jazz, to rock, to rap, and everything in between.
and finally... since my friend is well versed in woodworking, i was saying how i ideal speaker would be in an acoustically dead box. i was thinking that one of of accomplishing this would be by using the densest wood possible. he suggested purple heart as a very dense wood.. however he doesn't want purple speakers. so.. how much difference does the kind of wood make? should we just go MDF and then put any random wood on the outside and hope it is adequate?
well.. i think i have bombarded everyone with enough information for now. thanks in advance for the help.
do we want to run 2 8's and a tweeter in a transmission line?
a tweeter, a 6 1/2, and a side firing sub?
satellites and a sub?
the more i think about this, it becomes apparent that there is more to consider... next is what drivers to use? we are looking pretty strongly at morel... maybe vifa... are focal and scanspeak justified in it's higher cost over the two aforementioned brands?
then i realize that this has to have a relatively flat respose... crossovers may or may not have to be built... if a sidefiring sub is done, then we would make them run off their own sub amps.
so probably what i am asking.. is, what are some reccomendations for making this first time venture into diy audio a pleasureable one? i could probably design these speakers with the help of some box design programs and your help... however i realize that there are also probably a lot of commonly done designs because they produce good results and have worked well in real world applications time after time... we don't have the time, or financial resources to do trial and error...
the goals of this project is to have a well rounded speaker, that can play all types of music, from classical, to jazz, to rock, to rap, and everything in between.
and finally... since my friend is well versed in woodworking, i was saying how i ideal speaker would be in an acoustically dead box. i was thinking that one of of accomplishing this would be by using the densest wood possible. he suggested purple heart as a very dense wood.. however he doesn't want purple speakers. so.. how much difference does the kind of wood make? should we just go MDF and then put any random wood on the outside and hope it is adequate?
well.. i think i have bombarded everyone with enough information for now. thanks in advance for the help.
At http://www.t-linespeakers.org/ they have a link to some ones website that has a mathcad program to design t-line speakers and I just figured out how to use it. People say that building t-lines is a black art, but the developer says it works for any design.
Rap is difficult to sound good on most of the designs I've seen here, including the speakers I have now. You need a big woofer, IMO and I preffer a 15" I've learned. Of course you can use more smaller woofers or crazy power to one. Still like 15 for rap though. I would build a 2-way in a sealed box and one or 2 subs powered by their own amps. This is what I would do if I had the money for the amps. Drivers are cheap. Madisound sell vifa 8" drivers from Mackie monitors (so I would assume they have a nice flat freq. response) for $28 a piece. http://www.nuera-acoustic.ca sells a bunch of good drivers for $10-20 a piece. And I've seen some nice 10" aluminum focal drivers on ebay for $40 a piece. Ebay aways seems to have pretty nice drivers (mostly vifa, some focal) for cheap, but also has a lot of over-priced drivers.
So you can get drivers for a speakers for $200, but amps get really expensive. $200 for a 300 watts amp if you're lucky. Hopefully somebody can prove me wrong, but I think this is the way it is with the amps.
Rap is difficult to sound good on most of the designs I've seen here, including the speakers I have now. You need a big woofer, IMO and I preffer a 15" I've learned. Of course you can use more smaller woofers or crazy power to one. Still like 15 for rap though. I would build a 2-way in a sealed box and one or 2 subs powered by their own amps. This is what I would do if I had the money for the amps. Drivers are cheap. Madisound sell vifa 8" drivers from Mackie monitors (so I would assume they have a nice flat freq. response) for $28 a piece. http://www.nuera-acoustic.ca sells a bunch of good drivers for $10-20 a piece. And I've seen some nice 10" aluminum focal drivers on ebay for $40 a piece. Ebay aways seems to have pretty nice drivers (mostly vifa, some focal) for cheap, but also has a lot of over-priced drivers.
So you can get drivers for a speakers for $200, but amps get really expensive. $200 for a 300 watts amp if you're lucky. Hopefully somebody can prove me wrong, but I think this is the way it is with the amps.
I really like Vifas because they're easy to work with, the P13 and P17 sound wonderfull and have a smooth rolloff (never tried their more fancy drivers). So if it's your first go I'd sudjest Vifa.
As for what Jimmy said about rap, that can be accomplished with a sub woofer. As for if focal and scan speak are worth the cash, I don't know, I don't have that much cash to spend on speakers, but if it's your first pair and you're designing them yourself, stick with cheaper drivers. I've built some designs with cheap drivers that sounded better then others I've built with more expensive ones, the drivers don't make the speakers...
As for what Jimmy said about rap, that can be accomplished with a sub woofer. As for if focal and scan speak are worth the cash, I don't know, I don't have that much cash to spend on speakers, but if it's your first pair and you're designing them yourself, stick with cheaper drivers. I've built some designs with cheap drivers that sounded better then others I've built with more expensive ones, the drivers don't make the speakers...
after some thought.. this is what we are thinking right now... it may be a little too much.. but may not be...
two floorstanding speakers... morel tweeters in the top... a 6 inch kevlar cone mid speaker (probably focal).. and then 2 or 3 morel 8 inch woofers below for the bass... plate amps will be used on each side to power the subs...
the midwoofer would most likely be sealed due to the fact that it dosent' need to play below 100 hz.. the 2 or 3 8's would be ported 20-30 depending on how the graphs look in win isd... then where to port needs to be considered... front, back, floor? there are advantages and disadvantages to all of these...
if we were to do this design, there are a lot of things to consider...
where to crossover the subs? `100 hz? 150hz? where does sound seem to become omnidirectional?
will a morel tweeter than can handle 200 watts rms and a 6 inch focal with only 90 watts rms power handling compliment each other? also... would them show a 16 ohm load to the amp? or does the crossover make them show an 8 ohm load? would making the tweeters and mids bi-ampable be something to seriously consider? the sub level will be adjustable via the plate amps... but will the mid and tweeter work together? how much does one have to consider? should we look for a tweeter and mid that have similar power handling?, efficiency? or could we put an anttenuator on the tweeter?
now that we have a better idea of what we want to accomplish it should be easier for peopel to answer these more specific questions....
once again, thanks in advance for any advice or help that you give us....
two floorstanding speakers... morel tweeters in the top... a 6 inch kevlar cone mid speaker (probably focal).. and then 2 or 3 morel 8 inch woofers below for the bass... plate amps will be used on each side to power the subs...
the midwoofer would most likely be sealed due to the fact that it dosent' need to play below 100 hz.. the 2 or 3 8's would be ported 20-30 depending on how the graphs look in win isd... then where to port needs to be considered... front, back, floor? there are advantages and disadvantages to all of these...
if we were to do this design, there are a lot of things to consider...
where to crossover the subs? `100 hz? 150hz? where does sound seem to become omnidirectional?
will a morel tweeter than can handle 200 watts rms and a 6 inch focal with only 90 watts rms power handling compliment each other? also... would them show a 16 ohm load to the amp? or does the crossover make them show an 8 ohm load? would making the tweeters and mids bi-ampable be something to seriously consider? the sub level will be adjustable via the plate amps... but will the mid and tweeter work together? how much does one have to consider? should we look for a tweeter and mid that have similar power handling?, efficiency? or could we put an anttenuator on the tweeter?
now that we have a better idea of what we want to accomplish it should be easier for peopel to answer these more specific questions....
once again, thanks in advance for any advice or help that you give us....
Scottie,
Take a look at BrianGT's project in this thread.
http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=5715
He's gone through the whole process and documented it for us to see.
Rodd Yamashita
Take a look at BrianGT's project in this thread.
http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=5715
He's gone through the whole process and documented it for us to see.
Rodd Yamashita
ok... after putting those morels into WinISD.. we realized that they needed about a 13 cubic foot porten enclosure to get the kind of bass output we want...
so it could possibly go back to sidefiring subs...
i still need suggestions on the mid - tweeter portion of the speakers...
it has come down to the point where there is about a $1000 budget for drivers, crossovers, sub amps, ect...
so it could possibly go back to sidefiring subs...
i still need suggestions on the mid - tweeter portion of the speakers...
it has come down to the point where there is about a $1000 budget for drivers, crossovers, sub amps, ect...
scottie2hottie said:
As i started reading this thread, i was thinking i'd suggest that you look at the speaker as a good little mini-monitor + active subs -- it looks like that is where you are headed.
For your 1st project i'd stay away from drivers that will need extensive XO work, and kevlar midbasses usually need such -- stiff cones usually mean a nice big resonant peak that you have to deal with. JoeBob suggested the Vifa P13, and i concur. This is one of the best midbasses that you can buy for reasonable money (if you want to spend more the next step up is a Jordan JX92). It can be used with a very simple (or none) crossover. A couple examples: Chris B's Dalines (now with a VIFA tweeter & a single cap XO), the TLb, and the Ariel.
As for enclosures, non-rectangular shapes tend to work best. There are a couple threads here on speakers that are not rectangular. One thing i would stongly suggest is loading your (even number of) woofers push-push (another link) for the big reduction in box-loading and increase in micro-dymanmics.
dave
In your budget you're going to want to allocate as much for the xover as you are for the drivers (if of course you're using a passive xover), don't skimp on the xover, it's more important than you think.
As for if you can use a tweeter with a max rms power rating of 200 with a woofer with one of 90, of course you can, although alot less power will be going to your tweeters than your woofers. And yes you can attenuate the tweeter easily. As for the impedence it would be 8 Ohms, because at low frequencies the amp doesn't "see" the tweeter and the inverse for high frequencies.
Sound is omnidirectional at very low frequencies, I personally prefer stereo bass apposed to a mono sub, and I'm in no way one of those freaky audiophiles,
As for your choice of drivers, well there are many morel tweeters, the MDT-33 is very well respected though. But as for the focal midwoofers, I've never tried to use them for they seem finicky, I looked at the WK (I do believe) line and seemed like they'd need some eq'ing. I would reccomend to stay away from drivers that require alot of work to get right if it's your first time, just don't want you to be dissapointed...
As for if you can use a tweeter with a max rms power rating of 200 with a woofer with one of 90, of course you can, although alot less power will be going to your tweeters than your woofers. And yes you can attenuate the tweeter easily. As for the impedence it would be 8 Ohms, because at low frequencies the amp doesn't "see" the tweeter and the inverse for high frequencies.
Sound is omnidirectional at very low frequencies, I personally prefer stereo bass apposed to a mono sub, and I'm in no way one of those freaky audiophiles,
As for your choice of drivers, well there are many morel tweeters, the MDT-33 is very well respected though. But as for the focal midwoofers, I've never tried to use them for they seem finicky, I looked at the WK (I do believe) line and seemed like they'd need some eq'ing. I would reccomend to stay away from drivers that require alot of work to get right if it's your first time, just don't want you to be dissapointed...
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