You’re not starting THAT again, are you Edouard?
Stuck at home? Make a speaker or something for goodness sake!
Yeah I know, it's something I say twice a year at least, but I say it because I think our community is made better with more builders than with just buyers.
Please, if you are stuck at home looking for ways to spend your money, or maybe want to interest the kids around you consider building a kit. Speakers, amplifiers, cables. Something to get your hands dirty and feel the pride of putting things together yourself.
Peace,
Erik
Please, if you are stuck at home looking for ways to spend your money, or maybe want to interest the kids around you consider building a kit. Speakers, amplifiers, cables. Something to get your hands dirty and feel the pride of putting things together yourself.
Peace,
Erik
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Using actively configured speakers with digital cross-overs and setting this up is my kind of “DIY,” and being that my pro cinema speakers are modular, i.e.: they can be used with different midrange/HF horns on top, it’s another variable to be experiemented with, which I have. At some point filter settings “coagulate” into more or less fixed values, but being able to change them on the fly, and not least knowing their influence in detail, can accommodate many things, like when I replaced the horns to bigger ones, wanting more “oomph” in the bass watching movies (not that that’s needed in my case), sheer experimentation, etc. Good stuff. |
Years ago I built a pair of Rear loaded Horns for my PA using 15" Electro-Voice & High/Mid freq horn similar to the Voice of the Theater except they were modular 2 pc. by design. Fitting the 4 sides of the inside of the 15" horn was somewhat a challenge since each one is angled and L&R sides are also curved. They looked pretty good for a PA. But I am not sure how they would have sounded at home. I never tried them...probably because they were too big. My shop is in disarray now so I won't be building any speakers very soon. But who knows? |
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tvad10,830 posts08-12-2021 6:28amBusting my chops.My young son once said, "Stop pullin' my goat". I laughed my ass off. Apparently he took 'getting my goat' and 'pulling my chain' and shuffled them together. |
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Sorry, emb. Just having fun. Didn’t mean to hurt your feelings. Please accept my apologies, asap. Thanks. |
Building the kit isn’t the issue. Motivation is. 15 minutes of working my hands and they curl up. I can do that 3 times a day and then I’m stuck wrapping one hand around a tennis ball and sipping pickle juice to stop the cramps. LOL Retirement is turning out to be a sentence after the fact... Man oh Man! I really wish I could find a buddy that his/her hands and body were in good shape and wanted to do some speaker crafting before my brain quits working, too. I even have an analog duplicating machine for making guitars, cuts the perfect baffle plates for a perfect speaker. It’s all analog no CnC all cut and fit, not cut and glue. Cut, Fit, prep, glue and screw, unless I’m inserting hardwood corners to match veneers. My dream is to build a series of narrow baffle planar monitors around neo 10 planars with a single ribbon tweeter in the middle of the 10s on the front pole. Then on the back pole (back of the 12-20" deep) cabinet a single rear facing midrange neo 8 and a single ribbon tweeter. 1, 2, 4, 6, driver with tweeter driver add one, The only non MTM design is a the single. Two stand mount, two floorstanders. Kind of a grandfather clock design. Larger tapered base. Nothing inside but expanding foam and a chamber for the planars.. Good from 100-125 - 40khz of course separate BASS columns.. You know me... Helper wanted, Zero to Low pay, mean, cantankerous boss, short unpredictable hours, no benefits or retirement, supply your own band aids, bring your own weed. I will provide a good lunch and if I like you I’ll share. NO Speedsters, No exceptions. :-) Regards |
Yeah I know, it's something I say twice a year at least, but I say it because I think our community is made better with more builders than with just buyers.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Hey I just finished mine. I'd say it was a success. Forgot to hook up one speaker's W18 cabinet. Still you get a good idea how this speaker sounds. This morning I figured out that DApolliyo and Seas Transmission line bass horn idea, was not sucha good idea after all. So I blocked off the bottom chamber going to the rear port, and cut a new port in the front and Now we have front firing bass. SUCCESS!!! I'd say my front firing port is superior to DApollito and Seas's concept of rear horn port. Dapollito and Seas figured **gee with dual woofers and only 1 tweet, we need a balance, lets port rear, and reflect off back wall, for a more numanced bass respnse soas not to over whelm the single Millennium** = wrong. The issue is the Millennium has a low db sens at 87 and the W18's also suffer from a low db sens at 87. I installeda far superior tweet witha Kasun 3.5 double magnet paper cone tweet at 91db and added the DL 6.5 for added boost to the 100hz-say 12khz. SUCCESS. Bass from the front baffel now balances out the voicing from the DavidLouis 91 wide band and Kasu 91db tweet. Again , 1 speaker's W18's are not connected. I'll have to make another video later https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=57JLhOnjqck&t=348s I think my speaker is~~ The~~~ Speaker to beat. |
DavidLouis part 2, Both w18's are now Up N running, In my exceitment to try out the front firing baffel, I forgot earlier to hook up one cahnnel's w18's. All 4 now firing away The vid abruptly ends as the Sony cam has tiny card memory. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W4yTBQ5YrH8 |
The components are out there to make beautiful pure high fidelity music. It only takes ~~~The Creative Mind~~ To seek out these possibilities and make it happen As in my newest latest design. You too can own a world class SHF speaker. Sure folks said **ohh you can't do that**, well I broke all the rules and pay off was high fidelity. |
roxy544,406 posts08-12-2021 5:44pmmozartfan, What tools do you use to design proper crossovers for these projects? No I have no xover exp. What I did was, tear out the brand new Millenniums, The xover was easy to tear out , as I had madisound redo my old xovers and had the bass xover and tweet xover on SEPARATE boards. OK so Milleeium gone + xover partion gone Now we are left with the fantastic dual W19E001's,. Remain in place xover tweaked, took out the 8.2 installeda 10uf Supreme Silver. cut off now is like,,,say 1600hzish?? Now what are we going to do for 1600hz on up...hummm, lets try a wide band ceck Order Voxativ AC1A. after a 10 ,,make that 5 minute trial in open and also ina 12inch1inch12inch 1/2 inch play cabinet= Listed and sold at 1300/free ship, Gone , back to drawing board... huummm back to davidLouis.. 4 inch = SUCESS Lets try the big brother 6.5 Success Lets add some top end sheen Add a paper cone 3.5 inch double magnet Kasun Check SUccess!!! + a Mundorf 2.2 SESGO ($100 EACH!!!) ripped from Millennium xover. Ck, sweet shiny sparkly highs, say 9kishfq =,,hummm , maybe 15k+hz's. DavidLouis runs wide open, no xover, just straight juice. BBasically i have TWO!!!!!!! Caps in this Frankenstein a 10uf/W18's 2.2/Kasun paper tweet. Clean, clear, near zero distortion, near zero coloration, near zero fatigue, ona scale of 1-100 1 being lowest possibel, ~~~~100 being like Bose or B&W type coloration/distortion/fatigue. It does not have as wide a sound stage as say a dual W22 Graphene + DavidLouis 8 inch + Kasun 3.5 paper double magnet. . That speaker would compete with the best, any Wislon speaker in terms of width and breath of soundstage. The Kasun might need a xover design to voice superior, but I have no access to any measurements nor software to design a xover, So a simple 2.2 cap is all I can give it. And it sounds wonderful. Vocals accurate, clean, highs shimmer and sparkle. Is the Seas T35 better? I have no idea. I'm done with buying high priced tweets. The Crescendo was a huge disappoi9ntment. I will have it shiped to madisound for testing. If Madisound shows tweet working as new, = a POS, sens is no more than 82db, IF THAT!!!! Seas claims 92db. Off by a factor of 10db = trash. IMHO The kasun is the tweet to beat. 91 TRUE db sens. |
What exactly are we after ina spaeker Bass Mids Highs Lets forget bass and highs for the moment. Midrange, 500hz-2khz/5khz whatever But what are we REALLY after in a speaker? Lowest possible::: Coloration Distortion Fatigue level Accurate vocal presence Instrumental separation/soundstage Is this asking too much? You bet it is. Many world famous speakers fall short in 1,2,3 or even all 4 categories. This has been my lengthy, costly , adventures in speaker selection. I truly believe I have succeeded. But I am looking for more. The Speaker saga venture continues............. I may already have IT, But not sure The W18's remain, The Kasun remains. Aint touching either. Its the wide band Lets try another DavidLouis , this time the white wooden cone 8 incher. vs his 6.5 yellow paper mix.... Til next time............... |
I mean, if you wanta commercialized speaker Buy Thiel Vandersteen, Magnepan Wislon B&W's. There are countless commercialized speakers. But if you want 1/2 commercial amd 1/2 DIY, follow my lead. Take what you have in your room now, and modify to something superior. Its not hard to do, Work with what you have, Dont go buy new speakers. You will just be on a merry go round. You can always salvage what you have. Keep your bass woofers. Tweak it down to say 800hz. and add a wide band, Keep your tweeter, just tweak xover up to say 8khz. Its really easy and makes a huge gains in midrange richness, soundstage. Wide bands, will embellish what you have and you will begin to hear music as it was meant to be heard. |
That's just what I did Mozart I took the Electrovoice Georgian and removed the bass cabinet covered it with Dynamat after painting it and then I time aligned the mid and Tweet. I had to take the mid range 848 out of the cabinet and put it on top because it needs to go back further than is possible inside the cabinet. With the face of the cabinet removed the mid range needs to be back 8 3/8 inches from the front of the outer cabinet and the tweeter goes where the mid range used to be and it needs to be back 9 7/8 inches. It sounds like music now making it hard for me to get off my duff and rewire it with some OCC. |
mozartfan1,271 posts08-13-2021 1:25amIts just that none, zero , of the commercial speakers interest me. So that is why I had to design my own speaker, w/o any advice, suggestions, ideas from my tech geek nor anyone here on audiogon. I had to make my own design, nilly willy, for the good or the bad. Tried this, that, then swaped out that, for this, and so on. Til finally i have pretty much my Final Speaker til death. You could not even give me a speaker to replace my own design. You may not like it, but thing is , its my music, my ears, and this speaker is as close to my perfect ideal of how a speaker should voice. Again, you might say ***THAT!!** And I will respond, Its as close to my hopes of speaker nirvana, more than I could ever expect. Each person has to come to his own ideas/experiences of how he wishes his ideal speaker to voice. I have plans to add a DL8, the white cone wide band Will bea shootout twix the DL 6.5 Neodymium vs DL 8/Ferrite magnet weighing in at a blsitering 8 lbs!!!!!!!!!, Woden cone One heck of a shootout. One or the other will be champ of wide bands. My guess is I'll like things about both and so keep both. Swap out, depends on the music selection. Sort of adding spice and variety. So like yeah, my speaker is all original, my ideas, no one elses. |
dwytopx7 posts08-12-2021 8:48pm That's just what I did Mozart I took the Electrovoice Georgian and removed the bass cabinet covered it with Dynamat after painting it and then I time aligned the mid and Tweet. I had to take the mid range 848 out of the cabinet and put it on top because it needs to go back further than is possible inside the cabinet. With the face of the cabinet removed the mid range needs to be back 8 3/8 inches from the front of the outer cabinet and the tweeter goes where the mid range used to be and it needs to be back 9 7/8 inches. It sounds like music now making it hard for me to get off my duff and rewire it with some OCC. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ EV made some incredible drivers through the years. The EV A1's/1974. and many other earlier horns, wide bands and such. I am not following about off setting the mid horn and tweet horn, back some inches... Why? If you could post a vid like I did, so we can all see whats going on. My only interest now is testing other DavidLouis wide bands. Not sure why the audiophile community has over looked this speaker line. My classical music never sounded better with DL wide bands. I could never go back to any dome mid tweeter, 2khz-15khz. My paper 3.5 inch tweet is the exception. Its sort of like a wide band tweet, the cone is 3.5 inches, so dispersion is superior to any old dome tweet. made in china, the kind you might see in cheap speakers way back in the 1970;s. But this lil guy is new modernized, with double magnets. China is making some junk speakers for sure, but there are a few gems in the pile. Just need to know what to look for. This Kasun is a gem of a tweet at $60/pair. The DL wide band a real special speaker that makes muisc , which i can not get in a commerical speaker. I do not like any commerical speakers. The Wilson;s I know are nice, but wayyyy too heavy, and of course wayyyy out my budget. So i had to make my own **Wilson** on a budget. |
Not so much a scratch build as a strip out and major modification. Not quite finished yet, but tested at several points along the way, so no real idea of the final sound. I hope to have them finished this weekend. I expect to have them apart several times before I’ll consider them truly finished, as with so much of my stuff, an idea will pop into my head, and in I go again, quite often I must say reverting to how it was and consigning that idea to the bin. :^) Speakers were originally a pair of Gale GS302 that I have had doing nothing for some time. https://cursorium.co.uk/speaker-project/ |
@mozartfan...Once the warranty goes *phftt*, they're yours to abuse...;) Noticed the cat(s) evac the climber in the window....*g* 2 felines + dawg in house, which indicates loss of control....*L* Your Sony works like mine used to....image ok, sound *ehh*, rather 'bright' to employ the overworked comment...chalked up to the cam. I like bright, so no issues otherwise... Ultimately, if you're happy is all that counts....Enjoy! 👍😊 @oldhvymec, love to apply for the project but can't even get to my own, and you're too far away for practical 'fun fab functions'.... Motorhome is 'landlocked' for some time previous and now. We'd either get along famously or need to 'off' one or both; the usual that happens when strangers meet, greet, heat, huff, and *puff*. *L* 'Analog DIY tools 'n patterns' an in-organism specialty, wood/metal/plastics part of the repertory... Hands still work fine, but a requirement would be a stock of Band Aids due to blood thinners....I bruise if you look @ me hard....used to it, keeps the stuff fresh, much like the owner of the organism. Vac'd, of course; carrier, perhaps. What I've got only xmits by mindmeld, most of which goes extremely undetermined as to long sequence effects. Do find your line-source concept of interest....find the neo 10s' & 8s' of interest, but wonder if you're going to 'dipole' them as opposed to 'throttling' the back waves....10s' 'up front' could eliminate the 8's with cab design, but your concept rules the day and direction.... "If it don't fly, throwing off a cliff won't improve matters...."*L* BTW....I draw, concept & construct. Beats later f-ups...;) Weakend beconds....urs, J |