Home Made Speaks.

Matt Lafayette

Active Member
Allright everyone. I've decided that it's time I tried my hand at building my own set of speakers that will conform to my rather particular aesthetic preferences! Of course I also want them to be of the best sound quality (within budgetary constraints.)
My question is : Where on the net or otherwise, can one find a set of guidelines/instructions for assembling such things? I need it all, driver selection, crossovers, dos and don'ts, materials et al....
Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated!
Thanks in advance.
Matt
 
Go to Google, enter <diy loudspeakers> and lots of sites will come up.
Many good sites, try Bob Stout's page for GOOD info and links.
Madisound, partsexpress, lots of places have good info.

some good links have been posted in our DIY forum, too.

pete
 
Might I suggest a kit. Or a design that is already proven. Let someone else do the computing as far as driver matching, cabinet dimensions, ect. I went down this same road not too long ago, thinking I could do all that myself. WRONG!:confused: :confused: :confused: The more I read on the subject the more confused I got. I guess if I had lots of time to actually study hard, I could probably get it, but right now too many irons in the fire. I don't like math, not that I can't do it, I just don't want to! Maybe one of these computer programs will do all the work for us, but that's kinda like cheating I think. I am determined to do it, just not right now. I want to understand the "whys" and "hows" of something. I don't know what your abilities are, so I'm "speaking" from my own experience (or lack therof). Brad
 
speaker DIY

Hi Matt. If you are interested in trying the high efficiency, tube or even SET route, here are 2 companies that might be worth looking at.

Adire audio (adireaudio.com) has a great $300.00 kit (HE10) for a smallish monitor using a 10" driver with a co-axially mounted tweeter. These are also available in a souped-up "signature" version from Diycable (diycable.com) for $450.00. I heard these at the Midwest Audiofest driven by 300B SET's (7w) in a pretty large room. Very nice.

Another company that publishes finished designs, plans and kits is Pispeakers.com. They have designs available from low buck entry-level stuff up to big dollar JBL pro based systems. Again, I heard a relatively low cost design (4Pi's) driver by low power SET's at the above show - sounding very musical in a huge auditorium driven by 3w! They have a good discussion forum on the Pispeaker site as well.

These are pre-engineered, established designs that are a known entity with lots of happy owners. You can probably even arrange to hear the end results - something I feel is critical. I don't think it’s a great idea to play speaker designer when it comes to selecting drivers and designing cross-overs. Fooling with box design is probably not as risky if you stick with the designed volumes and tuning. This is of coarse, just my opinion :) .

Billf
 
Hello Matt

I am sure you will like it. It's work but its fun. There are many ways to go. You can do kits, copy a design or roll your own:)
It really depends on your skill and comfort level. If you can do cabinets great. That can save you some cash. If you don't have your drivers yet there are several good designs on the net that have been posted above. I would try to audition a kit if you can. Speakers are personal so you don't want to buiid something you won't like. The box design is not that hard with software. Even if you don't design your own boxes it is a good idea to download a freeware like WINISD and play with the program. You can learn a lot from the help menu and see what types of drivers work in diferent box types. You can also model the box tunning of any kit you are thinking about as long as you have thiele small paramaters for the drivers and the enclosure volume.

Have Fun Rob2:D
 
I have a beta of WinISD. Has he 'finished' it?
Great program for planning a building project!!

pete
 
THANKS ALL...

Wow lads thanks for all the 411.
I'm quite excited about this project as it represents the next step in a relatively new hobby for me.
I have quite a bit of capentry experience but my knowledge of the electrical and audio physics aspects of speakers is virtually nil.
What I want is to simply produce a VERY unique and attractive looking speaker that will sound good. I say good because this is a first attempt and I'm willing to make mistakes if I can learn how to improve the finished product.
Thanks again for your interest.
I'll keep a log of my progress here in the speaker section.
Matt
 
Go to the DIY forum as there are links to crossover calculators and lots of DIY links from around the world. DIY is the way to get the mostest for the leastest and to your tastes. Of course you tastes change so you will always have a good reason to build again.
Thatch
 
"This is the weekend"

How did the first day go, Matt?
Any quick comments on what you have decided to try?
Drivers, cabinet type, etc.?

good luck, measure twice, cut once! ;)

pete
 
Crud.....

The first day was not so good. The sales guy at Studiolab speakers here in Toronto actully convinced me to do a little (read alot) more reasearch before purchasing components. So I guess it's off to the library before I take this project any farther.
Crud....
Matt
 
No, you've just met a GOOD salesman. You are lucky.
That is a good thing. All good things in time,

pete
 
Matt,
You really ought to take this up over in the DIY section. Since this is your 1st go at DIY we are all going to follow this with interest and help out all we can, but having the thread on this in the DIY archive might help someone else out down the road better than in the speaker forum. Same people over there but it will be archived separate. By the way with the new speakers these days have a high amount of mechanical movement Transmission Lines are much more succesful than when invented 50 years ago. Fairly simple to build and the math is very simple. I built a pair of 2 ways almost a year ago and have the simplest crossover you can make in them. And they turned out very well. First recommendation is to go with something with an SPL of 93 to 95, go 2 way and use paper cones. Then you can stay with SS or go Hollow State(tubes), the drivers are low priced, the crossover can be as simple as a single capasitor on the tweeter and you can get full complete sound with 2 drivers. Do your research on where the human ear hears most of the sounds and focus on getting that right and let the lows and highs fall where they will. Replacing drivers and building different crossovers is no big deal if you keep it simple and build your cabinets right. Also though I might get fun poked at me there is a break in period for new drivers that have voice coils. They are motors and will work better after being used for a while.
A word about watts. The amount of watts a speaker can handle do not go hand in hand with quality. If you can put your hands on the woofers you want ones that have free movement of the cone. The flat piece at the bottom of the cone that holds it in place and keeps the voice coils alligned is the spider. It controls cone movement more than anything. A driver that will handle real high amounts of power often will have thicker wire in the voice coil to take the power, but there have to be a certain amounts of turns for the voice coil to funtion correctly when the current goes through it. So the spider is stiffenned to keep the voice coil from popping out of its space and you have gained nothing as far as actual sound volume is concerned, the thicker wire means greater tolerances in the space where the voice coil operates and often the wire used is of a lesser quality. Anybody that tells you a speaker is better when it has a SPL of 86 and can handle 500 watts than one that has an SPL of 96 that can handle 100 watts has their head up their backside and ignore them. Some of the best speakers ever made are only supposed to take 20 watts or less. You can still put your 200 watt amp on them and they will still sound great. 500 watt speakers more than likely will not sound good no matter what you put on them. These are generalities but good ones. Go for a nice efficient driver that has lots of range, descent power handling capabilities and pick your tweeter to match up with it.
A real aside comment is that Paul Klipsch who was one of the best speaker cabinet designers typically did not use TOTL drivers except where it counted most, the mids and lower highs. K-Horn owners often replaced what were considered mid line quality woofers with TOTL and found to their dismay that the cheaper ones worked better. It was the cabinet and the synergy of the design that worked.
Keep us posted!
Thatch
 
Matt think about this idea!

Matt,

Here is my recommendation. PartsExpress has the 15" version of the 12" coaxial Selenium 12CO1P drivers that I bought to put in my full range front horns. This 15", 15CO1P uses the exact same woofer engine and 2" titanium ferrofluid damped/cooled HF compression driver as my speaker except has a 15" cone. These are on sale until the end of this month. See
http://www.partsexpress.com/webpage.cfm?&DID=7&WebPage_ID=145&promo=15

They come with a good crossover already mounted on the speaker so you will be all set. The crossover can be changed later if you want, or they can be bi-amped. You have options.

These are 96 dB efficient and you could put them in a simple bass reflex cabinet just like Altec did with their legendary 604 coaxial.
The only thing is whether or not you will like the sound of a compression driver on the top of a two way. I do.

I see you mentioned some Hi-Fi store in Toronto, so you must be in the area. If you want to come to my place and hear what these drivers sound like I could give you a demo. I am totally convinced that these Seleniums are a totally fabulous bargoon for the dough, and especially so when on sale. By the time you pay dollar conversion and duties, taxes and shipping, etc, these will be $500 CDN for the pair. Another $100 or less for cabinet materials ( 3/4 inch MDF is only $28.00 CDN a sheet) ,
and you will have a great set of studio monitors that will work great with a lo power SET amp. You can also drive the snot out of them safely because they are tested at 250 watts RMS pink noise for 2 hours. These are tough!

Send me private email if interested. I'm just over an hour's drive from TO.

Rob
 
Rob you seem to be the man with lots of knowledge so I was wondering if you would recommend these drivers for use in my Wharfedale cabinets? If so, any horns to match? I don't know if you ever saw my post in the DIY section. These cabinets are early 60's, 7 layer panaply, about 4 feet tall, sides are angled in (ala K-Horn) to fit in a corner, the bass bin is sealed and the top use to hold mids and tweets that fired straight up out of the top of the cabinet. I want to put a horn firing front. The top section again is like a K-horn. It open in the back. any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. If you like I can dig these things out of the shed and take some pics.

Thanks
 
Test

My computer latched up when I was trying to post a picture of my Selenium so this is a test without a picture.

Rob

Arrrrrgh. My system still latches up when I try to attach a photo. If I disappear for a few days you will know why.

Wardsweb,

I don't know if these speakers will work in your cabinets. You do understand that you need a clear shot to the listener from the front of this driver because it has an HF horn in the middle? Best to check the webpage and download the .pdf data file on it.

Rob
 
Last edited:
I think I'm missing something. The picture from the data sheet doesn't show a horn. I pulled this from the link earlier in the thread.
 
Wardsweb,

Yup, just behind that large center HF transparent dustcap is the exit mouth a ~3" round HF plastic or aluminum horn. I like the way they did this because it is a clever way to deal with the dust seal problem between the moving voice coil of the woofer and the stationary horn.

The x-over frequency is not given on the datasheet but I believe it is around 2KHz. It does show aschematic and it is 1st order rolloff. In my listening tests I've tried to hear HF doppler modulation of highs with the bass note and cannot. I think they have a good design here.

My only peeve is that they advertise this product for professional monitor use in touring and fixed applications and that implies rough handling and shock. I think they should have made the basket cast aluminum instead of the stamped steel that it is because I think it is a bit flimsy considering the large mass of the magnets and stuff on the back. On the plus side the efficiency is so high that, especially in my front horn loaded 12" version application, at nornmal loud volume levels there is no visual cone movement and that pretty much tells me that the voice coil is staying put in the most linear area of the magnetic gap and with that comes lowest distortion. For the money, I say again. I think this driver is a good deal!

I would not recommend the 15CO1P version for horn loading however as the Qes and Qts are higher on the larger version compared to the 12". I am very pleased with the 12CO1P performance in a big horn.

Rob
 
Back
Top Bottom