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AK Design Collaborative - Insignia-Class Economy Speakers (a.k.a Indignia)

Switch the speakers, to be sure it's the "right" speaker, and not something upstream.
With the XO at 1940, the upper midrange has some tweeter. You might want to alternate disconnecting the tweeter and woofer in the affected speaker, and see if it's woofer or tweeter.
Good luck.
 
Good advice JosephL. Also, Welcome to AK.

Yeah it shouldn't be to tough to switch the drivers from one cabinet to the other. That will isolate the problem to either speaker or crossover.
 
Did you measure the resistance of the speakers. If all is well with the wiring and drivers, the numbers should be about the same.
 
Ok so, my multimeter is dead... New multimeter in the mail on Tuesday.

I went back to the B&Ws and played the same cuts. When I listen real closely with amp cranked, I can hear the same distortion, but not as pronounced. I am not sure what that means. Maybe just the difference of where the XO frequencies are on each driver.

Next Tuesday, I will start by testing the speakers and go from there.
 
sunking9 said:
Hello All,

I've been lurking for quite a while trying to learn about these speakers. I did a bit of experimenting with building speaker cabinets. It is definitely tougher than it looks. One cab came out pretty square. The other not so much. Also had some problems fitting the port tube in the odd ball cab. The dremel trimmed enough to stuff if all inside. They are all sanded, painted, poly'd, glued, soldered, bolted up. And they work!!!!
Click to expand...

Nice work, Mitch! Serial #s 107, 108 assigned.
 
I figured out a couple of mistakes that I made.

First, I had wired the crossovers on old PCB boards with the pre-plated holes. The conductive board must have been messing with the air cores. Anyway, I moved the XO components to non-conductive plywood. I think this made the biggest difference. The ohms have changed from 6.9. The left jumps between 7.2 to 7.3. The right between 7.3 to 7.4.

Second, I used 18 gauge solid core wire for leads, instead of 22 gauge. This may not have made a difference, but it makes me feel better.

Third, I noticed that cutout for the tweeter connectors was rubbing on one side. I widened the cutout so nothing rubs. Again, this may help with some weird buzzing that I was getting, but I'm not sure.

Anyway, I've been listening for a couple of days and these speakers are really good. Very clear, no distortion anymore. Sound stage is still great. I am very impressed with these little guys.
 
My vote is for "Second, I used 18 gauge solid core wire for leads, instead of 22 gauge."
I like solid core better than stranded wire. And 22 AWG feels anemic. What self respecting DIYer would use a skinny speaker cable.
Enjoy.
 
I have a novice question about the Indignia and speakers in general, if you wanted to make the box bigger, say 1 cubic foot (28 liters) and calculated it using one of those programs that calculates the F3 and port diameter would it involve changing the crossover values?
 
If you keep the baffle size roughly the same you should be ok. The crossover in this case doesn't do anything with the low end of the woofer and that's where you'll see/hear a difference in volume. If you change the baffle size significantly then you may get some wiggles around the crossover frequency depending on how things line up. If I were going to go bigger, I would keep the width close to what is specified and just increase height and depth.

Having said all that, I made the Roundignias using the stock crossover and they worked out great. Other than going infinite baffle, that's about as far from the specified baffle as you can get.
 
Blast said:
The two pairs that I built using the Realistic MC-1000 box (the first pair are seen here: http://www.audiokarma.org/forums/in...rs-a-k-a-indignia.160535/page-85#post-5213629 ) calculate to about .71 cu ft. I know the port size was shortened because of the larger box.

I wish there was an easy way to do a listening test with ones of the original design size.
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I know this is a very old thread, but it intrigues me. I also have a pair of the MC-1000 speakers that I am considering doing something like this to them. What I'm wondering is has anyone taken those MC-1000 speakers, done these mods, but not put in the port? In other words, kept them an acoustic suspension design rather than converting the boxes to a ported bass reflex style as shown here? Would keeping them a sealed box change the crossover points and require a different crossover? Would the bass be overpowering, lacking, or any difference at all?

Curiosity is killing that cat on this one ;)
 
The crossover would probably not be an issue as the box shouldn't be affecting things up that high. Looking at number really quickly it looks like your effective bass (I like to use -6dB anechoic as a yardstick) will go up a bit from ~47Hz to ~60Hz.
 
RayW said:
The crossover would probably not be an issue as the box shouldn't be affecting things up that high. Looking at number really quickly it looks like your effective bass (I like to use -6dB anechoic as a yardstick) will go up a bit from ~47Hz to ~60Hz.
Click to expand...

So, less bass going acoustic suspension. This answers my question, thank you.
 
I have all the parts for a pair of the Karma Indignias except for the damping fiberglass and I'm having a problem with that.
I have some Roxul "Safe & Sound" left over from a reno. would that do to line the side and bottom (or whatever is best)???
Herb
 
That should work fine as long as you don't stuff it so much that it appreciably changes the apparent volume. Line 1 of each pair of opposing sides, e.g. back, one side, and bottom.
 
heem6 said:
... Would it be possible to replace the capacitors on the crossover I have with the Ver 3.5 values and add the resistor to the circuit? I know this is a bass-ackwards approach, but I really like these speakers already and want to see the project though as best I can.
Click to expand...

Pics of the front and back of the boards would help us.
What values do your crossovers have right now, (caps AND inductors)? Are any of them the same as the recommended Indignia design?
Does the circuit match? (Except for the resistor, obviously.)

If you look at Zilch's post with the pics of his layout, he managed to mount all the components on a thin board and connect them with just the leads that are on the caps, resistor and inductors.

If it was me, I'd start fresh with a piece of thin wood (1/4" ply or even laminate flooring scraps work great). That way you can swap the entire crossover out one at a time to hear the changes for yourself. Plus, you get to listen to them while you figure out the new XO...
 
Built these back in the day, still use them in a bedroom system. Noticed the tweeter became no longer available, then we're reintroduced but according to some builders, isn't the same and would need cross over mods to be used in this project.

In order not to dilute the quality of this project, I have PM'd Ray about this, just been a few days, but no response yet. To those that weren't around for the project, as the title says it was a design collaborative...one of several spear headed by Zilch, who had the wisdom to involve Ray, a talented speaker/crossover designer.

While anyone of several tweeters could be crammed into place and play, that is not the way it was designed. It was lovingly poured over, different drivers considered and crossover same way perfected by measurement.

This is why this project sounds as good as it does, and really deserves to have an available tweeter and crossover as good as the original.

I don't know if the current version would work with modified crossover components. A lot of trouble went into picking the original tweeter and crossover designed for it.

Hopefully Ray, or someone in the original collaborative will be able to pull those old notes out and accommodate this great design.

Russellc
 
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