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Any potential here - EV LS12 + mid horn & tweeter in too small an enclosure?

62vauxhall

62vauxhall

Addicted Member
I've hung on to a pair of EV Wolverine LS12's for a very long time. They were obtained new in 1968 and installed in cabinets I made that summer during high school. The enclosures are long since gone as are the mids & tweeters that were in them. But I salvaged the woofers intending to do something with them one day. A few years ago, a speaker repair shop was "cleaning house" and I bought the companion EV horn midranges, tweeters and crossovers.

Last summer, I bid on and won a stereo system form a home contents liquidation aucton. Nothing was of interest except the speakers. Home built but well made and nice appearance. I had no idea what was inside until getting them home but nothing stellar. Sansui 12" woofers, Philips 4.5" mids and some plastic horn tweeters which were shot. I gave away the woofs, kept the mids and tossed the tweets. Since my main objective was the boxes, I was satisfid with the purchase.

I had the notion that EV LS12's needed enclosures of 4cf or more. Somehow I concluded that the ones I bought were 4.5cf. I have just now realized this was a miscalculation and what I have are 3cf or 2.87 to be precise.

The purchased cabinets were sealed boxes which I was going to stick with but now think a port might be beneficial if they are to house EV LS12's. It would be far easier in my opinion, to locate said port at the rear. The front baffle would be tennuous because the driver openings use up most of the area.

So, is there a viable compromise here to create an EV LS12 based 3-way in a 3cf box with inside dimensions of 23"H x 18"W x 12"D?

EDIT: Or would accoustic suspension be the least offensive?
 
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Thanks, I looked through those several times before posting even printed off hard copies a few years ago. Not building appropriate speaker boxes from scratch but wanting to optimize what I have. Whittling off the corners to make a square peg fit in a round hole sort of thing.

Once upon a time, my plan was to build a pair of Lancaster enclosures for the LS12's. Even went so far as to visit a wood lot to check out what hardwoods the guy milled there. Ruled that idea out when I learned the price and drawbacks of solid hardwood used in this application.

Thinking more about those enclosures I bought, I'm coming more and more around to leaving them sealed - sans port. There were a couple of such systems I've owned in the past where largish woofers were installed in what to me seemed small volume boxes.
 
Well the cab's you've got are undersized for EV's recommendation for reflex. You might get away with it going sealed but looks like the Fs is 65hz. Might be a bit peaky on the low end.

GL
 
I figured the bass would be negatively affected to some degree. But, I'll give it a go anyway. It's just a project to use up "leftovers" so I kind of expect mediocrity. Doing it mostly to have a pair of funky looking speaker cabinets that are functional. If they're abyssmal, a pair of Lancaster boxes might get built after all.
 
Any chance you need to increase the tweeter height? You could build a pair of ~1.5 ft^3 boxes to serve as stands. Cut some big holes in the bottom of the too small speakers to connect the air spaces and bolt them together. Ports go in the bottom box, of course. Similarly, you could extend the backs...
 
I think the Wolverine 12 actually works quite well on a simple open baffle. Really. A guy in our Chicago horn club put them on plexiglass baffles about, oh, 4 feet high and 2 feet wide and they made quite clean and robust bass. I was quite surprised as I'm skeptical of many open baffle claims, and I built a few myself way back when.

If you try it out with cheap plywood baffles and don't like it little time and money is lost.
 
Don: An additional box below is a clever suggestion but I no longer have easy access to a properly equipped shop to do the cutting. Doable but not convenent due to distance.

Tom: I have read several reports of LS12's being used on open baffles with good success. My problem is space:

IMG_4462.JPG
 
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