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On a roll, and loving it! DIY Speaker Projects

Flint

Prodigal Son
Superstar
Over the past three months I have been working on three speaker projects.

First, to get back into the hobby I built a huge set of open baffle line array speakers which expanded into a three way system with a tweeter array and stereo subwoofer towers. Since everything was intended to see how much performance I could get form the cheapest parts, nothing in the rig is high end or fancy:
LineArray40.jpg
I had no real intention to keep them, but they grew on me and are now proudly on display in my front living room which serves little practical purpose other than offering a place to do yoga and it is connected to my dining room area.

Then, partially out of necessity I used some old parts from a failed JBL speaker set to build a new 2.1 system for my master bathroom. Using a pair of nice and modestly priced 3" full-range speakers from Tang Bang and then used a very decent 10" subwoofer driver from Dayton Audio to make a nice sealed subwoofer. Since they were for a bathroom, I painted them bright, happy, fun colors:
MasterBath_19.jpg
I am really loving these when I am showering, brushing my teeth, getting dressed, taking a bath, or whatever one might do in a master bath.

One of the main driving factors for getting back into the hobby was to build a new set of main speakers for my primary critical listening rig. This was necessary since my old "perfect" speakers had failed due to a materials choice I made when building them. They were ruined and I needed something new. So, after much research and the excitement of a new technology coming from Denmark's Scan-Speak, I spent nearly a year designing and now building my next state of the art speakers:
Ellipticor_Initial_Build_2018-09-20.jpg
I have not completely finished the project, these are just the speakers stacked as they will be in my listening room (which I will no longer call a HT since I am doing away with surround sound). I still need to get my external crossover, move everything up to the listening room, hook it all up, and tune it out. But, you can see the general design.

They are stacks of driver "modules" where each driver is in its own self-contained unit consisting of a stackable baffle and if necessary a cabinet. Since the tweeter needs no cabinet, it is open in the rear other than the rear protruding brace necessary for stable stacking. The midrange units have a small sealed enclosure, tuned for the ideal performance from the 7" midrange drivers (should get solid output to as low as 150Hz, but I plan on a 250Hz crossover point). The 10" woofers are very large enclosures to accommodate the best possible performance from them. I am excited to get these installed and tuned up.

All of this makes me very happy. I may want to make a habit of building speakers as a regular hobby. Who wants a custom set of speakers designed just for them?
 
...

All of this makes me very happy. I may want to make a habit of building speakers as a regular hobby. Who wants a custom set of speakers designed just for them?

Those look awesome. Maybe one day I'll get to hear them...

I want a custom set of speakers designed just for me. Getting a new house soon, I'll save some space for them.

Reality though? Doubtful. Highly highly doubtful.
 
Over the past three months I have been working on three speaker projects.

First, to get back into the hobby I built a huge set of open baffle line array speakers which expanded into a three way system with a tweeter array and stereo subwoofer towers. Since everything was intended to see how much performance I could get form the cheapest parts, nothing in the rig is high end or fancy:
View attachment 8254
I had no real intention to keep them, but they grew on me and are now proudly on display in my front living room which serves little practical purpose other than offering a place to do yoga and it is connected to my dining room area.

Then, partially out of necessity I used some old parts from a failed JBL speaker set to build a new 2.1 system for my master bathroom. Using a pair of nice and modestly priced 3" full-range speakers from Tang Bang and then used a very decent 10" subwoofer driver from Dayton Audio to make a nice sealed subwoofer. Since they were for a bathroom, I painted them bright, happy, fun colors:
View attachment 8255
I am really loving these when I am showering, brushing my teeth, getting dressed, taking a bath, or whatever one might do in a master bath.

One of the main driving factors for getting back into the hobby was to build a new set of main speakers for my primary critical listening rig. This was necessary since my old "perfect" speakers had failed due to a materials choice I made when building them. They were ruined and I needed something new. So, after much research and the excitement of a new technology coming from Denmark's Scan-Speak, I spent nearly a year designing and now building my next state of the art speakers:
View attachment 8256
I have not completely finished the project, these are just the speakers stacked as they will be in my listening room (which I will no longer call a HT since I am doing away with surround sound). I still need to get my external crossover, move everything up to the listening room, hook it all up, and tune it out. But, you can see the general design.

They are stacks of driver "modules" where each driver is in its own self-contained unit consisting of a stackable baffle and if necessary a cabinet. Since the tweeter needs no cabinet, it is open in the rear other than the rear protruding brace necessary for stable stacking. The midrange units have a small sealed enclosure, tuned for the ideal performance from the 7" midrange drivers (should get solid output to as low as 150Hz, but I plan on a 250Hz crossover point). The 10" woofers are very large enclosures to accommodate the best possible performance from them. I am excited to get these installed and tuned up.

All of this makes me very happy. I may want to make a habit of building speakers as a regular hobby. Who wants a custom set of speakers designed just for them?


Well since no one else has addressed this I may as well.
OCD time again. The newest speakers aren't centred in the enclosures. Obviously you did this for a reason. Acoustics, aesthetics, both or neither?
 
Kudos to you sir. You have mad skills and the design tech to go with it. Having heard some of your speakers, I must say I am impressed. I also appreciate your patience and dedication to the art of speaker building. I will have to get back up to your place, once your up and running upstairs.
 
Well since no one else has addressed this I may as well.
OCD time again. The newest speakers aren't centred in the enclosures. Obviously you did this for a reason. Acoustics, aesthetics, both or neither?

Flint can speak on this, but I would say it is dealing with a combination of reflections, standing waves and esthetics.
 
Well since no one else has addressed this I may as well.
OCD time again. The newest speakers aren't centred in the enclosures. Obviously you did this for a reason. Acoustics, aesthetics, both or neither?

If you recall from my previous ideal speaker build, that's to address the issues related to edge diffraction.

With my old speakers, the left and right speaker were both built with wide baffles and the drivers were off-set on the face. The same drivers were used in the center channel, but the baffle was narrow with the drivers centered. In the chart below, you can see how much smoother and more natural the wide, offset baffle arrangement performance is compared to the center placements on a narrower baffle.

Skaaning_Center_38_Tweeter_Resp.jpg
I shifted the green curve down 3 dB in order to make it easier to see the differences between the two curves.


This is a drawing I did to show how edge diffraction works (this was from the discussion of putting a felt ring around your tweeter to absorb the edge directed tweeter energy thus eliminating edge diffraction):

DiffractionDiagram.jpg

What happens is as the sound from the tweeter passes over the front of the baffle and encounters a sharp edge, a new source at the edge is created which will compete with the direct sound from the tweeter.

This was a common problem with speakers, especially dome and ribbon tweeters, for decades. Adding a felt or foam ring around the tweeter could address it. But so could using a wave guide to ease the transition from the dome to the flat front of the baffle and direct the sound forward and away from the baffle face. Most well made speakers today have a waveguide for the tweeter to address edge diffraction.

Another solution is the remove the edge by rounding over the edge and thus the sharp edge isn't present. The radius of the edge determines at which frequency there will still be diffraction, the greater the amount of round over (bigger radius), the lower the frequency where edge diffraction occurs.

Yet another way to address the edge diffraction issue is to offset the drivers so the tweeter is closer to one edge than the other - ideally in a mathematically incompatible ratio, like centering the tweeter 2/5 of the way across the baffle as I do. By placing the tweeter in an offset spot, the delay in the source of the edge diffraction will spread out the frequencies where there is nulls or modes, and the impact of the diffraction sound sources will be smoothed out.

With my previous speakers I measured the difference (as seen above), with the new speakers I don't feel the need to do so as I have firsthand experience with the results.

In all, this effort improves the detail, clarity, resolution, and overall depth and accuracy of the speaker in the hyper-crucial midrange region. The more accurately you can make the midrange, from about 600Hz to 5,000Hz (or so), the more detail you will truly hear in good recordings. So, when I consider addressing issues with speaker design, I put a priority on anything which can improve the midrange over aesthetics, bass performance or high treble performance.
 
One of the main driving factors for getting back into the hobby was to build a new set of main speakers for my primary critical listening rig. This was necessary since my old "perfect" speakers had failed due to a materials choice I made when building them. They were ruined and I needed something new. So, after much research and the excitement of a new technology coming from Denmark's Scan-Speak, I spent nearly a year designing and now building my next state of the art speakers:
View attachment 8256
I have not completely finished the project, these are just the speakers stacked as they will be in my listening room (which I will no longer call a HT since I am doing away with surround sound). I still need to get my external crossover, move everything up to the listening room, hook it all up, and tune it out. But, you can see the general design.

They are stacks of driver "modules" where each driver is in its own self-contained unit consisting of a stackable baffle and if necessary a cabinet. Since the tweeter needs no cabinet, it is open in the rear other than the rear protruding brace necessary for stable stacking. The midrange units have a small sealed enclosure, tuned for the ideal performance from the 7" midrange drivers (should get solid output to as low as 150Hz, but I plan on a 250Hz crossover point). The 10" woofers are very large enclosures to accommodate the best possible performance from them. I am excited to get these installed and tuned up.

Your new main speakers already look amazing, even if not yet finished! Looking forward to when you create a dedicated thread about these.

All of this makes me very happy. I may want to make a habit of building speakers as a regular hobby. Who wants a custom set of speakers designed just for them?
You couldn't have offered this before I got my speakers last year? I'm just kidding, but the next time I need another set of speakers, I'll likely seriously take you up on this offer :D
 
Your new main speakers already look amazing, even if not yet finished! Looking forward to when you create a dedicated thread about these.


You couldn't have offered this before I got my speakers last year? I'm just kidding, but the next time I need another set of speakers, I'll likely seriously take you up on this offer :D

Add Bass Bins to your C1's and you will not believe the difference............trust me!!
 
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