The best DIY speaker in the world?

[monaro8]

Well, when someone makes this statement:

"The best DIY speaker in the world?" What happens?

1. you MUST read the thread!

2. you then try to imagine how they sound

3. you try to 'believe' the comments

4. you want to believe the comments

5. you want to try to really believe the comments..."The best DIY speaker in the world"...and at a bargain price to boot!!!

6. too good to be true you think

7. you are fairly convinced but maybe a second/third/fourth opinion would be nice

8. for a fraction of a second you think....'poor kye, he's lost it???'

BUT, no, this is his forte, he 'should' know what he's on about

9. Wow, hey! best in the world!!!...fan-bloody-tastic...go the Ozzies!! Oy Oy OY!!!

10. Hmmm....another opinion would be nice though.

Maybe some more pics kye? Some from the open back etc?

How are things progressing?

We are ALL behind you mate...go for it!!

Cheers...Vanch...

[Monkeyboi]

Just on the topic of inexpensive DIY speakers.

When I first became interested in better sound reproduction I was still at school and funds were almost non-existant. I ventured initially into mono amps and made up speaker enclosures with drivers salvaged from old radiograms and the like. It didn't take long to realise a better box improved the tone of the salvaged driver(s).

Later when I started to work I was able to save money and afford to build kit stereo amps and build better speakers using new components. My first DIY speaker using new drivers was based on the humble Rola C8MX, an 8" full range speaker of about 7 or 8 watts power rating. the driver had a whizzer cone similar to the ones Kye is using in his latest project. This worked quite well with the Sinclair Super IC12 6 watts per channel amplifier. Pic is here - http://www.flickr.com/photos/yrvafhom/4694667268/

I replaced the Sinclair kit amp with a Playmaster 136 integrated amp (an Electronics Australia kit) in my own chassis. It was a 13 watts (RMS) per channel job based on some new Fairchild bi-mesa planar epitaxial semiconductors used as the output devices.

The humble C8MX drivers were replaced by the improved Plessey Rola C80MX full range drivers which also had an increased power handling capacity. To my ears the treble wasn't quite right so I added a two way 2nd order crossover network and the then newly released Plessey X30 dome tweeters. This improve the top end considerably and the modification to the existing infinite baffle cabinets was minimal.

As with all things DIY you end up on a steep learning curve. This lead to newer and bigger boxes, this time using the Plessey C100 10" woofer, Plessey C6MR 6" sealed back midrange and the X30 1" dome tweeters got a recycling using a 2nd order 3-way crossover network.

Philips metalised polypropylene caps and air-cored inductors were used in the crossover network. The only bi-polar electrolytics were in the woofer crossover.

Here's some links to archived pics of some of those drivers -

• Plessey C100 10" woofer - http://www.slv.vic.gov.au/pictoria/gid/slv-pic-aab84519/1/a52278
  
• Plessey C6MR 6" sealed back midrange - http://www.slv.vic.gov.au/pictoria/gid/slv-pic-aab84519/1/a52279
  
• Plessey X30 dome tweeters which were only sold in pairs - http://www.slv.vic.gov.au/pictoria/gid/slv-pic-aab84519/1/a52276
  

Cheers,

Alan R.

[Mick35]

I dug out my pair of full rangers today, they are the same as Kye's. So I'll give it a bash, and get the rest of the parts in the coming week. I won't get a chance to put anything together till after xmas though. I gotta do some work on some other speakers over xmas, so what's a few extra holes whilst I'm at it. This should be interesting?

[monaro8]

I dug out my pair of full rangers today, they are the same as Kye's. So I'll give it a bash, and get the rest of the parts in the coming week. I won't get a chance to put anything together till after xmas though. I gotta do some work on some other speakers over xmas, so what's a few extra holes whilst I'm at it. This should be interesting?

Go for it Mick, do it, do it!!!

"build them and they will come"...Field of Dreams.

I can't say who exactly will come, but, some will....

[broom]

Go for it Mick, do it, do it!!!

"build them and they will come"...Field of Dreams.

I can't say who exactly will come, but, some will....

I will if someone in Brissie has a go at them!

[monaro8]

I will if someone in Brissie has a go at them!

There you go!!!

broom = 1

[kye]

hi all...

second and third opinions are most welcome, but as i'm in the middle of moving house, there will have to be a small delay until we can sort it out.

vanch - nice post and I understand the sentiments!

this is but the beginning

[Guest atilsley]

Nice thread.

Reminds me of the Visaton B200 wide-ranger, used in a multi driver set-up. I haven't heard this config, but I've had the B200 in a couple of BLH's. Nice driver for sure...more bass extension than the Fostex 206E, but not quite the slam of a Lowther.

Check this link on the B200....nice.

Here's the one I was thinking about.

Andrew

[Guest Muon]

Soooo...tempted to try a build of these

Maybe after Easter...

[monaro8]

Soooo...tempted to try a build of these

Maybe after Easter...

As Clint Eastwood would say..."Go ahead, make my day"....

[ALF-]

Great thread ... 'onya Kye!

these drivers aren't for people who like measurements, they're for people who like music

That statement itself is music to my ears (applies to amps too)

Chizz

ALF

[Full Range]

Great thread ... 'onya Kye!

these drivers aren't for people who like measurements, they're for people who like music

That statement itself is music to my ears (applies to amps too)

Chizz

ALF

I second that and have said so on numerous occasions but alas - fallen on deaf ears

FR

[kye]

thanks guys..

just typed up a followup and lost it in because the forums session timed out (or whatever hoopla they've put in to make it nicer for them and less friendly for us users..)

will repost again later, but the highlights are that i've tested deeper baffles and gotten down to 30Hz. and have come up with a sub/sat version that is so crazy it just might work.

[Paul Spencer]

Great thread ... 'onya Kye!

these drivers aren't for people who like measurements, they're for people who like music

That statement itself is music to my ears (applies to amps too)

Chizz

ALF

To that I say "bah humbug!"

[ALF-]

To that I say "bah humbug!"

That's fine Scrooge .. errr, I mean Paul ... we all have individual opinions, that's yours - the other is mine.

Cheers

ALF

[Drizt]

To that I say "bah humbug!"

Exactly what I was thinking, but what can you do.

[kye]

let's talk about music, let's talk about bass and let's talk about these speakers.

the way I see it, of the many imperfections these speakers have, the major one is the lower register (or maybe the lower two registers..)

like the rest of the imperfections these speakers have, they're "hifi relevant" deficiencies, rather than "musically relevant" deficiencies. let me explain these through some examples..

I have heard live sounds (the world is full of them!) and heard the odd unamplified acoustic instrument before. I have never been able to hear the frequency balance or tone of an instrument or a voice, even when i've tried to hear it, I just can't. I can, however, hear it in most hifi setups, and I care about it - normally the worse the system the more I care about it. these speakers are not tonally neutral - they're on the lean side, i'm sure there's an upper mid / lower treble emphasis, but I don't care, it's not something I tend to hear on most recordings. the way I know that it actually doesn't matter is that it doesn't matter on music that should bring out the worst in this characteristic - recordings that are already lacking warmth. the beatles catalog and blondie have gotten a lot of airtime on these speakers recently, and at volume levels that are relatively unsocial too, but the speakers rarely call for me to turn the music down. they do call for me to turn things down occasionally, but that's because i've gotten very excited and am in danger of doing serious damage to my hearing (the first time I discovered how good queen sound on these my ears were ringing and everything sounded dull for all the next day.. the speakers were still hugely enjoyable at that volume though)

how about imaging? imaging is a strange one, and I am a big fan of it. I love to be able to hear sounds outside the speakers, I love to be able to get real depth in the soundstage (buena vista social club is wonderful). these factors in imaging make me feel like i'm somewhere else, like i've been transported somehow, this makes things feel 'special' and like i'm now more connected to the music. the thing that people often bang on about is accuracy in the image - like "5 foot from the left wall" and "you can tell which trumpet player has platform shoes on because of the extra height" and other such rubbish. I say that it's rubbish because i've heard systems that give these effects, but here's the rub - real life doesn't image like that. next time you're somewhere that has real sounds (outside the listening room) stop, close your eyes and listen. let the image of your surroundings build up in your head. better yet - if there's live music there, concentrate on the detail of the location. is the guitar of the busker finely focussed? can you tell how far off the footpath it is? can you tell how far from the shop window he is? yes, you probably can, and guess what, whilst you were concentraing on musically irrelevant red herring, he's finished his set and you missed the great performance he delivered.

With imaging I want to feel like i'm there, I don't care how accurately the size and location are rendered.

now, let's talk about bass. and let's talk about unamplified music.

I have almost never felt "bass" from live instruments. the only exception to this is corner-loading my djembe and hitting it open handed (the open bass note) and feeling the room shake. dishes settled in the dishrack in the next room I recall - it sounded amazing. but it wasn't music, it was more like fireworks. you can feel fireworks hit you in the stomach, but show me someone who listens to fireworks because they like fireworks, not because they want to hear their hifi playing fireworks, and i'll make an exception. there's a cooridoor in a shopping centre in west perth that is about 30-40m long, dead straight, completely concrete and has a door at each end that seal pretty well. because the bathrooms are here, I have spent the odd few minutes waiting for someone and listening to the acoustics. if both doors close at exactly the same time, the whole place resonates and you feel it - it's very impressive. nothing i've ever heard unamplified ever matches what comes out of the port on my ported woofers.

I think hifi bass is a falacy - it's not something that exists in the real world, or if it does it doesn't feel even remotely the same. live sounds tend to be there, and then they're not. hifi sounds tend to be here, and then they're still here, and you can hear them trail off. real life doesn't sound like that to me. even the rumble of thunder isn't physical like that despite being very low in frequency (at least that i've heard) and even if it is, I don't listen to thunder recreationally, so I don't much care.

so, these are things I think that matter in hifi but not in music.

these speakers do the things that are musically relevant.

I listened to Scooter (hardcore rave music - as artificial as it gets) at obscene volumes earlier today, and although I noticed that the bass drums and lines weren't quite as physical as I would have liked, and not quite as loud as I would have liked, I feel that this is perhaps the only time that i've noticed the lack of low end on these speakers, and it was still passable and very enjoyable (the synths were so full of texture and the artificial spaciousness was very immersive and impressive).

these speakers (and other wideband high efficiency speakers that I have listened to recently) have helped to clarify my thoughts on music and hifi. I know that many will still like the sound of traditional hifi even after hearing sound like these speakers, and in a way those people are lucky - there's hifi sound everywhere. but it just sounds slow, dull and artificially full/boomy to me now - like everything is waaaay to close to a microphone and the life has been removed somehow. I can't go back.

I love these speakes, but just to be clear, they aren't likely to be the last word in anything. they just come from a better school of design than most hifi drivers, which is why I like them. think of them as 'gateway speakers'

Edited January 1, 2012 by kye
clarity

[Monkeyboi]

thanks guys..

just typed up a followup and lost it in because the forums session timed out (or whatever hoopla they've put in to make it nicer for them and less friendly for us users..)

will repost again later, but the highlights are that i've tested deeper baffles and gotten down to 30Hz. and have come up with a sub/sat version that is so crazy it just might work.

Hi Kye,

I've experienced the same problem on more than one occassion so I know just how annoying it is to end up re-typing lines of text. There's a simple solution. Before you click in the "post" button; highlight all the post, then press CTRL+C.

If you've timed out on the forum and your post gets lost, no problemo. Just log back in, go back to the thread, click "reply to thread", position the cursor in the window and press CTRL+V. Presto, you've now retained your post. Just remember to submit it before you time out again.

Cheers,

Alan R.

[Monkeyboi]

Hi Kye,

Good post and thanks for keeping us informed on the progress of your project.

Just a personal note on bass. IME a lot of 'hi-fi' speakers, especially the cheaper ones have an accentuated bass that's neither extended nor tight. IOW a kind of upper bass honkiness that to the casual listener sounds like they have a lot of bass when in fact they don't. I find this sound fatiguing to say the least and pretty much unsatisfying. IMHO, if the speakers are doing a reasonably good job of reproducing the bass it should be extended, controlled, tight as well as have rhythm and pace. Bass should only be there if it's actually there. You may not think there's much bass in some recordings but there actually is. Sit down and rest your arms on the armrests of the chair. Can you feel the vibration evident in some music even though your ears think there's little or no bass?

Some naturally occuring sounds that contain a lot of very low frequency information, like the shutting of an airtight door are very difficult for most speakers to reproduce. This is simply because the frequencies way too low and too acoustically powerful for a speaker designed to reproduce music to handle. IMHO this isn't a shortfall in the design or performance of a speaker designed for music reproduction. If one wants to replicate these ultra low frequency sounds one should consider a HT sub woofer that's intended to reproduce these types of sounds. I would suggest that many here would concur with my comment that most HT subs, whilst probably quite good at the bang and thump the LFE channel on most movies demands, the musical accuracy of these HT subs leaves a lot to be desired.

Cheers,

Alan R.

[Antripodean]

so, these are things I think that matter in hifi but not in music.

these speakers do the things that are musically relevant.

Kye, always good to see your builds and your enthusiasm. I rarely ever go to gigs that aren't amplified in some way. Even the street buskers seem to have a small PA but they are typically playing guitar and saying so no real call for bass. I have heard a Bösendorfer pianoand that was unamplified and went to 27Hz and the bass wave was phenomenal, not up to an organ or a full orchestra but impressive none the less. So, I do see the need for bass in the lower octaves, even in the reproduction of unamplified music. However, you can get there with a bunch of low frequency transducers in the same OB style. I was wondering if you have looked at the physics of the limitation of line arrays and whether you are going to EQ to overcome this? As was mentioned earlier, it would be great if there was even more of these drivers per side to lower distortion during higher power loads. Always great to see DIY that's fun and on a great budget

[Once was an audiophile]

let's talk about music, let's talk about bass and let's talk about these speakers.

the way I see it, of the many imperfections these speakers have, the major one is the lower register (or maybe the lower two registers..)

like the rest of the imperfections these speakers have, they're "hifi relevant" deficiencies, rather than "musically relevant" deficiencies. let me explain these through some examples..

I have heard live sounds (the world is full of them!) and heard the odd unamplified acoustic instrument before. I have never been able to hear the frequency balance or tone of an instrument or a voice, even when i've tried to hear it, I just can't. I can, however, hear it in most hifi setups, and I care about it - normally the worse the system the more I care about it. these speakers are not tonally neutral - they're on the lean side, i'm sure there's an upper mid / lower treble emphasis, but I don't care, it's not something I tend to hear on most recordings. the way I know that it actually doesn't matter is that it doesn't matter on music that should bring out the worst in this characteristic - recordings that are already lacking warmth. the beatles catalog and blondie have gotten a lot of airtime on these speakers recently, and at volume levels that are relatively unsocial too, but the speakers rarely call for me to turn the music down. they do call for me to turn things down occasionally, but that's because i've gotten very excited and am in danger of doing serious damage to my hearing (the first time I discovered how good queen sound on these my ears were ringing and everything sounded dull for all the next day.. the speakers were still hugely enjoyable at that volume though)

how about imaging? imaging is a strange one, and I am a big fan of it. I love to be able to hear sounds outside the speakers, I love to be able to get real depth in the soundstage (buena vista social club is wonderful). these factors in imaging make me feel like i'm somewhere else, like i've been transported somehow, this makes things feel 'special' and like i'm now more connected to the music. the thing that people often bang on about is accuracy in the image - like "5 foot from the left wall" and "you can tell which trumpet player has platform shoes on because of the extra height" and other such rubbish. I say that it's rubbish because i've heard systems that give these effects, but here's the rub - real life doesn't image like that. next time you're somewhere that has real sounds (outside the listening room) stop, close your eyes and listen. let the image of your surroundings build up in your head. better yet - if there's live music there, concentrate on the detail of the location. is the guitar of the busker finely focussed? can you tell how far off the footpath it is? can you tell how far from the shop window he is? yes, you probably can, and guess what, whilst you were concentraing on musically irrelevant red herring, he's finished his set and you missed the great performance he delivered.

With imaging I want to feel like i'm there, I don't care how accurately the size and location are rendered.

now, let's talk about bass. and let's talk about unamplified music.

I have almost never felt "bass" from live instruments. the only exception to this is corner-loading my djembe and hitting it open handed (the open bass note) and feeling the room shake. dishes settled in the dishrack in the next room I recall - it sounded amazing. but it wasn't music, it was more like fireworks. you can feel fireworks hit you in the stomach, but show me someone who listens to fireworks because they like fireworks, not because they want to hear their hifi playing fireworks, and i'll make an exception. there's a cooridoor in a shopping centre in west perth that is about 30-40m long, dead straight, completely concrete and has a door at each end that seal pretty well. because the bathrooms are here, I have spent the odd few minutes waiting for someone and listening to the acoustics. if both doors close at exactly the same time, the whole place resonates and you feel it - it's very impressive. nothing i've ever heard unamplified ever matches what comes out of the port on my ported woofers.

I think hifi bass is a falacy - it's not something that exists in the real world, or if it does it doesn't feel even remotely the same. live sounds tend to be there, and then they're not. hifi sounds tend to be here, and then they're still here, and you can hear them trail off. real life doesn't sound like that to me. even the rumble of thunder isn't physical like that despite being very low in frequency (at least that i've heard) and even if it is, I don't listen to thunder recreationally, so I don't much care.

so, these are things I think that matter in hifi but not in music.

these speakers do the things that are musically relevant.

I listened to Scooter (hardcore rave music - as artificial as it gets) at obscene volumes earlier today, and although I noticed that the bass drums and lines weren't quite as physical as I would have liked, and not quite as loud as I would have liked, I feel that this is perhaps the only time that i've noticed the lack of low end on these speakers, and it was still passable and very enjoyable (the synths were so full of texture and the artificial spaciousness was very immersive and impressive).

these speakers (and other wideband high efficiency speakers that I have listened to recently) have helped to clarify my thoughts on music and hifi. I know that many will still like the sound of traditional hifi even after hearing sound like these speakers, and in a way those people are lucky - there's hifi sound everywhere. but it just sounds slow, dull and artificially full/boomy to me now - like everything is waaaay to close to a microphone and the life has been removed somehow. I can't go back.

I love these speakes, but just to be clear, they aren't likely to be the last word in anything. they just come from a better school of design than most hifi drivers, which is why I like them. think of them as 'gateway speakers' :eek:

Great post kye enjoy your journey

[kye]

hmmm.. it seems that what I have written is open to being mis-interpreted.

I like all frequencies. I believe good speakers should be able to make bass down to 10Hz or lower (ridiculously difficult I know, but I said 'should'!). but what I hear in most hifi is wrong. perhaps it is as Alan suggested that there is too much bass. I find this difficult to believe, as (1) it's a pretty fundamental mistake (2) I've heard it in every mass-produced speaker I can remember listening to, including things like the $60K Dalis, avantgards, and the like (3) bass is hard to do, really hard in fact, so it's a lot easier to make a speaker sound good by having less bass rather than more.

I just listen to most systems and think "if these people were live in this room right now, apart from being louder, it would sound drastically different - especially in the low end". perhaps it's the fact that bass just stays around too long in most hifi designs. ported speakers make bass by resonanating a tube - this tube will stay resonating many many cycles after the signal stops reaching the driver. sealed systems are better in this regard, but there are other factors to consider also, such as driver behaviour, and amplifier factors.

think of how bass feels when a car with really loud subwoofers is nearby, the "all of me is shaking right now" feeling. I get a little of that sense from most hifi, and it's something i've never gotten in real life.

anyway, these speakers render the lower octaves more like I hear it in real life. I don't really know why :eek:

I think my next move with these speakers is to try and integrate some woofers and see how easy / hard it is. perhaps if they're at a really low level then i'll get the extension without the artificial fullness?

[Monkeyboi]

What I meant by "too much bass" is that some speakers, no matter where you place then, sound like they've been placed in the corner of a room. The effect is a hump in the upper bass response that to the casual non-audiophile listener is often described falsely as having a good bass sound. In fact even the novice listener will after a short time tire of the sound. Speaker designers and audiophiles will often refer to this "sound" as jukebox bass or one note bass. It doesn't matter (within reason) what low frequency signal is put into them the result sounds like the same bass note.

IME there's only one way to be sure just how low your speakers go and that's to take some acoustic measurements. The choice of drivers for bass is important. There are bass speakers specifically designed for particular purposes and not all are suitable for the wide frequency range of all music. Bass guitar speakers are a classic example. They generally have a free air resonance of about 55Hz, but in most enclosures designed for this application the acoustic output drops of quite rapidly below this frequency which is not a problem if you are using it for bass guitar, but not suitable for reproducing the lowest notes of a pipe organ or the cello relative to the rest of the audio range.

I'm not for one moment suggesting good if not excellent results can't be achieved with what are basically full-range P.A. speakers. I've been surprised by lesser drive units.

Please don't take my comments as negative critique. They aren't intended to be. Just points of discussion and an interest in your project. I'd still like to get an opportunity to hear what can be achieved with these inexpensive drivers as I'm sure a number of other SNAers would too.

Keep us informed of what you are doing with this project Kye. It's an inspiration to see what can be acheived for so little money. :eek:

Cheers,

Alan R.

[Antripodean]

I believe good speakers should be able to make bass down to 10Hz or lower (ridiculously difficult I know, but I said 'should'!). but what I hear in most hifi is wrong. perhaps it is as Alan suggested that there is too much bass.

Kye, thanks for clarifying. As Alan wrote, some acoustic measurements are necessary, especially given you have an acoustically treated room. Ported bass may have more group delay but what you seem to be describing is a "swamp" of bass waves that aren't decaying. I get the same problem in my room under 60Hz so I need more bass traps too!

Bass should be low, loud and CLEAN :eek:

[Addicted to music]

[ATTACH=CONFIG]39677[/ATTACH]

Here is my DIY speakers, they're ribbon panels with 11" eton drivers. Modified 1st order cross over