SB acoustics Sasandu speaker build

[JD1]

Keen on doing this kit. The whole lot is about 6500 grand. I can do the cabinets OK but the cross overs something I know nothing about. I can buy the speakers for about 2860 and the better Textreme for 3500. The cross over kit is 1650 and suits the standard Satori drivers. If I want to upgrade the speakers to Textreme I have to build the Crossovers myself. Thee schematics don't look that hard. I have rewired several boats and can solder OK. If I could build it myself it would be cheaper and probably better parts. I worried if I change a part that is not exactly the same I might blow the neighbourhood up or at least damage a speaker or change the sound. Have attached the schematics. Would these parts cost much and are they easy to source. Is it reasonably  easy to put these together.

 

Thanks 

Jon

[mwhouston]

9 minutes ago, JD1 said:

Keen on doing this kit. The whole lot is about 6500 grand. I can do the cabinets OK but the cross overs something I know nothing about. I can buy the speakers for about 2860 and the better Textreme for 3500. The cross over kit is 1650 and suits the standard Satori drivers. If I want to upgrade the speakers to Textreme I have to build the Crossovers myself. Thee schematics don't look that hard. I have rewired several boats and can solder OK. If I could build it myself it would be cheaper and probably better parts. I worried if I change a part that is not exactly the same I might blow the neighbourhood up or at least damage a speaker or change the sound. Have attached the schematics. Would these parts cost much and are they easy to source. Is it reasonably  easy to put these together.

 

Thanks 

Jon

There is a lot of compensation in that Xover. 

[JD1]

Sorry MW what do you mean compensation. I assume its to do with the cost and not the filtering etc. Is that what you were getting at.

[mwhouston]

Just now, JD1 said:

Sorry MW what do you mean compensation. I assume its to do with the cost and not the filtering etc. Is that what you were getting at.

There is a few notch filters in there to compensate for peaky frequencies. I’ll assume they are trying to get the frequency response as flat as possible. This makes for a complex Xover. 

[JD1]

Ok so it may something not to attempt or can I start researching this stuff and be able to do it. Is getting hold of this stuff do able. Its good to know I guess that at least its a reasonable crossover.

[crtexcnndrm99]

Hi Jon, 

 

One alternative that I’ve done before is to build the cabinets and install the speaker drivers, while sending the crossover parts to someone local to wire up correctly. With the crossover then guaranteed to be wired properly, the rest is really just plug and play (or should I say solder and screw). Not going to blow anything up there

 

Ash

[playdough]

Following  

 

[playdough]

1 hour ago, mwhouston said:

There is a lot of compensation in that Xover. 

I'd go DSP for a start , after seeing the component count/size.

 

[mwhouston]

1 hour ago, playdough said:

I'd go DSP for a start , after seeing the component count/size.

 

Or a simpler second order Xover. 

[davewantsmoore]

3 hours ago, mwhouston said:

There is a lot of compensation in that Xover. 

Really?

It isn't a particularly complex filter for a 3 way.

 

16 minutes ago, mwhouston said:

Or a simpler second order Xover. 

I figured that's about what the electrical slopes are here.... plus traps.

 

 <shrug>

 

2 hours ago, JD1 said:

Is getting hold of this stuff do able. Its good to know I guess that at least its a reasonable crossover.

 

Sure.... but you need the exact parts, and to wire it up exact.

 

If this is your first rodeo, and this isn't going to be a "practise speaker", or you want to do this to "get the experience" ... then I would recommend getting a filter prebuilt.

 

Using the regular satori driver and the prebuild crossover will be very high end..... using the textreme drivers (arguably not significantly better than the regular satori range) and a poorly wired up filter will be garbage.

 

[JD1]

Ok have been looking for Items at various outlets and having trouble finding a lot of the exact same coding. Not sure what the resistors are as there is no ohms noted that I understand so perhaps it is going to be beyond me. Thought resistors were noted in ohms not watts. Will have to regroup and rethink. I am at the bottom of this learning curve.

[mwhouston]

Last resort, design from scratch but you need to know Xover points and db values of each tweeter, squawker and bass.

[playdough]

2 hours ago, JD1 said:

Ok have been looking for Items at various outlets and having trouble finding a lot of the exact same coding. Not sure what the resistors are as there is no ohms noted that I understand so perhaps it is going to be beyond me. Thought resistors were noted in ohms not watts. Will have to regroup and rethink. I am at the bottom of this learning curve.

As already suggested, arguably easier to build the speakers and try DSP for a start. In doing so, you can literally experiment with filters and EQ until you have  something that measures well and suits your taste, then emulate the filtering into a passive network, after the fact.

All the time learning something.

Personally built many speaker systems from domestic to full on Pro and always, always use a DSP to get the filtering correct, before stumping up the money for Grade Audiophile passive componentry.

Surprised no one else has supported this, it's common practice among real speaker builders. 

Otherwise be ready to buy most likely many more inductors. caps and resistors than you will need, to get the passive actually to some tenable quality, to me a plan means a little, more like a rough guide rather than an exact thing.

Each to their own, but be wary of dubious advice. 

 

My new miniDSP Flex8 arrived this morning and guess what it's for

A set of speakers I've built 

Edited January 2, 2024 by playdough

[playdough]

6 hours ago, JD1 said:

Is it reasonably  easy to put these together

Might seem so however, position of components, in conjunction with one another will matter a lot as they effect each other if not positioned correctly.

[JD1]

Glen I have started looking into DSP. I wasn't really aware of what it was. Have heard it mentioned here a lot. I may still do what Dave said and step down to the Satoris and just get that crossover. The guy at SB said that they weren't heaps better and the Satori was still very good. I will start the cabinet soon and that will take me a while. Unfortunately I  sold my good table saw a few months ago which was a stupid move but should be able to do a lot with the track saw and router table. This will give me some time to learn about this stuff and make a decision. There is the dollar cost to now been retired funds are ever shrinking.

[playdough]

17 minutes ago, JD1 said:

Glen I have started looking into DSP. I wasn't really aware of what it was. Have heard it mentioned here a lot. I may still do what Dave said and step down to the Satoris and just get that crossover. The guy at SB said that they weren't heaps better and the Satori was still very good. I will start the cabinet soon and that will take me a while. Unfortunately I  sold my good table saw a few months ago which was a stupid move but should be able to do a lot with the track saw and router table. This will give me some time to learn about this stuff and make a decision. There is the dollar cost to now been retired funds are ever shrinking.

Good luck with the Project @JD1 

Love a good speaker build.

It's a bugger about the table saw although I hear good things about track saw. They work very well and easier than a Triton to operate with full sheets.

It will be Ok any way you approach the crossover, just attempting to help. They can be twitchy things however and again, here to help.

 

FIY the brand spanking new miniDSP Flex 8 (late 2023 new build) is not much over eight fifty delivered (without Dirac Live plugin) and you won't see a second hand one for a reason. This will be my second personal device over 10 years and will keep the old one for speaker building.

It is definitely worth buying in a USB measurement mic, worth it's weight when tuning the crossover whatever it may be. 

Sorry I'm a bit of a measurement nerd.

All good.

HNY

 

[JD1]

This is the diagram for the Cross over that is for the Standard Satori drivers. It has 14 elements as opposed to 24 in the cross over for the Textreme drivers.

[davewantsmoore]

1 hour ago, JD1 said:

This is the diagram for the Cross over that is for the Standard Satori drivers. It has 14 elements as opposed to 24 in the cross over for the Textreme drivers.

They are effectively the same crossover (just specifically tailored for each set of drivers).

 

Aside from cost and building complexity, counting the number of parts doesn't tell you much/anything in this case.

 

14 hours ago, JD1 said:

Glen I have started looking into DSP.

You will need to master DSP to the degree that you can either:

 

a ) reproduce the transfer functions from the crossovers you posted here, in a DSP system

b ) design your own crossover for the speaker

 

Both of these things are actually quite advanced... so when I say "master" DSP, I do mean that quite literally.

 

14 hours ago, playdough said:

Surprised no one else has supported this

But he will just come up with similar filters to the ones already posted.

 

That is if he becomes a (literal) master a the speaker design process, and with DSP filter tuning/tweaking/measurement.

 

Otherwise will end up with (relative) garbage.

 

14 hours ago, playdough said:

it's common practice among real speaker builders. 

Best practise is to design the filters and driver layouts / cabinet dimensions together.

 

Building a box and putting drivers in it..... and then..... taking measurements and designing crossovers.... is not very good practise (although you do see it done all the time by inexperienced speaker designers).   "DSP" filters does give a shortcut around that to some degree as it can use delays (which you don't have in a passive network), but you still have the polar response vs driver distances to consider.

 

14 hours ago, playdough said:

Otherwise be ready to buy most likely many more inductors. caps and resistors than you will need

Or simulate the crossover in a speaker design software package.

 

... but yes, lots of parts.

 

You can use DSP to prototype a filter (that you later make a passive ver. of) .... BUT, you need to be able to take proper measurements, account for the diffraction in your design, build filters which account for the non-flat driver impedances, etc. etc. etc.    Very hard.

 

14 hours ago, playdough said:

be wary of dubious advice. 

Sorry to be blunt, but the most dubious advice I see (and you do see it quite a bit, unfortunately) ..... is telling someone who has no idea what they're doing to "design your own filters".

 

For sure, if someone wants to go down that path, and learn how to design speakers..... then I love it, go for it.

 

It will take many years of knowledge and skill development to be able to reproduce something similar to the filters shown in this thread.

[davewantsmoore]

14 hours ago, playdough said:

Might seem so however, position of components, in conjunction with one another will matter a lot as they effect each other if not positioned correctly.

They provide a layout diagram, and the parts interaction is already accounted for in the filters design.

Where as designing your own.... you have to figure that all out yourself.

[davewantsmoore]

On 2/1/2024 at 10:08 AM, JD1 said:

Sorry MW what do you mean compensation. I assume its to do with the cost and not the filtering etc. Is that what you were getting at.

It is to do with the filters, and their complexity.

 

There are parts in the filters that are, depending on your viewpoint, strictly "unnecessary".

 

What they are doing, is using extra filter parts to get the electrical impedance to be flat.   It's kinda like the "Rubik's Cube" of speaker design, where you are playing "whack a mole" using various options, to eliminate electro-mechanical resonances that will make the output signal (the sound pressure) be different from the input signal (your cd player or whatever).  Adding some "extra" filter parts is one method.... I say extra, but a good performing filter would be difficult to design without these parts, so most people wouldn't consider it "extra".

 

... but in the end, while it looks like a lot of parts, the filter is really not that complicated for a 3-way speaker with modern drivers ......  just relatively low order stop band filters, diffraction compensation, and resonance compensation.   Leaving any of these out (for a designer....  I don't mean you -- you should build it exact) is likely a bad decision.

[davewantsmoore]

On 2/1/2024 at 9:55 AM, JD1 said:

doing this kit

Sorry for the long posts.

 

It's simple really.

 

Go the standard kit.  Get the prebuilt crossover.

Have fun with the cabinet, relatively difficult cabinet build (although that's very subjective, as you would probably be aware).

 

Don't worry about "better parts", or the "better drivers" ... the biggest chunk of the performance will come from well connected/soldered parts, and no mistakes in the wiring, etc.... and a well constructed (no rattles, Leakes, etc.) cabinet.

 

Satori drivers, and the parts used in the standard build are all already very high end (hence the price for parts alone being what it is).

[JD1]

Ok have been to town to get supplies. Dave I think what you are saying is about the conclusion I am coming too. DSP will be a longer way and probably more costly if I can just use the hopefully proven crossover. I have contacted a guy that will assist with the crossovers. Im pretty happy this is the best way for me to go with my limited electronic knowledge. Designing cross overs means learnig software and a lot of other things. Pretty confident I can learn enough to put it together in the next few months. I can wire and solder so rhats a start and help is everywhere on the net. With this I may build the Textreme kit. Its not much dearer. Would like to hear the difference but living in the sticks does not present these opportunities. Has anyone heard either or both of these kits. Wagner has some demo sets in Sydney. Interested in any feed back. I have Focal 936 so I do hope I'm gong to notice an improvement. Thanks for the help so far.

Edited January 3, 2024 by JD1
Added comment

[JD1]

Have nearly finished the cabinets and about ready to put dampening material in. The plans call for Dacron 90 oz white T20mm. Iget blank looks when I ask for Dacron but it's just Polyester wadding from what I can see which is what Clark rubber sell. Is this the right stuff for speakers and should I put a bit of thin foam on the walls to help or is the wadding all I need. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[crtexcnndrm99]

I would possibly opt for the adhesive and foil backed bitumen panels, the automotive sound deadening panels. I’ve stuck these to speaker walls quite successfully, then the poluester wadding over the top. The former changes the resonant frequency of the panel to a less problematic / audible range, while the latter is for reflections and standing waves (is my understanding).

[playdough]

Just now, crtexcnndrm99 said:

I would possibly opt for the adhesive and foil backed bitumen panels, the automotive sound deadening panels. I’ve stuck these to speaker walls quite successfully, then the poluester wadding over the top. The former changes the resonant frequency of the panel to a less problematic / audible range, while the latter is for reflections and standing waves (is my understanding).

 

Hi yea the same employed by myself.  This type of foam works as well. Has a similar mass per m2 to the bitumen 

https://www.ebay.com.au/itm/305342527997

I have a phono pre that improved when the inside of the case  bitumen/foil adhesive was applied. Certainly sticks ok.