That is one hell of a title..
I have been known to try too many new things at the same time and this is the latest.
Some background - I have been building "cheap" speakers of late. Just to see what you can get out of them and hopefully have some fun in the process. I enjoy the woodworking bit as much as the listening afterwards
I ordered some cheap drivers from Madisound last month. Got quite a few extras seeing as you pay for the shipping anyway:
Tweeters (12x) - Vifa BC25SC55-04 1" Textile Dome
Tweeters (2x) - Fountek NeoCd1.0 1.5" Ribbon
Midrange (12x) - Vifa TC9FD25-08 3-1/2" Paper Cone Full Range. Think I got the last of these because they are no longer available. Interestingly they have an Acoustic Energy (AE) sticker on the back. Wonder which speaker they used these in...
Bass (6x) - Peerless 830851 Shielded 3.5" woofer
The midrange (fullrange) drivers have a flat (not round) frame and the tweeter is truncated. With the the small drivers, you can get a very good CTC spacing for an MTM.
The first set I built was MTMWW with the Vifa and Peerless drivers in a very small and narrow sealed enclosure. Unfortunately I don't have any pics of those because they are already butchered for parts ;D They sounded quite damn good considering the price of the drivers. The bass was very impressive out of two little 3.5" drivers in a 10lit sealed enclosure as well.
After about three weeks of listening to them I was itching to try something else, so off I went to get some MDF.
I bought some seriously cheap 8" drivers from Zakspeed (cost about R130 each). The only TS parameters you get with these are the SPL at 92, and the FS as 36Hz. So, I got 8 of them just to be sure I have enough.
Next started the building of the monster WMTMW. Monster because they are huge in size, and impossibly heavy to carry. My brother had to help me carry them from the workshop into the house. 32mm baffle with the rest being 16mm. Braced to hell and back with shelf bracing. I then Bonded "softboard" to the insides of the cab using this terrible black stuff they use to glue wooden floor tiles down onto concrete. This combination works like a bomb by the way. Over that went some nice thick felt.
The cab dimensions are 1300mm high, by 250mm wide, by 350mm deep. It's a good thing I am not married - this has about 0% WAF.
The midrange drivers are each housed in their own PVC pipe which runs from the baffle and exits on the back. This means they are completely enclosed from the bass area, and are open backed. Some light hollowfibre filling in these to damp some of the pipe resonance.
I fired them up for the first time last night using my DCX and 6 channel HT amp (all channels output equal power) driving the entire thing active. How did it sound? The bass was seriosly deep, but had absolutely no kick whatsoever To say I was not impressed is an understatement. I wasn't expecting too much from these cheap 8" drivers, but even then I was left feeling dispondent. An hour later, I came to the realisation that the bass section is seriously overdamped. This should have been obvious to me seeing as the bass went down so low and had so little impact.
Guess what the solution is - remove the drivers at the back so the thing is no longer isobaric. So much for all that extra work to get the isobaric built. At least the extra internal baffles make for even more bracing. There is always an upside to everything
Currently I have the x-over points at 400Hz and 3kHz (all LR24).
So, I have been listening to them now for about an hour. The drivers aren't played in properly yet, but I will give you my preliminary verdict:
I like it! Very listenable - Impressive even. These speakers are not "instruments to analyze music" with, but they are definitely impressive considering the very low cost of the drivers:
Tweeter (x2) - $13 each
Midrange (x4) - $13 each
Woofer (x4) - R 130.00 each
MDF - 1 sheet - R 500.00
Glue - small bottle - R25.00
Time - Priceless
Total of about R 1700.00 give or take some screws, etc.
I have quite a number of the drivers left. If anyone wants some, feel free to let me know.
I don't have my website anymore so I am not sure how to upload a pic of the speakers. Anybody have a suggestion? I would like to post a pic or two for you to see.
Cheers for now - I am going to do some more listening
Ian.
I have been known to try too many new things at the same time and this is the latest.
Some background - I have been building "cheap" speakers of late. Just to see what you can get out of them and hopefully have some fun in the process. I enjoy the woodworking bit as much as the listening afterwards
I ordered some cheap drivers from Madisound last month. Got quite a few extras seeing as you pay for the shipping anyway:
Tweeters (12x) - Vifa BC25SC55-04 1" Textile Dome
Tweeters (2x) - Fountek NeoCd1.0 1.5" Ribbon
Midrange (12x) - Vifa TC9FD25-08 3-1/2" Paper Cone Full Range. Think I got the last of these because they are no longer available. Interestingly they have an Acoustic Energy (AE) sticker on the back. Wonder which speaker they used these in...
Bass (6x) - Peerless 830851 Shielded 3.5" woofer
The midrange (fullrange) drivers have a flat (not round) frame and the tweeter is truncated. With the the small drivers, you can get a very good CTC spacing for an MTM.
The first set I built was MTMWW with the Vifa and Peerless drivers in a very small and narrow sealed enclosure. Unfortunately I don't have any pics of those because they are already butchered for parts ;D They sounded quite damn good considering the price of the drivers. The bass was very impressive out of two little 3.5" drivers in a 10lit sealed enclosure as well.
After about three weeks of listening to them I was itching to try something else, so off I went to get some MDF.
I bought some seriously cheap 8" drivers from Zakspeed (cost about R130 each). The only TS parameters you get with these are the SPL at 92, and the FS as 36Hz. So, I got 8 of them just to be sure I have enough.
Next started the building of the monster WMTMW. Monster because they are huge in size, and impossibly heavy to carry. My brother had to help me carry them from the workshop into the house. 32mm baffle with the rest being 16mm. Braced to hell and back with shelf bracing. I then Bonded "softboard" to the insides of the cab using this terrible black stuff they use to glue wooden floor tiles down onto concrete. This combination works like a bomb by the way. Over that went some nice thick felt.
The cab dimensions are 1300mm high, by 250mm wide, by 350mm deep. It's a good thing I am not married - this has about 0% WAF.
The midrange drivers are each housed in their own PVC pipe which runs from the baffle and exits on the back. This means they are completely enclosed from the bass area, and are open backed. Some light hollowfibre filling in these to damp some of the pipe resonance.
I fired them up for the first time last night using my DCX and 6 channel HT amp (all channels output equal power) driving the entire thing active. How did it sound? The bass was seriosly deep, but had absolutely no kick whatsoever
To say I was not impressed is an understatement. I wasn't expecting too much from these cheap 8" drivers, but even then I was left feeling dispondent. An hour later, I came to the realisation that the bass section is seriously overdamped. This should have been obvious to me seeing as the bass went down so low and had so little impact. Guess what the solution is - remove the drivers at the back so the thing is no longer isobaric. So much for all that extra work to get the isobaric built. At least the extra internal baffles make for even more bracing. There is always an upside to everything
Currently I have the x-over points at 400Hz and 3kHz (all LR24).
So, I have been listening to them now for about an hour. The drivers aren't played in properly yet, but I will give you my preliminary verdict:
I like it! Very listenable - Impressive even. These speakers are not "instruments to analyze music" with, but they are definitely impressive considering the very low cost of the drivers:
Tweeter (x2) - $13 each
Midrange (x4) - $13 each
Woofer (x4) - R 130.00 each
MDF - 1 sheet - R 500.00
Glue - small bottle - R25.00
Time - Priceless
Total of about R 1700.00 give or take some screws, etc.
I have quite a number of the drivers left. If anyone wants some, feel free to let me know.
I don't have my website anymore so I am not sure how to upload a pic of the speakers. Anybody have a suggestion? I would like to post a pic or two for you to see.
Cheers for now - I am going to do some more listening
Ian.
