3D printed classic 3-way budget speaker project using SB and Dayton drivers

[ppataki]

The woofer's cabinet is also done!

And some knock test, as always:

New video · Friday, Oct 17

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photos.app.goo.gl

Unfortunately there is some air leakage issue that I will need to fix tomorrow + I still need to print some holders
I might be able to make all the 3-ways function by Sunday evening, fingers crossed
I really love this shape, looks so cool (IMHO)

Next post will be about woofer measurements and hopefully the full monty too

 

[ppataki]

Now let's see the measurements for the woofer!

No DSP whatsoever

First, from 1cm, 96dB SPL

Very nice response! Starts to fall around 80Hz

Distortion:

Now let's see from 60cm (3x baffle width), 80dB SPL

Distortion I am sure is room induced; I just compared some of my previous measurements in this room and those had the same too

Now let's add a significant boost to the low end + some corrective DSP:

Distortion further increased, as anticipated (again, the room)

Let's check the motor noise with some test tones at 30Hz, volume set above my normal listening volume:

New video · Saturday, Oct 18

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None whatsoever (as far as I can tell)...... pretty damn good!

If I apply the same low-pass and high-pass filters that I will use these with in my living room (80-300Hz) and crank up the volume, this is what happens:

New video · Saturday, Oct 18

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Practically no visible cone movement; excellent!

Btw. I did the same experiment with the 4" midrange (LPF and HPF: 300-2500Hz) and there was no visible cone movement there either

I think this is going to be one of the advantages of this (or I guess any) 3-way system (actually 4-way to be precise, subs included)

Hopefully tomorrow I will have time to set up all the 3 ways (with crossover, delay and some manual EQ) - will post the results

 

[DanielT]

Now let's see the measurements for the woofer!

No DSP whatsoever

First, from 1cm, 96dB SPL

View attachment 484092

Very nice response! Starts to fall around 80Hz

Distortion:

View attachment 484093

Now let's see from 60cm (3x baffle width), 80dB SPL

View attachment 484094

Distortion I am sure is room induced; I just compared some of my previous measurements in this room and those had the same too

View attachment 484096

Now let's add a significant boost to the low end + some corrective DSP:

View attachment 484097

Distortion further increased, as anticipated (again, the room)

View attachment 484098

Let's check the motor noise with some test tones at 30Hz, volume set above my normal listening volume:

New video · Saturday, Oct 18

Tap to view!

photos.app.goo.gl

None whatsoever (as far as I can tell)...... pretty damn good!

If I apply the same low-pass and high-pass filters that I will use these with in my living room (80-300Hz) and crank up the volume, this is what happens:

New video · Saturday, Oct 18

Tap to view!

photos.app.goo.gl

Practically no visible cone movement; excellent!

Btw. I did the same experiment with the 4" midrange (LPF and HPF: 300-2500Hz) and there was no visible cone movement there either

I think this is going to be one of the advantages of this (or I guess any) 3-way system (actually 4-way to be precise, subs included)

Hopefully tomorrow I will have time to set up all the 3 ways (with crossover, delay and some manual EQ) - will post the results

Good job!

It will be exciting to see if you like this three-way speaker better than your best point source broadband/coax speaker. Or if your best broadband/coax speaker comes out victorious in that battle.

 

[ppataki]

Good job!

It will be exciting to see if you like this three-way speaker better than your best point source broadband/coax speaker. Or if your best broadband/coax speaker comes out victorious in that battle.

That is yet to be seen!
Now that one submarine tower is done, I need to start printing the other + come up with an idea for the stand....I think this will all take a month or two. Then I will be able to move them to my living room where I can make an apple to apple comparison with my current Sica coaxes. It will be really interesting, looking forward to it!

 

[ppataki]

Let's see some photos and the measurements for the full submarine tower!

Some clarifications: since the woofer's cabinet is so big, I can only put it on my home office desk (pushed onto the front wall) for now and that causes enormous reflections from the desk itself - the temporal curves (and the freq. curve too) look really ugly because of that....

Measurements and optimizations were done 2.5 meters away from the speaker
Crossover setup: linear phase 48dB/octave LR at 300Hz and 3000Hz
Volume and delay values set

Frequency response with no corrections:
1/12 smoothing

After corrections (EQ based on REW, no Dirac or any DRC was used):

IR/Step: as mentioned really ugly I assume because of the desk placement:

Distortion: not sure why it is elevated around 2kHz....the 100-200Hz is for sure room induced

It will be very interesting to see the measurements in the living room. That will happen probably in 1-2 months' time, once I manage to print the other tower + figure out the topic of the speaker stand (probably a flower stand from IKEA )

Subjectively speaking (taken into account that I can only listen in mono for now, so I have no idea about stage/depth/image/etc. plus certain 'things' are missing from the recordings due to phase cancellation when converting stereo to mono):

- vocals sound way cleaner vs. with my previous setups
- anywhere I move in the room I hear almost the same sound
- very effortless presentation
- I don't know how to put this but the sound is very 'clean' (although distortion is much higher than I expected on the measurements but by ear it sounds really clean)
- non-fatiguing to listen to, sounds very smooth but still detailed enough

Listen for yourself using headphones:
(note: I have added a low shelf and high shelf filter to taste, so this is not the above flat response; obviously that one sounds bad without adding a 'target curve')

3 new videos · Sunday, Oct 19

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photos.app.goo.gl

Any comments and questions are welcome, as usual

 

[ppataki]

The stand is now done too!
I went for an IKEA bamboo flower stand: https://www.ikea.com/us/en/p/daksjus-plant-stand-bamboo-70567018/

And after some glueing, painting and pimping with 3D printed parts it looks like this:

Next step is to measure it (still in mono) in my living room in the MLP
It would be really interesting to compare the measurements done previously in my home office

In the meantime, I am printing the parts for the other speaker too!

 

[Everett T]

The stand is now done too!
I went for an IKEA bamboo flower stand: https://www.ikea.com/us/en/p/daksjus-plant-stand-bamboo-70567018/

View attachment 486214

And after some glueing, painting and pimping with 3D printed parts it looks like this:

View attachment 486212View attachment 486213

Next step is to measure it (still in mono) in my living room in the MLP
It would be really interesting to compare the measurements done previously in my home office

In the meantime, I am printing the parts for the other speaker too!

How far back does the tweeter housing sit from the midrange, I can't get a good idea from the pictures? Also, nice work!

 

[ppataki]

How far back does the tweeter housing sit from the midrange, I can't get a good idea from the pictures? Also, nice work!

Thank you!
The tweeter and the midrange (and the woofer) are all aligned
I am using digital delay compensation (based on measurements) to ensure they are in sync (arriving at the same time in the MLP) instead of physically moving them

 

[Everett T]

Thank you!
The tweeter and the midrange (and the woofer) are all aligned
I am using digital delay compensation (based on measurements) to ensure they are in sync (arriving at the same time in the MLP) instead of physically moving them

Thanks, looks like you're well on your way to enjoying a fun project!

 

[kemmler3D]

You can't beat the look of these! I would agree the distortion does look surprisingly high below 100hz or so, it's not a showstopper IMO. I feel like the 60cm measurement also shows ripple that I'd bet but can't prove without doing math comes from edge diffraction... but of course as mentioned earlier I guess that's unavoidable with this design. Looks like you're getting nearly full range out of this thing after DSP though!

 

[ppataki]

Now both submarines are in the living room

Really love them, I have to say
It was quite a DIY journey in the last 6 years to get from like a dozen of full range projects to some coaxials/2-ways and finally this 3-way build..... (actually 4-way with the two subs)
I have learnt a LOT and I guess there is still a lot to be learnt

I am still working on the fine-tuning of the sound with custom shelves but I can already say that these are a keeper, definitely!

Some subjective thoughts on the sound:
- Vocals are amazingly clean, articulated and meaty. They sound a bit forward, very similarly to one-way full range speakers
- Upper bass is more powerful vs. with my previous 1-way and 2-way projects
- Treble is crisp and clear but not in a fatiguing way
- Sound stage is not as laser precise and holographic as with a typical 1-way or even a coax but it comes pretty close. What is different definitely is the size: the stage is extremely huge, literally from wall to wall, filling the space nicely. Cannot comment much on depth since the speakers are only 60cm from the front wall but there is some sensation of depth though (in my new apartment the speakers will be like 120cm from the front wall so this aspect can be scrutinized better)
- The overall sound presentation is very natural and effortless

Next steps: some paint fixes + I still want to play around with the crossover settings since I decided to move away from linear phase crossovers but more on that in the next post

 

[ppataki]

As mentioned in the above post; I am moving away from linear phase crossover to minimum phase crossover

I have been under the impression (until now) that I cannot hear the pre-ringing (or pre-echo) that is generated by the 24dB/octave slopes of linear phase low-pass and high-pass filters
(I have also stated that multiple times here on ASR in different threads/posts)

One of my neighbors is actually a sound engineer.....I have had some discussions about this topic with him
As a result, he sent me a sample file containing an acoustic drum kick recording

You can download it from here:

Kicks_acoustic.wav

drive.google.com

This recording shall immediately show if there is any pre-echo in the system - and it does....

I first listened to it with the HPF and LPF in linear phase mode and then in minimum phase mode and the difference is day and night. With the linear phase filters I can very clearly hear the pre-echo (and it is extremely disturbing) - while there is none with the minimum phase filters

I have tried various plugins (CraveEQ, Pro Q4, thEQorange) and it was the same with all of them

This was quite an eye-opener for me - I hope it will help others here too

 

[JohnnyNG]

Now both submarines are in the living room

View attachment 489850

Really love them, I have to say
It was quite a DIY journey in the last 6 years to get from like a dozen of full range projects to some coaxials/2-ways and finally this 3-way build..... (actually 4-way with the two subs)
I have learnt a LOT and I guess there is still a lot to be learnt

I am still working on the fine-tuning of the sound with custom shelves but I can already say that these are a keeper, definitely!

Some subjective thoughts on the sound:
- Vocals are amazingly clean, articulated and meaty. They sound a bit forward, very similarly to one-way full range speakers
- Upper bass is more powerful vs. with my previous 1-way and 2-way projects
- Treble is crisp and clear but not in a fatiguing way
- Sound stage is not as laser precise and holographic as with a typical 1-way or even a coax but it comes pretty close. What is different definitely is the size: the stage is extremely huge, literally from wall to wall, filling the space nicely. Cannot comment much on depth since the speakers are only 60cm from the front wall but there is some sensation of depth though (in my new apartment the speakers will be like 120cm from the front wall so this aspect can be scrutinized better)
- The overall sound presentation is very natural and effortless

Next steps: some paint fixes + I still want to play around with the crossover settings since I decided to move away from linear phase crossovers but more on that in the next post

Fantastic! Once you go 4-way there's no going back.

 

[Ktacos]

I also found pre-ringing to kind of ruin linear phase filters, but I believe the work around is to use minimum phase filter, and apply all pass filters to correct the phase. I personally haven't tried it myself yet.

 

[fluid]

I first listened to it with the HPF and LPF in linear phase mode and then in minimum phase mode and the difference is day and night. With the linear phase filters I can very clearly hear the pre-echo (and it is extremely disturbing) - while there is none with the minimum phase filters

I have tried various plugins (CraveEQ, Pro Q4, thEQorange) and it was the same with all of them

In this test are you using complementary linear phase filters and listening with both LP and HP engaged at the same time?

This is an important distinction because complementary linear phase filters completely cancel pre and post ringing (if they are truly complementary in the acoustic domain as well) this holds usually quite well until quite far off axis. Pre-ringing will always be evident with single sided filters but should not be with correctly implemented complementary filters.

It should be obvious from the impulse response if the amount of pre-ringing changes from single sided to complementary.

 

[ppataki]

In this test are you using complementary linear phase filters and listening with both LP and HP engaged at the same time?

Yes, both HPF and LPF at the same time

 

[fluid]

Were you able to confirm via impulse response measurements that there was obvious pre-ring in the linear phase filters and none in the minimum phase?

Not an accusation if you didn't.

 

[ppataki]

Were you able to confirm via impulse response measurements that there was obvious pre-ring in the linear phase filters and none in the minimum phase?

Not an accusation if you didn't.

No worries!
I did that too, see below:

Even the minimum phase (MP) version has no perfect step response head but the linear phase (LP) version has more articulated pre-ringing (there is an undershoot as well)

 

[ppataki]

The above curve was the step response, now let's see the impulse response too:

Pre-ringing is also visible there

 

[fluid]

The impulse has the better view, it looks as if you have some clock drift which shows up as that rounded upswing to the impulse. This can happen when the playback and recording clocks are not synced. Commonly from using a separate DAC to an interface that records the impulse. The bigger swing can also be a similar measurement artefact (there is a better explanation but it escapes me at the moment) and actually obsures if there is any pre-ringing there. You can see a mild amount of preringing in the minimum phase trace, this can be because most DAC's use linear phase reconstruction filters which are just a low pass.

Ringing is a descriptive term for what it looks like in an impulse the higher the frequency the tighter the wave pattern. You can filter the impulse to see which frequencies are affected and only look at the left side of the window zoomed in for a better view.

Audible prering on a kick drum tends to sound like the beginning part of the sound is being sucked up, usually takes a lot of single sided filtering to hear it clearly.