End Game DIY Loudspeakers

[Ciobi69]

I'll pass they all look ugly.

Performance has a price

 

[Momomo67890]

Performance has a price

Yep use modern drivers and don't have a ugly speaker.

 

[Vineeth Kumar V]

My idea of a DIY dual 15inch speaker with horn.. (ignore the white drivers though)

 

[Ciobi69]

Yep use modern drivers and don't have a ugly speaker.

a 15 inch is a 15 inch you still don't understand, there is no replacement for displacement, and those are all modern drivers

 

[jaakkopetteri]

a 15 inch is a 15 inch you still don't understand, there is no replacement for displacement, and those are all modern drivers

Displacement is not just cone area but also excursion, which modern drivers allow more of (although cone area quite easily overwhelms gains in linear excursion)

 

[Ciobi69]

are we talking about end game diy speakers? because i posted one, i know that the 8 inch purifi whatever its pretty good, but this is another league

 

[IamJF]

Just take 3-4 of them per 15" and then let's talk again ...
But with a large horn they are not needed. A few Purify 10" or SB34NRXL75-8 or ScanSpeak 12" would be the choice.

 

[Jukka]

People who speak against 15" or larger have not witnessed a 15" or larger playing.

You can get 20 Hz from 4", but it's -20 dB below 1 kHz and over excursion happens at 85 dB. With dual 15" per side you can expect 90+ dB with 1 Watt and capacity that does not give in. 15" can have 15 mm xmax too.

My only advice to people, who think 6 inch is good, is to compare it with proper diy 15" side by side in the same room. Be it measurements and/or just listening, you will notice a different in favor of the larger driver. Bonus task: add high-pass filter at 50 Hz to both small and large speaker and listen yourself how the larger speaker will blow the smaller one away in both extension and spl.

After posting this, those who were wrong will come and cry about not saying that 15" is worse.

 

[bothu]

People who speak against 15" or larger have not witnessed a 15" or larger playing.

You can get 20 Hz from 4", but it's -20 dB below 1 kHz and over excursion happens at 85 dB. With dual 15" per side you can expect 90+ dB with 1 Watt and capacity that does not give in. 15" can have 15 mm xmax too.

My only advice to people, who think 6 inch is good, is to compare it with proper diy 15" side by side in the same room. Be it measurements and/or just listening, you will notice a different in favor of the larger driver. Bonus task: add high-pass filter at 50 Hz to both small and large speaker and listen yourself how the larger speaker will blow the smaller one away in both extension and spl.

After posting this, those who were wrong will come and cry about not saying that 15" is worse.

This is my DIY solution.
Not perfect but acceptable for every day use.

18" sub.
10" bas.

Each speaker has its own amp.

Bo Thunér

 

[jaakkopetteri]

People who speak against 15" or larger have not witnessed a 15" or larger playing.

My only advice to people, who think 6 inch is good, is to compare it with proper diy 15" side by side in the same room.

I've never seen anyone "speaking against 15'" or saying a 6inch compares to a 15", who exactly are you referring to?

 

[jcris]

Do you use dsp to correct for the room?
Impressive active system.

 

[IamJF]

People who speak against 15" or larger have not witnessed a 15" or larger playing.

Nobody speaks against 15" - you speak against smaller drivers.
Have you ever experienced a (double) bass array with e.g. 6x 10" drivers? But be warned ... don't listen to it when you are not ready to change your setup

Implementation is key. Adaption to the room. Sometimes a few big drivers work, often a bigger bunch of drivers work better and you don't need 15" when you have enough smaller drivers.

And I'm comming from PA world, own 6 18" subs, 2x12" + BMS Neo 2" Coax speakers etc.

 

[Mr. Widget]

This is my DIY solution.
Not perfect but acceptable for every day use.

What a tidy solution... very nice.
Thanks for sharing!

 

[Ze Frog]

Short answer: No.

Longer Answer. DIY speakers should be something you consider because you want to build speakers. Trying to save money is almost certainly a fool's errand unless you value your time at less than zero. IF you already have a fully equipped woodworking shop AND are highly skilled, AND have 2-3+ years of unallocated hobby time that you can dedicate to the undertaking, then you can possibly aspire to creating something on par with Revel etc. Maybe. But, you don't get to demo the speakers before you start, and there are no 'end game' DIY designs that I'm aware of that have anything more than basic measurements available - so there's a very real risk that you spend years pursuing the project and don't like the result.

Having said all that, the best 'end game' design that I'm aware of that has extensive documentation and build logs available is Jon Marsh's 'Wavecore Ardent' design over on HTGuide. It's a design similar to an Avalon speaker (Jon Marsh knew Charles Hansen before he got started in the industry, apparently) I believe the DIY cost was approx $5k, and would be a design that would compete with the F328BE and similar tier speakers. There are other expensive designs out there (e.g. Troels Gravsen) but none leave me with the feeling that they have a similar amount of design behind them.
Another that may be worth looking at is the 'Open Source Monkey Coffin' design from DIYAudio. I haven't looked into that as deeply, but it does appear to have had a LOT of design debate and seems to be a well-executed 3-way waveguide design.

The final point is that 'end game' speakers are as much about aesthetics as they are about sound. Finding one that looks good enough to motivate you might be tricky.

Yeah, it's certainly not cheaper, especially once you get the bug for it. End's up just as bad as chasing factory Hi-fi cost wise. It is a really fun hobby though.

 

[jamescarter1982]

@MKR You ask for the best - here it is.
Tweeter - Bliesma T25B
Midrange - Bliesma M74B
LF - Purify. But I use mostly Scan Speak or SB Acoustics/Satori, Purify is REALLY expensive. For a 2 way they are the way to go, in my concept the benefit is small.
Sub - Whatever fits the need! SB34NRXL75-8 is nice.

Did you ever listened to big ATC or PMC speakers? These 3" domes have some magic with them and produce enorm SPL level. My goal is to achive something similar but with the best material available. This Beryllium tweeter is my goto for high frequencies at the moment - prefere it over ribbon or AMT.
But when you really need huge SPL levels you need to step up from the classic 1" tweeter - e.g. T34B.

The whole thing would be driven by a DSP based plate amplifier - I often use Hypex. With the digital input you save a lot of converting, sounds excellent.

Here is a detail picture of my actual setup. T25B, 2x 2,5" Satori Midrange with modified front plate, 2x ScanSpeak 20cm drivers. The midranges get updated to 1x M74B as soon as I have time. LF drivers are positioned close to the position needed for a single bass array - works well <80Hz. No sub needed in my small room but I will go to 10 or 12" in my next build just to get more headroom.
View attachment 281827

The room is for mixing and mastering and listening in near filed. It looks simpel but evey little piece of surface and absorption is optimised, even the table and slanted outboard are matched to the distance to the speakers etc.

View attachment 281829

What you get is sound as detailed as my K812 headphones. I never heard other speakers to be able to do that. But it's way more fun as headphones ;-)

For causual listening this room is way to dampened and you would need a different setup - but that's one way to go "End Game".

p.s.: You will never achieve the precision and details with a compression driver + horn what you get from these beryllium membranes. But you get directivity and insane dynamics - depending on the room and your listening this can be more important.
For me "End Game" means to hear EVERYTHING the source can offer - the system above can do so.

which scanspeak bass driver is this please . I have similar ideas to this . Nice to see somebody actually doing it not just day dreaming about it ha

 

[IamJF]

22W8857. One of the best 8" drivers, only Purify can top that.
For a bigger room I would use bigger drivers but of course depends on your listening levels. This concept just invites to raise levels cause midrange and also tweeter can produce some SPL with ease.

 

[Wolf]

The 8857 is the metal cone 9" woofer, and is one of the cleanest woofers I've listened to.
Worth every penny they ask.

There is a paper equivalent, but I've not heard it.

 

[dedobot]

Romy The Cat's Macondo system ?

Romy the Cat's Macondo Acoustic System

GoodSoundClub - Romy the Cat's personal High-End Audio site

www.goodsoundclub.com

Dude writes fascinating, what ya think ?