End Game DIY Loudspeakers

[ChargedCapacitor]

When I was testing the prototype, I tried every which way (in terms of placing the woofers), including stacking them at the bottom, but top and bottom gave the smoothest response.

In addition, these will be in a baffle wall, behind an AT screen, and with a ~120Hz crossover to the 1099s, forward firing made the most sense.

You misunderstand me. I mean placing the woofers in a completely different location, away from the speaker. Keep in mind, the wavelength of the sub bass are massive. So you would have to move them several feet at a time in order to see a difference, not just moving them around on the speaker stack.

With this setup, and no other satellite subs, you are destined to have deep troughs in the bass response, no matter how much power you put into them or how big the cone is.

 

[kapone]

You misunderstand me. I mean placing the woofers in a completely different location, away from the speaker. Keep in mind, the wavelength of the sub bass are massive. So you would have to move them several feet at a time in order to see a difference, not just moving them around on the speaker stack.

With this setup, and no other satellite subs, you are destined to have deep troughs in the bass response, no matter how much power you put into them or how big the cone is.

Ohh...there WILL be subs. Sorry, these are just the bed layer speakers. I intend to run them down to ~35-40Hz with subs picking it from there.

The subs will most likely be quad 18 or 21s sealed.

 

[ChargedCapacitor]

Ohh...there WILL be subs. Sorry, these are just the bed layer speakers. I intend to run them down to ~35-40Hz with subs picking it from there.

The subs will most likely be quad 18 or 21s sealed.

Oh wow, this must be a big room! That's enough displacement to rip the drywall off the studs!

 

[kapone]

Oh wow, this must be a big room! That's enough displacement to rip the drywall off the studs!

1200sqft multi purpose, basement

 

[Mr. Widget]

1200sqft multi purpose, basement

Love to see pix of the finished project... appears to be a massive undertaking! Glad you will have them behind a baffle wall... having those towering speakers looming over you would be a bit intimidating. Do you have earthquakes?

 

[kapone]

Love to see pix of the finished project... appears to be a massive undertaking! Glad you will have them behind a baffle wall... having those towering speakers looming over you would be a bit intimidating. Do you have earthquakes?

lol...nah, no earthquakes, I'm in the DC area.

 

[IamJF]

@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.

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.

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.

 

[clemenules]

2x 2,5" Satori Midrange

What range do you operate the MD60N's in?

 

[IamJF]

500Hz to about 2kHz.
Here some measurements of the mid driver:

THD is a litle higher with these but K3 is staying low, also at fairly low frequencies.
But the other drivers are excellent in this regard - so the mid is the weakest link in THD. Here a measurement at 50cm distance (measuring distance for a customer) of the complete speaker.

These ScanSpeak 20cm drivers are incredible. THD goes up in the midrange but it's mostly K2.

For listening I only use ONE of them - the higher one. I sit relatively close and the sound source is more a single point that way, it get's some vertical dimension with moth mid domes.

But the M74B sit's on my desk, waiting to be used ...

 

[Jaanedo Dost]

@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.

I also think that what listed there at the top is the best DIY full range speaker. ( I have a slight modification )

Tweeter - Bliesma T34B
Midrange - Bliesma M74B
LF - Purify

Have you already completed the design of it?

 

[isaeagle4031]

As evidenced by Javad Shadzi and The Loudspeaker Project Pad at Axpona, it is possible for a DIYer to design and build an "endgame" type speaker. But this is also realative to the definition of "endgame". Wolf was kind enough to mention my own Victor design earlier in this thread and it is certainly welcomed. It was not an easy design to implent as far as cabinet contstruction. And I certainly lack most of the tools and skills to build true super high end cabinets. My own shop consists of maybe $1000 in tools an half of a 2 car garage.

From a sonic standpoint, DIY can certainly hang with many of the top dogs in commercial endeavors with few exceptions. Most of us don't have the equipment or tech to build large panel type drivers. However, with conventional drivers (which nearly all commercial systems are), DIY, with thanks to so many in the community that have created the equipment and software we now enjoy, can not only compete but yes honestly out perform them as well.

In attending Axpona, I was generally underwhelmed by most of the rooms save a few. And honestly, where do your really think many of those guys started? They were DIY before DIY was cool! Polk, JBL, CSS (very recent for sure), were all started literally out of a garage!

Now DIY is not for everyone. I know someone that decided to purchase the new Satori kit that I will be assembling for him. But please don't discount DIY as somehow inferior. I don't DIY so much to save money though I have had some of my builds compared well to systems costing in the $20-30k range in which I had about $1k in equipment and expense. I do it because of the challenge. I do it for the learning experience. That is not something I am going to get by purchasing someone else's design or a commercial product.

 

[Andrej]

DIY is clearly not for everybody. You have to spend the time to learn and to build, which, unless you consider it free, or if you enjoy the design and build processes for their own sake, becomes prohibitive. DIY also opens up opportunities which otherwise might not be possible: combination of different drive units, different speaker loading choices, adding waveguides/horns to drivers which would not happen in a commercial product, building bigger/heavier/stronger enclosures, etc. Many of the drive units available to DIY aficionados are SOTA, and in DIY the constraints are self imposed based on one's own circumstances. I have always felt that I could build at least as solid a cabinet as any commercial product, and that designs can be as visually compelling, although producing top notch finish (other than in wood) is beyond my abilities (or the willingness to put in the effort). Lest we forget, the cost is way down once one tries to compete with full bandwidth SOTA speakers.

What makes DIY compelling TO ME is the freedom to try new things and explore ideas, good or bad, which would be impossible with commercial products, aesthetically or acoustically. I am sharing images of some of my projects to demonstrate what I am talking about. The distortion curves, which are pretty close to SOTA, and could be improved by using better (more expensive) drivers, are of the Dayton AMT Pro, Seas Excel 8" driver and a small sub using a 10" Dayton Ultimax woofer, crossed over at 170 and 1,050 Hz. The big horns are using the small Hypex plate amp (these are quite sensitive so 125W is plenty) which provide an excellent platform for DIY wrt price and convenience. Other solutions exist, but I have not explored those, other than using a Behringer DCX2496 and ATI 12 x 60W power amp,
which are also great tools, but not quite as stellar as the Hypex plate amps.

Mostly due to being influenced by the writing in these pages I have attempted to build a large horn for an 8" drive unit (I had previously built a bass-reflex box). The results are way better than I expected (especially in my current highly reverberant room), so much so that I am considering an 8ft tall line source version with 12 AMTs and 9 8" drivers per side (slightly smaller, going down to 250Hz rather than the current one which goes down to 150Hz). Expensive, but a fraction of the cost for a comparable commercial speaker. The differences for a 2-way bookshelf speaker, in terms of cost, tend to disappear, but we are talking about SOTA versions here.

 

[Doodski]

DIY is clearly not for everybody. You have to spend the time to learn and to build, which, unless you consider it free, or if you enjoy the design and build processes for their own sake, becomes prohibitive. DIY also opens up opportunities which otherwise might not be possible: combination of different drive units, different speaker loading choices, adding waveguides/horns to drivers which would not happen in a commercial product, building bigger/heavier/stronger enclosures, etc. Many of the drive units available to DIY aficionados are SOTA, and in DIY the constraints are self imposed based on one's own circumstances. I have always felt that I could build at least as solid a cabinet as any commercial product, and that designs can be as visually compelling, although producing top notch finish (other than in wood) is beyond my abilities (or the willingness to put in the effort). Lest we forget, the cost is way down once one tries to compete with full bandwidth SOTA speakers.

What makes DIY compelling TO ME is the freedom to try new things and explore ideas, good or bad, which would be impossible with commercial products, aesthetically or acoustically. I am sharing images of some of my projects to demonstrate what I am talking about. The distortion curves, which are pretty close to SOTA, and could be improved by using better (more expensive) drivers, are of the Dayton AMT Pro, Seas Excel 8" driver and a small sub using a 10" Dayton Ultimax woofer, crossed over at 170 and 1,050 Hz. The big horns are using the small Hypex plate amp (these are quite sensitive so 125W is plenty) which provide an excellent platform for DIY wrt price and convenience. Other solutions exist, but I have not explored those, other than using a Behringer DCX2496 and ATI 12 x 60W power amp,
which are also great tools, but not quite as stellar as the Hypex plate amps.

Mostly due to being influenced by the writing in these pages I have attempted to build a large horn for an 8" drive unit (I had previously built a bass-reflex box). The results are way better than I expected (especially in my current highly reverberant room), so much so that I am considering an 8ft tall line source version with 12 AMTs and 9 8" drivers per side (slightly smaller, going down to 250Hz rather than the current one which goes down to 150Hz). Expensive, but a fraction of the cost for a comparable commercial speaker. The differences for a 2-way bookshelf speaker, in terms of cost, tend to disappear, but we are talking about SOTA versions here.

There are some very cool speakers in your post! Very interesting and attractive too.

 

[IamJF]

I also think that what listed there at the top is the best DIY full range speaker. ( I have a slight modification )

Tweeter - Bliesma T34B
Midrange - Bliesma M74B
LF - Purify

Have you already completed the design of it?

I completed the prototype of my measurement speaker: https://www.diyaudio.com/community/threads/some-speaker-driver-measurements.317632/post-7342693
It's with 2 M74A to keep cost reasonable and 12" LF.

If the Purify where at least 10" and at least half the price ...
The 8" ScanSpeak in my actual speakers are incredible! See the distortion curves above - 0,5% at about 110dBSpl ... only at low frequencies Purify would be better. As they run in a limited frequency range ... I'm happy with these drivers.

In the next build I will switch to 12" SB29NRX75-8s to get more headroom - and I only can imagine what a Purify driver this size would cost. The SB Acoustics are great, in the league of the ScanSpeak.

With the upcomming Purify 10" ... I'm ready to build some custom systems if anyone wants some

 

[Jaanedo Dost]

I completed the prototype of my measurement speaker: https://www.diyaudio.com/community/threads/some-speaker-driver-measurements.317632/post-7342693
It's with 2 M74A to keep cost reasonable and 12" LF.

If the Purify where at least 10" and at least half the price ...
The 8" ScanSpeak in my actual speakers are incredible! See the distortion curves above - 0,5% at about 110dBSpl ... only at low frequencies Purify would be better. As they run in a limited frequency range ... I'm happy with these drivers.

In the next build I will switch to 12" SB29NRX75-8s to get more headroom - and I only can imagine what a Purify driver this size would cost. The SB Acoustics are great, in the league of the ScanSpeak.

With the upcomming Purify 10" ... I'm ready to build some custom systems if anyone wants some

Good to know. You're a pro it seems like.

 

[IamJF]

Good to know. You're a pro it seems like.

My main job is electro-acoustic consulting and designing for industrial use. Like generating 160dBSpl static pressure for testing pressure sensors. Or investigating influence of microphone noise into speech recognition with psycho acoustic based measurement procedures. And sometimes I also have a crazy speaker to design and building speakers is something I do for >25 years now from bathroom to PA.

But it's not a real business for me - it's 90% passion.

 

[Andrej]

There are some very cool speakers in your post! Very interesting and attractive too.

Thank you. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and I take function over form, but form is not to be neglected, as long as it is not too expensive

I completed the prototype of my measurement speaker: https://www.diyaudio.com/community/threads/some-speaker-driver-measurements.317632/post-7342693
It's with 2 M74A to keep cost reasonable and 12" LF.

If the Purify where at least 10" and at least half the price ...
The 8" ScanSpeak in my actual speakers are incredible! See the distortion curves above - 0,5% at about 110dBSpl ... only at low frequencies Purify would be better. As they run in a limited frequency range ... I'm happy with these drivers.

In the next build I will switch to 12" SB29NRX75-8s to get more headroom - and I only can imagine what a Purify driver this size would cost. The SB Acoustics are great, in the league of the ScanSpeak.

With the upcomming Purify 10" ... I'm ready to build some custom systems if anyone wants some

Those are nice distortion figures, not far off the ones I got (see #312, at 106dB/1m). My biggest problem with DIY is finding out unbiased information about drive units, like distortion at different volume levels, even if the output is not equalized for flat frequency response. If anybody knows of a good place to find such information, please share! Thanks! (I already know of hificompass.com and data-bass.com)

 

[Jaanedo Dost]

I completed the prototype of my measurement speaker: https://www.diyaudio.com/community/threads/some-speaker-driver-measurements.317632/post-7342693
It's with 2 M74A to keep cost reasonable and 12" LF.

If the Purify where at least 10" and at least half the price ...
The 8" ScanSpeak in my actual speakers are incredible! See the distortion curves above - 0,5% at about 110dBSpl ... only at low frequencies Purify would be better. As they run in a limited frequency range ... I'm happy with these drivers.

In the next build I will switch to 12" SB29NRX75-8s to get more headroom - and I only can imagine what a Purify driver this size would cost. The SB Acoustics are great, in the league of the ScanSpeak.

With the upcomming Purify 10" ... I'm ready to build some custom systems if anyone wants some

This 10 inch has very Impressive specs .. low distortion < 100 Hz

PTT10.0X04-NAB-02

PREVIEW 10.0" Ultra Low Distortion Extended Woofer Expect presales to start in Q3 2023

ptt.purifi-audio.com

 

[Andrej]

Might this be of some use to you?

Items tagged with: Test Bench

audioxpress.com

Jim

Thank you! A great resource, but at one drive unit per month, across all markets, it barely scratches the surface. Still, indicative of performance for many product lines.

 

[Short38]

Seas, ScanSpeak, Morel, Eaton, and ATC in addition to SB seem to be stable suppliers to the DIY market.