Mechano23 Open-source DIY Speaker Review

[Ktacos]

This speakers ties for 3rd best preference score on Spinorama.org (tied with 27 other speakers) once you a "perfect" subwoofer setup.

"Tonality (Preference) Score is 6.81 with an EQ and would be 8.82 with a perfect subwoofer and the same EQ"

I know this is not the end all be all, but would this suggest that basically this speaker is about as good as most anything out there, when you factor in the subwoofer bass?

The data speaks for itself, it's a really good speaker.

 

[a4eaudio]

This speakers ties for 3rd best preference score on Spinorama.org (tied with 27 other speakers) once you a "perfect" subwoofer setup.

"Tonality (Preference) Score is 6.81 with an EQ and would be 8.82 with a perfect subwoofer and the same EQ"

I know this is not the end all be all, but would this suggest that basically this speaker is about as good as most anything out there, when you factor in the subwoofer bass?

It depends on what you mean by the text in red.
Nothing specific to the Mechano23, but rather any speaker with a single 5 inch driver...

• Limited low frequency output. Can be alleviated by a subwoofer. (You can get lower frequency than Mechano23 if you make tradeoffs, lower sensitivity driver and larger cabinet.)
• Limited SPL. This can be seen in the distortion plots in post #1 ("woofer unhappy" at 96dB) and also the power rating of the driver.

For a lot of listening, in a lot of real rooms, a small speaker can be just fine. BUT...if you want it to go louder you need to displace more air with low distortion. These speakers cannot play 96 dB well, so let's consider 90 dB. While 90 dB is quite loud at 1m, it is 78 dB at 4 meters. And it is not about continuous SPL but dynamic peaks. If you are aiming for 20 dB peaks then you are looking at continuous 58 dB at 4 m. This is not a flaw of this speaker, but a general fact about smaller speakers. I mainly listen to music in my home office, I'm about 2 to 2.5m from my speakers and the room is pretty small - speakers with 5" or 6-1/2" drivers go louder than I am willing to listen in my particular room.

These speakers use a budget woofer (SB Acoustics PFC line). In my opinion, these are my top 1 or 2 budget 5- or 6-inch driver. But it is hard to say they are as good as most anything out there...there is a reason these cost $36 and a Purifi 5-inch woofer costs $320. Harmonic distortion, intermodulation distortion, resonances, smooth frequency response, xmax, power handling, etc. But if you ask...are these about as good as most anything out there in this price range or even twice as expensive? I think the answer to that has to be "yes".

 

[Ilkless]

The data speaks for itself, it's a really good speaker.

To be fair it is also the sort of DI characteristic (smoothly increasing) the score rewards as well, more so than other flavours of smooth/constant directivity.

 

[DearSX]

It depends on what you mean by the text in red.
Nothing specific to the Mechano23, but rather any speaker with a single 5 inch driver...

• Limited low frequency output. Can be alleviated by a subwoofer. (You can get lower frequency than Mechano23 if you make tradeoffs, lower sensitivity driver and larger cabinet.)
• Limited SPL. This can be seen in the distortion plots in post #1 ("woofer unhappy" at 96dB) and also the power rating of the driver.

For a lot of listening, in a lot of real rooms, a small speaker can be just fine. BUT...if you want it to go louder you need to displace more air with low distortion. These speakers cannot play 96 dB well, so let's consider 90 dB. While 90 dB is quite loud at 1m, it is 78 dB at 4 meters. And it is not about continuous SPL but dynamic peaks. If you are aiming for 20 dB peaks then you are looking at continuous 58 dB at 4 m. This is not a flaw of this speaker, but a general fact about smaller speakers. I mainly listen to music in my home office, I'm about 2 to 2.5m from my speakers and the room is pretty small - speakers with 5" or 6-1/2" drivers go louder than I am willing to listen in my particular room.

These speakers use a budget woofer (SB Acoustics PFC line). In my opinion, these are my top 1 or 2 budget 5- or 6-inch driver. But it is hard to say they are as good as most anything out there...there is a reason these cost $36 and a Purifi 5-inch woofer costs $320. Harmonic distortion, intermodulation distortion, resonances, smooth frequency response, xmax, power handling, etc. But if you ask...are these about as good as most anything out there in this price range or even twice as expensive? I think the answer to that has to be "yes".

All great points, thank you! I wonder if at 86db (1m standard, with a perfect subwoofer) these can compete with anything most anything out there. I would like to find out . I hope to build these someday and compare them to my other $2-10k speakers. I also sit just 2 meters away.

 

[krabapple]

It depends on what you mean by the text in red.
Nothing specific to the Mechano23, but rather any speaker with a single 5 inch driver...

• Limited low frequency output. Can be alleviated by a subwoofer. (You can get lower frequency than Mechano23 if you make tradeoffs, lower sensitivity driver and larger cabinet.)

He literally wrote "when you factor in the subwoofer bass"

• Limited SPL. This can be seen in the distortion plots in post #1 ("woofer unhappy" at 96dB) and also the power rating of the driver.

And again, this is primarily a bass issue, one that bookshelf speakers will typically exhibit.

Clearly, to me at least, by 'anything out there' he was referring to similarly sized speakers, plus subwoofer.

(And FWIW I don't listen to my bookself speakers from *4 meters away*.)

 

[DearSX]

I had not fully factored in dynamics into the equation at first, but makes sense that the Mechano mid-bass was not designed for huge dynamics. So limiting SPL to 86-90db (at 1m) which would be around 83-87db at 2 meters would be more pragmatic.

Looking at speakers like Revel, Buchardt, Kef, Dutch and Dutch, Magico, Ascilab, Genelec, Neumann etc. they definitely care about the preference scores, which the Mechano23 score very well (specially with sub and eq).

 

[Groove01]

These are indeed great speakers, for what they are. I just finished my build and have been enjoying them quite a bit.

The primary limiting factor (for me) is they are not going to fill the room. For smaller rooms at moderate levels, they are quite good with surprisingly decent low end (subjective assessment).

I may have over dampened mine, so I may play around with that a bit, as well as some gaskets under the drivers to better seal and bring them flush with the baffle. I haven’t measured them yet, so curious to do that as well. Overall, as a DIY project, I’m incredibly pleased with how they sound.

They aren’t going to replace my primary speakers, but as a fun little office system - they’re really good and I’m quite impressed.

 

[a4eaudio]

He literally wrote "when you factor in the subwoofer bass"

Correct, that is why I literally wrote "can be alleviated by subwoofer".

...Clearly, to me at least, by 'anything out there' he was referring to similarly sized speakers, plus subwoofer.

DearSX is contemplating building the Mechano23 speakers, so I was trying to give him perspective. I DO think they would be very good for HIS use case. If you want to take the question literally "anything out there' he was referring to similarly sized speakers, plus subwoofer" then the answer is a clear "no". They can't come close to a well designed bookshelf speaker using something like a Bliesma tweeter and Purifi woofer. But you can build a pair of Mechano23 with crossovers for the price of one Bliesma tweeter.

 

[Laurent]

There are a lot of designs using the

TC9FD18-08​

driver. It is pretty cheap and would be perfect for a project like this. I have a pair of transmission line speakers based on this that I built for a desk setup and I am very happy with them. If you want to use a sub you can use a closed design.

 

[johnp98]

I was going to order parts to make a set of these here in Canada but it looks like the
Tweeter Scan Speak h26069200
Is out of stock. Is there a replacement for it?
Or any updates to the design since the review and original components list was made?
Thanks!

 

[Ktacos]

Howdy, I'm a musician and live/studio engineer/whateveryouwannacallit who dabbles (ok underselling it I've built probably 20 speakers at this point) in speaker building. I built a pair of these because I wanted some monitors that were passive as to avoid hiss. Most of the commercial passive options are pretty expensive and out of my budget, or has DI issues or other problems. I tried a few lower cost monitors that did have acceptable hiss but other problems that bugged me like cheap cabinet construction and port resonances. I built mine with SB passive radiators on the back to avoid the port resonance. Happy to finally be done with them and get back to making some music.

Subjectively I have to say these speakers are exceptional. Tonality is absolutely perfect out of the box. The excellent DI can be heard as the speaker sounds great everywhere, tight tolerances on the Scan Speak tweeter and SB woofer delivers a tight phantom center and good imaging. Detail retrieval (is that a thing?) is great, all vocal layers can be heard to an impressive degree. I've owned 8030c and kh80 and these definitely keep up with them to my ears. These mechano23 replace some kali lp6v2 that I felt were just too muddy/blurry in the mid bass, none of that found in the mechano23. The room I have them in is heavily treated and seems to give me a good bit of room gain, so I have plenty of good low bass to work with, but I can see the low end lacking in a larger space. It's about on par for any 5" woofer IMO.

I would love to see the designer come out with a higher SPL and lower bass extension design, possibly a tower

 

[AM88]

Howdy, I'm a musician and live/studio engineer/whateveryouwannacallit who dabbles (ok underselling it I've built probably 20 speakers at this point) in speaker building. I built a pair of these because I wanted some monitors that were passive as to avoid hiss. Most of the commercial passive options are pretty expensive and out of my budget, or has DI issues or other problems. I tried a few lower cost monitors that did have acceptable hiss but other problems that bugged me like cheap cabinet construction and port resonances. I built mine with SB passive radiators on the back to avoid the port resonance. Happy to finally be done with them and get back to making some music.

Subjectively I have to say these speakers are exceptional. Tonality is absolutely perfect out of the box. The excellent DI can be heard as the speaker sounds great everywhere, tight tolerances on the Scan Speak tweeter and SB woofer delivers a tight phantom center and good imaging. Detail retrieval (is that a thing?) is great, all vocal layers can be heard to an impressive degree. I've owned 8030c and kh80 and these definitely keep up with them to my ears. These mechano23 replace some kali lp6v2 that I felt were just too muddy/blurry in the mid bass, none of that found in the mechano23. The room I have them in is heavily treated and seems to give me a good bit of room gain, so I have plenty of good low bass to work with, but I can see the low end lacking in a larger space. It's about on par for any 5" woofer IMO.

I would love to see the designer come out with a higher SPL and lower bass extension design, possibly a tower


View attachment 484129

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That’s great work right there!! Marine plywood? The visible ply edges are really cool looking. I presume the wood is laquered or sealed somehow?

 

[Ktacos]

Marine plywood?

Just balitc birch. The cabinet finish is simply rubbed on danish oil.

 

[K4lam]

Howdy, I'm a musician and live/studio engineer/whateveryouwannacallit who dabbles (ok underselling it I've built probably 20 speakers at this point) in speaker building. I built a pair of these because I wanted some monitors that were passive as to avoid hiss. Most of the commercial passive options are pretty expensive and out of my budget, or has DI issues or other problems. I tried a few lower cost monitors that did have acceptable hiss but other problems that bugged me like cheap cabinet construction and port resonances. I built mine with SB passive radiators on the back to avoid the port resonance. Happy to finally be done with them and get back to making some music.

Subjectively I have to say these speakers are exceptional. Tonality is absolutely perfect out of the box. The excellent DI can be heard as the speaker sounds great everywhere, tight tolerances on the Scan Speak tweeter and SB woofer delivers a tight phantom center and good imaging. Detail retrieval (is that a thing?) is great, all vocal layers can be heard to an impressive degree. I've owned 8030c and kh80 and these definitely keep up with them to my ears. These mechano23 replace some kali lp6v2 that I felt were just too muddy/blurry in the mid bass, none of that found in the mechano23. The room I have them in is heavily treated and seems to give me a good bit of room gain, so I have plenty of good low bass to work with, but I can see the low end lacking in a larger space. It's about on par for any 5" woofer IMO.

I would love to see the designer come out with a higher SPL and lower bass extension design, possibly a tower


View attachment 484129

View attachment 484130

That looks awesome. Did you add any mass to the PR?
And did you take measurements to see how bass extension or distortion is affected?
I am very curious because I might also build them with a PR

 

[Chris*42]

That looks awesome. Did you add any mass to the PR?
And did you take measurements to see how bass extension or distortion is affected?
I am very curious because I might also build them with a PR

You may look at the posts #226 … #228. I made some measurements regarding these questions.

 

[Mr.Christiee]

I am also curious what the F3 would be for these speakers ported vs passive radiator

 

[a4eaudio]

I am also curious what the F3 would be for these speakers ported vs passive radiator

Look at post #222.
F3 will be higher for the PR but nothing extreme.

 

[Mr.Christiee]

Look at post #222.
F3 will be higher for the PR but nothing extreme.

F3 ~100Hz. F6 ~50Hz

Is that correct?

 

[a4eaudio]

F3 ~100Hz. F6 ~50Hz

Is that correct?

I wouldn't worry about the exact numbers from post #222, just look how the line for the passive radiator is 5-10Hz to the right for a given dB level when you get below 90Hz. According to Amirm's measurements in post #1 the F3 is 77.6Hz and the F6 is 55.7Hz (per spinorama.org). Thus, you probably are looking at an F3 something like 83-85Hz and an F6 around 62-65Hz. I would suggest this is NOT a big difference.

 

[Mr.Christiee]

How would these compare to KEF Q1 Meta?

(Assume both are paired with Wiim Amp Ultra + SVS SB1000)