Small 2-way speakers with linear on-axis and power response characteristics (Scan Speak and SB Acoustics drivers). H&V off-axis measurements included

[mrick39]

Thanks. I contacted the PCB vendor (JLCPCB) and they said a public account was not possible. If anyone knows otherwise I'm all ears. However its not that hard to order yourself. Just setup an account and upload the RAR file. With fastest shipping I had them in just over 4 days. I have uploaded the files and link to JLCPCB ordering instructions to github here :

Mechano23-xover/README.md at main · wineds/Mechano23-xover

Mechano23 xover. Contribute to wineds/Mechano23-xover development by creating an account on GitHub.

github.com

View attachment 398180

Wow awesome thank you!! I just ordered ten pcb's for a grand total of $12.50 including shipping!

 

[mrick39]

Unreal...just received my order from JLCPCB. Seven days from my order to delivery all the way from China to Wisconsin, USA. For $12.50.

 

[BrendanP]

Unreal...just received my order from JLCPCB. Seven days from my order to delivery all the way from China to Wisconsin, USA. For $12.50.

Which PCB lugs did you end up going with? Just got my pcb in from Hong Kong and when I looked at the mouser lugs, 100 of them were going to cost like $65 shipped.

 

[mrick39]

It took a bit of digging but I ordered these. I haven't received them yet but for $8.09 I took a shot.

Amazon.com

 

[wineds]

Which PCB lugs did you end up going with? Just got my pcb in from Hong Kong and when I looked at the mouser lugs, 100 of them were going to cost like $65 shipped.

Ok I added a few more options to my github from Newark/Farnell/Element14

 

[Roland68]

Which PCB lugs did you end up going with? Just got my pcb in from Hong Kong and when I looked at the mouser lugs, 100 of them were going to cost like $65 shipped.

I don't know how it is in your country, but Mouser and Digikey usually require a minimum order value of around €50 for free shipping. Ordering anything less doesn't make sense. You could probably have ordered more things and still paid less.

 

[mrick39]

Which PCB lugs did you end up going with? Just got my pcb in from Hong Kong and when I looked at the mouser lugs, 100 of them were going to cost like $65 shipped.

I received 100 lugs today. They look perfect. I can send mail some if you're interested.

 

[BrendanP]

I received 100 lugs today. They look perfect. I can send mail some if you're interested.

Thank you, just got mine in from newark and they seem to fit well. Waiting for the the last 27mfd cap to come in before I can finish them

 

[Gregoire90]

Do you all reckon this parts express port will be suitable assuming I order 1 3/8 diameter? I’m sorry I’m seriously so stupid and I need the approval of those much smarter than myself.

 

[BrendanP]

Do you all reckon this parts express port will be suitable assuming I order 1 3/8 diameter? I’m sorry I’m seriously so stupid and I need the approval of those much smarter than myself.

That's the one I purchased, should be fine. Solen is having a 13% off sale right now and almost everything is in stock for the crossovers there. Still cheaper to buy all the crossover components there and then purchase the tweeter/woofer from soundimports in NL.

 

[Gregoire90]

That's the one I purchased, should be fine. Solen is having a 13% off sale right now and almost everything is in stock for the crossovers there. Still cheaper to buy all the crossover components there and then purchase the tweeter/woofer from soundimports in NL.

Killer, thank you for responding. I actually just ordered all of my parts from solen a few days ago with the exception of the .56mh air core inductor and woofers (both ordered from soundimports). I couldn’t believe how fast it shipped from the Netherlands to California. Got the woofers and inductors today. Took 3-4 days to arrive. Insane

 

[rokr]

Just got my PCB. It's so cool to know that it was printed especially for me
All the crossover boards i built in the past were made out of scraps wood with components wires tightly wrapped around each other and soldered, which made me wonder about the connectivity quality of such a strong physical connection vs a connection used in a PCB which is mostly done by solder which is a lot less conductive than the wires themselves. Do you think there's a difference?

 

[XMechanik]

The resistivity of Sn is rho=11e-8 Ohm*m. Assuming that the area of the solder junction is A=1mm2 and its length l=0.1mm, the junction resistance R=rho*l/A can be estimated as R=11e-8Ohm*m*1e-4m/1e-6m2=11e-6Ohm=11uOhm (micro Ohms), which I think can be neglected. To realize how small this value is, think of the default ESR value used for capacitors in VituixCad, which is 0.01Ohm, so it is 1000 times larger and its impact on the characteristics is next to nothing.

 

[Salt]

OT: Try Alt Gr & M on the keyboard and it results in µ ...
On topic: some 'hard' connections are of course the best, but audible differences to PCB's could be hard to establish.
Nevertheless, for XOvers within a cabinet I would prefer the 'tight touch'.

 

[Roland68]

Just got my PCB. It's so cool to know that it was printed especially for me
All the crossover boards i built in the past were made out of scraps wood with components wires tightly wrapped around each other and soldered, which made me wonder about the connectivity quality of such a strong physical connection vs a connection used in a PCB which is mostly done by solder which is a lot less conductive than the wires themselves. Do you think there's a difference?

View attachment 404524

Solder is just the medium that creates a connection. As long as it is not used as a conductor and only creates a coherent connection between 2 touching conductors, i.e. 2 wires or wire and conductor track on the board, you will get a very low-resistance connection.

But nobody is stopping you from doing without solder connections in a crossover. You can simply take ferrules or crimp connectors of the appropriate size and insert all the wires to be connected from one or both sides and then crimp them, perfect connection without solder.

 

[rokr]

Solder is just the medium that creates a connection. As long as it is not used as a conductor and only creates a coherent connection between 2 touching conductors, i.e. 2 wires or wire and conductor track on the board, you will get a very low-resistance connection.

But nobody is stopping you from doing without solder connections in a crossover. You can simply take ferrules or crimp connectors of the appropriate size and insert all the wires to be connected from one or both sides and then crimp them, perfect connection without solder.

The way i see it is that with the wires wrapped around each other, the solder is mostly used as a way to keep the wires touching, while on a pcb the solder acts as the connection between the wire and the board. Anyway, as XMechanik said, the difference is so minute it's neglectable.

​

 

[Roland68]

The way i see it is that with the wires wrapped around each other, the solder is mostly used as a way to keep the wires touching, while on a pcb the solder acts as the connection between the wire and the board. Anyway, as XMechanik said, the difference is so minute it's neglectable.

​

The application for the solder is exactly the same in both cases and there is no difference. It only bridges a minimal gap. There is no difference in load measurements either, regardless of whether it is a circuit board or free wiring. Clean work assumed.

 

[BossBunos]

Finished my build a while back. I opted for the PR option. If I could do it all again I would probably go for a port to reduce cost and make the build easier.
Made the cabinet from scrap pieces outdoor grade ply wood I used for my outdoor kitchen. I didn't have much experience in woodworking and used the old tools in my dads barn. God that stuff was inaccurate. Really hard to get true corners and straight edges. I'm a bit of a perfectionist my self so re-did the whole cabinet and bought some tools for it.
Later decided to add bracing, round-over the front edges, mount the crossover to the top, and added some padding on all walls. Also added the recommended amount of polyfill (no pictures).
All in all a really fun experience and definetly learned alot! Here are some pictures I took during the process.

 

[J49]

Nice work! I like the white. How do they stand up next to the Revel's?! Some big shoes to fill there haha

 

[BossBunos]

Initially I didn't compare them and tought they sounded really 'muddy'. When I visited my parent I tried the speakers there and still had the same impression. Did an unscientific test comparing it to their speakers (cheap 2-way sony 4-5 inch bookshelf) and that sounded better in the mid/high frequencies but didnt have the extension or body the mechano23's have. I suspected some resonance so I set them up next to the salon and crossed them over at 50hz to a sub using a minidsp SHD. Did some in room MMM measurement and indeed found a strong peak around 300hz. I want to find out if that is a room mode or a cabinet resonance of some sort since it's also in amirs THD measurement. But I've not had the time to check

I then knocked the highest peaks down using some EQ (in the graph below also the top end of the mechano23 is eq'ed to tilt a little less downward to try to match the 'openness' of the salon, unfortunatly I don't have a measurement saved with only the peaks knocked down) resulting in the following:

The sound of the mechano23 was MUCH cleaner now! Sound was really well balanced tonality wise. Yet the salon2 sounded way more open/detailed. I then tried to tilt the high frequency a bit up on the Mechano23 to try if I could match that open/detailed character of the salon. It semi worked. There was more detail now but ofcourse the tonal balance was now completly off and it didnt sound natural anymore. So my initial conclusion is that when the peak/resonance is taken care of the sound is good and balanced. yet it lacks open/detailed sound compared to the salon2. I'm not sure if this is due to the wider dispersion of the salon. I noticed that a lot of highly regarded speakers have an estimated in room response that gradially declines to about 2kh and then turns to flat. I added some examples below:

F226BE:

Salon2:

Blade2 meta: