The Decision to Build
As I have been looking now, for some time, to try to find a speaker that will satisfy the sound quality I desire, with the aesthetics I need (for the better half), and the price point I must have, it seems that nothing will do but a kit or a design I make myself. Sure, there are lots of inexpensive speakers, but they either sound really bad, or look like refugees from a bad contact paper fantasy, or both.
always fun dealing with other people’s ideas of good design - but sometimes compromises must be made. this cabinet could use some good bracing, so it’s not the best choice
Although I will be paying through the nose for assembled cabinets, it is necessary, as I will not have access to the proper woodworking tools, and I plan to save money with the design and wiring of the cabinets, and I am still looking for deals on drivers.
Raw drivers of quality have gone through the roof, as the dollar is weak, and all the good ones are built offshore. Name a quality driver manufacturer, and I can usually name the country of origin. In no case is it the USA. You may say that you are aware of several manufacturers of assembled speakers that are made here in the United States, and you would be right. However, unless I have missed a change recently, any domestic, quality manufacturer doesn’t sell the raw drivers, or acts as if the drivers were made by Congressional committee using 24k gold. In other words, the pricing is stratospheric.
In the 80s and 90s, there were several purveyors of raw drivers that both had good quality and fair price. Now, it is down to only three that I can name, and the last I looked, one of them was not looking healthy. Those providers are Madisound, located in Wisconsin, Speaker City, located in Burbank, California, and Zalytron, located in New York. Zalytron wasn’t looking so good last time I checked.
some designs with Morel drivers - the far right example is a D’Appolito design
I will also be looking for a recent copy of ‘The Loudspeaker Design Cookbook’. I believe the author is Vance Dickason, but I’m not sure.
It was a while ago that my older copy was ruined in a flood. The cookbook gives help with the math behind the Thiele-Small calculations, and offers several choices of speaker designs. I will be building a variation of the D’Appolito design, which uses a vertical woofer - tweeter - woofer layout, with a cabinet that is barely wider than the woofer diameter. This design concept is not new, and several quality manufacturers have made models using this concept. Since the big boys have tried it, in large scale, and more importantly, since I have heard the results, it is a design I am comfortable with, and will fit my price considerations. I also will let you know that I have a pair of the Original VMPS Subwoofers, and will be using those, crossed over at about 80Hz, so ultra low bass will not be something the satellites will need to produce. Another consideration is the fact that using this speaker design will allow me to build a 5th speaker identical, and flip it 90 degrees to be the center channel for the system. No problems with changes in drivers or response that way. Simple.
a Dynaudio woofer - notice the large magnet, the cast basket, and the large voice coil - all good things making for a great end product
I always wanted to build a set of speakers using Dynaudio drivers, as I have heard several of their designs, including the mighty Duntech Sovereign, which used all Dynaudio drivers. The results were spectacular for a non-planar speaker design, and the dynamics were phenomenal! Because of the decision of Dynaudio to remove their raw drivers from the market, I am looking at Morel drivers, which are made in Israel. The designs are copies of the more popular Dynaudio drivers, and as such use large magnet structures, and also large voice coils. (By large voice coils, I mean there are 6.5" midwoofers that have 3" voice coils.) This makes for high power handling, great heat dissipation (the drivers also use ferrofluid), and very little cone breakup. The only thing about the Morel line of woofers is that the line all tend to have rather high Qts, meaning that the drivers are most effectively used in a sealed box. This leads to larger box size than I would like, but you can’t have everything.
I am hoping to have my parts chosen soon, and then I will cover the build. Next installment, choosing the right components for the crossover.
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