Any one working on a 3+way? (1 Viewer)

[Henry_W]

I have been absent for sometime and missed this area's transformation to the subwoofer builder's forum.

Does anyone have any in progress, highly efficient 3 way projects? That is next on my plate and looking for experiences and opinions.

 

[Henry_W]

gee - guess the plethora of responses proved my theory, Ya'll enjoy the the low freqs -

ciao

 

[ThomasW]

gee - guess the plethora of responses proved my theory

One could assume that.

One might also assume that there's not much interest in high efficiency 3+ ways......

 

[Dan Wesnor]

I'm working on a 3-way, but it's not very efficient. I doubt you'd find many affordably high-efficiency 3-ways. The woofers available won't support much over 85dB, so you'd have to double up, and there goes affordability.

 

[Paul_Wright]

I'm working on getting in over my head with a 4-way...but not efficient or affordable W-LM-UM-T-UM-LM-W. Glue is still drying, so nothing to report yet.

 

[Henry_W]

on the affordability scale - what about our friends at Eminence? I have had quite a bit of success with their woofers - as long as I am comfortable with reasonable extension to about 40 - 50 hz. I should be fine above 500 - 700hz using compression drivers and horn lens.

Thanks to both for the input - I would be interested in your results

 

[Dan Hine]

Well,

I've had A LOT of ideas go through my head recently. Unfortunately with school and the lack of funds I haven't been able to do anything about them. Mostly the school part, I've got enough money to mess around a little with. One idea I came up with (using Eminence woofers, which is why I decided to reply) I really like but since I want them for HT shielding, or the lack thereof, was a problem. I do think there is a serious shortage of HE speakers available.

Of course, now that I've said that someone will post about 50 HE designs...:b

 

[AllanRW]

ya a 3way using the TB W3-319S1 as in my Spires as well as the T1 tweeter from GR and a sidefiring driver.
I am getting in around 89-90 once done.
Will be up on line after Xmas.

Al

 

[Craig Treusdell]

I was very interested in building a 3-way HT system until the "rumor" of the Adire 6.5" mid with 13mm xmax. Now an MTM sounds pretty darn good. Or even without the second mid.

I would still like to build a set of stereo 3-way speakers with a 12" or 15" side firing woofer, but HT first.

 

[Brian Bunge]

Craig,

I'm seriously considering an MTM using the Adire 6.5" woofers. Just keep in mind that an MTM with these drivers will require either a floorstanding speaker or a VERY large monitor sized speaker. That's all I can say for now!

 

[Brett DiMichele]

I am interested in a 3 Way myself.. But I couldn't get
Brittney or Christina to return my calls?????

 

[Craig Treusdell]

Brian -

I want a system that will kick butt mainly for HT. So the front three and rear centers will be identical monopoles. I would like to mount these like a wedge between the wall and ceiling (8'). They will be crossed over at 80 Hz. But I want to be able to get a loud and clean 80 Hz. In your opinion do you think a MT setup will provide this, or would it require an MTM? (in regards to the 6.5" and ported I'm sure)

Still don't know how to build a dipole since the side surrounds have to be flush mounted in the ceiling due to the room, but that is another topic.

 

[Jerry Parker]

Ive got the parts to build a very high efficiency 2-way with 2 Emminence Delta 12LF woofers and a Emminence PSD2002 compression driver per cabinet.

I will be using a Behringer dcx 2496 crossover/equilizer in conjunction with the two, and a Behringer ep2500 (700w x 2 @ 4ohms) amplifier for the woofers, but not sure about the amplifier for the compression driver yet.

 

[John E Janowitz]

I'm working on a 3 way design very shortly. IT will likely be a TMWW design. We're trying to narrow down drivers now. We just have too many options. So far here are the choices for all the drivers:

Tweeters:
Fountek JP-3 ribbon
Fountek JP-2 ribbon
Vifa XT25TG30-04
Morel MDT30S
Scan Speak D2905/9500
Seas Excel T25CF 001 (E006)

Mids:
Morel MDM55 dome mid
Seas Excel W12CY 001
Vifa M13SG09-08
Scan Speak 13M/8640
Eton 4-300

Woofers:
Peerless HDS 850467
Scan Speak 18W/8542 (possibly other scan speak 7")
Seas Excel W18EX 001
Silver Flute W17RC-38-08

We have quite a range of stuff to work with. What makes it so hard is that just about any combination has the potential to sound very good in a properly designed system. Samples of all the tweeters are here. I really like the Morel tweeter. It has a dome slightly larger than 1" and has a very smooth sound to it. The Fountek ribbons are also very interesting.

The mids will be the hardest to decide on. The Morel dome mid has a unique sound to it as well, but can't play as low as most mids. Preferably I'd like to have the mid cover the entire vocal range. The dome mid would need to get crossed to the woofer or woofers about 700hz and wouldn't accomplish this.

The woofers are actually probably the least critical component in this system. Any of them could cover the range from 700hz and lower very well. For the price of the Silver Flute 6.5" woofers, I am VERY impressed. I had samples from their company a few years ago. They go all out on their drivers. Cast basket, extended T-pole, flat nomex spiders, cross drilling in the VC formers to help cooling, etc etc. At under $20 I'd put the Silver Flute woofers above many other woofers in the $50 price range.

Hopefully I'll be able to narrow down to one set of drivers and start on the cabinets by the end of the year.

John

 

[Jason_Me]

Wouldn't a pair of Silver Flute W20RC-38-08 woofers be a better choice for this application, at the same price?

 

[Henry_W]

Jerry Parker - I have heard both the speakers you are looking to use and they are excellent choices. What Lens are you planning on using with the compression driver?

The dual 12s will yield pretty darn good efficiency if parallel, but I was wondering what drives you to 2 of these and where you are crossing over - or is the tweet supplemental with a zoebel for controlling the roll from the woofs to the tweeters?

There is a gentleman in your part of the country - Wayne Parnham - that is a big fan of Pi alignment in box building and is a big fan of the parts you mention that may give you tons of suggestions, try a search on Pi loudspeakers to find him.

As to the lower efficiency designs - I have heard several and still prefer three ways to two ways and some of you will like the results. I am going to focus on less powerful amplification and horns for mine.

Thanks to all for playing in this - good info all around.

 

[Patrick Sun]

My center channel was made from:

Morel MDT-30
Mordel MDM-55
Peerless 850439 (x2).

 

[John E Janowitz]

Hi Patrick,

I was thinking somethign similar myself for a center if I go with those drivers, but I'd use the Peerless with the phase plugs because I think they look nicer. Not a whole lot of practical use for them in this application. Couple things I noticed on your design. One, you have the response flat in the current situation. That's probably the easiest to do. The other thing is that when you invert your phase you should get large nulls at both xover frequencies. This is the hard part. In my experience, getting the phase correct is even more important for good sound than getting the response flat. It's also probably the most frustrating thing to work with. I'm by no means an expert at it yet, and you can't rely just on modeling either.

When I did the Seas coax xovers I had 3 different xovers that were all very flat. The first two sounded like garbage though. I just couldn't get the phase right between the woofer and tweeter. I had to redo my measurements of the raw drivers. Something got moved or changed so my original phase measurements were off. My final attempt turned out very good. I had to tweak a little from the modeled values, but it ended up working out well. If you look at the graphs

http://forum.stryke.com/viewtopic.php?t=134

I'd also be interested to see if you did any off axis measurements to the sides. For a center channel expecially a smooth power response is important. A sideways MTM is horrible usually because you get a dip around 900hz or so due to the mids canceling. In a 3way design you can bring the Xover lower so that you don't have this problem. I'd really like to bring it down to 500hz or so to get it about an octave below the dip.

Patrick, if you were close to here or if you'd want to get me the center I'd be glad to do some measurements and work on the xover a little. As I said, it's similar to what I plan to do anyway so it would help me out as well. Let me know if you're interested.

John

 

[John E Janowitz]

Jason Me,

The Silver Flutes are actually my leading candidates for my application. The only reason some of the others are being considered really is for the WOW factor. Drivers like the Seas Excel look much better and flashier.

John

 

[Jerry Parker]

Jerry Parker - I have heard both the speakers you are looking to use and they are excellent choices. What Lens are you planning on using with the compression driver?

The dual 12s will yield pretty darn good efficiency if parallel, but I was wondering what drives you to 2 of these and where you are crossing over - or is the tweet supplemental with a zoebel for controlling the roll from the woofs to the tweeters?

There is a gentleman in your part of the country - Wayne Parnham - that is a big fan of Pi alignment in box building and is a big fan of the parts you mention that may give you tons of suggestions, try a search on Pi loudspeakers to find him.

As to the lower efficiency designs - I have heard several and still prefer three ways to two ways and some of you will like the results. I am going to focus on less powerful amplification and horns for mine.

Thanks to all for playing in this - good info all around.

The horn lens is a Emminence H290.

Well, the reason I am going with two of the Delta 12LF's is because 1 wasnt enough My amplifier doesnt put out max power into 8ohms anyways. Another reason is that I sold my HUGE subwoofer, and now I can't get ultra high output bass.

I Actually know Wayne, he's a cool guy, and my current speakers are his 3pi theater series. What I did though was buy another Delta 12LF for each cabinet, and I plan on actively crossing them over.

The only passive crossover component I will be using is a 25uF poly capacitor in series with the PSD2002 to ensure I don't have any problems with turn on thumps or accidental DC on the output rails of the amplifier.

What I will be using as a crossover is a Behringer DCX 2496. It is a really cool device. It allows you to pick the slope (from 1st order to 8th order) and type (butterworth, Linkwitz Reilly, Bessel, etc) of crossover, as well as any frequency you want. In addition to that, it has time correction, limiting, feedback destroyer, as well as a 30 band parametric equilizer for each output channel (its got 3 inputs and 6 outputs). You can also change the settings from your computer (its got a serial port on it)

My inital plan is to use either a 4th or 8th order linkwitz reiliy crossover @ 1.2khz. But I will listen and see what sounds best (I don't think it would be good to run the PSD2002 below 1.2khz).