Speaker design

[lilith_envy]

Hi all,
I'm tossing up the idea of building my own soffit speakers instead of putting my current Yorkvilles in the wall.
I will be up grading them no doubt and would hate to have to change the mounts later.

Q-So my main question is about the high end.....Tweeter, Horn or other?
Q-Does any one have a Passive cross-over scematic that works well?
Q-And where should I put the Amp? I have not allowed for a machine room in my design. Is under the desk acceptable?

[jbassino]

Go to prodigy-pro forum for schematics of that kind.
Anyway, do you really think that would work? I mean, they will produce sound, but building a high quality studio monitor shouldnt be that easy. Where would you get the woofers? what kind?
Actually, I'm into electronics (ive built LA2A's, APIs , etc), but I leave the speakers to pro companies.

[John Sayers]

I needed some speaker cloth awhile back and i managed to track some down from a company that sold a range of speakers to the domestic market. They had their product in just about every major outlet in Aussieland.

So I went out to their factory and spent a few hours chatting with the owner. He told me that a mathematician at Sydney University had come up with a formula for speaker box design and nowadays everyone uses it. He just makes boxes of different sizes using the formula and uses off the shelf speaker components. His factory turned out to be a small shed. The boxes were made by a joinery company down the road, the crossovers were assembled in the shed along with the speakers being put into the boxes. That's all there was to it.

I think it's a great idea to build your own speaker cabinets Deanne.

here's a place to start

http://www.turbobass.co.uk/guide.htm

[lilith_envy]

thanks john,
I've found a company in Melbourne called speaker bits

speakerbits.com

they have pre designed cross-overs and "golden ratios" for the boxs.
I'm going to have a look at the factory this week and I'll let you all know the $$$

Jbassino- The similarities between current boxes to classics is amazing. All the behringer's and dynaudios in the world are just coping a set/stolen design.
I may fail, but I'm going to try

[John Sayers]

Good one Deanne - please keep us informed.

speaker boxes are restricted because of size and weight. They have to be transported.

If you make your own you can make them heaver and stronger plus, as you suggest, they can be built into system.

[Kaj]

Deanne,
You may download from Linearteam, their WinISD, its a neat program for speaker design with a quite impressive data base of TS for many speakers/brands, it is also including filter designs. Good luck.

http://www.linearteam.dk/default.aspx?pageid=winisd

Kaj

[lilith_envy]

Wow, thanks Kaj.
I can't believe how many drivers are loaded in to that program.