Help me build a 2 way speaker

txcoastal1 wrote: »

Or a little integrated like Russman's 6watter

That was more my thought.... some sexy tubes perhaps...

So I had Russ @lightman1 over yesterday to just hang out and listen to some tunes and we got to talking.....

I spent most of last night looking at drivers and starting to come up a bit empty on decent drivers that would dig into the 40's with high enough sensitivity and NOT need a coffin sized box...

I was either finding drivers that would dig deep enough but had low sensitivity (like the regular 8 ohm Tang Bang full range drivers), or ones with really high sensitivity but wouldn't go that deep.

As I'm not super good with WinISD modeling the ones I was looking at one by one just wasnt an option from a time or technical perspective....

My goal is still to keep the driver sensitivity as high as possible to allow for use with flea power amps, such as tubes, or Class A, but without having a box the size of a room.

The horn is 17" wide x 5.5" tall x 10.5" deep so at min I wanted to try and keep the box size barely wider than the horn's width, and also a bit deeper than the horn as well.

So in thinking of box size, I was hoping for a driver that would work in a box along the lines of 17-19 inches wide x 15-20 inches tall x 10 - 12 inches deep in a ported box....

Then this morning I remembered that DIYSoundGroup has a bunch of kit options and most of them use waveguides, but more importantly larger pro drivers in fairly small-ish boxes....

So I started looking and found this gem of a kit which uses a off the shelf Eminence Delta Pro-12A...

The info on this kit says "The Tempest is vented and provides bass extension to 40hz (-3db) with a little extra kick in the mid and upper bass range"... and the flatpack for this driver is sized at: 14.5" x 26" x 14.25" deep, 2 cu ft net when used with ports

Now I realize this kit and what I'm doing are not exactly the same, however I think with some modeling I can play with that driver and get it to work for my setup.....

If I tweak the box size a bit as long as I keep the internals close and port it right I should be ok....

Alternately there is a smaller version of this same kit that uses a the Eminence Delta-10A, so I may also play around with that driver. As configured that kit only hits 55hz and I'm guessing that it due to driver limitations, so the Delta Pro-12A may be the driver to pick.

I have no idea thought how I'm going to overcome the fact that both drivers will be 8 ohms, so I either have a 16 ohm load, which isnt ideal for any amp, or a 4 ohm load which may be a problem for a lot of amps. So any help here would be appreciated.

voltz wrote: »

Wish I hadn't seen it as it make me want to build it.

The DIYSoundGroup stuff is awesome. I used their flatpack for my DIY sub and I know @Conradicles did the same. Both of us are super happy.

Ryan purchased a bunch of their Volt-6 kits for surrounds and ATMOS and I know a lot of folks that are huge fans of their larger kits like the Fusion 15 lol...

voltz wrote: »

Dan I like the looks of that Tempest kit, it has a flat pack kit for the cabinet.

You might be able to use it, plus if you could cut a new Front Baffle for the kit so you could put the Horn on top would be cool!

I'm not thinking I can make that particular size work as its wider than I want if I laid it on its side, but I'm debating too....

In doing some quick fast dirty math, a box that is 20 wide x 13 deep x 20 tall and uses 3/4" wood has internal dimensions of 18.5 x 11.5 x 18.5. That equates to 2.2 cubic square feet. After subtracting the driver, ports and some small amount of bracing, that likely gets me RIGHT to 2.0 cubic square feet....

With the horn on top, that gives me a final dimension of 20 wide x 13 deep x 25.5 tall which is I think an acceptable size for what I need.

The Tempest box size, which likely needs tweaking since the waveguide and compression tweeter wont be there taking up internal space, is 14.5" wide x 26" tall x 13.5" deep, and I'd likely lay it on its side and try to tweak out some of that width so its closer to the dimensions of the horn sitting on top. But the flatpack is right around 2 cubic feet as well, probably a bit under once you subtract the port and driver from the enclosure....

I have this feeling I am going to end up with a almost 2 foot wide x 2 foot tall x 1.5 foot speaker size lol.....

The only thing I'm not sure of is if I need to have the ports fire front or back, or if I can have them fire out the side. If they have to fire out the front or back I'm going to end up with a speaker thats quite deep unless I do a 90 degree turn internally with the port which I think your supposed to avoid.

ZLTFUL wrote: »

Dan to correct your above post, I bought 6 of the Volt 8LXs for surrounds, 4 Volt 6LXs for Atmos, and 4 of the 4cf sealed flat packs for 4 of the 6 subs.

I have been chatting with Matt Grant (the designer) about what I would need to do to the crossovers to swap out the DNA-150 compression driver for Selenium D220ti CDs which are the step down from the Selenium CDs used in my JTRs.

As an aside, I still think you should send me those horns and let me do something magical with them.

I met Matt once, he's a nice guy for sure and knows his stuff.
I've got plans for the horns its just a matter of cost of drivers and getting things on the road. I'm stuck between either the Dayton PA-360 or Eminence Delta Pro 12A. Delta's are 2x more than the Daytons. The Eminence like a smaller box and a F3 of 50, the Daytons like a slightly larger box and can do a F3 of 45. Then there is a sensitivity v max wattage trade off between the two...

I have debated asking for your help building the enclosure to house the woofer driver either initially, or the final product once I get things dialed in since I'm going to use an electronic crossover till I get everything dialed in...