Big HIgh sensitive speakers

[madbrayniak]

Hello all,

I want to get a build going on some big high sensitive speakers.

One thing that I think would be a fun project would be to possibly build some JBL 4344 replicas but with modern drivers. So it would be a 4 way basically but maybe with an OS horn for better directivity control.

The other option would be to build something like simply a large two way horn with a BMS 4592 and a 15" bass.

The final option would also be the hardest which would be a Unity horn on top with a 15 or 18" driver and crossed where the directivity matches.

I am most inclined to do the first option because I think doing a "retro" styled speakers would be a lot of fun and I can have the mid driver in a sealed enclosure and then have basically a giant box for the bass driver. However with a speaker that is more of a 4 way just means a much more difficult crossover.

 

[randy@matrixq.com]

Check out Bob Crite's Cornscala projects.  If I had a big room I would be making some of those.

 

[Paul Joppa]

You impulse for a better horn is good when it comes to the tweeter; those slot tweets go pretty high but they are not flat. Crossing at 10K lets you get away with a number of other options.

The slant-plate lens is a real classic, both visually and for performance. I use them at home with the big drivers (2" throat) at 800Hz in my 2-way system. But I can't recommend it - stick with at least 1200Hz crossover frequency. You can do better with more modern horn designs IMHO, but as long as the top octave is taken care of separately the older design is workable.

For the lower-midrange, anything equal to the JBL 8" or 10" is going to be hard to find, and the originals even harder. Just sayin' ...

For the woofer, yes you can probably find several candidates.

Important consideration: If you duplicate the classic design you can use the original crossover circuit. Otherwise, brace yourself for investing in a lot of test gear, many (hundreds of!) hours testing and listening and revising, and at least three versions of each crossover.

Another one: In our experience, it sounds better if you use a separate amp for each driver. Unreasonable? Yes, in spades. Nevertheless Doc has 18 Paramounts driving his stereo speakers.

 

[madbrayniak]

I was considering the AE TD10M for the 10" midbass and the BMS 18N862 for the 18" woofer. Then possibly a 2" CD for the horn and then a super tweeter of some sort.

I dont think I will be trying to use a horn lens at all as there are definite issues with using them.

Part of the goal with going this route is trying to get the mids just right with high sensitivity.

However if I try to do something like a Unity I would have a point source like horn to about 300hz if I can get it right...but that can be very difficult.

I also will agree with you that active can sound better cause there is much more control over the individual drivers. It is something that I am very interested in but I dont want to use a digital crossover. My goal is that once the sound leaves the digital realm from a PC to a DAC for instance that it stays in the analog realm. I dont want to put any processing at all on my analog sources either as once something goes to 1s and 0s I think you will lose something....

Edit: I should mention that the reason the 2" CD came up is because I was thinking that the larger diaphram of such a CD may help with the "purity" of the midrange. May even help lower distortion because I wouldnt have a 1" working too hard.