I dabble in audio.

Don't take anything I say as gospel, I don't add nearly enough snake oil to my hifi recipes :-)


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Wouter's page : Building and testing speakers

[Image] dW one speaker
dWone, much the
worse for wear.
A long time ago, in a galaxy far away, I built a set of speakers. Fane 12/100C drivers, generic mids and piezo tweeters. They perform very well for what's basically a pair of disco speakers.

If you click on the image on the left, you'll see the effect of having cats and friends with little kids. I've since replaced the mids, twice (the first set had built-in grills and sounded horrible, the new ones have grills similar to the one over the woofer) and tweeters.

BTW, they sound better than they look... :-)

My workbook for the design of the dWone speakers -- nothing mind-blowing here but it might give you some insight (I hope :-).

Since then I've learnt a lot. Mostly, I've learnt that I still don't know how to design a speaker that works well the first time. But I've also learnt that very few people can do that, and that it's a knack that comes with experience. So I'll probably never be entirely happy, always trying to design and build a better set of speakers -- Hmmm, sounds like just about all the audiophiles I know :-)

Audua has a program called Speaker Workshop which can be used to measure speaker parameters. And from what I've heard, the true parameters can differ from the published specs by quite a bit, so this is a Good Idea™.

I built the box described in the audua howto, and I'm busy testing it / educating myself. I'm using it under Windows NT 4, BTW, and it seems to work fine. Eric has since updated his jig, read all about it and more. I plan to measure the dWone speakers, to see how they really measure up (I built them with no test equipment, so I don't know in which direction to tweak things like the vent length) -- the goal: "fast bass".

For my next set of speakers, I want to build a set of transmission lines (TLs). I first looked at Lynn Olson's Ariel speakers, which, while not true TLs, apparently sound extremely good. I ordered a set of drivers from (and sent a bank draft to) Jeff Kerlegan who used to be at www.kaudio.com. Well, the speakers never turned up, Jeff disappeared, and I seem to be pretty SOL. I've since heard from other people that they've also been taken for a ride by this individual. Anyway, here's a picture of one built by Jonathan Noble of Johannesburg, South Africa.

I then came across a set of Scan-Speak 18W8535 speakers at a good price (R850 each, 2002, Foglar), so I bought them, along with Vifa D26TG-05-06 tweeters (R350 each, 2002). I found a design called the "Event", apparently designed by Rolf Smulders, on zelfbouwluidsprekers.nl. It's no longer there, it's now on Audio Components.

I redesigned the cabinet to use 32mm MDF, which I could get cut and with rounded edges from a company who was putting in work surfaces at the company I work for. I kept the interior dimensions identical, so the cabinets basically grew 20mm in all dimensions.

And then the cut MDF lay in my garage for eight years.


You can learn everything you need to know about TLs on the following web sites:

Pipe Dreams:

Apart from the Ariel, as noted above, I would also like to build a subwoofer using an Adire Audio Shiva driver or two. Should really kick arse :-)

Notes:

Links

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Back to Wouter's Audio Page (This page last modified 2011-08-07)