[timbley]

I've got this idea to make some 5 ways using two Behringer DCX2496 crossovers and a pair of JVC F10 receivers. The speakers would actually be 4 ways, with an IB subwoofer built into the floor, or maybe some other subwoofer if it looks like the IB will be shaking my neighbors through the foundation too much (I live in a condo.)
I'm thinking of using an MDT-33 1 1/8" tweeter, an MDM-55 2" midrange, and a 4" and 8" midwoofers,  with each driver covering about 2 octaves. The tweeter and midrange have their own enclosures, while I would build seprate enclosures for the 4" and 8" drivers.
The drawing shows some different enclosure ideas. I know the tapered front and pyramid enclosures would be the hardest to build. They'd look cool, but so do the boxy ones, I think. Would it be worth the effort to build a tapered baffle and/or pyramid enclosure? Any other ideas or opinions are very welcome.

[timbley]

Thinking about it, this might be easier to build, and allow me to experiment easily with different baffle shapes for the mids and tweeter if I need to.

[ss397]

you may want to rethink the open baffle idea. the backwave will project the same amount of sound you get at your neighbors, 180 out of phase.

this thread http://www.htguide.com/forum/showthread.php4?t=7644
has some interesting ideas about a dipole bass and midrange speaker similar to your ideas

[JoshK]

I believe he means the sub would be IB and the speakers to be closed??

Anyway, I would like to know what made you come up with this driver config?  It seems to me to be less than ideal just about anyway you look at it.  Precisely what ranges do you want to run each driver?  Do you have any distortion graphs for any of the drivers?  

I am not trying to blow a hole in your idea, just trying to help.  From my viewpoint the 4" is completely unnecessary if you want to use an 8" and the 2" mid.   The 8" is going to move only so much air, so if you intend to play loud stereo subs would really be needed to support the 8" midbass without problems in localization.

I can think of some alternate driver configs but without more feedback not sure if that would be fruitful or not.

[timbley]

Yes, the speakers would all be in sealed boxes. The tweeter and 2" come with their own enclosures. I love the IB sub idea but practical matters may make that unfeasible.
My idea is to limit the range that each driver has to cover to two octaves, and to have each range covered by a driver proportionally sized to the wave sizes that it is covering.  The tweeter would cover 20K to 5K, the 2" from 5K to 1250, the 4" from 1250 to about 300, and the 8" from 300 to about 75. A sub would take over from there.  I don't have distortion graphs for the drivers. I'll be able to use steep crossover slopes with the Behringer DCXs, so what I need are drivers that will sound good together and cover their limited range requirement well. Other drivers and configurations are also options I'd consider.
I listened to an old six way speaker about a month ago and was really impressed.

[_scotty_]

You might want to consider a driver layout like the Dunlavey MKVI.
  If you can double up on your drivers you will maximise the cone area which will result in a bigger image,a more realistic instrument size and better dynamic scaling.
 This is not meant as critiscism of the Morel drivers but you might be able to find better sounding drivers if you are willing to do some listening tests.

Scotty

[timbley]

Thanks Scotty,

I'll look at the Dunlavy designs. Luckily, I'm going to have a chance to hear the Morel drivers because birdwizard lives here in town and has even offered to haul his Morel speakers over and let me listen to them in my own living room, with my own JVC-F10 receiver!

I'm not sure of all of the ramifications of increased speaker area, and doubling up on drivers. I know it's more expensive. My room is pretty small. I'll be sitting about 8 feet or less from the speakers, which will neccessarily be fairly close to the walls, and my sitting position is also close to the back wall. My room is something I need to consider in this project - it ain't great. The ability to play super loud isn't important because I'm not allowed to do that in a condo, at least not often.

[timbley]

you may want to rethink the open baffle idea. the backwave will project the same amount of sound you get at your neighbors, 180 out of phase.

this thread http://www.htguide.com/forum/showthread.php4?t=7644
has some interesting ideas about a dipole bass and midrange speaker similar to your ideas

These open baffle designs are very interesting. I'd really like to pursue such a design except that my understanding is that they need to be a ways off the back wall, and I really can't do that. My mids and highs will all be sealed in the back.
I think you may be right about the IB subwoofer. My foundation is shared with my neighbor, and it's all open down there. If I have the subwoofer drivers mounted in a manifold under the floor, then that whole area under the house(s) is going to be filled with bass. I may be able to get away with it though because there's a lot of fiberglass down there to help absorb, and vents to the outside. Plus, I won't be using it to create earthquake level bass. I'm just hoping for nice, accurate, musical bass that extends down to around 30.

[_scotty_]

You will definitely have to use a smaller speaker system given your listening room constraints.  Driver integration into a coherent wavefront requires some distance between you and the speaker system.  The bigger the system is and the more drivers it contains the further away you have to be before it occurs.
 A simple MTM design with a sub may sound better and will integrate sooner
than a larger system.  
Good luck with your project. Scotty

[timbley]

Driver integration is a big question when trying to make a 5 way. I may have to experiment with reduced numbers of drivers to see where the tradeoffs are in my room.

It does look like the best response of a lot of drivers falls within a two octave range. I can easily avoid impedance peaks and steep phase shifts in all the drivers by using a 5 way, and avoid dispersion and linearity problems handily. On paper, it looks like there's a lot to be liked from a 5 way active crossover setup with steep slopes.

Some drivers do better covering a wider range than others. Are there drivers that are particularly good at covering a narrow frequency range? I'm not stuck on Morel drivers, I'd be willing to consider any, except for multi thousand dollar diamond tweeters and things like that.

BTW, those Dunlavey speakers weigh 500 lbs!

[SET Man]

I've got this idea to make some 5 ways ...

  5 ways speaker... with 1", 2", 4", 8" and sub drivers

   And I'm here using 1.5 way speaker!   6.5" Fostex run fullrange no xover with Fostex horn tweeter at about 15kH and up.  Well, I have small room  

   Anyway, good luck and let us know how it turn out

Take care,
Buddy

[timbley]

I laugh when I think about this project too. It seems so over-the-top. But I've got to try it.
Thanks, I certainly will let you know how it turns out. I'm dying to find out myself.
I may try your single driver approach some day too. I was really quite happy with the Klipsch speakers I am now selling. I just have to try new stuff, you know?

[timbley]

So I'm waiting to buy any drivers until after I've sold my current speakers - Klipsch RF-7s. But while waiting, my mother found some cheapy 4" car audio drivers in her garage and brought them over, Clarion brand. I decided to run a little test, mounting the Clarion driver in a vase stuffed with cotton balls. By itself, it's pretty clear, with plenty of midrange and not much else.

The it occured to me that I could easily access the leads on the Linaeum tweeters on my RCA bookshelf speakers, and that I had some little apple computer monitors with about 1.75" drivers. So I hooked all these speakers together with the Behrigner active crossover and JVC F10 as follows:
Linaeum 20K to 5K
apple speaker 5K to 1.25K
4" clarion in vase: 1.25K to 300K
Klipsch RF-7 (stock configuration) 300K to 20K

All crossover points 48db/octave butterworth.

I piled the jumble of little speakers on a table near the RF-7s, and had a listen. After  getting the volumes balanced, it sounded remarkably integrated, despite the lack of a common baffle, and even if I was sitting quite close. All the sound just seemed to come from a point in the midst of them. The drivers each seemed to add their sound to a melded whole.

This is encouraging. Integrating drivers is apparently easy with the steep slope digital crossover. Also, I think integrating a steady progression of larger drivers is easier than trying to integrate say an 8" woofer with  a 1" tweeter. They're characteristics are different. Putting a 4" in between leads to more subtle transitions and gives a better sense of fullness. Adding a 2" helps even more.  

The cheap jumble of speakers was sounding mighty nice considering what it was, with intriguing snap and speed. A little rough here and there, but enjoyable enough to listen to at length, even though it's mono. That little apple computer speaker is highly inefficient and adds  harshness to the overall effect. It's much better with it's 3 hole "grill" removed. I imagine it'd help if it's hollow spherical enclosure were stuffed with something, but i couldn't get it open.

For the real project, I'm leaning toward Eton 3/4", 4", and 8" drivers, with the Morel MDM55 2", and I dont' know what 15" yet.

Flower pots, vases, and such seem like excellent enclosures for the lower mid and upper bass. They are superbly rigid, and can be found in tapered shapes with lots of depth, and come in all sizes.

[timbley]

Precisely what ranges do you want to run each driver?  Do you have any distortion graphs for any of the drivers?  
 ...

I have seen some distortion graphs on the Eton drivers, and they seem to hit the sweet spots in the ranges I want to use them in.

[timbley]

I've been listening to my little jumble of speakers for a couple days now. Yesterday I took the calibration microphone out and did some EQ work to smooth things out. The sound is awesome! It's smooth, full, rich, it has snap and sparkle, voices are vivid... unbeleivably good.
I may just buy a second Behringer DCX and just run this setup in stereo for a while. It's really, really nice.

[timbley]

Further listening of my 4 way jumble of speakers against a stock RF-7 suggests that the RF-7 isn't being totally blown out of the water. It does some things a little better. But considering what a hodge podge of cheap drivers on an active crossover are able to pretty much equal it, I've decided to go ahead and order drivers
I've ordered:
Eton 19SD1 3/4" tweeters
Morel MDM55 2" mid domes
Eton 4-300 4" midrange cones
Eton 8-800 8" woofers
The extra Behringer crossover has been ordered too.
I'm fully committed now! (except for the subwoofer)
 

edit: Actually, my little jumble of drivers really does sound considerably better than the stock RF-7. The things I thought the RF-7 were doing better were a simple matter of comparing two different stereo channels with more or less emphasis on one instrument or the other. Now that I'm comparing apples to apples, the jumble of speakers is the clear (no pun intended) winner.

[timbley]

I've been hauling 96 lb bags of portland cement in my bicycle trailer from Jerry's Home Improvement back to my condo, which looks like a factory now. I'm building 2" thick vermiculite concrete slabs which will later be assembled into enclosures for the drivers. The slabs have congoleum tiles and soft vinyl siding embedded in them for damping (hope it's effective.) I'm also using angled baffles inside the boxes to make a sort of folded, tapered box design.  

The Dayton 15" drivers arrived a while ago. The Morel midranges and Eton  tweeters and hexacone drivers should show up Friday.  Unfortunately, It'll be a few months at least before all the concrete has set up and then dried out before I'll be able to permantly install the drivers and have these heavy 5 way speakers to listen to.

[timbley]

Here's a link to a gallery showing pictures of my efforts to create a concrete sub enclosure.
http://www.underwaterforest.com/myroom/concretesub/index.html
If you click through the pictures, I've written captions explaining what I'm trying to do each step of the way.

It's completed to a point where I was able to have a little test listen last night. Ooh La la! Even thought the concrete is still a little soft and damp, the promise of beautiful bass is definitely there. I've had my doubts about this project from time to time. But now I'm more convinced than ever that this is all going to pay off big time!:D

[Bemopti123]

I have seen it all about DIY!  I though I was going over the top trying to make a pair of Voigt pipes will all the woodwork done inhouse, in my small apartment with rudimentary tools.  The concrete enclosure and your execution makes me feel like a small flea.  Good work.  I can just image how the speaker will sound like.....but nay about moving it around, right?

[timbley]

Thank you for your comments!
Really though, I don't see how you should feel like a "flea." Building a Voit pipe in a small apartment with simple woodworking tools sounds quite impressive to me.

I think concrete has a lot of potential for the home builder. Much nicer work could be done than the bunker boxes I am now creating. I could imagine someone making and selling very nice speaker molds with beautiful textured surfaces and really cool organic shapes.