After experimenting a bunch with OB mids and H-frame woofers I finalized my progress with this speaker:
All the drivers seemed to play together nicely so I went on to the finished design. These are what happened:
I entered them into the MWAF that Parts Express hosts yearly in Springboro, OH a few weeks ago. I placed 3rd in the over $200 class. It's kinda inspired by the Linkwitz Orions, but done entirely with passive components. The tweeter is an LCY-110 which has its face plate removed, I milled the opening in the baffle, and mounted it directly to the baffle. This allowed me to get the mid and tweeter closer together and helped time align the two. The baffle is 10 guage 5052 aluminum plate with woven Carbon Fiber/Copper laminated on the front and Cascade VB-2 Damping on the back. The midrange is an Audax Areogel HM130Z0, and the woofers are Audax Aerogel HM210Z12's. The bases are made of 1" thick Walnut butcherblock countertop. The internal woofer baffles are 3/4" MDF. Crossover duties are 12dB @ 90Hz low pass on the woofers, 6dB @ 150Hz high pass to the mids, then a serial crossover based on the Acoustic Reality platform between the mid and tweeter (6dB @ 2500Hz). This design employs no capacitors in it yielding no phase shift through the crossover point. The build pictures are located here:
http://s1151.photobucket.com/albums/o624/6thplanet/Open%20Invit8tions/?start=allI plan to replace the HM210's in the H-frame with something a bit "stouter" and subwoofer oriented as the Audaxes definatly have their limit (X-max). I had 4 of them on hand and the highish Q allowed them to work pretty good for bass duties at the time of the build (also complimented the mid, of course
), but they could be utilized in a much better design that would employ their nice midrange/midbass prowlness!! That and they are NLA, so to lose one or more would be a devistating loss to me!!
Overall I think this is the best sounding speaker I've built to date and it's gonna be hard to ever go back to putting speakers in "boxes". I still have yet to venture into T-lines so that might happen next...
Thanks to the guys here for the help in learning some H-frame-O/B theory and understanding behind this type of sound reproduction. Its been a path of enlightenment and joy and will be a great part of builds to come!
