I like my left, right, and center speakers, the Revel M20s and C30, a lot. They use metal cones and domes, high-order crossovers, and inert boxes, and are designed using sound principles. As measured by both Revel and the NRC, their response curves on and off axis are fairly amazing, gently sloping down towards the upper frequencies. (If I were the designer I might have tried to go with a lower crossover frequency (the M20s cross over at 2.2K), and I think I would have designed in a tiny bit of a BBC saddle, for those of you who know what that means. And I'm sure I'd try Jon's steep eliptical filter to take the tweeter lower.) I prefer the M20s to the Gems, if not the Salons or the Studios or the big Avalons. The M20s go into the mid 30s, and they will play very loudly in my home theater setup when crossed over to a subwoofer.
I think I'd like to try to build something comparable as a set of four surround sound speakers for a 7.1 configuration, using metal cone woofers and steep filters. My room is only about 14 feet wide, so the speakers would have to be close to the wall, freestanding, fairly shallow, and very tall, so the sound emerges about two feet above the head. This would put the drivers, or at least the top driver, about 60 inches above the floor. This would mean that the tweeter would have to have good dispersion, since the listener's ears would be fairly far off axis. This might leave out the Vifa ring radiator, since it may not have the best off-axis response. Alternatively, the tweeter could be angled down, much like the tweeter on Brian Cheeney's new VMPS flagship speaker. I would think that the HiV 8 inch woofer used lately by Jon and Thomas would be ideal, as might Jon's steep-slope filter.
So far I'm just daydreaming, since I don't even have a shop to build these things. I've had experience in the distant past, though, since I designed some speakers about 25 years ago that were some of the first to incorporate Sigfried Linkwitz's crossover ideas, along with some design ideas of my own that later cropped up in onther speakers. They looked very musch like the later Ariel 10Ts, with a slimmer bass box underneath. My friend Mila Nestorovic supplied the woofers, using his patented circuit. A friend who manufactures high end 2-channel audio gear used these speakers for a few years to demo his gear at CES, until he began to share a room with Roger West and the wonderful SoundLab speakers. I had offers from some far east companies to buy the design, but by then I was a full-time lawyer....
Back in the late 70s and early 80s I was designing new speakers and modifying amplifiers all of the time, but no more. So if I do come up with something I'd probably have to get someone else to make the boxes. I can still solder and test stuff, though.
So I'd love anyone's comment on this idea. Alternatives ideas for overall concept, drivers, boxes, crossovers, or anything else are welcome.
Steve Goff
I think I'd like to try to build something comparable as a set of four surround sound speakers for a 7.1 configuration, using metal cone woofers and steep filters. My room is only about 14 feet wide, so the speakers would have to be close to the wall, freestanding, fairly shallow, and very tall, so the sound emerges about two feet above the head. This would put the drivers, or at least the top driver, about 60 inches above the floor. This would mean that the tweeter would have to have good dispersion, since the listener's ears would be fairly far off axis. This might leave out the Vifa ring radiator, since it may not have the best off-axis response. Alternatively, the tweeter could be angled down, much like the tweeter on Brian Cheeney's new VMPS flagship speaker. I would think that the HiV 8 inch woofer used lately by Jon and Thomas would be ideal, as might Jon's steep-slope filter.
So far I'm just daydreaming, since I don't even have a shop to build these things. I've had experience in the distant past, though, since I designed some speakers about 25 years ago that were some of the first to incorporate Sigfried Linkwitz's crossover ideas, along with some design ideas of my own that later cropped up in onther speakers. They looked very musch like the later Ariel 10Ts, with a slimmer bass box underneath. My friend Mila Nestorovic supplied the woofers, using his patented circuit. A friend who manufactures high end 2-channel audio gear used these speakers for a few years to demo his gear at CES, until he began to share a room with Roger West and the wonderful SoundLab speakers. I had offers from some far east companies to buy the design, but by then I was a full-time lawyer....
Back in the late 70s and early 80s I was designing new speakers and modifying amplifiers all of the time, but no more. So if I do come up with something I'd probably have to get someone else to make the boxes. I can still solder and test stuff, though.
So I'd love anyone's comment on this idea. Alternatives ideas for overall concept, drivers, boxes, crossovers, or anything else are welcome.
Steve Goff
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