So how difficult is it?

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  • AndrewM
    Senior Member
    • Oct 2000
    • 446

    So how difficult is it?

    I'm not quite happy with my main speakers, they are the old Focal Aria 7 TLR kit (with the Orca designed x-over) I managed to score a couple of years ago for some insanely good price.

    The worst part is that I don't think I can truly put my finger on what I don't like about them. They produce good bass and intergrate very well with my sub, the highs are crystal clear, and there is plenty of detail all around. But there is still something missing and it's driving me nuts. I know it's not the components themselves as I love the sound of a good metal dome tweeter, and I've heard enough kevlar drivers to know that I like what I hear (I have yet to not like a JMLabs speaker, from the cheap end to the uber-high end....I love the sound of B&W 800 series, etc).

    So I keep coming back to that x-over that came with this thing.

    They say they are x-over'ing at 2500Hz, but the cheesy online x-over calculators don't really agree with that, in either case it looks to be standard text-book calculations with no regards to anything else, certainly nothing inline to deal with the big 1Khz bump in the 7k4411 impedence plot (and that's a published plot!).

    So I was thinking of picking up LSPCad and see what I can come up with, but like most things I'm sure it's not an easy process to design a good x-over without lots of experience. But how hard is it? Will a relative newbie be able to come up with good results by reading a few books, asking lots of questions and using a good software package with measurement capabilities?

    Andrew
  • ThomasW
    Moderator Emeritus
    • Aug 2000
    • 10934

    #2
    HERE's what one guy did......... just kidding 8O

    It's really best to measure the drivers in the cab. Then use that data to create the XO.






    The usual way of dealing with the spike is to use a tweeter that can be XOed an octave or so below it. Obviously that's not be possible with the TLR and it's 3/4" dome.

    Jon will be back in the US late Wednesday. He's the XO go-to-guy, I'm positive he'll have some suggestions




    theAudioWorx
    Klone-Audio

    IB subwoofer FAQ page


    "Complicated equipment and light reflectors and various other items of hardware are enough, to my mind, to prevent the birdie from coming out." ...... Henri Cartier-Bresson

    Comment

    • AndrewM
      Senior Member
      • Oct 2000
      • 446

      #3
      Trust me I've thought about turning the cabinets to saw dust and selling the drivers, considering the price I got them at I could probably get close to recouping the money I spent on them. And then go back to something I know, like a set of Adire's 281's. The problem I have with that, is that I like what I hear with both drivers, just not together.

      Do you know of any semi-decent free-ware measuring software? I've found a couple, but they are rather cryptic to use, or grossly limiting. I'd like to take a peak at the FR, but I think that will only tell me a part of the mystery.

      Andrew

      Comment

      • AndrewM
        Senior Member
        • Oct 2000
        • 446

        #4
        Ok so I'm either out of mind, Orca made a misprint or the French have + and - mixed up.

        So I came home tonight and found a measuring program that I could demo, so with it, a super-cheapy mic (think $5 computer mic) and a laptop with it's built in no-name sound card I sat down with some measurements. And lookie lookie what I found;

        Latest news coverage, email, free stock quotes, live scores and video are just the beginning. Discover more every day at Yahoo!


        So seeing those first things I had the revelation of grabbing a screw driver and flipping the tweaters and then re-measured it all and came up with the second set of pics.

        So even with this ultra-cheap method of measuring I found a glaring problem (which is now fixed). Just keep in mind that the mic sucks and the highs displayed don't really represent what a TLR is capable of. And the low end has a lot of spikes from other noise (mostly system noise), but from about 500Hz up to around 5-7Khz it's pretty close.

        Oh yea, and they sound better now as well (go figure), but I still think there is some room for improvement.

        Andrew

        Comment

        • ThomasW
          Moderator Emeritus
          • Aug 2000
          • 10934

          #5
          Interesting difference.

          To get you started download the demo copy of ETF 5.0. and start playing with it

          Then pop for the Behringer ECM-8000 mic ~$40 and the little Behringer 802 mixer ~$60, it has phantom power and is a mic pre-amp.




          theAudioWorx
          Klone-Audio

          IB subwoofer FAQ page


          "Complicated equipment and light reflectors and various other items of hardware are enough, to my mind, to prevent the birdie from coming out." ...... Henri Cartier-Bresson

          Comment

          • AndrewM
            Senior Member
            • Oct 2000
            • 446

            #6
            I assume then that the mixer would go to the sound card of the computer, how finicky is the quality of the sound card? I have a bunch of SB Live! cards laying around, but not much else.

            The measurements last night were just for shits and giggles, the amount of ambient noise, the cheapy mic, crappy built in sound card led me to think I wouldn't find much, but it showed me that I had the polarity of the tweeter wrong and was(n't) listening to a huge -20db dip in response at 2500Hz.

            Andrew

            Comment

            • ThomasW
              Moderator Emeritus
              • Aug 2000
              • 10934

              #7
              SB Live is fine, full duplex cards are the easiest to use. ETF autocalibrates to compensate for the soundcard, so one doesn't need a high dollar card.

              The mixer is only being used as a low buck mic preamp with phantom power. Yes it's output goes to the line-in on the sound card.

              Now the ECM8000 certainly isn't the world best mic, but there's nothing else available in it's price bracket. Also there are caibration files available for it.

              You'll also need a pile of 1/4" to RCA and RCA to sub-mini stereo adaptors. Or get the cables that plug into a 'Walkman' headphone/line-out jack and go to stereo RCA outputs. RS has all this stuff....




              theAudioWorx
              Klone-Audio

              IB subwoofer FAQ page


              "Complicated equipment and light reflectors and various other items of hardware are enough, to my mind, to prevent the birdie from coming out." ...... Henri Cartier-Bresson

              Comment

              • AndrewM
                Senior Member
                • Oct 2000
                • 446

                #8
                How much more do I have to spend to get a good mic/pre-amp and what do I gain from it? I see ETF sells a "calibrated" mic/pre-amp for $250 (which is quite a chunk of change more than the sub $100 Behringer solution), but is it worth it for strictly a hobbyist where this is fairly low down on the priority list of hobbies?

                This is assuming I just want to tweak the x-over in my current DIY speakers and probably a matching center channel in the future, along with playing with ETF to make the whole thing sound better. I don't forsee a time when I'd ever buy a bunch of raw parts and try and cook up my own stuff.

                Andrew

                Comment

                • ThomasW
                  Moderator Emeritus
                  • Aug 2000
                  • 10934

                  #9
                  The ETF mic/preamp pkg is about the lowest cost 'calibrated' system out there.

                  But I think the Behringer pkg is a very good low cost alternative; particularly if you don't don't aspire to make speaker building a serious hobby




                  theAudioWorx
                  Klone-Audio

                  IB subwoofer FAQ page


                  "Complicated equipment and light reflectors and various other items of hardware are enough, to my mind, to prevent the birdie from coming out." ...... Henri Cartier-Bresson

                  Comment

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