kingpin

Hi folks.

First off would like to say that I have been lurking around here quite a while.
I am really impressed at how you all work together on projects so much, and it is quite refreshing to see a community with a lot more postitve than negative attitude.

A little about me. I have always been into audio and video. Just could never really afford it. This year I have finished paying off my debts and have started to build up what I consider a pretty decent video setup so far.

Yamaha DVD-c996
SA3250 hi-def Box
Oppo coming
HP5880(my pride and joy)
Click to enlarge


Audio so far.
Yamaha RXV-1600
Crown XLS 402
Yamaha DVD-C996

As you can see though my teenie tiny small little Yamaha speakers don't do me justice. Not too mention:

I Cannot Stand Small Little Speakers.

Everything I have built has been oversized. eg. Audio rack, tv stand

In fact I almost talked myself in to not only likeing, but willing to spend $1500 on a pair of Cerwin Vega speakers.

I have come to the conclusion that I could build a hell of a speaker for that kind of money or a little more as I will not be buying everything at once.

Don't fall asleep yet. I am getting there.

This is where I don't want to hear any laughter.
I have owned many small sets of speakers. They sound great but asthetically do absolutely nothing for me. I like to see a woofer moving around, I like to see woofers and mids and tweeters when I am listening to music and never have had the covers on any speakers. To me a lot of the enjoyment is being able to see the mechanics of what is making the sound. I have however come to the conclusion that I will not be building a speaker with a 15" subwoofer as part of the tower. I will build a couple of dual 15 subwoofers maybe.

Anyway, here is what I am contemplating, and would like to know from the good folks here if this would work or not.

It is a design you have already posted "MTMWW" with a twist. WWMTMWW.
Yes, it would be tall. 75" high or so.

Click to enlarge.




Can I build this into the current design by just adding the bottom WW section to the top. So the internals would also be the same.

Should I angle the top down a few degrees.

Before I get too excited about this I figured I would ask.

In this case Size is important and I would be willing to sacrifice a little(sacrilidge)sound, to make myself happy, and not regret what I have built.

Thanks to everyone.
Mike

P.S. I do have the woodworking skills to build these.
Cross-overs will be a first, but I am confident in my abilities.
Electronics Math scares the hell out of me.

Exhale..................

Mazeroth

Two words:

LINE ARRAY!

If you are unfamiliar with what a line array is, check out these two designs from Selah Audio:

http://selahaudio.com/id73.html

Now, I'm not saying to build one of Rick Craig's line arrays (I have reservations about this guy) but I just wanted to show you what they were. The problem with building a line array, for a beginner, is there really aren't any published designs for them. Using an active crossover, like a Behringer DCX2496, can make building one a heck of a lot easier if you can get your hands on one (been backordered for months).

I'll let the others chime in

kingpin

Thanks Mazeroth.

I was thinking about a line array and have seen many photos and pics of them. Haven't read a lot about them, but from what I have read they seem pretty complicated to make. Although they are pretty impressive. I don't know if thats the look I am going for.

cjd

You wouldn't really be able to use much of the current project data, though maybe... tough to say. You'd simply gain some power handling, nothing else. And there isn't a power handling issue with those.

My suggestion: don't worry about going silly tall, and instead add some friendly sub arrays.

Or, something else. But it's bedtime, so I'll have to toss some ideas out later.

C

ThomasW

General thoughts....

Since this is your first project you really should use somone's proven design as opposed to try and create your own.

To scratch build a new design takes a lot of work, technical knowledge and test equipment/software. (read the first post in some of the 'Missions Accomplished' threads to get an understanding of what's involved in the proper design of a speaker.)

From a performance standpoint, there's nothing gained by the WWMTMWW design over a MTMWW used with a sub. And the MTMWW with a sub will be considerably easier to build and move given it's lower weight. (I see that Chris has addressed this issue as well)

Arrays aren't any more difficult to design or create than any other large scale speaker. The down side to them is cost. Currently one needs to use a tall midrange planar combined with a cluster of planar tweeters. Both those are $pendy when good quality driver are used.

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kingpin

Thanks for the response.
I know it may sound or look silly to most. But everything in my life is big. Me for one, my 88 cutlass, and so on.

I know it sounds crazy. But I need something that will give me the "WOW" factor visually as well as the sound quality.

ThomasW

Nope can't possible understand that desire ....link to my main speakers....

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kingpin

Hi ThomasW.

I was kind of hoping that adding the upper woofers would not change much to the design or even the crossover.
Believe me, I have read so much on this forum over the past few months there is information overload.
As I do not have the skills to design, test my own speakers, I was hoping that by running this by the "masters"(a little butt kissing) would give me an idea if the change that I make would be so drastic as to have to change the entire design, which I am not qualified to do.
I had a feeling that not much performance would be gained . I know that this is what it is all about, I just need more. I want my eyes to pop out of my head like the first time I saw 3 bass bins stacked up with a mid and tweeter on top at a live show when I was a kid.

You guys must have some idea of how I feel.

My original thought was to build a dual 15" sub cabinet per side with the "mtmww" or "wwmt" upside down on top of it. Tweeter ear level right.

Size and weight of the speaker doesn't make much of a difference to me.
I have been carrying my 285 lb carcass for 20 years know.

Jim Holtz

Excellent suggestion. No reason to have reservations about Rick. He has created a number of custom designs for me and everyone has been top notch including the line arrays shown in my avatar. Rick is honest and does great work. What more can you ask for?

Jim

ThomasW

Adding them will change the entire woofer section of the crossover.

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Jonasz

Build yourself a pair of closed Natalie P's and put them on top of bassbins with two RSS390HP per side. Use an active crossover at around 150 hz and you will have plenty of headroom and good looks! I don't think this system would be that hard to build when the Nat P's are a proven design and there's plenty of expertice on this forum to help you with the bassbins.

ThomasW

What Jonasz posted is a very good idea. Either the NatP or the Modula MTM with top and bottom bass bins would be easy to create, compared to a design from scratch project.

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Dennis H

I actually think it could work quite well. I've thought about something similar myself. If you don't mind big speakers, four of the RS 10" in a ported enclosure with a low tune could give you a "true" fullrange system with no sub required, at least for music.

Chris's MTMWW in the Dayton 3-way tower thread in Missions Accomplished has the two woofers in parallel for a nominal 4 ohm load. The top pair of woofers would also be wired in parallel for a 4 ohm load. Then the top pair would be wired in series with the bottom pair for a total 8 ohm load. Putting the second pair in series with the first pair won't change the sensitivity of the woofer combo so Chris's mid and tweeter networks could remain unchanged. The woofer network would need to be reworked but doubling the size of the resistors, doubling the size of the coils and halving the size of the capacitors should get you pretty close.

That said, for a project of this quality and complexity, you owe it to yourself to get a mic, mic preamp and some measurement software.

Edit: if you ask really nicely, I'll bet Chris (CJD) could model it for you without too much trouble as he has all the files for the original MTMWW.

kingpin

Now I am getting a little excited.
I appreciate the info Dennis.

BTW.

Chris, Have I mentioned how beautiful your mtmww look.
Chris, Have I mentioned what a wonderful thing it is to have a gentleman like yourself and the rest here come up with these designs.



O.k. I guess that's enough for now.

cjd

Dennis is right - I think by the time I responded to your PM yesterday I had given it more thought and mentioned it may not be too bad.

Diffraction will change some, but if you use felt treatment on the tweeter (recommended no matter what but not required) that will fix that better than the box changes would anyhow.

Going ported may not be an option still - these are silly big sealed. And keeping the baffle width constant (or close) is key to using current data.

The thing that gets me, though, is that this setup *really* screams for the use of either the RS10HF or RS12HF subs instead of the RS270. Because it gets impedance/SPL into a usable range. RS10HF's can be ported low in this box (same volume) or RS12HF sealed.

Smaller caps will be a boon! Bigger coils though... they're not exactly small right now. And at 76 inches tall for the quad woofer setup, ungainly given their depth and weight (I would go 24-26" deep for four RS270's sealed.)

Another option that may be possible would be to go WMTMW and put a 12" (or 15?) sub on either end - build a 3-piece tower perhaps. There may need to be some work done on the woofer section still because of differences in floor reinforcement, but maybe not. Getting good measurements that low is tough no matter what - if you're crossing actively to subs, it may be just as easy to measure and tweak bass response in the process (since you have to do that anyhow, really).

The other thing is that silly glass box as well as wall proximity will cause some bass bloat with these anyhow. I think the baffles should be a few feet off the wall at least.

Dennis H

Yep, Chris is right that they would be really deep if you went with ported enclosures. I came up with a minimum net volume for the woofers of about 13 cu.ft. so they would probably be something like 3 ft. deep. Deeper yet would be even better for getting a good box tune. As Chris mentioned, you need to keep the same baffle width and horizontal offset of the tweeter and mids. The tweeter should be at ear height in your favorite chair (maybe different than Chris's design) so the total height would be something like twice that. That only leaves the depth dimension to get the internal volume.

kingpin

It took me a few times of reading this over to figure out what "that silly glass box" was.



I did a search for RS12HF but couldn't find anything. Is this the same idea
RSS315HF-4which is here.
http://www.partsexpress.com/pe/show...tnumber=295-464

I am going to have to go into photoshop and look at that WMTMW.
So are you saying that I could may do this WMTMW plus a 15 on the bottom.

When I first came up with this thread I was going to ask if I could use the Dayton 10" or 12" subwoofers for the bottom 2 but figured it may complicate things way too much.

This reminds me of when I was building a huge ported sub box for my car. I think it was 36"wide. 16"high, ant 21"deep for 2 12"jbl subs. Built it out of 1" mdf and it weighed over 110lbs. Way too much.

What excited me just as much as building the box was learning about ported and sealed designs and having the guys at the car audio forum not just give me answers but helped me figure it out along the way. They were great.

I don't know what I would do without the internet. I am a glutton for information and can't stop reading for the life of me.

Mike

jonathanb3478

LOL

Tell me about it. I have burn through 26.5 hours of "daylight" at this point. I started a load of laundry, since I saw there was some decent stuff to read around the forums I am interested in right after I got home from my "woodshop". Now I can't even go to bed for another hour, as I have to get my clothes out of the public dryer before I pass out.

cjd

What's your room like, dimension-wise? I don't see that mentioned yet, but maybe I missed it.

FWIW, I say "silly glass box" because a RPTV is one of the worst things you can do for sound. I'm a projector guy. Plus, you can't have one of these monsters as a center without that acoustically transparent screen a foot in front of it.

C

kingpin

The room right now is 14 x 20 feet with an almost 8' ceiling. Where the towers would go the height is roughly 80".

I will be moving at the end of the year(hopefully) with a place that has 9' ceilings with roughly the same size room, a tad larger.

I am building these as something that I will have for a very long time.

The main seating area is going to be anywhere from 10-13 feet from the tv.
There will also be some homemade room treatments when I move.

After these I will have to build a matching center which I will put over the tv on a shelf.

My amp for the mains puts out 300/8 ohms and 450/4 ohms. My current yamaha speakers will be used as the rear surrounds.

There will also be a sub or two to be built by the time it is all said and done.

kingpin

I could always build a third and put it on a shelf on top of the t.v.

kingpin

Chris

Is this something like what you mentioned

Attached Thumbnails

 

cjd

Sorta. I would put a sub on either end and split them to separate boxes - will hugely help moving these suckers.

Second note: you can NOT turn one on its side and have it sound particularly good at all.

Third. Moving? One of these? You think? Crazy?

If you are building this big purely for the visual impact, take some time to rethink that.That's like getting a Lamborghini and taking it to Maaco because you want it in a slightly different shade of yellow.

The 3-way towers are big - on sound, and on size. They need room to breathe to sound their best - no "against the wall" placement or you'll get bloat. The WTMW 3-way thread has a center channel design I put out that should sonically match these quite well (Brian B is supposedly about done with this).

Also, rethink surrounds. While many people do not think it matters so much that surrounds match, I do not find that to be the case. Something a, s simple as the Modula MT would be a great surround - if you want bigger, the Natalie P.

You are absolutely welcome and encouraged to embark on your own journey and design, and can be assured assistance and encouragement from various folks here.

If you want to work with what I've done and make a WMTMW and put a 12" sub on either end of it, I think I can work over things and come up with a setup that should do the trick for you, or at least get close enough. Maybe not perfect, but. . .

But, if your only reason for going that big is visuals, . . .

C

kingpin

I should be able to get them at least 2' from the wall. Is there a minimum distance.


Hell, I know somebody who will buy my Yamaha's so building rear surrounds should not pose a problem.

Chris. I really do appreciate all your help and suggestions. I am aware that with my limited electronic testing equipment that it would be very difficult for me to achieve perfection. But, if all goes well with these I do plan on purchasing a mic and the tools needed to be able to help myself out and to retreive inormation for you guys. I do not expect perfection, nor do I think that I will achieve it. I am sure what ever happens I couldn't buy anything as good as what will turn out to be, a great set of speakers.

I am still a little confused by what you mean as ends. I think it is "d" in my pic below.



I have come to the conclusion that the "Rs12hf" from here: http://www.acoustic-visions.com/~ac...rs/dayton_rs12/ the same as the " RSS315HF-4 12" HIGH FIDELITY SUBWOOFER" from http://www.partsexpress.com/pe/show...tnumber=295-464 the specs are the same.

I do like the way "D" looks.

Thanks again

Mike

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cjd

Option "D" is indeed what I had in mind. To my thinking, this should be a separate enclosure entirely, designed to have the WMTMW set into it, and another sub box set up on top. I've been crazy with family this last weekend, but I think I can toss a design concept together for you including box volume for the subs.

Measurement can be as simple as a Behringer (or the NADY version which costs less IIRC) mic, a phantom power source, and a quality sound card (not on-board - I really like my M-Audio Revolution 7.1 - if you go this route and a HTPC, it opens up some interesting options... ) Plus some funky cabling, or a jig. Assuming you have a Windows computer sufficient to install the card and capable of running Speaker Workshop (which is free). Maybe a couple hundred bucks in the end.

And, when you say a couple feet from the wall - to the speaker backs, or fronts? 3' from wall to the front of the speaker, and a couple feet between any side walls and the speaker, is about the minimum recommendation I think.

C

kingpin

So if these are 22-26" deep I should have them at least 12" from a wall? Correct.

I also have no problem with a seperate enclosure on top and bottom.

What I am wondering is do you mean that the subs would not share the same baffle as the wmtmw?

I would really like it to be all in one baffle. I understand if that is not possible though.

Thanks again. I appreciate the effort and good-will.

Mike

BTW Please do this only on your spare, spare time. Family first, everybody else can wait.

Brian Bunge

I've put together a Shopping Cart at PE with all the parts for Chris' crossover for the WMTW center channel. Looks like with my dealer discount I'm still looking at roughly $130 in parts just for the xo. There are a couple of bigger 15 gauge Jantzen coils in there and all Jantzen caps except for two Solen caps that Jantzen didn't have values for. I chose just the sand cast resistors though. Didn't see any real reason to spend upwards of $4 each for the Mills stuff.

Anyway, I should be buying these in the next couple of days along with some of the new Dayton binding posts to try out. I'll let you guys know what I think when everything arrives.

ThomasW

24" or more is better

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kingpin

So I tried winisd for the first time and entered the specs for the DAYTON RSS315HF-4 12" and came up with a volume of 2.031 cu. ft.
Does this sound right?

So from what I have read so far the original box size can stay the same with the movement of one of the woofers to the top

cjd

I'll get you more detailed information one of these days. I have most everything I need saved to the laptop for a train ride where I remember.

Thomas: I was mentioning minimum recommended 24"+ out IS better, but... mine are about 18" from the back wall.

CraigJ

Quick question, is there enough room for these speakers?

ThomasW

That's the recommended distance for any speaker.

I use 4' from the back wall for mine...

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SteveCallas

I realize it would affect the size of the baffle, but instead of four of the 10" drivers, why not use two of the HiFi 15" drivers?

ThomasW

The baffle width for the bin would screw up the BSC for the upper speaker. He could put any size driver on the sides of the cabinet, and use a low crossover point from a active XO

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