Good books to check out

[augerpro]

What would be some good books from PE and madisound for a DIY newb to learn the basics?

[ThomasW]

Start with http://www.mfr-eng.com/sb201.htm then read http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg...60972?v=glance

[dawaro]

After you start with the Speaker Building 201 Thomas mentioned Vance Dickason's Loudspeaker Design Cookbook is another one you will find helpful. It is in its 7th edition and Madisound has the 6th edition on clearence for $11.00.

[dyazdani]

After you start with the Speaker Building 201 Thomas mentioned Vance Dickason's Loudspeaker Design Cookbook is another one you will find helpful. It is in its 7th edition and Madisound has the 6th edition on clearence for $11.00.

I just placed an order to pick up the clearence item, thanks for the heads up!

[augerpro]

Thanks guys, got 'em ordered!

[Owen Bartley]

Just thinking about breaking down and giving myself some further education, and I was wondering if there was a preferred edition of the Cookbook or if they were all pretty much the same.

Edit: mainly I was wondering if the newer 7th edition was worth buying over the 6th at such a discount.

[augerpro]

Just thinking about breaking down and giving myself some further education, and I was wondering if there was a preferred edition of the Cookbook or if they were all pretty much the same.

Edit: mainly I was wondering if the newer 7th edition was worth buying over the 6th at such a discount.

I'm not sure of the exact difference, I just bought the 7th. He does seem to use LEAP progressively more often in each edition though. So some modelling experiments may not be in earlier editions.

[Owen Bartley]

LEAP is for modelling crossovers, right? So if I wanted this mainly as a reference for sub building, I guess the 6th should be just fine. I might have an inclination to try a set of mains somewhere down the road, but even then I'd go with a proven design instead of my own.

[dyazdani]

LEAP does both x-overs and enclosures, but for subs, I've found UniBox much easier to use.

I bought the 6th ed. and it seems just fine. It will cover all the fundamentals to get you going (and more).

[Owen Bartley]

Great. Thanks a lot augerpro and dyazdani.

[Jim85IROC]

I have the 6th edition of the LDCB. I really didn't find it to be as informative as I'd expected. I'm no expert to the world of speaker building by any stretch of the imagination, but when I bought that book I found that I had already learned most of what that book offered simply by reading on the 'net, asking a few dumb questions, and playing with simulation software.

The one thing that disappointed me the most about the book is that it seemed to rely too heavily on target responses and generic filter values. This approach was no doubt necessary before affordable (read: free) simulation software was available to the DIY'er, but now that we all have access to free and low cost software, I think it's perhaps a bit out of touch with how we actually do things. For example, when deciding on a box tuning configuration, various alignments such as EBS, SBB4 were useful when you had to crank every calculation through by hand, but now that you can simply experiment in a sim tool such as WinISD, focusing on the various alignments seems a bit arbitrary. Discussion on the overall interaction between box size and output response seems a bit more useful to me.

Likewise with filter design, calculating values for an ideal electrical LR4 was ok when there were no simulation tools available, but now it seems more appropriate to talk to targeted acoustic slopes (as opposed to electrical) and teaching how to get to them through various means.

I know that I personally learned more by playing with Win ISD and Jeff B's passive crossover designer spreadsheet than I did from the Cookbook. Now that I'm beginning to get familiar with Soundeasy, I'm drifting even further away from what was taught in the Cookbook and leaning more heavily on the knowledge gained through the free simulation tools. Your milage may vary.

[Owen Bartley]

Actually, I might as well ask this before I buy too. I want to learn more about all the common terms (FB, Q, bl, QTS, etc.), as I know a little about them now, but want to get a really firm grasp on them. Is this explained in the Cookbook, or in one of the others? Thanks again guys.

[ThomasW]

Owen,

Look in the Missions Accomplished section of the forum. There are reference threads there containing lots of good info.

[Owen Bartley]

Thanks Thomas.

[Tweir]

Good books I can think of would be
1) Hand Book for Sound Engineers the 2nd and 3rd editions
2) Sound System Engineering By Davis and Davis

On the light side

3) The complete guide to high end audio

Further Reading
Look into recording books to understand how music comes to the consumer.
Also check into the audio engineering society for deeper info

Have Fun.......

[ThomasW]

On the light side

3) The complete guide to high end audio

Robert Harley's book isn't worth recommending to anyone... :roll:

[Tweir]

It is a book no less. It is about exposure to the subject. There is alot in the book whether fact or fiction that is thought provoking. It will expose someone new to basic things in our field, like setup techniques, biamping, speaker placement, wiring techniques, more and more. This is a good book for a foundation to someone that has not been exposed to all the bascis. Rotel makes a book that also serves this purpose. As a foundation to setup and to get famliar to the terms. What would your recomendation be for such a book? Also I said on the light side. Maybe a book with such basic principles is not for you and your heightened knowledge.

[ThomasW]

It is a book no less. It is about exposure to the subject.

Really?

Two years ago when I last spoke with Robert Harley, it appeared he was fundamentally clueless about the engineering, design and construction of loudspeakers (the topic of this thread).

There's a reasonable chance I'll run into him again this coming weekend. So we'll see what he's learned in the last 24 months regarding this topic. Perhaps he's mastered LspCAD Pro and owns Praxis.....

[fjhuerta]

I know that I personally learned more by playing with Win ISD and Jeff B's passive crossover designer spreadsheet than I did from the Cookbook. Now that I'm beginning to get familiar with Soundeasy, I'm drifting even further away from what was taught in the Cookbook and leaning more heavily on the knowledge gained through the free simulation tools. Your milage may vary.

I agree. I've read the Cookbook twice or so, and was pretty excited the first time. I found I knew most of the things in it, but the bad thing was that the crossover chapter (the hardest part of speaker building, IMHO), was quite small. I found out about the basics, but not the stuff I was looking for. I suppose there were too many things to explain for one single book.

The projects are OK, too, but when I think about it, Dickason usually wrote stuff like "I picked X crossover topology because I have plenty of experience. If you want to understand why I did so, buy my other book".

Sigh.

[fjhuerta]

Robert Harley's book isn't worth recommending to anyone... :roll:

Agreed, too!

It's like a big Stereophile ad. It really didn't teach me anything.

[JoshK]

Then there is Tube Amplifiers by Morgan Jones. :lol: or did you mean just loudspeaker diy?