Speakers for Audio Books

[TycoonBrad]

Currently, I listen to audio books with my Sennheiser HD580 headphones, and would like to branch out to making some DIY speakers able to produce clean dialog. I love my headphones, but my wife wants to listen to the books now. I hooked up some old store-bought speakers I had, but we both had trouble hearing the dialog. We had to turn up the volume, and that just won't do. More than likely they had very low sensitivity. Which brings me to my question, what do I need to achieve the best reproduction of the narration as possible? ie...really sensitive drivers...fullrange driver...buy quality mids/tweeters/woofer??? Anyway, I'll leave that up to you all.

They would go in a small to medium size bedroom. I have a NAD Preamp and HK PA5800 amp to be used with them.

I've made a five P17WJ/DG25 for my home theater several years ago using LSPCAD 5.25. I've also made a sub for my HT using an Atlas 15" sealed sub. I'm no expert, but I get the job done.

[TacoD]

My experience is that if you use low distortion drivers, the dialog gets better. I got good resolution with Seas Excel. Another trick is to give the speaker not complete baffle step. So that the mid frequencies are standing out. If you switch of the sub, I would say you get a better dialog.

[cjd]

So there are two things that come to mind that may be causing you problems with those store-bought speakers.

1. Placement could be causing a null in the critical 800Hz-3kHz range. This could be something like horizontal MTM placement, even possibly TM if it's a shallow crossover slope, or perhaps a reflection from a nearby surface.

2. Crossover sucks and has a big null in that critical range.

If you're interested in putting something together yourself, I would start out simple, experiment a very little bit, and see what is still needed.

So, grab a nice 3" or 4" "full range" driver (Tang-Band makes some great options with a huge range in price, from good to superb sound-wise). Try just that. Maybe you need a notch or a contour network to add a little baffle step or deal with a breakup or other frequency inconsistency. Maybe you want to add a little tweeter (the Aura or Dayton 3/4" Neo tweeters are great in this capacity).

Maybe you just want someone to point you at a design. If this is the case, take a gander at some of the projects over at Zaph Audio. In particular, the small on-wall Aura based TM's he has might fit the bill really well.

C

[Jonasz]

Sounds like a high dispersion mid should do it, maybe a RS180, RS52 and the Seas 22TAF/G could fit the bill? With crossovers around 600 and 2,5 khz it will have huge area where it sounds good which means you can move around when listening. It would certainly not be a slouch on music either...

Another idea is to build a dipole. They have kind of a bad offaxis response but it is equally bad over the whole register which means that even if the volume is lower off axis it will still sound natural.

Just some thoughts... :

[Nemophyle]

high dispersion isnt necessarly good for this case, cause it might aswell cause cancellations if the room is reflective.

Also if it's just for hearing dialogs, i think theses might do the trick quite well

http://www.zaphaudio.com/audio-speaker18.html

they're small but enough for dialogs i'd say, especially if the goal is understanding. you'll miss some content of bass male voices but not critical content. And if you really miss it, you can always build a sub as a complement.

i like small fulrangers for dialogs, they have quite controlled dispersion. and the newer ones like the tangband ti or even this hi vi are quite low distortion

+ its cheap and easy to do

[Operandi]

I'm currently working on a small full range based on the Tangband W4-1337 for HT system but I would think they would excel in the vocal range also.

The cabinets aren't quite finished yet and Zaph offered to design a notch filter so can't say when these will be 100% finished but if you can wait I think they would be a good option.

[steven65]

use Klipsch Synergy SLX

Klipsch Synergy SLX is a cool stuff because it is

2-way Passive, Speaker 2-way 100 Watt 82 - 23000 Hz 8 Ohm Wired.

Hear-now-audio-books suggested to use this stuff. Though this company is known for quality audio books still it gives valuable suggestions like this. I hope it will help you.

[Dennis H]

I'm currently working on a small full range based on the Tangband W4-1337 for HT system but I would think they would excel in the vocal range also.

Jed has one of those too.

http://www.htguide.com/forum/showthread.php4?t=26939

[Operandi]

Jed has one of those too.

http://www.htguide.com/forum/showthread.php4?t=26939

Hmmm... you're right, don't know how I missed that one.

[joecarrow]

I don't think this has been emphasized nearly enough- it's NOT that hard to build something that has enormously superior midrange clarity compared to cheap store-bought speakers. The reason your speakers aren't getting better when you turn them up isn't because they're not loud enough (if it was, a more sensitive speaker would help), it's because they're producing distortion and making it hard to hear what the people are saying.

I have a pair of Modula MTs, and I am far more able to hear what people are saying in movies than I was when I just used the TV speakers. Any of the Mission Accomplished designs should provide remarkable clarity in the voice compared to just about anything that retails for less than $250.

[cjd]

What a bunch of bunk! There are no RCA cables to MY amplifier. Er... wait. I guess that depends which setup you're looking at.

C

[ThomasW]

Chris, the post is probably from a spammer using a search for 'Audio Book', then posting anything to add their link. Not positive about this but time will tell...

[cjd]

Oh, I know. I was just having some fun with it.