What are the most popular DIY designs?

[Amphiprion]

The title says it all! Thanks!

[TacoD]

Modula
Seas Thor

[dawaro]

At the current rate of construction I would say check back in 6 months and it just may very well be Zaph's ZD3. It seems every board I look at there are several being built!

Honestly though this is a very broad question, maybe you should give it some kind of time frame. To say all time would be very difficult.

[ThomasW]

Most popular from this forum or from other forums as well?

From HT-Guide the Modula MT and Modula MTM/NatP have the most builds...This is primarily a function of how long the designs have been available

[Hdale85]

Yeah recent designs though the Statements have a lot of following and the new Zaph is getting some speed. All designs have their followers though and there aren't many designs that don't have at least 10 sets or so built.

[its_bacon12]

I like Jed's Lineup series (including Lineup Maxx )

[Amphiprion]

From all over. I am considering making active crossover kits available for the popular ones. So I guess currently being built and likely popular for the next year+.

[impala454]

I'm partial to the Statements myself

I believe Jim mentioned somewhere about the number that have been built that he knows of.

[Saurav]

I am considering making active crossover kits

Where were you 2 months ago when I was looking for active crossover kits?

Actually, I'm pretty happy with the kit I'm using, so I don't really need another solution. Are you planning on designing a flexible active XO platform and then releasing different implementations that match different designs?

[Hdale85]

Hmmm active crossover kits sure would be nice I like Jed's designs as well. Both of my speakers that I've built are his designs well ones in the works.

[Jonasz]

SL's Orion, do they count?

I think Zaph's designs are more well known on other forums than John Marsh' which I think will give the edge to one of his designs...

Btw, why not build a design of your own if you're gonna put a lot of work in it?

[jclin4]

I think Zaph's designs are more well known on other forums than John Marsh' which I think will give the edge to one of his designs...

This might be because Zaph has his own website, independent of any forums...and his site is a huge resource to the DIY community. (I find myself constantly poring over his driver tests).

Let me throw in a few other designers that have large followings, although they may not be too active in DIY today:

Dennis Murphy at http://murphyblaster.com/ and Wayne J. at http://www.speakerbuilder.net/

[Jed]

From all over. I am considering making active crossover kits available for the popular ones. So I guess currently being built and likely popular for the next year+.

Well, no one has permission to build my designs and make money off of it unless an arrangement has been made. Sorry about that. They are for DIY use only. 100s of hours of my time go into the R&D of these designs, so that other's like myself can have great sound.

[Dave Bullet]

Mark,

What you are probably looking for is the most popular format of speaker, budget and driver types people want to build from which to design, build and market your own active solution.

I suppose you could infer this from a poll of the number of passive designs built.

Hey moderators (Thomas et al.) - is there any way we can lobby / ask HT Guide for some sort of polling facility on this board/ forum? It would be great to use it to collect information on such things.

Cheers,
David.

[mazurek]

Thats interesting that you are interested in that. I was thinking about selling my amplifiers that I have been using for my projects. They have four UCD180 channels, trigger input, selector knobs, +/- 12 to 15 volt active crossover supply, neutrik speakon outputs, and either 2 inputs or more for prototyping if a breakout cable were used. Problem is always that I never compromise on part selection, so they end up costing at bit.

[Hdale85]

Well, no one has permission to build my designs and make money off of it unless an arrangement has been made. Sorry about that. They are for DIY use only. 100s of hours of my time go into the R&D of these designs, so that other's like myself can have great sound.

I wasn't sure if he was charging...if he is I don't think he's allowed to talk about it here. Just figured he was going to throw active setups together and post them on a site or something? Who knows.

[Amphiprion]

I can always design my own active speakers - I've got Praxis and LspCAD on this machine - I just thought it would be nice to offer boards or even just the gerbers for those who already built speaker kits or will be doing so and wanted to give active audio a try. I wouldn't be doing it for profit or anything.

[Hdale85]

Well like I said if your not charging for it then there would be no problems I think.

[Amphiprion]

The most I'd do is group buys on the boards and make the gerbers and bill of materials available so people could order their own boards. Since people are already building Zaph's, etc speakers I figured there would be the most interest active versions of their designs (with designer's approval, of course).

If Adire, TC Sounds, etc can't stay in business selling woofers - I doubt I'd make much of anything selling crossover boards even if I wanted too

[Amphiprion]

Actually, I'm pretty happy with the kit I'm using, so I don't really need another solution. Are you planning on designing a flexible active XO platform and then releasing different implementations that match different designs?

Naw, if I did that I'd just use an ADC and a processor, and at that point people would just use a Behringer instead. Trying to make a one-size-fits-all active is just too hard. It's much easier and cheaper per board to just make a PCB that works with speaker X or speaker Y.

[Saurav]

Well, there's a group buy thread on DIY Audio for an active filter board that's pretty good, and the one I'm using is pretty good as well. It's basically a set of building blocks that you can string together, so you decide if a given channel needs notches, shelving filters, standard 1st/2nd order filters, etc., and then hook things up accordingly. The tradeoff, of course, is providing enough building blocks to handle most 'reasonable' designs.

I agree, it's probably easier and cheaper to build specific boards, and certainly easier to write the instructions for them, especially for a preset design. Since I'm trying my own design, I wanted something flexible, but without the number of wires needed to implement all this on a generic PCB (been there, did not have much fun doing that).

Naw, if I did that I'd just use an ADC and a processor, and at that point people would just use a Behringer instead.

I considered the Behringer, but I'm hesitant to play vinyl through it And I also have a passive stereo autoformer volume control that I like, so I didn't want to switch from that to a 4/6 channel volume control that I'd have to place after the XO. But again, that's specific to my system (and biases), and you're probably right that most people would opt for the digital XO.

Good luck with the project. If you go ahead with this, I hope you document the design process to get from a given passive XO to the corresponding active XO. I'm sure there'll be lots for me to learn from something like that.

[Dennis H]

It's much easier and cheaper per board to just make a PCB that works with speaker X or speaker Y.

Yeah but how are you going to do that without the original measurments, unless you want to put together a box and measure it yourself? I suppose you could figure out the transfer functions from the published passive XO and the factory impedance curves but we all know how accurate those factory curves are.

My bigger question is why? If all you're going to do is copy an existing passive design, why would anybody want to bother with the added compexity of an active setup? If you do your reverse engineering perfectly, they will sound exactly the same, so why bother?

[Hdale85]

Well should be less wasted power....and might sound better? I've heard active setups sound better anyways? I've never messed with them though

[Dennis H]

I've heard active setups sound better anyways?

Mostly because you can do things with active that are hard and/or expensive to do with passive. Just copying a passive design... I don't get it.

[Amphiprion]

Yeah but how are you going to do that without the original measurments?

Asking the designer for the impedance and crossover files so I could match an active crossover to the transfer function would be the easiest. I could build the cabinets and measure drivers and reverse engineer it that way, but since this won't be done without designer permission there's no reason to do it that way.

Also, my apologies to Jed and anyone else for the misunderstanding about my intent. Reading over my initial posts I can see how someone could think I was in it for financial gain. I'm a very big believer in DIY audio and would never try and make a buck off of someone else's creation.

If all you're going to do is copy an existing passive design, why would anybody want to bother with the added compexity of an active setup? If you do your reverse engineering perfectly, they will sound exactly the same, so why bother?

My thinking was that since there are designs out there (or that will be out there) with excellent reputations, that offering active versions would give people wanting to get into active electronics a chance to use them as a 'stepping stone' to get comfortable with soldering, PCB assembly, how not to lift a pad or trace on a board, etc. The nuts and bolts of active crossovers if you will, with the original designer's passive XO to fall back on.

And with the price of copper, an entire active crossover and enclosure might be cheaper than the inductors used in some of the more involved designs

[Saurav]

how not to lift a pad or trace on a board

I've never done that, of course, and especially not recently.

ops: :rofl:

[Amphiprion]

Heck I do it all the time with my cheap Radio Shack iron. The temperature regulation on that thing is a joke. I was lifting 25 mil tracks on a solderable breadboard last week it's so awful.

No matter though, the OKi rework station gets here in two weeks. RF heated tips are going to be awesome. I got the rework tweezers too, so I'm going to be doing a lot more SMT stuff.

[Hdale85]

So your talking about actually building an active x-over? Not using a Bheringer unit with the proper files or anything? This is a bit interesting now lol.

[Amphiprion]

Yep - either selling PCB's at cost or providing the Gerber files so that people could order the boards on their own. Totally analog op-amp audio.

While it may seem commercial for me to offer boards, Advanced Circuits has a great deal where you get a dual sided board up to 60 sq inches, soldermask and silkscreen on both sides, all holes through plated, with Sn/Pb finish for $33 each, but you have to order at least four (they will throw in a 5th one for free). If you just want to order a single board with all those niceties it's a lot more than 33 each. They also do quad layer boards, same specs but limited to 30 sq inches, for 66 each.

[Saurav]

I looked into that, but decided not to add the learning curve of PCB layout to my already "bitten off way more than I can chew" project. Otherwise I could probably have done something better suited to my design - crossover between dipole woofer and midrange, so I have a good idea of what notches/shelving filters I'll need in addition to the standard LR4 blocks. For now I'm using LTSpice+Speaker Workshop to work out transfer functions and see their effect on the driver responses, and using this active XO board to implement the different blocks:

http://pricem.mit.edu/projects/newxover/

[Jed]

.

Also, my apologies to Jed and anyone else for the misunderstanding about my intent. Reading over my initial posts I can see how someone could think I was in it for financial gain. I'm a very big believer in DIY audio and would never try and make a buck off of someone else's creation.

No problem Mark. I just wasn't sure of your intent at the time so thank you for clearning that up.

[Hdale85]

Well Eagle actually lets you load all the parts that you need in and you give it a schematic or something and it will suggest a layout and then you can just tweak it. Or so I've heard :B

[Saurav]

I also heard that with SoundEasy you load the driver frequency response and impedance files, specify your desired crossover frequency, and then it figures out all the rest of it for you.



You may be right, I haven't looked into it at all. But I know *this* much about analog electronic design (and even less about digital), and good PCB layout is not included in that

[Hdale85]

Well I've never heard that about sound easy But I'm pretty sure Eagle works something like I said lol.

[Amphiprion]

I used to work at Cirrus Logic, so don't worry about me getting the electronics side done right I actually am using the free version of Eagle, but I'm going to pony up the cash as soon as I have need for a larger board area. I hate the autorouter in Eagle just as much as any other autorouter. That has to be one of the most difficult problems in all of computer science to solve.

[Dennis H]

I also heard that with SoundEasy you load the driver frequency response and impedance files, specify your desired crossover frequency, and then it figures out all the rest of it for you.

I think the SE optimizer is about like LspCAD. You have to draw the circuit but the software can juggle the component values to come as close as possible to the target response. It won't tell you you should add a cap or coil here or there. But that's not all bad. You can add 'extra' components and, if the optimizer says their values should be huge or tiny, you can replace them with either a wire or an open circuit at that position.

[Saurav]

I was trying to be funny

I haven't played with SE, but I use Speaker Workshop and played with the LspCAD demo for a bit, and they're similar in how they work (other than being able to specify much more useful optimization targets in LspCAD). It won't add a component, but it indicates when a component isn't necessary by going to infinite/zero impedance on parallel/series components. And they both seem to get confused if you throw a large circuit at it, and ask it to optimize every component over the full frequency range.

[Carl V]

Well, if you're considering active XO for established desgins
Look to well thought out 3 way LCR desings for those into HT
as well as 2 channel.

John's NeoCC...a nice LCR. With an active XO
that design becomes a very much easier & affordable Project.

Selah designs Such as his Tanzintie/Sardonyx. Again a very
nice 3 way LCR with oddly enough a Dome Midrange fill~in driver.

[Sakura]

Well, no one has permission to build my designs and make money off of it unless an arrangement has been made. Sorry about that. They are for DIY use only. 100s of hours of my time go into the R&D of these designs, so that other's like myself can have great sound.

Anybody can sell active crossover kits (of their own design) to any speaker they want, period. So long as they are not violating a patent there are no legal impediments to doing so. If you want to ask them to please not do so, well, that's between you and them, but there's no legal issue.

[Sakura]

Yep - either selling PCB's at cost or providing the Gerber files so that people could order the boards on their own. Totally analog op-amp audio.

While it may seem commercial for me to offer boards, Advanced Circuits has a great deal where you get a dual sided board up to 60 sq inches, soldermask and silkscreen on both sides, all holes through plated, with Sn/Pb finish for $33 each, but you have to order at least four (they will throw in a 5th one for free). If you just want to order a single board with all those niceties it's a lot more than 33 each. They also do quad layer boards, same specs but limited to 30 sq inches, for 66 each.

So, how many could you fit on one full size board? I think you would want to try to squeeze as many as you could, and then cut them out. 20" x 3" could get you 5 4" x 3" boards, for instance...

[Jim Holtz]

Anybody can sell active crossover kits (of their own design) to any speaker they want, period. So long as they are not violating a patent there are no legal impediments to doing so. If you want to ask them to please not do so, well, that's between you and them, but there's no legal issue.

If they didn't copy the passive crossover, it would be their own active design. However, try copying a passive design that is posted as not free domain or a commercial product, offer it for sale and see what happens. :W

Jim

[Sakura]

If they didn't copy the passive crossover, it would be their own active design. However, try copying a passive design that is posted as not free domain or a commercial product, offer it for sale and see what happens. :W

Jim

People will boo and hiss?

If it's not patented, it's not protected, that's what a lawyer who knows about these things will tell you. Even if I had a patent, and someone violated my patent, I couldn't afford the lawyers to protect it. If I was a large corporation with millions of $, however, I could.

"Copyrights:
Copyrights were originally designed to protect literature, music and dramatic works. They only prohibit copying expressions of an idea, not the idea itself (as a patent does). Therefore, it is easier to get a copyright than a patent. Copyrights have a much longer period of protection (50 years beyond the life of the author), and they are recognized internationally. However, international laws make them difficult to enforce. With respect to semiconductor designs, copyrights have only limited use. They are generally applied only to the die or masks to prevent exact copies." ( http://www.quicklogic.com/images/ip_protection.pdf ) ( sections in italics for emphasis by me, not the original source )

One of many sources explaining what I'm talking about...

[Dennis H]

Sakura, you're taking this to a place none of us, especially Mark and Jed, want to go. Lawyers, copyright law? C'mon, we're all a bunch of friendly DIYers here....

[Jed]

Dennis is right. I wrote a bunch of other stuff in this post but decided it wasn't worth it in the end. Anyway, back to building speakers.

[Amphiprion]

Ditto to what Jed and Dennis said. What is legal or not is irrelevant, or at least not any road I want to travel down. Doing right by designers and DIY'ers alike is what matters.