Let's talk about small speakers

[benthe8track]

The cool stuff going on in the Minerva thread gave me that, "I should make something" feeling. The main stereo is complete as far as I'm concerned but I'd like to make something for the office/PC so I started thinking about a little 2.1 setup.
Any tiny 2-ways jump out at you guys? Right now I'm thinking of something really simple like a box with a coax: https://www.madisoundspeakerstore.co...6n001/f-e0051/
Any experiences with the little C16n001s?

For power how great do these look:

http://audio.teac.com/product/ai-301da/

or something like this from NAD:

http://nadelectronics.com/products/hifi-amplifiers/D-3020-Hybrid-Digital-Amplifier

[dar47]

Okay, it's not a Ben thread without the render, :huh:

That driver looks sweet.

[benthe8track]

Well I'm still working on the boxes, just a rough idea of using aluminum and bamboo..or panzerholz or phenolic. Who knows haha.
Anyways, here's a picture:



That Seas has a suggested xo too, which would take most of the thinking out of this scenario:
c16appnote.pdf

[JonMarsh]

There's an Excel coax driver,5" diameter, not terribly efficient, but has some actual Xmax (about 6 or 7 mm) That's the one you've got there, Steve and I already own the movie and video rights, Project called "Owl" and it will use a simulated higher order LR crossover like the Minerva. :W

This I wrote before clicking on your link and seeing that it is also for the C16N.

Steeper transition bands and less work load down low on the tweeter. OTOH, you could build the Seas crossover version (just B3 on tweeter) and it might work fairly well, BUT, it wouldn't be the "Owl". :W :B


One of the problems with small speakers is picking something that it's feasible to build a small crossover for....

I think it would be interesting to build both a higher order crossover and the Seas Crossover, then measure the distortion in a sweep. That's assuming that the magnitude response achievable by both are similar; I'd hope to do better than the Seas crossover. Just saying'.....

DO note the sensitivity in the crossover magnitude plot - it's realistic, I think.

And I think the NAD in that range is good.

But, my own situation, needed something for the Man cave in Danville, and having no spare time, I just bought an Audio Engine 2+ speaker set (in white) and the D9 subwoofer (in white) (no bamboo options) and with a careful bit of setup and level tweaking, I have to say, not bad at all... especially given the absolutely minimal sweat equity and reasonable price. One computer going in to the 2+ via USB, the other via stere mini plug. Two mac pros use this as the audio output device. You could do worse...

[dwk]

or something like this from NAD:
http://nadelectronics.com/products/h...ital-Amplifier

The D7050 is also worth looking at if budget allows. I have one running my NHT Xds / Dayton RSS 210 setup, and it's accounting itself nicely. The cool unusual feature of the D7050 is that the low-pass pre-outs are STEREO, allowing you to run stereo woofer modules rather than just a mono sub. It's not perfect - no delay or level adjustments - but it's working well for me (crossed at 150).

The D7050 also uses the NAD 'direct digital' technology (as found in the M51) rather than the OEM Hypex modules in the D3020. (I haven't directly compared the units though, so I'm not really sure how much difference this makes, if any.)

[ergo]

I was hunting a small class D amp with remote volume control capability some time ago. D3020 was one I lookad and listened. I did scratch it from the list though as exactly the remote volume part was crap. It had huge steps and getting a granularity needed for quieter listening was pretty much impossible. I'd guess it had at least 3dB per step changes or even bigger. Anyhow - disliked it because of that, but if volume is used manually then might work ok.

[ergo]

I started a project now literally 2+ years ago that was similar 'small concept' using the L12RE/XFC plus two PR-s SDS-P830878. On the picture those are not visible as one is on back and one on the bottom of the box.
After punch of trials it did turn out that the out of box weight (33g if I recall correct) on those PR-s is too much. So I ended up hassling to remove the glued on pieces of metal and replace with a wood disk that then allows me to add weight that is smaller in total....

But then the house renovation/move took over and the project has been shelved. It did achieve some pretty promising bass from a 2L box, so I still plan to make that speaker happen sometime hopefully this year.

[benthe8track]

I was hunting a small class D amp with remote volume control capability some time ago. D3020 was one I lookad and listened. I did scratch it from the list though as exactly the remote volume part was crap. It had huge steps and getting a granularity needed for quieter listening was pretty much impossible. I'd guess it had at least 3dB per step changes or even bigger. Anyhow - disliked it because of that, but if volume is used manually then might work ok.

The D7050 is also worth looking at if budget allows. I have one running my NHT Xds / Dayton RSS 210 setup, and it's accounting itself nicely. The cool unusual feature of the D7050 is that the low-pass pre-outs are STEREO, allowing you to run stereo woofer modules rather than just a mono sub. It's not perfect - no delay or level adjustments - but it's working well for me (crossed at 150).

The D7050 also uses the NAD 'direct digital' technology (as found in the M51) rather than the OEM Hypex modules in the D3020. (I haven't directly compared the units though, so I'm not really sure how much difference this makes, if any.)

There's an Excel coax driver,5" diameter, not terribly efficient, but has some actual Xmax (about 6 or 7 mm) That's the one you've got there, Steve and I already own the movie and video rights, Project called "Owl" and it will use a simulated higher order LR crossover like the Minerva. :W

This I wrote before clicking on your link and seeing that it is also for the C16N.

Steeper transition bands and less work load down low on the tweeter. OTOH, you could build the Seas crossover version (just B3 on tweeter) and it might work fairly well, BUT, it wouldn't be the "Owl". :W :B


One of the problems with small speakers is picking something that it's feasible to build a small crossover for....

I think it would be interesting to build both a higher order crossover and the Seas Crossover, then measure the distortion in a sweep. That's assuming that the magnitude response achievable by both are similar; I'd hope to do better than the Seas crossover. Just saying'.....

DO note the sensitivity in the crossover magnitude plot - it's realistic, I think.

And I think the NAD in that range is good.

But, my own situation, needed something for the Man cave in Danville, and having no spare time, I just bought an Audio Engine 2+ speaker set (in white) and the D9 subwoofer (in white) (no bamboo options) and with a careful bit of setup and level tweaking, I have to say, not bad at all... especially given the absolutely minimal sweat equity and reasonable price. One computer going in to the 2+ via USB, the other via stere mini plug. Two mac pros use this as the audio output device. You could do worse...

Hey if you guys design the Owl I'll build one!

[JonMarsh]

Well, we'll just have to see what we can do about that! I don't think it can be as small and cute as Ergos, mainly because of the crossover, but we'll give it a try... Probably can't really start in earnest until late March or April, have a lot of travel coming up for one thing or another, starting next week. Maybe I can load up all the files on the new Dell though, and take that with me... We'll see. And I need to take care of licenses for Vituix- I'm growing fond of that program.