Recommendations for budget speakers?

[PMazz]

My neighbor, knowing that I'm "into DIY audio", asked me to build him a pair of budget speakers. He's OK with ~$300 pair. Enclosures, of course, would be donated by yours truely , bookshelf sized enclosures to sit above his ent ctr.

I've never really paid much attention to lower cost kits, per se. He doesn't have a sub, so these would have to handle the load. He doesn't crank the volume, but may pump a movie soundtrack thru his Teac stereo once in a while.

I would love to do something with the M8n? if possible. You Poobahs have me itching to hear one .

Any and all suggestions welcome.

Pete

[Andrew Pratt]

Pete if the budget allows for the M8n then I'd highly recomend giving them a go :T

[JonMarsh]

My neighbor, knowing that I'm "into DIY audio", asked me to build him a pair of budget speakers. He's OK with ~$300 pair.

I would love to do something with the M8n? if possible. You Poobahs have me itching to hear one .

Any and all suggestions welcome.

Pete

This is a kind of tought one, because of the basic cost of the crossover. It's a cauer-elliptic filter, similar in topology to a 4th order L-R, but with one extra reactive component in the high pass and low pass. Effective acoustic transistions are 8th order LR. That's necessary to crossover low (to stay in the clean band of the M8) and to keep excessive power in the lower frequencies out of the tweeter.

The M8n can be had pretty inexpensively. The tweeter cost can be shaved further by using an LPG26 titanium tweeter- that will cut $40 total off the cost compared with the Vifa XT25- but at this point, there's still about $180 in drivers already.

Maybe using Dayton film caps, or the GE caps from Madisound you could get close to that budget. And the Jantzen AWG 15 inductors are close to half the cost of the Solen perfect lay versions, and only about 30% higher DCR. Still, it wouldn't be easy to squeak into the price range you're talking about- but it might be possible. I'd have to re-measure the LPG26 for the impedance curve- I lost that file, and don't have any of these at the moment. The crossover values would change becuase the LPG26 is ~7 ohm tweeter, compared with the Vifa XT 3.5; tha'ts no biggie, as I did the same network for the TC120 Focal in the MkIII version. The caps get halfed in size, (good), the inductors get bigger, but they're relatively small to begin with.

Might be an interesting variation, Pete. We could probably work out some deal to measure the LPG's and custom fit the crossover to that tweeter. It wouldn't be large tweaks... first issue might be to work up an XL sheet to figure out the crossover costs. If interested, PM me and I'll make and send PDF's of the basic crossover info for 8 ohm tweeter, which can be used for cost estimation. Tell you what; if you're donating your time and materials for the enclosures, this must be good friend of yours- I'll try to donate most of the High pass crossover components (caps and inductors).

Regards,

Jon


~Jon

[Ten 99]

See what I mean? What a classy guy. Jon and Thomas are tops! :T

[PMazz]

Jon, as much as I appreciate it (incredible gesture on your part), I will have to decline. I was (not) thinking you may have, by some miracle, a design laying around that might make it work. I had forgotten about the complexity of the xover.

Knowing your schedule and back log of projects, I'll be more than grateful for just some of your advice. :T

There are plenty of kits out there that fall into his range. Any suggestions on which might be a good candidate? I 've read about Dennis Murphy's MBOW1? design, or maybe his Usher 2-way?

Thanks again Jon.

Pete

[JonMarsh]

If you go with an existing kit, I'd give strong consideration to Dennis Murphy's MBOW, though I haven't heard it, I think I can make some judgements based on the measured performance, and my insight into his design philosophy.

The Usher is not one I would recommend. I've heard and measured a sample of those as supplied in kit form, even with foil inductors and Sonicap. You can see some comments on this thread. There's some question, in all fairness, about whether one of the woofers was working correctly. But, then that's a QA issue.

Usher Two Way Thread

We AB'd them against my M8 MkIV's which maybe wasn't very fair, except that the M8's don't cost much more to build.

This is a summary of the owner's comments:

1. The speakers had only about 30 hrs of time on them, so the were not fully broken in. Its possible after break in this may change somewhat.

2. Dennis Murphy notes the possibility that these speakers may sound a bit foward in the upper region, and suggests a slight modification to the crossover in order to tip down the upper region just a bit.

3. Also Jon suggested I experiment with felt around the tweeter, ala M8a, to possibly tame the fowardness.

As far as bass I found the Ushers to be good, but overall lacking just a bit down low. This I found somewhat surprising, because of the numerous posts around the web stating what great bass these speakers have. This could be due to my unrealistic expectations, or using the M8a as a reference, which definitely have more low end presence. However Jon noted that the bookshelfs that he constucted for his daughter, which use the same enclosures as the Ushers, had significantly more low end presence, and he recieved several comments about that during the Nor Cal DIY 2003 when he played his daughters bookshelfs.


Overall this was a very satisfing first speaker building experience, that was made possible by Jon. It is great to have someone to ask questions, and point out thigs that I may have overlooked or considered. Oh yeah, its hard to beat just listening to some good tunes with friends.

Regards,

Jon

[Cdub]

Pete,

I am the owner of the Dennis Murphy Usher 2 ways mentioned in the other thread. Although I am enjoying them very much I think it would be wise to take Jon's advice. :T I had the opportunity to audition the M8a MkIV on two seperate occasions and I feel that they are a better speaker overall. Both speakers were tested on the same equipment.

I know its hard to decide on a DIY project without the ability to audition, however I feel that alot of the people on this board have lots of experience with DIY designs and can point you in the right direction.

On a bit of a side note I was able to get the woofer problem taken care of, and I have also tried the felt mod. Both of which I feel have helped the sound of the Usher, but still does not bring it up to the level of the M8. ;x(

Since you have the ability to fabricate the cabinets yourself which saves a lot of $, I say go for the M8 even if you have to stretch the budget just a little bit. Spending a little more now will save you alot from "upgradeitis" later.

Chris

[PMazz]

Thanks Chris. It's not my budget, but my neighbors that may be the problem. Even worst, his wife hasn't chimed in about this yet (think chimed as in bells of Notre Dame ). They're waiting for delivery of a new ent ctr which will most definitely factor in to the equation. So really, I threw this out there to do some early recon, not really expecting to be able to do anything with the M8s. So for now, we're still in a holding pattern.

Pete

[Dennis H]

If he's going to run without a sub, you're going to need something that can make some bass. You might consider Dennis Murphy's Vifa Tower with the 8" paper woofer. It should be easily within the budget. If they are going to sit on top of an entertainment center, you could make them shorter and deeper to get the cabinet volume.

[PMazz]

I looked at the Vifas too. Overall ht may become an issue. I was also looking at his MBOW1 3-way version using Peerless CSX10"ers in a bass box. Since I already have a pair from the RD50/bass box trials, it fits the budget . I thought having them in a single enclosure using the CSX next to the TM, but seperated internally. Still, that's 2 pretty big boxes up there. His wife will most likely reject the idea.....

Pete

[Dennis H]

I looked at the 3-way too but the XOs would eat up most of your $300 budget. Big components in the woof/mid filters.

[PMazz]

Well, after the ent ctr came in, it wasn't as wide as they thought and their existing floorstanders fit just fine. Good thing cause the unit sits just 14" from the ceiling.....It would have killed me to build any variation of the M8*** and have them thrown up there :E .

I saw the recent price drop of the M8a, if it's for real. Sure is easy to drop pricing on an item that's not in stock for so long.... :P .

Of course I will still build a version somewhere down the road.

Thanks for all the help guys!

Pete