Build a DIY Speaker for a fraction of the cost of Commercial Designs?

fuzz092888

fuzz092888

Audioholic Warlord
You mean I have to give Microsoft money?
Personally I use a mac and I've run virtual box and parallels. I found both pretty easy to use and I liked them both. Yes, at some point I would advise you to give a tiny bit of money to Microsoft and just purchase a license. Reinstalling every 3 months was kind of a pain. I'd always forget and be in the middle of something only to have be annoying.
 
jinjuku

jinjuku

Moderator
Personally I use a mac and I've run virtual box and parallels. I found both pretty easy to use and I liked them both. Yes, at some point I would advise you to give a tiny bit of money to Microsoft and just purchase a license. Reinstalling every 3 months was kind of a pain. I'd always forget and be in the middle of something only to have be annoying.
XP Pro is available for $45 out there.
 
J

Joel Foust

Audioholics Speaker Engineer
Totally need to pick up D'Appolito's book as I am most interested in his work with Seas.

Soundeasy looks fantastic, but I am mac user which seems to be a problem. Any other suggestions?
Unless something has changed recently, you are limited to Windows for loudspeaker design. Almost everything done in the loudspeaker design packages can be done in Matlab if you really want to use a Mac and have all the time in the world:). I use a Mac primarily but a PC for speaker design. I have had success with SoundEasy in Parallels but note that Firewire is not an option in VM's. I have not been too happy with most USB based cards until I invested in a RME Babyface. I'm sure there are cheaper options that work well but this is the only way I've found that works well for me on a Macbook running XP in Parallels.
 
TheWarrior

TheWarrior

Audioholic Ninja
Crap... didn't realize there was zilch for macs in this arena. Our only current (still have an old ibook, and the first gen mac book) machine is needed for business, in an all Apple environment. I fear dual OS on it. However I should be able to scrounge up a pretty basic windows PC or laptop. It doesn't need lots of memory and certainly not a graphics card, correct? Just a 16bit soundcard and microphone is most important?
 
jinjuku

jinjuku

Moderator
Crap... didn't realize there was zilch for macs in this arena. Our only current (still have an old ibook, and the first gen mac book) machine is needed for business, in an all Apple environment. I fear dual OS on it. However I should be able to scrounge up a pretty basic windows PC or laptop. It doesn't need lots of memory and certainly not a graphics card, correct? Just a 16bit soundcard and microphone is most important?
When you get into esoteric applications (unless web / java based) you aren't going to see anything for OSX. Just a reality of market share. You will have no problems running a Virtual Machine and Windows. I have a $400 laptop that I put 8GB of RAM into with an external 60GB SSD on USB 3.0 and the VM is QUICKER than my native machine since the internal HD is a spinner.
 
haraldo

haraldo

Audioholic Spartan
Crap... didn't realize there was zilch for macs in this arena. Our only current (still have an old ibook, and the first gen mac book) machine is needed for business, in an all Apple environment. I fear dual OS on it. However I should be able to scrounge up a pretty basic windows PC or laptop. It doesn't need lots of memory and certainly not a graphics card, correct? Just a 16bit soundcard and microphone is most important?

If you want to run windows you need a graphics card unless it's core windows server without gui, need to check h/w requirements for the windows version at hand, which windows version?
 
jinjuku

jinjuku

Moderator
Soundeasy, Speakerdesignworks, matlab, lsp etc... will work fine with integrated graphics. They aren't performing any graphically challenging work.
 
J

Joel Foust

Audioholics Speaker Engineer
Crap... didn't realize there was zilch for macs in this arena. Our only current (still have an old ibook, and the first gen mac book) machine is needed for business, in an all Apple environment. I fear dual OS on it. However I should be able to scrounge up a pretty basic windows PC or laptop. It doesn't need lots of memory and certainly not a graphics card, correct? Just a 16bit soundcard and microphone is most important?
You do not need anything fancy to run speaker design suites. Integrated graphics works fine. Windows XP and Windows 7 are fine as far as SoundEasy is concerned. To get an idea of equipment used to test loudspeakers, see the Audioholics measurement standard:

Loudspeaker Measurements Standard: Our Procedure for Objectively Analyzing Speaker Performance | Audioholics

IMHO the quality and feature set of the sound card is pretty important. For SoundEasy, you must have a minimum of two channels in and one channel out. The software does dual channel measurements with a probe and microphone. SoundEasy is also capable of many other electrical measurements using two probes. While there are less expensive options, it is advisable to get a sound card that has a preamplifier and phantom power with XLR connectors. I've tried many cards and feel like a used RME solution like the FF800 or Babyface is a great value if you are serious; you can probably get your full investment back later if you buy used. The Dayton EMM-6 and Behringer ECM8000 are popular DIY mic choices. The least expensive acceptable option I'm aware of is getting a calibrated EMM-6 microphone from Herb Singleton at Cross Spectrum Labs.
 
lsiberian

lsiberian

Audioholic Overlord
Totally need to pick up D'Appolito's book as I am most interested in his work with Seas.

Soundeasy looks fantastic, but I am mac user which seems to be a problem. Any other suggestions?
You could send me your Mac for a few weeks and it wouldn't be. :)

Would a web based calculator do the trick. I could port my software to a website. I just figure most folks have windows so I made it for windows.
 
lsiberian

lsiberian

Audioholic Overlord
You do not need anything fancy to run speaker design suites. Integrated graphics works fine. Windows XP and Windows 7 are fine as far as SoundEasy is concerned. To get an idea of equipment used to test loudspeakers, see the Audioholics measurement standard:

Loudspeaker Measurements Standard: Our Procedure for Objectively Analyzing Speaker Performance | Audioholics

IMHO the quality and feature set of the sound card is pretty important. For SoundEasy, you must have a minimum of two channels in and one channel out. The software does dual channel measurements with a probe and microphone. SoundEasy is also capable of many other electrical measurements using two probes. While there are less expensive options, it is advisable to get a sound card that has a preamplifier and phantom power with XLR connectors. I've tried many cards and feel like a used RME solution like the FF800 or Babyface is a great value if you are serious; you can probably get your full investment back later if you buy used. The Dayton EMM-6 and Behringer ECM8000 are popular DIY mic choices. The least expensive acceptable option I'm aware of is getting a calibrated EMM-6 microphone from Herb Singleton at Cross Spectrum Labs.
Minidsp has a measurement Mic now as well. It's basically the same thing as the others.
 
fuzz092888

fuzz092888

Audioholic Warlord
Minidsp has a measurement Mic now as well. It's basically the same thing as the others.
Except for the sometimes sketchy customer service and the huge problems that had with batch 1, 2, and 3. Perhaps they have figured it all out now.
 
haraldo

haraldo

Audioholic Spartan
You could send me your Mac for a few weeks and it wouldn't be. :)

Would a web based calculator do the trick. I could port my software to a website. I just figure most folks have windows so I made it for windows.
This is derailing the thread a bit but it's still in a way related.....

Any linux distribution can run most native windows programs via WINE, which is a windows subsystem emulator, some programs like microsoft office can be very tricky, but quite many programs work very well... I have been running Exact Audio Copy quite well within linux, and so it's worth an effort to try this if you're running linux.

Seems like Wine works on OS X too :p
Installing Wine on Mac OS X

So for you mac guys it's really worthwhile to see if you can try wine, and then run programs within wine, so that means you don't need any windows software at all on your mac to run windows programs, how's that for a win-win situation :D
 
TheWarrior

TheWarrior

Audioholic Ninja
Thank you Haraldo! I'm gonna study up a bit more on Wine, and then probably go for that.

Also gonna search around for a product similar to the RME Babyface, just one that handles dual XLR only, without all the other options (and price tag).
 
haraldo

haraldo

Audioholic Spartan
Thank you Haraldo! I'm gonna study up a bit more on Wine, and then probably go for that.

Also gonna search around for a product similar to the RME Babyface, just one that handles dual XLR only, without all the other options (and price tag).
Glad to help, good luck !
 
J

Joel Foust

Audioholics Speaker Engineer
I've heard the art USB dual pre works in soundeasy and is decent for the money. I have no direct experience so I can't recommend it but it might be worth researching for < $100 interface. Anyone use it?
 
fuzz092888

fuzz092888

Audioholic Warlord
It's great software, but don't forget to factor in the cost of LMS as well. You'll need it. If you've never designed a speaker before you might want to go with soundeasy. It's much cheaper and does nearly everything that LEAP does.

I always wanted to splurge and get a copy of this software for my speaker building hobby-this is the SW that Madisound uses for their custom crossover and speaker design services.

LEAP Software - Analysis & Design of Loudspeakers, Enclosures, and Crossovers
 
U

utopianemo

Junior Audioholic
It’s about time someone revisited this topic. There are so many sites out there now providing great kits! Aside from the previously mentioned Madisound, Parts Express, and others, we have GR-Research, DIYSG, CSS-Audio, Meniscus, and more.
 
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