Center speaker design

[BradB36]

I am planning on building a center speaker for future 5.1.
I have two 4.5", and one 2" tweeter.
The box is to be ~1306 cu in (.8 cu ft.), (19"w x 12.5"d x 5.5"h [ID]).
I am unable to find any detail specs on the 4" speakers, other than they are Hitachi GK00271 8 ohm 12w 1lb.
My question is: should I consider venting the baffle,
if so: front or rear, what size tube?
Any educated guesses would be appreciated.

 

[sptrout]

I cannot image why anyone would want to design a center channel speaker "for a future 5.1 system." Since this is your first post I have to ask; You do know that it is very highly recommended that all speakers in a multichannel system be timbre matched (sound identical), especially the front three, right? If the front three channels are not all as nearly identical as possible (within reason), then the system will sound very poor.

I recommend that you do some more research on multichannel home theatre audio systems before you start building speakers from parts.

 

[lsiberian]

I am planning on building a center speaker for future 5.1.
I have two 4.5", and one 2" tweeter.
The box is to be ~1306 cu in (.8 cu ft.), (19"w x 12.5"d x 5.5"h [ID]).
I am unable to find any detail specs on the 4" speakers, other than they are Hitachi GK00271 8 ohm 12w 1lb.
My question is: should I consider venting the baffle,
if so: front or rear, what size tube?
Any educated guesses would be appreciated.

You will need a woofer tester to get their T/S parameters and you can get better drivers for pretty cheap actually.

www.zaphaudio.com has a list of drivers with details.