What went wrong?

[Austin Stradling]

So this my first time to this forum, glad to be here. I am a woodworker and I have never built anything electronic in my life until now. My goal was to create some simple speakers that were unique and stray away from a conventional box enclosure. Not knowing anything about audio, I googled "Best full Range driver". The first one I clicked on was titled "The 4 Best Full Range Drivers Of 2016" I think the site is called songsimian.com. The no. 1 pick was the Galaxy Audio S5N-8, so I bought two (about 60 bucks a piece). And so It began, I started educating myself on all of those acronyms that you guys use on specs. I kept in accordance with the sealed enclosure volume that was listed by the manufacturer, and bought a small dedicated 200w amp (Lepai LP7498E) to push em. I knew that there would be not much low end when I was making them but after listening to them I think I ended up building enormous tweeters. They sound like a tin can, a really loud tin can but a can none the less. I guess my question is fix or firewood. Thanks

 

[KenM10759]

What went wrong is you didn't spend enough time looking up "DIY loudspeakers." There's a section for it here, though there are a number of good websites dedicated to it.

Photo of what you made? How big is the box, and where did you get plans?

 

[TLS Guy]

That is unfortunate. You should have posted here before you bought anything.

Good full range drivers are very rare.

The only one that is any real good is the Jordan Watts driver and its descendants. Those descendants are now the Mark Audio line of metal cone drivers.

This is the Jordan Watts 4" aluminum coned driver that appeared in 1959.

Despite its small size the bass response is very respectable. These speakers always had a strong following in the Far East. Mark Audio have been further developing Ted Jordan's concepts for some years now.

Unfortunately the box has to be sized and ported for the speaker, according to the speakers Thiel/Small parameters. There is very little wiggle room.

If it is a powerful speaker you want then you need at least a woofer and tweeter and need to design a custom crossover. In your case following an established design is your best bet.

 

[Austin Stradling]

What went wrong is you didn't spend enough time looking up "DIY loudspeakers." There's a section for it here, though there are a number of good websites dedicated to it.

Photo of what you made? How big is the box, and where did you get plans?

Here is a picture of what I ended up with. It has a volume of 0.079 ft3

 

[lovinthehd]

Nice woodworking! How did you determine the volume of the enclosure? Did you use software like winisd or ?

 

[Austin Stradling]

Nice woodworking! How did you determine the volume of the enclosure? Did you use software like winisd or ?

Thanks, I didn't use any software just basic geometry. I think where I screwed up was using the VAS of 0.079ft3 instead of the recomended sealed enclosure volume of 0.02ft3.

 

[vsound5150]

Damn those are awesome hats off to you. Makes me think of the Bowers & Wilkins Diamonds maybe you got something big brewing on the way.

 

[BoredSysAdmin]

That driver is rated down to 150h - not exactly very low, but should be enough to playback human voice.
Some reviews measured it flat down only to 600hz. So this full-range driver is not.
You will need to supplement it with active crossover (like mini-dsp)with a mid-bass module like this one:http://www.diysoundgroup.com/midbass-module/mbm-12.html
That driver will play from 800hz down to thirties

Try to salvage existing box, I'd recommend to double check if the fancy looking box is a) airtight and b) add poly stuff behind driver to reduce internal volume and reduce early reflections. You're likely to need a decent amount of it.

You have great woodworking skills, but next time instead of VERY complex task of new speaker design, try building using existing DIY designs and slightly tweaking them

Some ideas:
http://murphyblaster.com/content.php?f=main.html
http://www.zaphaudio.com/
http://speakerdesignworks.com/
http://www.parts-express.com/cat/speaker-kits/286
http://www.diysoundgroup.com/

 

[Bucknekked]

Having done a little DYI, I have to take my hat off to your handiwork. That is a very complex shape and a beautiful design. Woodworking is something you can put on your checklist of accomplishments.

Maybe this is an overly broad generalization, but, buying some speaker plans for a tried and true design and RTFM (read the ... manual) on what goes in them may be your next step in your journey. I wouldn't quit !
With your ability to build, I would just consider this a minor setback. A bump in the road.

If you can build shapes and cabinets that well, with some plans for a system that have already been tried and debugged and proven to work might be the next best step. My DYI efforts followed that path. I got some transmission line design plans. Built them with help. And they worked out. But had I just built a box and put the drivers in, they wouldn't have sounded anything like they eventually did.