Hey everyone,

I would like to get some knowledgeable feedback on my upcoming Horn speaker build:

Specs:
HF driver: Faital HF108 8ohm
LF driver: Faital 12pr320 or 12pr330 (both 8 ohm)
Horn: 590mm by 300mm, Designed by myself using ATH and AKABAK ( ~90 horizontal, ~50 vertical)
Enclosure: 550mm wide, 680mm height, 380mm deep

I will be using a SET amplifier with about 3 watts max..

Efficiency should be around 93db/w with f3 at about 43 hz in 1/2 space

Fully passive of course with low order crossover
(I will be committing to a smaller sweetspot vertically because of low c/o interferences)

Any idea on the best port placement ? Or any references I should check out ?
Or maybe a different LF driver I should check out ?
( altec 414 8b would be the dream but $$$ and not really available except GPA )

I'm trying to build a poor man's Altec 604

Anyone have resources on how to detach the waveguide/horn on a coaxial driver and replace it with a 3d printed one of different geometry? I'm looking at the Beyma 15CXA400Fe.

Hi,

My first time designing a 3 way crossover. The FRD that go into this were all measured in box. Was wondering if anything stood out as very clearly wrong from this crossover.

Thanks for any feedback!

Song

I wasn‘t willing to pay top bucks for some original Fostex H200‘s to go on my klipschorn bass cabinets, so I went the diy route. Vibecoded a design tool for radial horns and decided to open source it.
https://github.com/GurkeBoy/radialhorn
Mind you I designed it to fit my needs and constraints, so it may not meet everyones expectations, but it might be a good starting point.
Still not perfectly happy with the exports, but worked good enough to get some 3D prints going.

I Thought I would share my opinion on this subject as an audiophile who have an above average interest in extra low frequencies. I have been designing and building pro audio speakers on a hobby basis for about 15 years at this point.

A while back I finally got a Digital signal processor for my car, its the first time I have had a soundsystem in "god mode" where I could play down to 20hz as loud as I would possibly want. I have been playing around with soundsystems which have a frequency responses down in the 28-35hz range for a long time, but 20hz is rather new to me. Car audio enthusiasts will probably laugh at me for being new with the low 20s experience.

As someone who likes EDM, the first thing i did with my DSP was to apply a massive boost at 25hz. It was great! That is, the few songs that actually have energy that low. I was rather surprised by how rarely that pressure chamber experiece actually kicked in when playing music, even music I thought had plenty of energy below 30hz actually didnt have as much as I thought. I also became aware of the well known phenomenon where too much low frequency boost makes the bass seem less deep. This was most noticble when I toned down the 25hz peak, those rare occasions mid 25hz was a part of the music seemed much deeper then. I tried moving my peak below 25hz but it was clear, music does not really go that low. I also notice clearly that some music producers have not set their HPF properly on some songs and sonic frequency activity happened randomly and felt rather distracting. I ended up moving the peak to 27-28hz and with a more "gentle" boost. 34hz was around 3db, 30hz was around 6 decibel and 27hz around 10 decibel. While 10db around 27hz sounds massive, keep in mind, our ears sensitivity drops rather quickly below the low 30s and "massive low end" is kinda the point for a bass head.

The boost was low enough that it does not impact the tightness of a bass beat at all, it didnt overwhelm bass drops either as bass drops generally dont focus below mid 30s, On the few occasions the bass line peak did drop down below 35hz, that extra energy felt just right. One noteworthy thing: bass "heavyness" seems to increase the lower you go, but somewhere in the low 30s, the heaviness fades out and is gradually replaced with a different sensation. I tried boosting 25hz and take some extra energy out from the 30-35hz area to experiment, a lot of the heaviness in the bass disappeared in deep bass music, even music where there was energy below 30hz felt unatural and in a strange way, physical yet thinner without the 30-35hz properly present.

It seems maximum impact in EDM music is achieved by boosting around 27-28hz with a rather sharp peak. It's a nice balance between physical impact and audible low end. Above this, and the music gets muddy if you boost too much, below this, and the "bass" boost is below the absolute majority of music.

What are your experiences with low end sound signatures?

Hi all.

A bit of a brain dump incoming, so bear with me...

I've decided to embark on the DIY subwoofer journey and need some help getting started. I've pored over countless forum / reddit posts and looked at countless designs, and honestly...its a bit overwhelming. That urge to maximize every possible variable is dangerously alluring but also quite unrealistic for someone making their first DIY speaker i.e. me. I've been running things through Claude, but I'm not hugely trusting of what it spits out. It sounds good to my amateur understanding, but I'm reluctant to rely on it, which is why I'm here.

For the sake of simplicity, I will build a sealed box, which I want to fulfill both music listening and movie requirements; a general purpose sub (if there is such a thing). My space is 3.6m x 4.8m. I've gotten myself WinISD, but understand that I need to select a driver before the software can help me spec an enclosure. I'm thinking a 12" driver should be sufficient given my space and requirements - the exact species of which I'm needing help with. I'll be running the sub with Elac DB63 speakers and a Wiim Amp Ultra.

Living in New Zealand, there are next to no retailers servicing the DIY space and importing weighty and delicate audio components would be prohibitively expensive and risky. The local options that I've so far found are the following:

1.) SB Audience NERO-12MWN700D from https://buzzaudio.co.nz/

2.) Eminence LAB12 from https://www.livesound.co.nz/

Or, option 3. which is to snag something from https://www.wagneronline.com.au/, an Aussie store that I can pop by when visiting family. They stock Dayton gear which I understand to be highly regarded in the DIY space.

I'd love to come in under the $1500 NZD mark, which equates to $853USD. Worth mentioning is that any enclosure costs will be nil; I have access to a CNC machine and MDF through my work, and I'm handy on Solidworks for drafting things up, so we're really just budgeting for the electronic components. Note that things are FAR more expensive here, so budget offerings in the US won't be so cost effective here, nor will they even be available, for that matter.

Any pointers to get me started would be much appreciated. Even selecting a driver is fairly daunting given the lengthy specs attached to each product!

My computer audio setup consist of a ZK-MT21 2.1 channel 50W+50W+100W amp hooked up to passive speakers and sub, but I was having horrible ground loop interference issues whenever my GPU is working. I tried one of those ground loop isolators but it didn't work for me. So I got one of these DAC to make use of my optical toslink output from my computer to break this ground loop.

It did eliminate my ground loop interference issues, but the sound quality was very poor. It was mid-heavy with the treble and bass completely absent. I felt like I was listening to stereo AM radio, so I took it apart to investigate and set out to fix the problem: with help from Google's AI.

On paper the GC8418 should be able to provide a good analogue audio output, so my attention turned to the 4558D dual Op-Amp. Given that this device is powered by a 5 V power supply, the 18 V requirement of the 4558D wasn't being fulfilled, but that wasn't the only problem. It seems the components for the output stage was just whatever they had lying around. So here's the fix to obtain great audio quality from this device.

-Swap U2 (4558D Op-Amp) for a TI TLV9062. The 4558D is super old and designed to work with 18 V supply, not suitable here with 5V supply.

-C37, C38 - swap to 1.5 nf capacitor, original capacitance was too big killing all the treble.

-C47, C8 - delete

-C24, C31 - previously unpopulated, these are in parallel with C47 and C8, install 47uf 16V electrolytic caps, original caps were too small killing the bass.

Hand soldering 0603 sized SMD components is not for the faint of heart. It took me a few tries over 4 hours to get it all soldered and working, but I'm very happy with the audio quality after the fix.

I got a pair of speakers I wanted to mount inside a printed body so I could make a portable speaker, the only issue is with how close the mounting holes are to the basket I fear that there won't be enough material to properly hold the screws without potentially breaking the plastic. I also wanted to use those metal screw mounts that you can melt into the plastic but it looks like there's not enough room for those either...

I want to make an amplifier for 5.1 channel and I want to know how to make one big pot for the 5 channel.

I ran into one of these for $20 so I picked it up. It only has a proprietary signal input so I pulled the amp out and sold it. I was going to sell the drivers too but the way it's built you pretty much have to destroy the enclosure to get them out. Everything is glued together from the factory and while I suppose it's technically possible to take it all apart it's not worth it. Plus the enclosure is really nice and I'd rather not ruin it but the drivers can't come out without cutting the leads otherwise.

The Ohm load is really low at about 1.5 as the drivers don't conform to their published specs and they're running in parallel. As such they won't run properly on most amps. I wanted to put them in series but again the wiring is not accessible. Even if I were to be able to find another one of these and sold that amp too then ran them both in series that's only about 3 ohms.

I bought a pair of Fountek FE85s back in June for a uFonken full-range build. As far as I can tell they're discontinued now. One driver arrived with a torn rubber surround, and the seller replaced it, so I didn't think much about it afterwards.

I recently finished a proper enclosure with 3D carving and a good finish. While testing, I gave one speaker a light poke( probably )on the rubber surround by mistake and the other one tore too on its own after a few minutes of listening. So I suspect a driver problem.

My questions:

1. Is this more likely a quality issue, old stock, or something else?

2. Could my DIY Class A amp have damaged the surround or voice coil? It worked absolutely alright with random sattelite speakers (DC offset, turn-on thump, oscillation?)

3. Is it safe to buy the same FE85 pair again, or am I just risking the same thing?

4. If I switch, what would work in the same box? I'm looking at the Mark Audio CHN-50. I'd have to modify the front baffle.

Any recommendations for 3" full-range drivers that fit the uFonken, or advice on checking my amp, would be appreciated. Thanks!

Hello I have a couple of stereo install question. I have a 2023 gmc sierra 1500 elevation non bose stereo. I installed aftermarket pioneer door and dash speakers. I used a kicker keyloc 200.4 to power the doors, left the dash speakers going to the head unit. I also installed a kicker L7T powered 12 inch sub. I ran the lead wire from one of the unused fuses from the passenger side fuse box, then spliced the lead to the sub from the kicker keyloc 200.4.The install went good but I am having some odd things happen.

1. The GMC boot screen has disappeared when I get into the truck, it just boots up straight to the stereo.

2. The turn signals sound odd, louder and more crisp. Not soft at all like they normally should.

Any help is appreciated, thanks in advice!

Hi, I am new here, I have a question about old tweeter coating, these 2 are my soft dome tweeters on my Denon SC-E717R, they are deteriorating heavily, just a touch and coating go on your fingers, but the dome appears to be intact and sing, no audible distortion but a bit weird high performance, especially high off-axis change at 10khz. I wonder should I change it, keep it like that or restore?

I have 2 measures by iPhone mic, not a caliberated mic I know but it repeated through multiple runs of sweep, its 75db spl, 1/3oct and on axis is cyan vs off axis 30° is cream.

If I need to change, what do you think about a Peerless D27TG3506?

Thank you.

First audio project I'm taking on, just want a simple/decent setup for our outdoor patio and backyard, about 1000 sqft between the two spaces.

I appreciate any input or advice! I can spend a bit more, how would you recommend spending an extra $250?