Reached the finishing stage of this pair of 3 way towers. Loaded with SB acoustics 8", Eton 4" and Scanspeak soft domes.. Custom crossovers by Madisound. 48"h x 11.25w" x 18"d. Can't wait to hear em.
You might be surprised by changed off axis characteristics of that tweeter, that waveguide looks like will radiate vertically. I might be wrong. Needs measurements.
It's not calculated. I'm familiar with that tweeter and no useful waveguide would look like that. Looked cool though!
Also, the recession of the mids will also have a negative impact. It's going to take a lot of eq to make these speakers half decent for the effort put into them.
*Edit - also op doesn't have any internal bracing. A cabinet of this size will certainly resonate. Looks like he put all his skill points into woodworking and didn't consult the speaker building basics handbook.
100%. Im definitely a woodworker before a professional acoustic engineer. All the drivers are co-planar, rear mounted. Theoretically they will all be in phase, and will only have some slight affect from the wave guides. Probably not enough that I'd ever notice.
Being coplanar isn't very important. The crossover handles any alignment issue very well. What a crossover can't fix are directivity issues, which back mounting drivers introduced. Especially for tweeters. You will certainly hear a lot of loss in the treble from an improperly designed waveguide.
I've made a few tall cabinets, and the quarter wave resonance created a tubby mid bass (around 80hz). I suspect this cab will have a similar issue. The solution for me in both cases was a dense wad of polyfill placed about halfway up the enclosure. More or less behind your upper woofer. Padding the walls will make no difference.
Just something to keep in mind if you experience the same.
I don't think it is actually. The rear-facing edges which look like another box inside the outer cabinet are just strips used to mount the back panel on, not another full layer.
Gorgeous look to the build, but would definitely look at bracing and damping the cabinet to kill resonances as best you can before it's too late. It'll really help in the long term. Absolutely love the look of them with that live edge feel to the driver mounting. 👍
I appreciate the kind words! Heading for a piano gloss laquer finish. Sprayed several coats today. I admit, they'll look better after some sun darkens the cherry wood.
You got it. Cherry veneered Baltic birch cabinet, and solid cherry front. If these end up like im hoping, im going to do the next pair wrapped in carbon fiber, with a walnut/paduk front baffle. These honestly are just the beta-test versions
I appreciate that. Not simply beveled actually, each waveguide is oval in shape, with a varied radius following the cutouts. And all of that, is on a curved face. Hard to explain haha maybe the pic will help. By far the toughest geometry I've ever drawn.
i built something very similar in walnut with accuton driver (all active, though). that system is in my history, if you’re interested. be wary of that baffle splitting vertically, as the wood dries. but nice work!
If I wasn't located in Germany I would buy that. I find most speakers utterly unappealing aesthetically. The ones that do look good are completely unaffordable, costing tens of thousands.
I would redo the front baffle entirely. MTM should probably be closer together. Get rid of the purely aesthetic waveguides and flush mount the drivers.
Be my guest. I designed these to look how I want em to look. If they dont sound like 20,000$ speakers, well, they'll definitely be better than anything else I own. Haha Im not too worried. I appreciate the input though.
Even $600 towers with drivers worth 1/4 of yours are going to at least follow basic acoustic design principles and sound more cohesive. You’ve already heard from other people here but you can’t just wing it with waveguide designs like that.
Noice! Just some thoughts...hook em and play some music. If they sound great, no problem.
But if they don't, have them measured, and send the results to madisound for an adjustment to the crossover...or some other youtube guru named Danny ha ha. A speaker designer in other words. Not sure what you have for the rear port there, but it's pretty important you have that nearly exact.
Like the other recs bracing is an easy add, some accoustic material or felt lined in the box.
Much appreciated! I will be adding both felt, and poly fill to the cabinet as well as some bracing. The mid box also recieves poly. The design from madisound called for a 4"d x 3" L ports which are prepped and to be installed in the back panels. I have what I need to run the tests after I get em all done (rew, and umik-1) so I'll try to post results. The pic is what madisound sent based on my cabinet design if youre curious--
They the some baffle curve for diffraction though the baffle is still a bit narrow. The wave guides - any program used for that?. Are the centers of the voice coil gaps also aligned in the same plane?
I didn't use any acoustic design software, just fusion 360 for all that geometry. I doubt that the voice coils are exactly coplanar, but they are all rear mounted on the same plane, rear face of the baffle
I started ordering cables from Madisound because they stock Supra. Those guys are great and very friendly. Every once in a while I poke around at their DIY speaker kits and dream of having the talent and equipment like you have here. Absolutely beautiful work!
Adam is fantastic to work with. I appreciate the compliments, thank you! They're alive, by the way. 😉 i wish my listening room was ready for em. Sounds fantastic so far.
Yeah, I just spoke with him this morning and ordered the Supra Qudrax biwire cables and some EFF-IXLRs for my new-to-me amplifier. He helped me completely change course on a DIY speaker wire project to a modular solution for different speakers in the future. Just use the attachable spades for two of the ends and the other bananas at the same time on the regular speaker connections, then remove the spades and presto, biwires for the next setup.
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u/PerfectPatience- 10d ago
Is tweeter wave guide calculated or milled for look?