vertical vs. horizontal mid/tweeters

[airtime]

Any opinions on either direction. I seem to prefer vertical. But I've noticed many of the preferred vintage full ranges used a mid/tweeter sitting side by side vertically.

I'm in the middle of another three way project and was wondering if I should explore this layout?

charles

[Chris Roemer]

Any opinions on either direction. I seem to prefer vertical. But I've noticed many of the preferred vintage full ranges used a mid/tweeter sitting side by side vertically.

I'm in the middle of another three way project and was wondering if I should explore this layout?

charles

No. A LOT of "vintage" designs did a LOT of things wrong. We are more knowledgeable now.

[Rich G]

Here's some more info.

Mounting everything with the driver centers all in a vertical line means that the distance from driver center to driver center does not change as you move left and right in front of the speaker (like changing positions on your couch). What it does do is change the distance from driver center to driver center as you move up and down (sitting and standing). Most people prefer the vertical mounting because we rarely change our vertical position relative to the speakers.

So what happens when the distance between the center of your mid to you and the center of your tweeter to you are different? Well maybe something and maybe nothing.

If the difference in the distance from the 2 driver centers and the listener is 1/2 the wavelength of the crossover frequency or greater you will get dips in the frequency response as the 2 drivers become out of phase at that point. This can become a bigger issue with drivers spaced widely apart and high crossover frequncies.

So another answer to your question is yes you can mount the mid and the tweeter horizontally but the distance between the driver centers should be 1/2 the crossover wavelength or less (1/4 wave would be better) which may not be possible.