Speakers in doors

[tvrgeek]

As I am very dissatisfied with my high mounted HT speakers. I was wondering if anyone has experience in putting speakers is doors. I assume I would want a pretty massive slab as not to vibrate. Maybe a soft snubbers against the frame. Any tips? This would allow me to bring my mains down to screen level.

I spent all morning seeing if line arrays of 2 inch drivers that could fit beside the door frame and it won't work. Can't even get 8 of them to 80 within x-max and my available power and that is using pretty expensive drivers. But that Santori MW16p sure looks like a nice driver. Looks like It could be boxed and eq to a well behaved 80 Hz Fs and get me 105 dB across the range with my AVR. Seems a reasonable target.

[DeZZar]

Could you mount some slim speakers TO the doors? How thick is the door? I'm holding a tiny little 2.5inch full range driver in my hands right now and it requires 1.75inch mounting depth....which wouldn't fit in any of my doors unless I added a thick baffle or something....which then just leads me back to the first question.

[DeZZar]

Maybe the answer lies in electrostatics? I thought I saw somewhere a brand making picture frames as speakers?

Would something like this fit mounted to the back of the door - instead of turning the house into a stereo?
https://media-dali.azureedge.net/602...57933050000000

Or those KEF T301 style speakers?

Heres another pretty crazy looking idea:
https://www.contemporist.com/wp-cont...3-800x1517.jpg

Maybe something like this would work?
https://www.essenceelectrostatic.com...ll-Mounted.jpg

[tvrgeek]

No. Just looking for experiences if I should make a door by laying up several layers of PB, or if a hollow core would work. I am concerned with the door vibrating. Current in-wall box is 12 x 14 x 4, so it will only stick out the back 2 1/2 inches if I keep my existing Dayton RS150's. Actually looking for better. Yea, there are more shallow drivers, but not of decent quality.

Also looking for experience in height. As the center is below the screen, should the sides be slightly to the higher side to best focus vocals, or maybe bring them down to ear level and put the center above the screen. I never ran a center until this room. My last room the mains were about mid-screen about 2 feet away. As I had OC board behind them ( 4 x 7 x 2 inch) the imaging was very precise. Can't do that here. Trying to make it as unobtrusive as I can. Grill cloths even. The more I think about it, the less I like the canter if I get the mains positioned right.

I modeled the available 2 inch drivers. First, it would take at least 12 on a side to match the same SPL as the current 5 inch. None had copper pole caps and all would require quite large EQ to get down to 80. Power for 102 dB worked out to be over 500W with the eq. 12 drivers remaining within x-max. My AVR is 60. 12 drivers would take an extensive array of all-pass filters.to control the beam. A lot of loss what in that.

[djg]

Maybe put them in the elephants?

[DeZZar]

Yeah look I've never embedded a speaker in a door so perhaps I should just bow out of this thread. You could potentially be the first person to attempt to do this? In that case, experiment away and report back.

I generally don't think of home theatre in the same way I consider stereo music reproduction. In the sense that things like disappearing speakers, one large homogenous sound stage, perfect imaging etc IMO don't fit a theatre that is literally designed to have you experience distinct sounds coming from distinct directions. I don't use HT to listen to music. I guess if I did it might be more of a concern. But if I can pinpoint the origins of sound in a HT setup - isn't that kind of the point? Does it matter that your centre channel tweeter is lower than your mains tweeters? I doubt Jurassic Park is going to sound materially better if they were.....

[tvrgeek]

I too listen to music in the living room. Conventional stereo.
In my little guest room/HT though, localization is important. If someone is speaking on the center of the screen, I should be able to close my eyes and point to the center of the screen. Right now, if I point to the sound, I point to the center speaker. When sound moves or is unique to the mains, it jumps to the ceiling. Terrible install.

Even when a voice comes mostly from the center, the mains do carry some of it, so my thought was if the mains were closer to the height of the bottom of the TV, and center just above, the mono-mix should be closer to the center. Or visa-versa though the low mount can get the tweeter to ear level.

So, yes, today will be experimenting. Just hoping there was some experience to short-cut and not fall into so many rabbit holes. A most valuable lesson taught to me by the smartest person I ever met was that everyone in the world knows something you don't, so it is wise to listen.

I looked at some of the higher end in-wall plates, but sorry, a retired civil servant is not paying $1000 each. DIY! I found various graphs showing distortion over frequency. Wavetek publishes a few and some I did. I was able to come to some very rough conclusions on distortion. One is as you approach about 3X Fs, it skyrockets. This is higher than I had assumed. The other is how much below the top end rolloff and how ripples in the response can give you a hint. The little RS150's are actually quite good for their price. Might just keep them. My Seas t27TBFC are also very low distortion, but to match the Dayton's, crossed way too low ( 1800, LR-4) mostly to manage the RS breakup. But if I drop the crossover to 1K, drop in their 2 inch mid, 1K to 3K, then I should get away from the majority of nasties in all three drivers and not need such steep and phase problematic crossovers.

The 2 inch dome is not popular The old Ditton 66 used it. I always thought it was too small, but just modeling it in the limited range I understand now. I have long been a proponent of a 6 inch two way, but maybe I am learning something new about distortion. C-to-C is difficult. Morel has a combo plate, but the one Morel tweeter I played with I was not overly impressed so a little shy on the price. Plus it has to have s grill cloth. Not bad in itself, but for my door mounts a bit harder

Actually, if just the mains is the best config, I might buy two more 4 Ohm Daytons as are my center and WWMT just to get a bit more dynamic overhead. I see where mids are a problem as a lot of them seem to be less efficient than typical woofers. There are several 3's that look good on paper, but 83 to 85 dB is a no-go.
More coffee. More thinking.

[tvrgeek]

First test. MUCH better with just 2 mains on the sides. With the center, it still pulls the image down. Next test is to move the mains up to top of screen, center bottom. Going to be harder to test moving the center up and the mains lower. Does start to tax just the little 150's. I think a 3 way is in order, larger woofers. 6 inch maybe.

[tvrgeek]

Considering physical protection. I wonder, if 1/4 inch welded wire has any influence on sound.
By going 3 way, it opens up drivers a lot. Leaning to Wavecore or SB, 6 inch, Dayton 2 inch dome mid. Almost any tweeter as crossing @ 3K or so.

[DeZZar]

I always believed that 3-way and up was the answer for really high end, and I guess I still do but honestly, after completing a two-way floor standing build recently I'm truly blown away by just how big a two way can sound and the depth and balance that can be achieved. The most surprising part is the imaging and sound stage.

Trying to avoid designer/builder self confirmation bias on how these sound I've invited over many many critical listening opinionated friends over the last few months and have had one with a really nice B&W multi way setup, who I believed would just think my latest creation was cute, leave in a stereo listening induced existential crisis over his system. And that was when they were driven with a piece of 1970's nostalgia putting out all of 20w per channel.

I still think I can do better with 3-way but I'm no longer convinced its such a big margin - if at all when it comes to the top end. I think I will be concentrating a little more effort on further developing designs in the two-way floor standing category.

I wonder, if 1/4 inch welded wire has any influence on sound.

I dont know what that is, but it certainly doesn't sound audio grade??

[tvrgeek]

https://www.tractorsupply.com/tsc/pr...x-24-in-x-5-ft

"Audio Grade"
means someone put a label on it and an extra zero to the price. As these speakers will be where an elbow could hit them, they need protection under a grill cloth.

Leaning to a pair of Waveteck 5's with the SB ring tweeter. Like the RS drivers, going to have to do a steep crossover and probably a notch at least to get the breakup down. Seems to be a catch-22. Stiffer cone for lower distortion hands you bad breakup. Paper or poly are much easier to deal with, but higher distortion. My goal, reachable or not, is a system under 1% @ 1W from mid bass up.

[LOUT]

Would it be possible to rearrange the room (or simply the main seating and television) 90-180degrees to give the TV/LCR a slightly wider wall-space to work with?

[tvrgeek]

No. Windows and doors. Room is square just under 11 by 11. I actually did restructure the wall as where the TV is now was the hall into the jack and jill was in the center. I swapped it with the linen closet so it is to the side. Seating is actually the guest bed. Comfy for us to flop on and watch a movie. If I could have put them just above the doors which would have been a foot lower except there is a double 2 x 12 holding up the roof in the way. I did not want boxes sticking out right above one's head.

Some discussions of the SB poly cone suggest it might be a good bet. Older poly I did not care for, but improvements have been made. I see Troles even pulled off a first order on the Satori