Looking for Surround Speaker Ideas/Suggestions

[nathan]

OK, I'm looking for ideas for HT surround speaker designs/drivers. Right now, my main focus is budget. I'd like to keep the drivers + crossover parts under $75 for the pair. Maybe it's a tough challenge but you guys are up to it.

They will receive ~75W. High passed @ 90Hz (active crossover in the receiver) They will be mounted on the wall near the ceiling so small size is also a soughtafter quality.

So throw out your ideas. MTM, TMT, MT, dipole, bipole, whatever you can think of. Also any unique shapes you might have in mind.

Thanks guys, this should be a fun project.

[max]

I was thinking the same when I came across agood deal (at least I think it is). I bought a pair of Wharfedale WH2 with 2 4' mid-low and 2 1/2 inch dome tweeter.

> They will receive ~75W. High passed @ 90Hz
> (active crossover in the receiver)

I don't thinks you are gonna get even close to those number of Watts on the rear... 75W (real)are a s**t lot of power.
Anyhow, I would try to go with the same shape, kinda triangular shape dipole/bipole it is a metter of side surrounds vs rear.
I would defenitely pair the sale "Vifa-Infinity" 4' PE 299-492 ($3.99) with Dayton ND20 275-030 ($4.60)....
I wouldn't spend much money and time on complex crossover ( I don't believe surrounds speakers emits that great sound anyway)..
Looks like the lowest on the tweeter you can get is 3.5khz....
Regards Max

[Dirk]

> OK, I'm looking for ideas for HT surround
> speaker designs/drivers. Right now, my main
> focus is budget. I'd like to keep the
> drivers + crossover parts under $75 for the
> pair. Maybe it's a tough challenge but you
> guys are up to it.

> They will receive ~75W. High passed @ 90Hz
> (active crossover in the receiver) They will
> be mounted on the wall near the ceiling so
> small size is also a soughtafter quality.

> So throw out your ideas. MTM, TMT, MT,
> dipole, bipole, whatever you can think of.
> Also any unique shapes you might have in
> mind.

> Thanks guys, this should be a fun project.

You want small & cheap? 4" Tang Band (the one with the silver phase plug and pincushion frame) in a small sealed box. Game over. If you want something more complex, you could try making a dipole using two of them. There's a type of lattice network filter that I've been penciling out that would alter the phase relationship of the woofers relative to frequency. At low frequencies, they'd be in-phase. At high frequencies, out of phase. If you're interested, I can dig up the crossover schematic at home tonight.

Of course, with dipoles, impedance becomes a problem for receiver's not expecting diffucult loads on the rear channels. So you could also try using a single woofer running in-phase with two tweeters running out of phase (maybe wire the tweeters in series, which). A bit of a compromise (because now the phase null will have to begin at much higher frequencies), but it's what Vance describes in the Loudspeaker Design Cookbook.

So any low-cost woofer combined with two of the dayton $4 neos could be quite the neat little project.

[LouC]

Provided Link: Nugget Mini


Here's a possibility for you. For surrounds, you could put the ports in the bottom, toward the back of the box.

[dB]

Provided Link: my site


This might be of interest. I'll be using them against the wall/ceiling as surrounds in my HT.

<A HREF="http://users.d-web.com/dbrown/db1661/db1661.htm">http://users.d-web.com/dbrown/db1661/db1661.htm</A>

You might also look at how I came up with the basic design here:

<A HREF="http://users.d-web.com/dbrown/htdesign/htdesign.htm">http://users.d-web.com/dbrown/htdesign/htdesign.htm</A>

Generally surrounds can be small because the bass response down to 80 Hz or 100 Hz is definitely sufficient in a HT system with bass management set to cross at those frequencies. Also, placement at the wall/ceiling intersection increases bass. Whether to do dipole operation or not depends on the soundtrack and that's why I went with a dipole/bipole switchable design. (But don't put the switch on the back like I did -- doh!)

Dave

[Bruce]

Check out these small, but good looking speakers that John Krutke designed for surround use.

<A HREF="http://www.zaphaudio.com/audio-speaker20a.html">http://www.zaphaudio.com/audio-speaker20a.html</A>

He uses Dayton ND20TB-4 tweeters which clock in at $5 each, and the Aurasound NS3-193's at $19.50 a pop. He tested a lot of drivers before selecting these as the best for this purpose.

Good luck!