The 3CR-AL's

[patrickm]

Special thanks to Wolf for his help with these - they use the NLA Tang Band W4-657SH extended-range aluminum cone driver in a similar enclosure to the 3CR-Ti's with the W4-1337 he designed. I tweaked the order of the ports a little so that one small chamber was effectively smaller than the other by probably a little larger margin than Wolf's, but they work well.

Please see redesigned filters in the last post.

[patrickm]

and a few more shots. those are some custom Cyburgs Needles using the B3N and Zaph's notch filter and BSC filters next to the 3CR's, stained to match some furniture in a different room in my parents' house

[Pete00t]

Nice work on those speakers.
Your cabs show those drivers off great.
Your build goes hand in hand with my thread about Fave single driver speaker. If you have tried them out, please tell us your feelings about them

[patrickm]

The 3CR's are good on-axis, but the top end isn't perfect, and because it's a 4" driver, it tends to tail off when you get further off-axis. i'd also bet money the W4-1337's are better overall drivers.


they definitely play louder than the needles, but the needles are still the most impressive overall full-range design i've built, if for no other reason than the low end you get out of a $11 3" driver. they do better off-axis, but the volume limitation is significant. Zaph did a review of the B3N (B3S, but it's essentially the same) as a fullrange, and was pretty favorable within its limitations. this cabinet design is intended to push those limits a little further.

[Taterworks]

I'll bet those 3CR-Al's would sound much better if they were on a set of stands, whether built or bought, to get the drivers to ear level. I hate to see it when the maximum enjoyment isn't being had from a good set of speakers because of improper placement.

[patrickm]

I'll bet those 3CR-Al's would sound much better if they were on a set of stands, whether built or bought, to get the drivers to ear level. I hate to see it when the maximum enjoyment isn't being had from a good set of speakers because of improper placement.

actually, they are (that picture is a year old, when i dropped them off to my father), but you're absolutely right, getting close to on-axis makes a huge difference with 4" fullrange's. they actually lived inside that cabinet next to the tv until it was moved too close to the wall and one of the doors wouldn't open all the way, then they got stands because my dad hated opening and closing the doors anyhow.

EDIT: now that my measurement gear is up and running, i've made some improvements to the filters. one was a tweak to the inductor in the original filter particular to my set of drivers (which seemed to have a slightly higher breakup than the other set), and then i added a second parallel notch filter to contour the midrange a bit better. it's basically a .30mH inductor unwound to fit the 33uF electrolytic cap's actual value and a 16-ohm resistor.

new sim, filter, and FR measurements on-axis and slightly off-axis, which shows that getting the awful peak near 10khz down 8db was good enough if you're even 10° off-axis. since these are NLA drivers, i didn't make this a new post. please ignore the absolute dB levels, but they're correct in a relative sense. when you add 70db, they match up fairly well w/ the model.

[Thezeek]

Cool looking stuff.

[patrickm]

take 2. these were actually built a year and a half ago with the original pair, and tweaked and finished as a Christmas gift this year. the improved filter above (which replaced the old one) is a plus.

[Wolf]

take 2. these were actually built a year and a half ago with the original pair, and tweaked and finished as a Christmas gift this year. the improved filter above (which replaced the old one) is a plus.

That does look a lot nicer than unfinished!

I hope the recipients like 'em!
Later,
Wolf