Want to add on to carnival 2's

[Osd]

Hey now.

I have mordant short carnival 2's and want to add on more low end. I really wanna turn these into floorstanding speakers 3 way.

I know the xo point is 3.5k and it is a little harsh (but for 250 bucks I'd be hard pressed to find a better deal even in the DIY world. I'm a carpenter, and even though DIY is less money for materials it still takes time to make em.)

So if I could make the the mid-hi a little less harsh and add 2 6.5 woofers to get more low end I'd be thrilled. I have the skills being a carpenter for 8 years now, but since I gave up car audio (8 years ago) I forgot everything. I used to compete in sound quality and had morel highs and mids as well as 8" woofers for the rest. I couldn't put a speaker combo together for the life of me now.

So any help is appreciated.

[alphaiii]

It might be worthwhile to see to check out this thread:
http://forums.audioholics.com/forums...tml#post812874

Cambridge and Mordaunt are owned by the same parent company, and the Carnival and S-series speakers look more than just a little familiar. I know the S30 specs say it's a 4.5" woofer, but I had the S30 in my house, and the actual woofer is larger than that. I wouldn't be surprised if the S30 and Carnival 2 share the same insides.... but I'm just speculating.

Perhaps Dennis would be willing to share his xover revision of the S30 if it turns out the Carnival 2 and S30 share the same xover/drivers (maybe send him a pic of the xover).

So that may address the mid-hi issues... For adding low end, maybe add a small DIY sub?

[fbov]

If you "want to add on more low end," I think you'll be better served by adding a subwoofer or two.

If you want to "make the the mid-hi a little less harsh" I think you should consider building a proven design.

Why?

I have a nice little TM like yours, and while they have a wonderful sound, they roll off at 100Hz, and I suspect yours would as well if not for the ported alignment. Adding a subwoofer fills in the low end perfectly, while allowing for room placement to be optimized for bass reproduction. No need for a high pass on the speaker, I just use it's natural roll-off, and adjust the sub's low pass accordingly.

To make your 2-way into a 3-way, you would need a completely new XO design. Tweeter high pass might be similar, but the other three filters will be unique designs. These days, that means you measure impedence and frequency response and use a crossover simulator to design the circuit - easier to see what you're getting but still non-trivial.

That "harshness" is likely a sign of harmonic distortion, potentially from a good tweeter that's crossed too low, or a poor quality tweeter. To address the harshness, you'll want to use low distortion drivers within their preferred operating range.

And those are two things (quality drivers used within their operating range) that you'll find in just about every proven design out there. Let's see if anyone else chimes in...

Have fun,
Frank

PS Then again, if you can get someone like Dennis Murphy to redesign an XO for you, the results are likely to be good on the harshness end. Note that he increases tweeter crossing frequency, and increases the XO slope. Tweeters typically have lots of distortion down low, and both of these changes address that.

[alphaiii]

PS Then again, if you can get someone like Dennis Murphy to redesign an XO for you, the results are likely to be good on the harshness end. Note that he increases tweeter crossing frequency, and increases the XO slope. Tweeters typically have lots of distortion down low, and both of these changes address that.

Increasing the xover slope also dealt with the woofer breakup that was adding to the tweeter's output to cause peakiness in the treble region.