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Hey guys, thought I would share my speaker latest project. Many years ago I built a pair of bookshelf speakers using a HiVi W6 woofer and Vifa DX25TG. They sounded great and I used them for many years, until the voice coil on the W6 began rubbing producing some pretty funky sounds. I lived with it for a while but finally gave in and said it's time for a remake! The enclosures were pretty solid, I felt like I didn't need to mess with the cabinets too much, so I went about just selecting some new drivers to drop into the existing locations and I ended up with an RS180/RT1.3WE pair that sound great. I thought it would be a tough match initially, but was able to push the RS180 all the up to 2.8 kHz with a 24 dB/octave slope and a small notch filter at ~8 kHz. The RT1.3WE seems happy at 2.8 kHz also with a 24 dB slope and small notch filter around 13 kHz.
I initially designed and built the crossover with a full 6 dB of BSC but then after a few weeks of listening ended up decreasing the amount of BSC to 3.5 dB and am much happier with the results. I think that's the second time I've tried to go full BSC and man, I just can't get on board. Likely mostly due to room placement, the full 6 dB sounded fantastic when they were 3 feet away from the back wall during my initial auditioning and measurements, but in their final location, they sounded dull and bass heavy. It's amazing how much room placement plays into a loudspeaker's sound. Fortunately that's where this hobby is so great, I was able to make the desired tweaks to the crossover to get the speakers to sound just right while in a completely practical room placement scenario.
Anyway, here's some pictures and a couple of measurements with both BSC options. Since this was just a makeover project, I don't have a lot of pics of the cabinet assembly, but I have hundreds of REW plots of the drivers with and without various different crossover options. I played around for a few months with these things before committing to single crossover option, and even then, I couldn't leave it be! It's funny how when you really start to get into measuring your speakers, something I never used to do years ago, it becomes the process that seriously takes the absolute longest. You quickly realize how very small changes in capacitor/inductor/resistor values can cause significant changes in the response and it becomes so hard to just pick the one that you like the best. Fortunately, my ears are less sensitive than my eyes, even though I could measure a change, and see that change in the plots, didn't mean I was able to hear that change even if I was listening for it. But it's still fun to see what can be done. Check 'em out below and let me know what you think.
I initially designed and built the crossover with a full 6 dB of BSC but then after a few weeks of listening ended up decreasing the amount of BSC to 3.5 dB and am much happier with the results. I think that's the second time I've tried to go full BSC and man, I just can't get on board. Likely mostly due to room placement, the full 6 dB sounded fantastic when they were 3 feet away from the back wall during my initial auditioning and measurements, but in their final location, they sounded dull and bass heavy. It's amazing how much room placement plays into a loudspeaker's sound. Fortunately that's where this hobby is so great, I was able to make the desired tweaks to the crossover to get the speakers to sound just right while in a completely practical room placement scenario.
Anyway, here's some pictures and a couple of measurements with both BSC options. Since this was just a makeover project, I don't have a lot of pics of the cabinet assembly, but I have hundreds of REW plots of the drivers with and without various different crossover options. I played around for a few months with these things before committing to single crossover option, and even then, I couldn't leave it be! It's funny how when you really start to get into measuring your speakers, something I never used to do years ago, it becomes the process that seriously takes the absolute longest. You quickly realize how very small changes in capacitor/inductor/resistor values can cause significant changes in the response and it becomes so hard to just pick the one that you like the best. Fortunately, my ears are less sensitive than my eyes, even though I could measure a change, and see that change in the plots, didn't mean I was able to hear that change even if I was listening for it. But it's still fun to see what can be done. Check 'em out below and let me know what you think.
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