Minions III and Minions II

[Leroy R]

The current version of the Minions is III. It uses a driver regularly stocked by PE. The driver for the Minions III is the Tang Band W3-1053SC 3" Full Range Driver. The driver runs full range, there is no crossover.

http://www.parts-express.com/tang-ba...river--264-880

Unlike the original Minions and the Minions II, I chose a regularly stocked driver that is virtually identical to the Minions II driver except for the color of the cone.
The Minions II used this driver, which was a buyout driver and is no longer available.

http://www.parts-express.com/tang-ba...eaker--299-113

The Minions III and The Minions II are identical except for the driver replacement.

I typically build them into a 4" internal dimension cube using 1/4" mdf, but have also made 4.25" internal dimension cubes and 4.5" internal dimension cubes. The larger cubes seem to give a minute amount of extended low end, but my goal was small and inexpensive so the majority of the cubes I have built were 4" internal dimensions.

Using 1/4" mdf these are panel dimensions for the 4" internal dimension enclosures

Back 4" x 4"
Sides 4" x 4.25"
Top/Bottom 4.25" x 4.5"
Baffle 4.5" x 4.5"

The round overs on all the edges are 3/8".


These pictures will give you an idea how much polyfil to use in each cube:





The only other picture I have of The Minions III it is a 4.25" internal dimension cube


Some pics of The Minions II

This hammered bronze speaker is the only one I made with 4.5" internal dimensions:





The remaining pics are 4" internal dimension cubes:







This picture shows an original Minion (the smallest cube) adjacent to my original 4" and 4.5" internal dimension cubes for the Minions II and III.



I'll leave it to you if you want to go for the smaller size of the 4" internal dimension cubes or if you want to try to squeeze out a few more low end Hz with the larger cubes.

I hope this helps those who have been struggling to find this information in the original Minions threads. I hope you like them.

[Beau]

Re: Minions III and Minions II

Thank you.

[Thucker]

Re: Minions III and Minions II

Thank you. I'll probably build a set of these to replace the set of Bose that we currently have in the living room. Do you happen to have any measurements for the Minion III?

[Leroy R]

Re: Minions III and Minions II

Sorry, no measurements available

[kenrhodes]

Re: Minions III and Minions II

Thanks, I have a few buyouts left that will find a new home.

[Leroy R]

Re: Minions III and Minions II

Looks like there are a few members around the Grand Rapids area. Perhaps we should all meet somewhere next time I get up there.

[bkeane1259]

Re: Minions III and Minions II

Thank you. I'll probably build a set of these to replace the set of Bose that we currently have in the living room. Do you happen to have any measurements for the Minion III?

LOL....Leroy has no measurements and Bose never did. If I was a betting man though..........:rolleyes:

[patrickm]

Re: Minions III and Minions II

The current version of the Minions is III. It uses a driver regularly stocked by PE. The driver for the Minions III is the Tang Band W3-1053SC 3" Full Range Driver. The driver runs full range, there is no crossover.

good stuff. have you thought about trying a few db BSC circuit? it would only add about $10 a pair, be easy to construct, but could improve the perception of the low end... an RL (3-4 ohm resistor & .4-.5 mH coil in parallel) in series with the + lead would be around 3db. might be worth a try if you have the parts sitting around, at least as an option for folks building these.

btw, those blue sophomores look pretty neat... i have some blue metallic spraypaint around, may have to give that a try on my next overnight sensations gift build.

[Thucker]

Re: Minions III and Minions II

LOL....Leroy has no measurements and Bose never did. If I was a betting man though..........:rolleyes:

LOL!! It would of been a nice to have, but I will still gladly build them without measurement. I've seen measurements of the Bose system and ................................................:e ek::eek:

[Leroy R]

Re: Minions III and Minions II

If I had the means to take measurements I would. That was the point of using a full range driver. I wouldn't want to try to make any kind of filter without measurements. I can use my woofer tester to get the measurements it gives, but can't do FR measurements. Until this last weekend it had just been a matter of I and everyone I have made them for love them. This last weekend was the first time they have been compared to any other similar single driver build. I honestly expected to like the other two designs better, because they are by two designers I have a great deal of respect for and have a great deal more experience than I have. If anything, Kevin should have been biased toward the other two designs, because they were his builds, but we both preferred listening to the Minion IIIs. They only had slightly less low end extension than the other two builds. Paired with a sub crossed at 100Hz that becomes a non issue. If I get an opportunity to measure them in the future I will see if there is any need to do anything that can improve on them. Until then, they are the fun relatively inexpensive project that sounds surprisingly good for what they are that I have always said they are. I can't claim that they have a flatter response than the other two builds, because I don't know. I can say that to Kevin and I vocals are more clearly understandable and cymbals and other mid and high end detail sound more like the instruments they are and could be heard; whereas they didn't to us in the other two designs. I feel like I just got lucky with the drivers that I have selected and the box volume calculator that I used to determine the size of the box and I just played with the stuffing until I liked what I heard.

[Leroy R]

Re: Minions III and Minions II

For those that don't mind a bit larger ported enclosure and adding a notch filter, it looks like Brian Powers already designed a full range speaker using this driver a couple years ago. Here's the link for those who would prefer to build that speaker. I'll have to build a pair myself after the new year to see how they compare. Thanks to Wolf for pointing this out, before I tried to come up with a ported version of the Minion IIIs.

http://techtalk.parts-express.com/sh...1053-fullrange

[patrickm]

Re: Minions III and Minions II

preliminary measurements are now here

[ejh2854]

Re: Minions III and Minions II

Leroy,

Just built a pair of your IIIs for surrounds in our smallish (12' x 13', 8' ceiling) exercise room... flown in the upper-rear corners of the room, set as 'small' in the AVR they're just perfect for the task.

These are 5" external, with 1/2" MDF front/back (1/4" elsewhere) and stuffed with recycled-denim insulation... they sound great on their own, and surprisingly room-filling with the subs turned on.

Have another pair of the W3-1053SCs here, and was thinking of using them on my desktop... these worked so well though, it's tempting to squirrel them away somewhere in the den as front-wides or front-highs to support SWMBO's much-beloved (i.e., matches decor, but woefully inadequate) soundbar ;)

.

[Leroy R]

Re: Minions III and Minions II

Glad you like them. I've wondered how they would work in that roll. Pictures?

[ejh2854]

Re: Minions III and Minions II

Glad you like them. I've wondered how they would work in that roll. Pictures?

Even the wife likes 'em, and that's saying something ;)

Honestly, their response seems to work very well for this purpose... airy, enveloping 'atmospherics' for diverse soundtracks like Avatar, and enough guts to handle off-camera shouts/clashing of battle scenes on Robin Hood (this version: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0955308/).

I'm running them with my Fusion4 Quad4 pair up front, along with an old-tech (and soon to be Fusion4 Quad4) center off a very modest Denon 1513 AVR... subs are two Anarchy tapped horns. At the moment they're wired 1:1, no BSC/filtering.





Finish is gloss-white latex trim paint, not maxed-out smooth but enough to have a little shine:



Mounts are Sanus from PE http://www.parts-express.com/sanus-w...white--240-832 which work well enough, but I could have perhaps found something slightly more compact.

Enjoying them!

Ed

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