The Super Bees - Garage two way build

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  • KEtheredge87
    Seasoned Veteran
    • Jan 2015
    • 1049

    The Super Bees - Garage two way build

    Hi Guys,

    This build is my first original speaker design, and is intended for me to really learn and apply some crossover knowledge. I've got a head start since the boxes were pre-assembled door prizes with blank baffles from InDIYana 2017. I decided to use the HiVi L6-4R woofer and Dayton ND25FW-4 waveguide soft dome tweeter after doing some crossover simulations in PCD and seeing that I could achieve what I think will be good results from relatively modest XO parts in 2nd order LR filters. This project has also been a convenient way to start learning Autodesk Fusion 360 CAD software, which I'm finding is more full featured than google's sketchup.

    I've been working on these here and there, and wasn't totally sure when to start this thread, so I figured now is as good a time as any. I'll try to post meaningful pictures over the next few entries to catch everyone up. At a high level, here's where we're at:

    1) Naming them the Super Bees after the Dodge muscle car of the 70's. I like the name, and the super bee logo... and these are garage speakers, so naming them after cars only made sense!
    1a) This leaves me open to re-use an Ultimax-15 driver for a garage sub, name it the Rumble Bee, and then have the whole project called the Scat Pack!

    2) Bassbox predicts Fb=51.9 Hz / F3 = 56.5 Hz with a 4.75" long x 1.728" ID round port with internal and external flares.

    3) DATS measurement shows Fb is actually 45 Hz, so I'm clearly off in BassBox somewhere.

    4) Woofer LP target is 2nd order LR @ 2200 Hz, Tweeter HP target is 2nd order LR @ 2500 Hz

    My next steps are to take frequency response measurements of the woofer and tweeter in the cabinet with my Omnimic and follow Jeff Bagby's approach to combining nearfield and farfield responses to get quasi-anechoic frequency responses for crossover design. I currently have a 10 conductor - 18AWG wire divided up between the woofer and tweeter (3 wires + and - for woofer, 2 wires + and - for tweeter) so I can hook up only the drivers I want at any given moment.

    OK, enough of my jabbering for a while. Here's some pictures of where we are, and a rendering of what I hope it looks like when I'm done!

    Click image for larger version

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    Voxel Down Firing with Dayton SA70
    Translam Subwoofers - The Jedi Mind Tricks
    The Super Bees - Garage 2 way
    SevenSixTwo - InDIYana 2018 Coax
    The Defiants - InDIYana 2019 "Bare Minimum" Build
  • KEtheredge87
    Seasoned Veteran
    • Jan 2015
    • 1049

    #2
    Here's a few more details around what BassBox thinks is going on vs DATS impedance sweeps. Not sure why my real measured Fb in DATS vs BassBox prediction is much lower, but I think I'm OK with an FB of 45Hz.

    Click image for larger version

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    Voxel Down Firing with Dayton SA70
    Translam Subwoofers - The Jedi Mind Tricks
    The Super Bees - Garage 2 way
    SevenSixTwo - InDIYana 2018 Coax
    The Defiants - InDIYana 2019 "Bare Minimum" Build

    Comment

    • KEtheredge87
      Seasoned Veteran
      • Jan 2015
      • 1049

      #3
      Last post for the night, more complete simulated XO details. Once I get the real FRD and ZMA files for these drivers in this cabinet, I'll repeat this exercise and see where I land. If anyone spots any "watch-outs" in these plots, please let me know!

      Click image for larger version

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      Voxel Down Firing with Dayton SA70
      Translam Subwoofers - The Jedi Mind Tricks
      The Super Bees - Garage 2 way
      SevenSixTwo - InDIYana 2018 Coax
      The Defiants - InDIYana 2019 "Bare Minimum" Build

      Comment

      • Kevin K.
        Seasoned Veteran
        • Sep 2014
        • 1872

        #4
        I like the Super Bee scheme. Have always been a huge Mopar muscle car fanatic myself, favorite being the legendary Hemi Cuda.

        What port are you using? Are you sure it's 1.728" ID? Is it a tapered port? What setting did you use in BassBox for the damping? Based on the picture of your lining, you should be using "typical" for damping. That's a couple of things that might be impacting your tuning. Could just be BassBox itself, I've had trouble with it's length suggestions in the past and had to adjust to reach desired Fb.
        My "No-Name" CC Speaker
        Kerry's "Silverbacks"
        Ben's Synchaeta's for Mom
        The Archers
        Rick's "db" Desktop CBT Arrays
        The Gandalf's

        Comment

        • jhollander
          Seasoned Veteran
          • Oct 2006
          • 5261

          #5
          As along as you are practicing you might see if you can flatten the FR above above 15K with a smaller series resistor while keeping the impedance above 4 ohms. If these were real FR's I'd built it
          John H

          Synergy Horn, SLS-85, BMR-3L, Mini-TL, BR-2, Titan OB, B452, Udique, Vultus, Latus1, Seriatim, Aperivox,Pencil Tower

          Comment

          • scottvalentin
            Senior Member
            • Jul 2015
            • 582

            #6
            Great theme and nice rendering. The sim looks pretty good! You mentioned Jeff's paper on quasi anechoic but also take a look for his method on setting up the z-offset if you haven't already.

            Keep the posts coming!

            Comment

            • blue934
              Senior Member
              • May 2008
              • 631

              #7
              OK, even coming from a Chevy guy..... this is ALL KINDS of cool!!!

              David

              Comment

              • wogg
                Seasoned Veteran
                • Nov 2015
                • 1967

                #8
                Nice job! Looking forward to see how the real measurements compare.
                Electronics engineer, woofer enthusiast, and musician.
                Wogg Music
                Published projects: PPA100 Bass Guitar Amp, ISO El-Cheapo Sub, Indy 8 2.1 powered sub, MicroSat, SuperNova Minimus

                Comment

                • KEtheredge87
                  Seasoned Veteran
                  • Jan 2015
                  • 1049

                  #9
                  Originally posted by Kevin K.
                  I like the Super Bee scheme. Have always been a huge Mopar muscle car fanatic myself, favorite being the legendary Hemi Cuda.

                  What port are you using? Are you sure it's 1.728" ID? Is it a tapered port? What setting did you use in BassBox for the damping? Based on the picture of your lining, you should be using "typical" for damping. That's a couple of things that might be impacting your tuning. Could just be BassBox itself, I've had trouble with it's length suggestions in the past and had to adjust to reach desired Fb.

                  Hey Kevin, I agree the 'Cuda is fantastic. Maybe some day I'll own one (If I ever quit spending money on speakers...hah!) The port I'm using is actually a couple of modified Goldwood 1.5" x 4" ports that I had left over from the Voxel project I did last winter. Since these boxes were premade, there really wasnt an easy option for flush trimming any PVC ports unless I stuck them forward firing, and I used all my real estate on the front for drivers. If you look at those ports, they are actually a bit tapered. Might be hard to tell by internet photos alone, but the vernier calipers don't lie. I measured the ports with calipers and modeled them in Fusion 360 as well, then made a combined version to determine what my minimum ID would be after cutting two ports down equally and butting them together. I made some drawings of each to help detail the idea a bit more. That's where my oddly specific 1.728" ID came from.

                  As for BassBox, I'm using "typical" as the damping setting, and 1.728 inch as my vent diameter (Dv) and 4.75 inch as my length (Lv). I have the vent cross section set to "round", so I wonder if the port having a slight taper may be messing with the calculation. Additionally, I never did fully grasp port length when including flares. Was this supposed to subtract from your assumed port length? or add to it? May need to study the bassbox help files to understand the assumptions better.

                  As always, thanks for following along!
                  Attached Files
                  Voxel Down Firing with Dayton SA70
                  Translam Subwoofers - The Jedi Mind Tricks
                  The Super Bees - Garage 2 way
                  SevenSixTwo - InDIYana 2018 Coax
                  The Defiants - InDIYana 2019 "Bare Minimum" Build

                  Comment

                  • KEtheredge87
                    Seasoned Veteran
                    • Jan 2015
                    • 1049

                    #10
                    Originally posted by jhollander
                    As along as you are practicing you might see if you can flatten the FR above above 15K with a smaller series resistor while keeping the impedance above 4 ohms. If these were real FR's I'd built it
                    Thanks John! I'll give that a go later today after I finish the honey-do list. Means a lot hearing you say you'd build it!

                    Originally posted by scottvalentin
                    Great theme and nice rendering. The sim looks pretty good! You mentioned Jeff's paper on quasi anechoic but also take a look for his method on setting up the z-offset if you haven't already.

                    Keep the posts coming!
                    Hey Scott! Thanks for the compliments I am definitely considering z-offset here. Omnimic has some built-in functions to measure z-offset that I believe are based on Jeff's methods. I'll be using that information along with the quasi-anechoic measurements to give myself the total picture going into the crossover design with real frequency responses.

                    Originally posted by blue934
                    OK, even coming from a Chevy guy..... this is ALL KINDS of cool!!!
                    Thanks David! I consider myself an appreciator of all historic muscle. Although I currently drive a RAM 1500, so I guess that puts me in Team MOPAR whether intentionally or not

                    Originally posted by wogg
                    Nice job! Looking forward to see how the real measurements compare.
                    Thanks wogg, I'm looking forward to that as well. Might take me a few days to fumble through Jeff's methods, so we'll see when I can file the full report! I always take my time when reading through a new method. Gotta get it right so I don't waste time and money later!

                    Overall, thanks to everyone who's commented so far. I'll do my best to keep updated progress listed here. Maybe I'll send the wife and dog out on some errands soon so I can keep the house quiet for some measurements!

                    Oh... and one question on that topic. My "speaker stand" is currently my living room left channel tower. Should I worry about that when doing frequency response measurements, or is that too much to worry about? Eventually these speakers will be sitting on a workbench or shelf anyhow, so having a ground plane of sorts near the speakers is probably more realistic.

                    Again, Thanks all!
                    Keith
                    Voxel Down Firing with Dayton SA70
                    Translam Subwoofers - The Jedi Mind Tricks
                    The Super Bees - Garage 2 way
                    SevenSixTwo - InDIYana 2018 Coax
                    The Defiants - InDIYana 2019 "Bare Minimum" Build

                    Comment

                    • tom_s
                      Seasoned Veteran
                      • Nov 2005
                      • 1581

                      #11
                      Looking good! These are almost too nice to be garage speakers. I would try to pull the 6-8K range down a few dB, but that's just my personal aversion to sibilance. How's your electrical phase looking? I haven't quite figured out how to manipulate that aspect of a design.
                      Co-conspirator in the development of the "CR Gnarly Fidelity Reduction Unit" - Registered Trademark, Patent Pending.

                      Comment

                      • Millstonemike
                        Seasoned Veteran
                        • Nov 2012
                        • 3228

                        #12
                        Originally posted by tom_s
                        Looking good! These are almost too nice to be garage speakers.
                        +1

                        Comment

                        • KEtheredge87
                          Seasoned Veteran
                          • Jan 2015
                          • 1049

                          #13
                          Originally posted by tom_s
                          Looking good! These are almost too nice to be garage speakers. I would try to pull the 6-8K range down a few dB, but that's just my personal aversion to sibilance. How's your electrical phase looking? I haven't quite figured out how to manipulate that aspect of a design.
                          Thanks Tom and Mike!

                          will probably try to relax the frequency response through the mid-high registers a bit more in the final version. I tinkered with these values a lot before arriving at the current XO model. I figured this was good enough for a simulation and proof positive that good things could be done with this combination.

                          As for the electrical phase, the simulation shows me being in excellent phase alignment at 1826 Hz, where the actual Fc looks to be ~2400 Hz. As far as I understand things, this is a perfect phase alignment, but I'm not sure about how far the point of phase alignment should be from the Fc frequency. Do you guys have rules of thumb on that point? I know everything is a compromise somewhere, just trying to understand what's the least troublesome compromise to make. As far as manipulating the electrical phase during designs, I don't really know what I'm doing, I just made sure to turn on the phase lines in the graphs and observe what happened as I pushed values of components up or down. I know the design goal is to make phase agree as best as possible, so that's what I tried to do.

                          Click image for larger version

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                          Attached Files
                          Voxel Down Firing with Dayton SA70
                          Translam Subwoofers - The Jedi Mind Tricks
                          The Super Bees - Garage 2 way
                          SevenSixTwo - InDIYana 2018 Coax
                          The Defiants - InDIYana 2019 "Bare Minimum" Build

                          Comment

                          • PWR RYD
                            Seasoned Veteran
                            • Dec 2009
                            • 4749

                            #14
                            Those are going to look bada$$. Glad you decided to move forward with that tweeter. I think you will find its FR is even smoother when measured on the actual baffle. I always use 1/24th octave smoothing with my OmniMic.

                            Tom was asking to see the electrical (impedance) phase plot. On that you don't want to have wild phase swings. Rule of thumb is keeping the electrical phase between + and - 30 degrees, but I've broken that rule a bit ;)
                            Craig

                            I drive way too fast to worry about cholesterol.

                            Comment

                            • PWR RYD
                              Seasoned Veteran
                              • Dec 2009
                              • 4749

                              #15
                              And to expand a bit on what John was saying about lifting the FR above 15kHz... you could try placing a small value cap in parallel with your 5.1 ohm padding resistor. Try 1 uF and go up and down to see the effects.
                              Last edited by PWR RYD; 09-03-2017, 07:40 AM. Reason: Typo
                              Craig

                              I drive way too fast to worry about cholesterol.

                              Comment

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