How do your speaker designs usually begin?

[Ray Tremblay]

How do your speaker designs usually begin? Just wondering what path you guys take to get to a speaker design idea that you deem worthy to build?

I only need to look at the size of the room and I'm basically done. With active signal processing, I know I can force the drivers to do what I want.

After close to 30 years of being an audio nut and trying a lot of different things in pro, club, car, and home audio, I've developed a very methodical approach. I'm dead set on what is basically a standardized modular system that scales up or down in size based on room dimensions. There is a little bit of flexibility to my approach but I do have three basic requirements that I will not deviate from.

1) The system must be active
(typically 3 way but may require **4 way under certain circumstances**)
2) A MiniDSP 4x10 HD must be the heart of the system
3) Subs in sealed enclosures must be used as the woofers

I prefer to only use high sensitivity mids and tweeters from the Scan Speak Revelator or Ellipticor lines. Scan Speak Revelator subs are the preference. I'm willing to substitute in Satori neodymium tweeters and mids and Dayton Reference series subs to meet a budget constraint. (**Dayton Ultimax subs will be used when a 4 way system is required**) After that, it's all in the tuning. I can easily force the response I want.

This combination of design trade offs allows for a relatively small foot print, full range system that can play silly loud while staying extremely clean and detailed with a level of musical realism that is down right stunning. Bigger rooms get higher sensitivity drivers or multiples of each to reach the required sound pressure levels.