Brainstorming a driver config for a *very* cheap 10" 3-way retrofit

[johnnyrichards]

You may be surprised at those Apex tweeters.

[jim85iroc]

I hope so. What little I could find about them online was all positive.

[jim85iroc]

After a few more coats of bondo and glazing putty the cabinets were ready for the new vinyl wrap. This was some cheap stuff that I picked up on Amazon for $8/roll. It's Waaaaaay thinner than the wood grain vinyl that I used from PE in the past. Overall it's going ok, but I have some serious concerns about how durable this stuff will be. Hopefully tomorrow I'll get it wrapped around to the front side.

[jim85iroc]

First cabinet is wrapped. This vinyl definitely isn't as nice as the stuff PE used to sell under the Dayton brand.

[tomzarbo]

That looks fairly complicated with the angles at the front. It came out remarkably good looking, though.
You must have taken your time and not had too much coffee? I can see me getting a little frustrated with it if I were doing that. I've done vinyl a few times and didn't feel I had the knack for it.

TomZ

[jim85iroc]

I've wrapped enough car audio enclosures in my day that I'm pretty familiar with the process, although this stuff is a lot different than the thick upholstery style vinyl that we used in car installations. This crap is essentially just contact paper.

[jim85iroc]

1 pair of monkey coffins all wrapped, almost ready for drivers. I just need to enlarge the tweeter openings for the Apex tweeters to fit.

[djg]

These came out really nice.

[jim85iroc]

This vinyl sucks. Some of my edges aren't staying down and some of the vinyl around the front chamfers is lifting. One speaker already had the vinyl on the bottom tear from sliding a few inches on the floor. I miss the stuff that PE used to sell.

Anyway, today I got the tweeter holes enlarged, I plugged the screw holes for the midrange and drilled the new ones, I installed foam in the midrange cavity and I got the drivers installed into one cabinet. Now I need to get my Soundeasy test jig built so I can start my measurements.

For the tweeter cutout, I used a 3" hole saw along with an MDF guide.



worked perfect.


they still aren't much to look at.


As ugly as they are, they're looking better than they started.

[jim85iroc]

Today I finished my Soundeasy test box. Hopefully soon I'll be able to start taking measurements!

[chrisn]

Looks good!

[jim85iroc]

This afternoon I had time to finally go through the soundeasy documentation and bulldoze my way through some measurements. I'm running v17, but my manual is for v12, and I'm not sure what version John K used for his tutorial, but it's quite different from my version too. It's been a challenge, but I'm getting measurements. I measured one of my original speakers (that beauty of a frequency response is on the laptop screen) as well as all of the new drivers in the other cabinet. I'll retake them after I get it more dialed in, then start figuring out how to get my phase data reliable.

But check out that stock frequency response.

[rpb]

You need to get the speaker, and the mic about 4' from anything that can reflect sound.

[jim85iroc]

yeah. I raised the speaker up after this picture and was able to watch the broad hump around 1k disappear from my measurements, but I'm still too close to the back wall. I need to partially re-arrange the room to get good measurements, so for now I'm just doing it this way to get my head wrapped around the software.