Crossover design help for budget surround speaker

[deewan]

I am looking for some help designing a budget minded crossover for some surround speakers. I am currently using mid-level commercial (Paradigm) speakers but after looking at their components, I feel the PE stock 2-way crossover with some $10 drivers would be as good or better.

My requirements are hopefully few and easy. I would like to build a pair of dipole (side surrounds) and mono-pole speakers (rear surrounds). I do not listen to multi-channel music so these will only be used to recreate surround sound during movies. Full range music reproduction is not needed. Anything close to flat freq response is good enough. I am looking at using these drivers:
Peerless India Woofer
Hi-Vi SD1.1 Tweeter

Anything close to flat is great. These speaker will be mounted on the wall. This is a budget project. Actually, more of an experiment for fun just to see what I can build and compare to the commercial speakers. As a reminder, one pair of speakers will have dual woofer and dual tweeter facing in opposite directions while the other pair will have a single woofer and single tweeter.

Anyone up for the challenge and willing to help? If you have other ideas for budget drivers that are easier to work with, I'm open to suggestions. I just took a look for cheap and works well in smaller enclosed cabinets since I don't want anything huge hanging from the wall. Thanks in advance for any and all help.

[Deward Hastings]

Re: Crossover design help for budget surround speaker

If you have other ideas for budget drivers that are easier to work with, I'm open to suggestions.

I'd suggest forgetting that tweeter and using

http://www.parts-express.com/pe/show...&FTR=1053%20sc

instead. Cross 'em at 400-500 Hz. with a simple serial crossover. 70 mf and 2.2 mh should get you in the ballpark. And don't bother with "dipole" for the side surrounds . . .

[deewan]

[Deward Hastings]

Re: Crossover design help for budget surround speaker

With the midrange and no tweeter

It's not a "midrange", it's a "full range" . . . try one and see. Lowering the crossover point makes it possible to use a much simpler (less expensive) crossover without worrying about suppressing woofer breakup . . . and a series crossover makes it easy to substitute other (low cost) woofers with *no* other change.

Dare to be different . . .

[J_Shea]

Re: Crossover design help for budget surround speaker

Wouldn't the off axis response above 3kHz of a 3" driver used as a tweeter be problematic for a rear surround speaker?

[Deward Hastings]

Re: Crossover design help for budget surround speaker

Wouldn't the off axis response above 3kHz of a 3" driver used as a tweeter be problematic for a rear surround speaker?

It depends, of course, on the size of the design listening area and the distance from that area to the rear speaker location, but generally not a problem. At the crossover frequency that you'd want for the HiVi tweeter the woofer would be beaming worse at the top of its range . . .

[Sydney]

Re: Crossover design help for budget surround speaker

Guess I'll ask what the budget is?
At $84.35 The Solen AP-16B amp provides an active option with a 4th order xover @ 2.7Khz.
If that's too much money; I'd start with a simple 2nd order passive @ approx 3K.
I've always desired the option of modification; making my xovers external to facilitate change/listen ( since I have an ample supply of crossover parts ).
I'm not adverse to sophisticated passive crossovers but have found that I can get diminishing returns as complexity rises. Often a "lesser" order was better than a higher order - the simplest 1st order ( when feasible ) better still.

[deewan]

Re: Crossover design help for budget surround speaker

My budget? Well, I don't really have one. But if push came to shove, I would say around $100/pair. Anything above $100/pair I would look into taking an exisiting small 2-way design and throwing them in some shallow cabinets and mounting them on the wall to see what they sounded like.

My current rear speakers are Paradigm Cinema 90's. They have a 3-inch woofer that runs full range and a tweeter with a bass blocker on it to protect it. So anything is an improvement on those.

I agree on simple crossovers. One of my fav designs is a MTM with 5 crossover components and it sounds amazing!

[tom_s]

Re: Crossover design help for budget surround speaker

deewan,

How big can you go with these? The buyout Aura 6" is a pretty good deal. It plays fairly low ported and according to Madisound, a sealed pair would need about .5 cu ft. for an F3 of 90Hz. Those might work with the $6 truncated SB tweeters. And they don't sound like $6 tweeters.;)

If that's too big, I have a design using the ND105-4 and the SB tweeter. An MT comes in at just over $40 - at least until the ND series goes back up to regular price. I used Chris's Nano Neos cabinet design and there is plenty of bass. But since you won't need the low end extension for surrounds, the boxes could be downsized and run sealed at about .1 cu ft/driver, according to PE's woofer selection guide.

Tom

[deewan]

Re: Crossover design help for budget surround speaker

deewan,

How big can you go with these? The buyout Aura 6" is a pretty good deal. It plays fairly low ported and according to Madisound, a sealed pair would need about .5 cu ft. for an F3 of 90Hz. Those might work with the $6 truncated SB tweeters. And they don't sound like $6 tweeters.;)

If that's too big, I have a design using the ND105-4 and the SB tweeter. An MT comes in at just over $40 - at least until the ND series goes back up to regular price. I used Chris's Nano Neos cabinet design and there is plenty of bass. But since you won't need the low end extension for surrounds, the boxes could be downsized and run sealed at about .1 cu ft/driver, according to PE's woofer selection guide.

Tom

Thanks Tom. If I didn't get any good ideas I was thinking of contacting you directly since I know you like to toy around with things like this. This might be the ticket. If you still have my email addy, can you shoot over the xo layout?