Built the Caritas speakers, ran into problem. sounds... bad.

[arrayed]

Ok, I have completed a pair of the Caritas speakers, front slot-ported, size very similar to what instructions call for and tuning similar/same. I fired em up, and the mids are really really chesty and bloated. Male voices are especially bad- it is hard to listen to at any volume.

I have heard cheapy bookshelf speakers and built little NS3 ported speakers, and they are usually great sooth sounding builds. This set just sounds wrong.

I tried stuffing it heavily, to no avail. I mean, PACKED with polyfill, eggcrate foam, etc... packed. There is still a lot of midrange energy. The cone and the whole box seem to vibrate with anything from 100-200hz...

Haven't measured them. What do you guys think?

I DID make a change in the crossover to the woofer shunt. I removed the 8uf NPE cap and replaced it with a 6.8uf in parallel with other .33uf caps to make a total of 8uf. I am wondering if something is wrong at that level possibly? Maybe my solder job was shoddy and I only have a fraction of the uf needed. Could that cause midrange ceaziness?

-arrayed

[critofur]

Re: Built the Caritas speakers, ran into problem. sounds... bad.

Have any measurement gear?

Where are you located?

[bullittstang]

Re: Built the Caritas speakers, ran into problem. sounds... bad.

Have a picture of your XO build with the connections notated? Sounds like you might have a issue with the XO connections.

[arrayed]

Re: Built the Caritas speakers, ran into problem. sounds... bad.

Thanks guys- Located in Washington State. Some very basic measuring gear- a basic mic that actually measures up to about 10khz. Hard to do but I may have to set it up and post something.

I could put a pic of the xover up, but it is a commercial design so I am not sure if I can do that.

Besides the midrange issue, the bass is there and the tweets are doing their thing... good sound otherwise.

Am I allowed to post a crossover diagram from a commercial kit from Meniscus?

[JRS]

Re: Built the Caritas speakers, ran into problem. sounds... bad.

Have just run it(the woofer) straight from the amp bypassing the woofer XO entirely. I'd do that and both in and out of the cabinet if necessary low volumes of course) to help narrow down the problems.

[Pete Schumacher]

Re: Built the Caritas speakers, ran into problem. sounds... bad.

There is still a lot of midrange energy. The cone and the whole box seem to vibrate with anything from 100-200hz...

If the whole box is vibrating, you have a problem. Add a LOT more bracing and add some mass damping to the walls. A well designed enclosure should be very "quiet" when the woofers are cranking. If the box is vibrating it is acting like another driver and creating peaks and valleys in the response.

A great speaker not only has a good crossover and drivers, but a very solid and inert enclosure.

[arrayed]

Re: Built the Caritas speakers, ran into problem. sounds... bad.

If the whole box is vibrating, you have a problem. Add a LOT more bracing and add some mass damping to the walls. A well designed enclosure should be very "quiet" when the woofers are cranking. If the box is vibrating it is acting like another driver and creating peaks and valleys in the response.

A great speaker not only has a good crossover and drivers, but a very solid and inert enclosure.

Its hard to describe, but it let me just say these speakers shouldn't be capable of making the whole thing buzz. the box is 3/4 mdf, solidly built, braced front to back and side to side.

It sounds ok out of the box, but as i hold the driver over the opening of the box, it starts sounding chesty and boomy, and really bad. I set the driver into the whole, sealed, and its just bad sounding. sounds like a speaker alright, but a super cheap, just bad sound. Must have a problem with the crossover. Stuffing definitely helps though... the kit just came w a dacron sheet. I have needed so much more, it must be a crossover thing.


downloading arta now, trying to get a measurement. thanks for the help guys

[Jay1]

Re: Built the Caritas speakers, ran into problem. sounds... bad.

Do you have some kind of gasket between the driver frame and the box?

[JRS]

Re: Built the Caritas speakers, ran into problem. sounds... bad.

Its hard to describe, but it let me just say these speakers shouldn't be capable of making the whole thing buzz. the box is 3/4 mdf, solidly built, braced front to back and side to side.

It sounds ok out of the box, but as i hold the driver over the opening of the box, it starts sounding chesty and boomy, and really bad. I set the driver into the whole, sealed, and its just bad sounding. sounds like a speaker alright, but a super cheap, just bad sound. Must have a problem with the crossover. Stuffing definitely helps though... the kit just came w a dacron sheet. I have needed so much more, it must be a crossover thing.


downloading arta now, trying to get a measurement. thanks for the help guys

I tend to agree which is why I suggested running wires straight from amp to terminals to see if the excitation persists. But ARTA is fine. WE can then see what you're hearing. And by the way I think what you're hearing as the woofer gets close to the box is the cavity resonance. In my limited experience sometimes telegraghs how the driver will sound in the box. But that may be naive.

[arrayed]

Re: Built the Caritas speakers, ran into problem. sounds... bad.

ok! got ARTA for everyone. alright...

the two lines are measurements of right and left speaker.

and yes i agree with the comment about cavity resonance.

edit: yes woofer sealed with gasket tape

[Chris Roemer]

Re: Built the Caritas speakers, ran into problem. sounds... bad.

Tell us more about the box. Looks like you've got 0.57cf tuned to 44Hz.
I can't find the recommended box specs anywhere.

[arrayed]

Re: Built the Caritas speakers, ran into problem. sounds... bad.

thanks Mr Roemer- Box is supposed to be 897.75 cu inches. tune supposed to be a round vent 1-7/8"x5-5/8" long. that box size is not accounting for the round port volume. so actually a bit smaller inside.

I made my box 910 cu inches, not counting the port wall/volume. the port is a slot port at the base of the speaker. the port is 5/8" tall, 7" wide, and about 10" deep, but the back wall of the enclosure makes sort of extends the port to closer to 11. I was shooting for 40 ish hertz territory for the tune.

my actual internal dimensions, if you treat the top of my slot port as a wall, are 13 x 7 x 10. if you count the bottom of the speaker as the bottom wall, and not the port, then it would be abotu 14.5 x 7 x 10.

I messed with eq settings of foobar and these speakers are sounding really good with heavy eq. here is an example.

[JRS]

Re: Built the Caritas speakers, ran into problem. sounds... bad.

That does look better. No real insight here as its obvious that there is a 10+dB mismatch between woofers and tweeters. I would like to know how the msmts were made originally that you showed. Its almost as if there is backwards baffle step compensation. No idea why that would be so without the XO. I'm new here but I have seen kit XO's pictured or sketched leaving out exact values side by side with the elements and point to point wiring. Anybody else have a better idea? Obviously there is a level mismatch that I don't see as being an alignment issue or leak. Thoughts?

BTW: how are the msmts being taken--well away from room surfaces with mic 1 -2 meters out a gated MLSSA or swept sign input.

[JRS]

Re: Built the Caritas speakers, ran into problem. sounds... bad.

thanks Mr Roemer- Box is supposed to be 897.75 cu inches. tune supposed to be a round vent 1-7/8"x5-5/8" long. that box size is not accounting for the round port volume. so actually a bit smaller inside.

I made my box 910 cu inches, not counting the port wall/volume. the port is a slot port at the base of the speaker. the port is 5/8" tall, 7" wide, and about 10" deep, but the back wall of the enclosure makes sort of extends the port to closer to 11. I was shooting for 40 ish hertz territory for the tune.

my actual internal dimensions, if you treat the top of my slot port as a wall, are 13 x 7 x 10. if you count the bottom of the speaker as the bottom wall, and not the port, then it would be abotu 14.5 x 7 x 10.

I messed with eq settings of foobar and these speakers are sounding really good with heavy eq. here is an example. [ATTACH=CONFIG]55768[/ATTACH]

Well thats the best news==this is fixable!

[arrayed]

Re: Built the Caritas speakers, ran into problem. sounds... bad.

i was measuring it on a table 2 ft away. so I remeasured 6 ft away, with a sweep. speaker is on a stool, away from walls etc. much better response- still not great sounding (like the spftware equalizer got it) and sort of bloated etc, but much better graph---->

I know Jeff said these were made for stands. maybe even a table is just too much for these. If that is really the case, I will be forced to redo part of the crossover at the least. I much rather hope it was something I screwed up on with the box or crossover.