DIY Speaker Project PAD

I've always only done proven designs; the Tritrix, the ER18 MTM, and the Statements. Now I'm looking to do a build for my HT system. I'd like a 5.1, and I'm thinking either MTM fronts and center, and MT rears; or MT fronts and rears and a MTM center.

I want to use the HiVi L6-4R woofers, mainly because no one's used them that I know of yet, and the things are just so darn sexy ! As far as the desired finished cabinet size goes, I would like to end up using these on stands and near wall, so smaller would be better.

My first question is, how do you know what size cabinet these drivers will play well in? My background comes from car audio, but figuring that out was easy because the ported or sealed air space was spelled out in the sub's spec sheet.

This is what I've found as far as the cabinet requirements •F3 of 55Hz in 12 liters (0.42cf) enclosure with 1.5" port by 4" long. But I read on PETT that this isn't correct, and I need to add about 3 liters which would bump the ported cabinet up to about 0.5cf enclosure, correct? How did they arrive at those #s??

My second question is, how do you go about picking a tweeter that will work w/ these woofers?

This probably isn't protocal for picking drivers to use in a design (just because they look sexy), but I have to start somewhere! Any suggestions from anyone or direction?

Matt, keep in mind that most people are going to target the lowest possible F3 out of any given driver. I personally feel a 1/2 cubic foot of net volume results in a cabinet that is aesthetically too large for a 6" driver, as well as believing that a low F3 is not the ultimate goal in design work. The 12 liters will be fine.

For a sanity check, mock up a 15 liter cabinet (remembering to take wall thickness, bracing and ports into consideration) out of cardboard and see what you end up with. The results may surprise you.

johnnyrichards wrote:Matt, keep in mind that most people are going to target the lowest possible F3 out of any given driver. I personally feel a 1/2 cubic foot of net volume results in a cabinet that is aesthetically too large for a 6" driver, as well as believing that a low F3 is not the ultimate goal in design work. The 12 liters will be fine.

For a sanity check, mock up a 15 liter cabinet (remembering to take wall thickness, bracing and ports into consideration) out of cardboard and see what you end up with. The results may surprise you.

Thanks Johnny!

Just so I can be sure my math is correct, if I use 3/4" MDF and make the cabinet 8.5w x 8.5d x 17.5 tall outside, I should end up w/ ~.42 liters inside after I account for the bracing, port and the 3/4" thick panels; correct? That actually comes out to .454cf inside, which gives me .034 for the port and bracing. This doesn't account for the woofer itself though, I don't know how much airspace that takes up in the cabinet.

Do you double the airspace if you do a MTM?

Hey Matt, it is necessary to double the internal volume for each doubling of bass drivers. So for a pair, 24 or 25 liters would be a safe bet. At that point, it becomes pretty substantial for a bookshelf designation, and should be considered a full stand-mount at a minimum.

My wife asked me why I was making stand mounts when she loses as much of her living room as if they were towers, said it did not make any sense. So I took that to mean it was ok to start building towers

0.01 cubic feet is probably a safe bet to subtract for the woofer.

johnnyrichards wrote:Hey Matt, it is necessary to double the internal volume for each doubling of bass drivers. So for a pair, 24 or 25 liters would be a safe bet. At that point, it becomes pretty substantial for a bookshelf designation, and should be considered a full stand-mount at a minimum.

My wife asked me why I was making stand mounts when she loses as much of her living room as if they were towers, said it did not make any sense. So I took that to mean it was ok to start building towers

Thanks again. I totally get what your wife is saying. In this application, until I get my basement finished, these will be going on my bookshelf in a less than ideal area. Once the basement gets finished I'll probably wall mount them, so it looks like I'm sticking w/ MT for everything do the size the MTM would end up being. For a center channel, would a pair of HiVi L5-8Rs work in a MTM style cabinet w/ the HiVi L6-4Rs as MT fronts and rears? Those say 0.28cf for a sealed enclosure which would be a respectable size center. One major downside to that plan is that I can't find those woofers anywhere. Maybe Mark or one of the Meniscus guys could chime in on whether or not these are still available?

Now it's off to the drawing board to figure out the cabinet style for these. At this point, should I order a pair of the drivers? Also, how do I go about choosing a tweeter to use w/ these woofers; or to rephrase, how do you know what woofers will play well w/ the different tweeters?

Edit: After reading this http://techtalk.parts-express.com/showt ... igurations, I think I'll do MT fronts, and full range rears w/ the baffles pointing at the ceiling; like Bill F did. The rears are going to be fairly close to the seat in the room for these, so that makes sense.

Driver "synergy" is where a DIYer can start dropping some serious coin trying different things. Generally speaking, I look for a lot of overlap between the drivers responses, similar distortion levels, and also cosmetics.

As far as surrounds go, I do not use them any more - it was always so difficult to get them just right. My receiver does a pretty good job mixing the 5 channel down, to the point that on some effects it still has a "surroundy" kind of sound.

So with help from the guys at Meniscus, I'm off to the races using the HiVi woofer. Per test results, I'm starting w/ a 0.6cf ported box. I met w/ Chad at Meniscus last Friday after he had a chance to do some testing and he showed me some of what all this means . You guys at Meniscus are awesome BTW! I can't say thanks enough for helping me out w/ this!!

I think it's only fitting that once this design is finished that I call them "The Blues". I got my inspiration for the name from the material I used to cut out some driver circles to figure out placement...



And a pic of them in front of the mic.

Are we going to see these next year?

johnnyrichards wrote:Are we going to see these next year?

Hopefully! I hope to have them ready for the (so far unplanned) get together at Meniscus this summer. Now that the one is mapped out, I'll build another cabinet and work on the voicing. I'm very satisfied w/ them so far, but I haven't had a whole lot of time to listen to it yet.

Any finished pics? I'm also curios about the tweeter and crossover.

kenrhodes wrote:Any finished pics? I'm also curios about the tweeter and crossover.

Not yet. I haven't done anything w/ them, I still have to get them from Meniscus from when they tested them . I've been super busy lately between working on other things at home, working on those church speakers, family, etc.

Hope to get back after them soon. I'll definitely do a thorough write up about them when they're finished! So far, they sound fantastic! My plan at this point is to make 5 of them for my HT system, then eventually build either 1 or 2 subs to complement them as well.

I cant wait that looks like a very nice driver and a great build. I may have to call up meniscus and see what they could do with this woofer and the hivi sd1.1 tweeter. On paper this looks like a good match-up.

I got the xovers temporarily hooked up yesterday and had a chance to play. It was kind of late (about 11pm) so I couldn't deliver much abuse to them yet.

I need more time to play, but at this point they mop the floor w/ the pair of Polk Audio TSi200 speakers that I use for my garage system. Still going to play w/ the cabinets a bit, I may build one more cabinet and add about 3" to the height and see how that effects things.

Either way, its looking very good . Glad to be back after these babies and hope to have them done before the 1 year mark comes around from when I started them

First time post from a new member. My name is Andrew. Matt and I had a chance to meet up this weekend to try out a couple of his speakers with a new Sherbourn receiver I recently picked up.. I wanted to get some ideas for a new set of speakers for my home.

First I'll say that I've never considered building a set myself. I was one of those naive suckers that typically walks into Best Buy or the local high end audio dealer and lets the sales person flip through their list of favorites and would make decisions based on the limited selections I was presented with. About 5 years ago I bought a full Paradigm home theater setup with Monitor 7's for the front. I compared them to B&W 684's at the time and ultimately decided on the Paradigms. I wanted the B&W's based on what I heard, but for $2500 (Paradigms) vs. $4000 (B&W), I couldn't hear a $1500 difference.

Matt brought over both his ER18's and this HiVi project he's working on. The we started with my Paradigm's then moved to the ER18's. I was sickened by the difference. Literally felt robbed. I'd never heard anything like the ER18's. I'm sure you guys have heard plenty that would give them a run for the money but for me nothing compared.

Then Matt hooked up this HiVi work in progress. I honestly had low expectations based on the looks (again back to my naive misconceptions). I was floored at how effortlessly this MT speaker handled some pretty difficult tracks. It has such a warm and accurate tone. Lots of mids, not too bright. I told Matt the only way I can describe was it's "milky smooth". I could easily listen to it for hours.

I was sold immediately. Matt put me in touch in Chad at Meniscus this week and we've put together some plans to build on the work they've done so far. We're going to use the same HiVi L6-4R driver and SB Acoustics tweeter in an MTM configuration for the front left, right & center. The rear will be the MT design that Matt worked on with Meniscus.

Chad I have the list finalized for what we're going to order. Once we have everything Matt and I will get the baffles and first MTM box together to drop off at Meniscus for the x-over design work. We'll keep you guys updated but I'm hopeful we should have everything done near the end of January!!

(p.s. Matt - thanks for leaving the ER18's, not sure I'll be able to part with them before New Years....