Education How can I make my own speaker?

I've been looking for a new project for a while something a little different...

I went into maplins today and saw they had speakers for sale like the actually speaker not a set

Tweeter
4" Mid/Bass
8" Mid/Bass

and some others, they where pretty cheap because they where unknown makes but i would like to give it a go just as a learning expirience really...

There was no real obvious way how to do it though normally maplin have kits and stuff all they had was a (to be precise)

"Three-Way 150W X-Over Network"
"For operating a woofer,tweeter and mid range speaker
150W Power handling"

its like this but the board was white
http://www.maplin.co.uk/Module.aspx?ModuleNo=3389

It had these pins for connections that looked like for the speakers to hook up to


Is this right? or does anyone else know of how its done? i don't want to go spend £30 for something that does'nt work... i literally have no clue

 

It would work - then you just need a suitable enclosure. Try PM'ing Boscoe, he makes his own speakers and he seems to be quite knowledgable.

 

Have a look around on the 'bay first though, no doubt you can source some of the kit alot cheaper than Maplins, although it is convenient i'll give it that.

 

There are alot of excellent yet cheap speakers around, but you'd be very lucky to find a pre made crossover that suits. Crossovers are easy to make however.

By the time you add up the speakers, xovers, decent wood, screws, glue, paint or cloth etc, it's easy to spend a couple of hundred bucks for a pair. They will sound as good as speakers costing around say twice as much, and IF you do a good job, they can look just as good.

I've been designing and building all sorts of speakers for 15 years, it's one of my hobbies, and I'd be happy to help out with anything.

I think the first step is to figure out what the budget is, and what amp are you going to use?
I've also been building and modding upgrades into amps for 15 years, so I can review any amp aswell. Bewarned however, most ampfliers DO NOT put out even half the power they vaguely claim!

 

I might do that eventually im mainly doing it for a learning expirience first if it works then i might decide to go better and get someone to make me some decent enclosures if i don't feel confident myself

Yeh i may shop around see if i can atleast get some name speakers first i know its no real benefit and for the purpose of learning they should be fine but would be nice to get as cheap as i can first time round

Balls forgot about the amp will have to give that some thought as said above its more of a learning expirience first if it works and im confident i can do it with more expensive speakers and make a crossover

 

I have had a look at the maplin speakers and they are cheap and you tend to get what you pay for although a bargin can be about.

Try europe audio and stagebeat for cheaper monacor drivers. Although they aren't anything special I used monacor drivers for my first project and there's nothing wrong with mine.

You need to know what you want them for and the rough size of the room. How much you want to spend and such.

Amplifiers are fairly easy to make if you know a bit of electronics, chipamps are a good start.

I can also make the enclosures for you but you would be better off getting experience yourself. You will also need to model the speakers in programs like WinISD.

Any questions just ask.

 

Oh yeh forget ebay, your better off buying from shops. Blue aran is also good.

 

Have any of you got any experience in building subs? I currently have a 5.0 setup and would love to add a sub, just wondered if anyone could give me a few pointers.

Looking like a very useful thread!

 

Although I think for 'learning purposes' anything will do, as far as quality is concerned, providing it is the same 'hardware' as I assume you're not expecting to make a set of speakers that cause you to orgasm on contact right away.....although if you do ever manage it, you know where the PM button is.

 

http://www.speakerplans.com/

 

Generally for subs the bigger the better but of course good design and build quality is absoutly vital. What sought of budget do you have and what is your existing setup?

 

I currently have..... 2 KEF q75.2's i know quite old but sound awesome!!

Q95.2 center

2 mordant short ms100's as rears, not ideal but they were my old bookshelf's!!

Im at uni atm and if the bigger the better when i comes to subs, i might have to resist until i get my own home!!

Moving into a smaller room next year so wont be able to take my Q75.2's with me, so i suppose making a set of smallish bookshelfs would be a good summer project, i would also love to have a go at building an amp!!

 

That's fine, no need to buy top notch speakers and amp just yet. I'm just wondering what amp you are going to use to run these speakers from? There are some nice cheap speakers around which are sensitive enough to make some decent volume from low power levels, but they won't take alot of power.

Another consideration, is that you can safely run a speaker at it's limit with clear a sound signal, but distortion can easily blow up a speaker.

It's nice to use the same or at least very similar speakers in a surround sound setup, so that the sound doesn't change much as it moves around the room.

Building an amp kit is easy enough if you have some soldering experience - if you need that, practice desoldering and soldering wires and components on a pcb from something old and broken.

With subs, generally the smaller the total subby area, and the smaller the subby boxes, the more watts you'll need to get the same volume level. The other thing is super deep bass, like earthquake deep sounds, are much easier for big subs to reproduce. There are some small subs that will make super deep bass, but they can get expensive and need lots more power.

There are lots of specific points that make the difference between a good and a crappy sub box construction. You can make an excellent sub perform like crap with an crappy or just unsuitable box. Oh and most subs look very cool, but most of them aren't that good

 

I have done quite a lot of soldering before, messed around with electronics for a while and built some simple things like a theremin (awesome instrument) but never ventured down the road of amps! Is there anything to read that would be helpful?

 

Just thought someone might like to see this.

 

Sounds like you'd be fine with building a kit

There are heaps of sites and books on electronics, amps and speakers, but an amp just needs some attention given to earthing and shielding. Many amps are also a bit weak in power supply capacitance and heatsinking - especially after modding them to output around double the standard output capability!

btw, doubling the power means an increase in volume of 3db So yes, choosing a speaker of say 93db instead of 87db, means you need 4 times less power for the same volume, with all other factors being equal... it takes 10db to be twice as loud tho. db's aren't the only factor to consider of course, besides the box, the most important one would probably be the budget.

 

Theres no ****** point in a kit. What does it teach you? How to solder? That's it, it annoys me when people recommend kits for beginners who can already solder, if you want to learn, learn how it works then build a more complex amp (nothing too mental). This is a much more long winded way of doing things and I know a quick kit gets you going with some confidence of hearing sound that you have made! Use the diyaudio forums just read, read and read.

Your wrong when it comes to speaker sensitivity about how 3db is twice as loud. This is not the case with dB SPL (sound pressure level) in other words how loud it is.

I'll try and give a brief quick explaination of a simple solid state amp in class B quite common (classes also need to be read upon!). The amp is basically making a bigger version of the analogue signal you feed it, it uses this as a kind of variable relay instead using transistors to regulate the power feed by the PSU. The most common PSU gives a positive and negative voltages and then a ground to fill both halfs of the analogue waveform as AC has both + and -. A pair of transistors is used one for the positive side and one for the negative. You can in some designs add more transistors to gain more power. The PSU is the main factor in how powerful the amp is, if you have a weak PSU how are the transistors going to add more power? They can't they just control it! It's very difficult to explain but you will get there! I did only start a couple of years ago but it is now my main hobby and so everything goes into it!

Good luck with your projects!

 

I actually posted that a doubling in power = +3db output, and that a doubling in volume = +10db

 

A doubling in perceived loudness is said to be +10dB, double the sound pressure level (SPL) is +6dB as far as I'm aware.

 

If you want a simple amplifier to start with, search for Gainclone. These come in various flavors, from the most basic of things to some people spending hundreds making their amplifiers perfect(ly fit their OCD ). It's a chip amp with just a few components, so it might not be the most educational of kits, but it's also a very simple place to start from, and (when done right) produces nice sound.

Really the most important about building an amplifier is making the power supply safe. It's mains voltage and you just don't want your brand new baby burn the house down or electrocute yourself.

I started my hobby by building a simple mono amplifier, based on some circuitry from the 'nets, built on a piece of prototyping board I've also been dreaming of building my own subwoofer amplifier, but as long as the current one works, I just don't feel like ever starting.

Oh and about subs:
My last one:

It was a Peerless XLS 10" in a crude MDF-box. The sealed box was so compact thanks to Linkwitz-transformation. The amplifier used here was a t.amp E400 (very cheap PA-amp, cost about 100 €)

Then I thought I didn't need a sub and got tired of the looks.. And a week later I bought this:

Again it's a DIY-box, made by someone else and painted by a professional. Again there's the 10" XLS, but now instead of sealed box it's tuned with a passive radiator, so effectively it's a clone of this for a lower price. This thing right here goes to show that the box doesn't need to be large to cause earth quakes in small space.

EDIT: Just realized I skipped the whole topic Oh well, I'd steer away from random 3-way design and starting from existing design. There are also very inexpensive designs around if you search a while, and those can sound really nice for the price. So not only do you get to build a speaker yourself, you also get a perfectly usable speaker at the end.