Barebones speaker

[Mr. PC]

Speaker cabs are used to enhance bass, yes? But I'm sure this "colours" the sound... it's not the same as having a giant cone, yes?

Downside of giant cones is you get more room resonances, correct?

Downside of 2 cones (tweeter and sub) is phase interactions.

So I'm thinking, a coaxial speaker, maybe something like this (frequency is pretty flat, I wonder how true that chart is), and just put it on a stand with no case, and an amp (not sure my Tascam 2x2 would be enough; I listen only at quiet volumes).

Maybe it wouldn't sound "good", but it could be flat, while sounding quite different from my iLoudmm (which may never arrive due to Corona). Maybe they'd reveal things traditional speakers wouldn't? I'd just need a way to mount them on mic stands.

Or is it a terrible idea?



https://aliexpress.ru/item/328361992...f-37a2af2c9018

[Softsynth]

If you try to create your own loudspeakers without significant knowledge in this area the results will be hopelessly coloured.
OTOH you may enjoy creating your own open baffle loudspeakers with the right measurement equipment and outdoor space for measuring. Actually with the world being so quiet it could be a good time!

Not a trivial exercise if you expect genuinely good results.

Much better to start with a reputable DIY kit. See Linkwitz loudspeakers.

[ivansc]

Ali Express are not exactly known for offering top drawer quality items, either.
I have & still use as my secondary monitors a pair of the original Tannoy NFM6 Mk2 coaxial passive speakers which I power with a 1979 Quad 405 amplifier. In their own way they sound great especially considering how old they are and how much they cost when new.
However when I compare them with my Unity Audio The Rock Mk2s they are a pale shade of the clarity and depth that I get from my #1 monitors.
That said, I DO like dual concentrics - I have a pair of Celestion SR1 P.A. speakers that I believe are also dual concentrics and offer a truly excellent almost "hifi" live sound.

There again Tannoy monitor reds or golds, especially in Lockwood enclosures, are a totally different kettle of fish. I just wish I had room for a pair in my tiny home studio.

[OldTascam]

Ah, the old whizzer cones. I once owned a pair of Moth Audio Cicada speakers. They were inexpensive and quite beautiful to look at. They also sounded pretty good with a lot of music. Alas, they didn't cut it across the board, which I can also say about any lowther/whizzer/dual-concentric type driver I've listened to. But did i mention they were beautiful?

[sonicowl]

You will have no bass if you just put it on a stand with no cabinet. You need to decouple rear from front, otherwise you get cancellation. Cabinets are not there to enhance bass, but to prevent the bass from cancelling itself due to front/back radiation of speaker in air. In theory, infinite (or really large) baffle would do the trick. In practice, this is not the most efficient solution in any way. Therefore we have cabinets, which are different, because you can tune them to combine sound from rear with front in various ways.
Here is some nice reading: https://books.google.si/books?id=oWE...lation&f=false

[Glennbo]

I remember the Ohm Speakers Model F from the 70s being a single cone Walsh design. They were sure weird looking, but were supposedly sonically accurate.

https://ohmspeaker.com/legacy-products/f/

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[Glennbo]

Originally Posted by sonicowl

You will have no bass if you just put it on a stand with no cabinet. You need to decouple rear from front, otherwise you get cancellation. Cabinets are not there to enhance bass, but to prevent the bass from cancelling itself due to front/back radiation of speaker in air. In theory, infinite (or really large) baffle would do the trick. In practice, this is not the most efficient solution in any way. Therefore we have cabinets, which are different, because you can tune them to combine sound from rear with front in various ways.
Here is some nice reading: https://books.google.si/books?id=oWE...lation&f=false

I built a few pairs of speakers back in the day, both with tuned ports and acoustic suspension design with completely sealed cabinets.

The acoustic suspension design is not very efficient, but has incredibly tight and accurate sounding bass.

Tuning ports to match the free air resonance of the speakers and their cabinet volumes is fairly easy to calculate and will produce tight punchy bass with more efficiency than acoustic suspension speakers.

[karbomusic]

First off, companies invest millions and millions of dollars trying to design great speakers and they all still sound different (color). If you want accuracy DIY is not the way to go unless it's a reputable kit.

Secondly, the cab doesn't 'enhance' bass, it helps reproduce the actual bass frequencies being sent to it though some may describe better ways to reproduce it.

Lastly, there is no such thing as 100% colorless, it literally isn't possible and everything any of us have grown to like (accurate or not), always involved color and phase cancellations, it's actually not possible to even hear a sound outside of an anechoic chamber without phase coloring and likely not then either because the ears themselves will have it.

As I've mentioned before, all this can be fun (I wound a working speaker voice coil from a soda can by hand in the 90s) but there is no such thing as a perfectly flat signal hitting our ears, and most humans wouldn't like it if they had it because how humans react to music is antithetical to things like flat. I repaired and rebuilt speakers for a living back in the 90s, warranty for all the major companies at the time (JBL, Bose, EV, Cerwin Vega et al) and by-hand work for all the stuff parts didn't exist for; so I'm not blowing smoke up your butt.

I'm not saying don't try, doing and learning by your own hand is better than my telling you - that's exactly how I learned what I know - but the consideration of other's experience along the way could save you some time.

[DVDdoug]

That's not a true coaxial driver. It's a full-range speaker with a single voice coil, no crossover, and a "whizzer cone". And, it's rather small.


There are lots of ways to make a good speaker/monitor but I don't know of any monitors made with that kind of driver.

Speaker cabs are used to enhance bass, yes? But I'm sure this "colours" the sound...

As long as it's properly designed the cabinet will improve the sound (make it less colored/more accurate).

Cabinets can be broadly-categorized as sealed or ported, and again you can make a good speaker either way. And as a broad generalization, a ported cabinet can have a lower -3dB point than a sealed cabinet (of the same size with the same driver) but the ported design will roll-off faster below the -3dB point.


There are good speakers/monitors built both ways, and some drivers work better in sealed cabinets and some work better in ported cabinets. There are lots of design choices and compromises and the manufacturer will always tout their choices as "the best".


A badly designed ported cabinet can give you one-note bass like you hear from some car stereos. A ported cabinet is more difficult to design and a "random" sealed cabinet will sound better than a "random" ported cabinet.

If you have the Thiele-Small parameters for the driver there is a free cabinet design program called WinISD that can help you design an optimum cabinet and predict performance.

It's not the same as having a giant cone, yes?

A "giant cone" also needs a cabinet.

Downside of giant cones is you get more room resonances, correct?

The speaker doesn't "know" anything about the room. But, a small woofer with no bass won't have any low-frequency room resonance problems.

Downside of 2 cones (tweeter and sub) is phase interactions.

Yes... If the woofer & tweeter are different distances from your ear the time delay will cause a phase difference.


So, the tweeter is often set-back so the voice-coils align, and the speakers are mounted vertically so there are no phase-changes as you move from side-to-side. Overall, most manufacturers (and buyers) have decided that this is the best compromise.

[qutoe]and an amp (not sure my Tascam 2x2 would be enough;[/quote]That's an interface, right? The headphone amplifier is usually designed to drive 32 or 64-Ohm (or higher) headphones, not 4 or 8 Ohm speakers.

[Mr. PC]

Originally Posted by sonicowl

You will have no bass if you just put it on a stand with no cabinet. You need to decouple rear from front, otherwise you get cancellation. Cabinets are not there to enhance bass, but to prevent the bass from cancelling itself due to front/back radiation of speaker in air.

Ah, so basically because lows are omni, they'll phase-cancel in the air.

So in theory, could I stick the speaker into a hole in the wall and achieve that?


Either way, not I know my concept is impossible. I'll keep mixing on my consumer speaker until my iLouds arrive.

[richie43]

Originally Posted by Mr. PC

Ah, so basically because lows are omni, they'll phase-cancel in the air.

So in theory, could I stick the speaker into a hole in the wall and achieve that?


Either way, not I know my concept is impossible. I'll keep mixing on my consumer speaker until my iLouds arrive.

From my understanding (know a few people who own them and have read some reviews), the iLouds are great for portability but certainly not flat frequency response and not the best quality (unless portability is the biggest concern).
Why not invest your mo0ney into tradition studio monitors?

[sonicowl]

Originally Posted by Mr. PC

So in theory, could I stick the speaker into a hole in the wall and achieve that?

Yes, but must be airtight. And wall must be thin (centimeters), otherwise it will act as ported box. Volume behind wall should be large enough (volume resonance below bass frequencies), otherwise you end up with large closed box.
But it will not be very loud - small cone (90mm) can move small amount of air with low distortion. For loud bass you need large speakers, or many small speakers. You could mount some 50-100 small speakers and get reasonable level, I guess.
In the end, you could as well build closed box - it can be large, if you aim towards baffle design. But can be smaller too. People have been building loudspeakers in boxes since forever, it does the job well, you can do it if you try. Takes some work, some calculation, but it is not rocket science.... If you have basic tools, you can build decent box, and it will sound ok. I built speakers in the past, small and large. Then I bought Yamaha NS10m and Dynaudio monitors, and I work on those now, although I bet I could work on something I built just fine. But if you buy "proper" monitors, it makes you feel better, like now you are in good place. Although, well...

[Juan D'Fall]

Those coaxial things are the worst things you use. You are using one driver to cover the whole audio range. With out a cabinet, all you'll get is scratchy, tinny sound. And that will depend greatly on where in the room you are. Speakers are designed to work with properly designed cabinets. Its the room acoustics that cause you problems more than the speakers. Look up Thiele Small parameters. It's an incredibly complicated subject.
Jim

[ivansc]

Yep - I also made a mistake confusing coaxial with dual concentric. My tannoys are indeed dual concentric. tweeter mechanism is completely separate, mounted inside the woofer. The Celestions I referred to are coaxial. I will take a poto of the Tannoys with the front covers off so you can see what a true dual concentric looks like. Very different fish from the coaxials. Unfortunately I dont want to take the cabinets apart to show you the crossovers inside, but I use mine fully separated with two amplifiers per speaker.

https://www.ebay.ie/itm/152956238420 Someone selling the speakers out of MY model of tannoy DC, so you can see the difference.

[Mr. PC]

Ya, I realize now the idea isn't good, so I just need a good speaker to use

looks like my iLouds may never come... I hate buying again, but oh well....



So what are some good monitors at revealing bad mixes?

Ideally one of these?

https://pop-music.ru/catalog/studiyn...yie-monitoryi/

[cyrano]

I've never heard anyone use 'coaxial' for a wide band speaker with an extender. For me, coaxial and dual-concentric is the same thing.

Wide band speakers can sound pretty nice, as they don't need a filter. Why do you think Auratones became so widely used? Some Philips and Fostex wide-band speakers are being copied for the Hifi crowd. Anybody remembers the 'golden' Wharfedale?

In fact, it's amazing how much bottom and high end you can do without if the mid is good. Remember Visonik's 'David' that was quite a revelation in the seventies?

[brainwreck]

Originally Posted by cyrano

In fact, it's amazing how much bottom and high end you can do without if the mid is good.

Lots of engineers have been mixing for decades on NS10's for which the bass response starts rolling off at 100 hz. And they are anything but flat past that.

Flat seems overrated, and it sure is boring to listen to.

[Mr. PC]

So maybe I can keep using my JBL pool speaker?

Or buy some $10 USB speakers?

[sonicowl]

Originally Posted by Mr. PC

So maybe I can keep using my JBL pool speaker?

Or buy some $10 USB speakers?

As I see it, you can produce and mix on anything, even 10$ PC speaker will do fine - as long as you are used to the sound of speakers, and use references to check against.
Even if speakers have zero bass, you can still check bass on headphones. Personally, I think most cost efficient way to make music on budget is to work on cheap pc speakers for overall balance, and some half decent headphones to check bass and details. I bet you can get both for within 50-100 bucks.
You can get even more bang by using eq on monitor fx (so it is not printed on master) - with smart use of eq you can mimic other monitors, or even get perfectly flat response, or any smile curve pro response you want.
You don't need it flat, you don't need it loud, just check your work regularly against commercial reference mixes.

[Glennbo]

I recently replaced a set of Sony MDRV6 phones that the headband had broken on after 16 years of use. I limped along using a pair of JVC phones for the last year, but finally bought a pair of Sony MDR7506 which are essentially the same headphones with some "Pro" labeling.

I had forgotten how great these phones are for my mixing needs as a good additional reference to rely on. All my mixes are checked on these phones now, and many projects get a bulk of the mixing done using them.

[DVDdoug]

Almost all professionals use accurate monitors in treated rooms so they can hear what the mix really sounds like.


Then, they usually check the mix on a few lower-grade speakers and headphones to make sure it "translates" well when played on cheaper systems.


Any studio that's got NS10s or Auratones (etc.) will also have real monitors.

As I see it, you can produce and mix on anything, even 10$ PC speaker will do fine -

You don't need "perfect" monitors" or "the best" monitors but I wouldn't go THAT far! IMO- The "sweet spot" is a monitor with an 8-inch woofer in the range of $400 - $600 USD per pair. Then if it's in your budget, add a subwoofer and at least measure the room/speakers even if you can't afford acoustic treatment. (Disclaimer - I don't own real monitors myself, but I don't do any "serious" audio work.)

you can still check bass on headphones. Personally, I think most cost efficient way to make music on budget is to work on cheap pc speakers for overall balance, and some half decent headphones to check bass and details.

With real monitors at realistic volumes you can feel the deep bass in your body. With headphones you don't "experience" the bass in the same way. On the other hand, you can get excellent headphones for a couple hundred dollars.


I've posted a quote from Recording Magazine a couple of times about the recordings that readers send-in for evaluation. People who use headphones as their primary monitors just don't end-up with recordings that are as good as people using monitors.

with smart use of eq you can mimic other monitors, or even get perfectly flat response, or any smile curve pro response you want.

That's true to some extent but you simply can't make a cheap little speaker sound like a good full-size monitor (or like a good full-size hi-fi speaker).


Also, you can't EQ-out a standing-wave null (where the soundwaves cancel in the room. That generally requires a bass trap (to kill bass reflections).

[Mr. PC]

Ya, that's why I was thinking tiny nearfields, to reduce standing waves.

The are my options. The cheapest are the Bbehringers, but maybe I should spend more?

https://pop-music.ru/catalog/studiyn...yie-monitoryi/