Having finally gotten to the point where I have my 2nd prototype front projector up and running I want to upgrade my front speakers.

I now have the electronics for higher quality sound reproduction and the dynamics are killer with the new but inexpensively built DIY subwoofer. I had been using a pair of small cheap front speakers because I wasn't that motivated to build a pair of larger, better speakers for watching a 27 inch TV. But a few things have changed in that I had to loan my high end speakers to my brother in law to do a mixing project and I think that I would like to satisfy my audiophile needs by intergrating a pair of new medium sized floor standing high end speakers with the HT.

As of late I have been listening to more music with headphones anyway and I had just finished building some mixing monitors for my brother in law's boss. I tested the speakers in my HT and the dynamics where so much better than the small cheap fronts. Especially since I had moved my Rotel monoblocks into the HT for fronts. The system was explosive and I knew I had to build some reasonably priced but near no compromise front speakers. I had a bunch of drivers around anyway so the cost wouldn't be that much. Mostly MDF.

I will be plogging the speakers progress here and posting plans and information for anyone who would like to built them for themselves. The speakers are not small but are not large either and are intended to work well in medium size rooms when supplemented with a good subwoofer.

Here is a link over at DIYaudio where I started some stuff going on the speaker.

http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/showthread....;threadid=93596

Having built several speaker in the past and finally gotten outstanding results I think I know what it takes to at least build a good cabinet. I have a bunch of raw drivers around that I have accumulated over the last few years and I am going to use some of them.

This project does not use cheap speakers but at least the woofer and mid/bass drivers are reasonably priced. The tweeter is the killer but since I have this driver already it's a no brainer for me.

All the drivers are currently available and are as follows:

Morel MDT-33 Tweeter. Around 150 USD each and sold in matched pairs.

Silverflute W17RC38-S-08 Mid/bass driver 31 USD at Madisound.

Vifa P21WO-20-08 8.5 inch woofer. about 60 - 70 USD at Madisound or Parts Express.

The design is intended to have high impulse response and high dynamics for HT. Hence the use of a first order crossover network. And hopefully no passive components on the mid/bass driver at all.

The cabinet is a modified two piece pyramidal shape for great looks, exceptional bass and midrange sound quality and spreading out of internal standing waves.

Build to ultra high end standards of common MDF it can be built by any ambitious DIY'er.

Stay tuned for some pictures of the CAD workups.

Madisound use to list the response curves of all there drivers do they have the responce curve for the Silverflute W17RC38 I found the driver but no curve.

I have been using Madisound for many years but some how missed the wool drivers.

What is the peak like at breakup?

I have grown tired of the poly vifas and might try the wool cones some day.

Too bad Scan-Speak no longer makes the 18W8543 poly driver, those were excellent.

I've been a big fan of the folks on partspexpress.com and their forum on pesupport.com

arizonavideo,

If you go to the Madisound website and download the PDF file on the Silverflute drivers it will show the frequency response diagrams on that.

The Silverflute W17RC38-S-08 Mid/bass driver has the smoothest frequency response I have seen in a driver of this size as I can recall. And has nearly no peaking at breakup whatsoever. It has the smoothest upper frequency rolloff I've seen in a 6.5 inch cone driver.

OK,

Here are some pictures of the unfinished CAD models. This just shows the general shape of the speaker. This is a 40 inch tall speaker with a 2 cubic foot lower bass cabinet which is separated from the upper cabinet with a thin vibration dampening pad similar to dynamat or equivalent.

The upper cabinet sits freely on top of the bass module and will house it's own crossover and be bi-wired from the amplifier. Likewise the bass module will house it's own crossover and be bi-wired to the amp with it's own dedicated speaker wire.

Material is cheap and easy to work with .750 inch and .500 inch MDF. However, this speaker will be designed as a no compromise speaker for it's driver compliment.

In addition to the 40 inch tall speakers I also designed a similar system that is a little smaller last year. It is also designed for high end aspirations but has a few differences.

This speaker is shaped similar to the above project but is only 34 inches tall. I will be building this system also in the next few months to use in a different location. It has a 1.4 cubic foot bass module and uses a 5.25 inch mid/bass and a square flanged Morel tweeter. The 8 inch woofer has yet to be decided.

I will post design plans and pictures of this build along side the 40 inch speakers in case anyone may wish to replicated these speakers.

The principle differences is that the upper and lower cabinet are one piece and the speaker will have a little less internal bracing.

After being inspired by some small cement casted speakers posted at DIYaudio. I think that I am going to experiment a little with some new speaker cabinet construction technology.

The upper cabinet of the 40 inch tall dual cabinet speaker I am going to make from some kind of castable material like synthetic marble or a composite of epoxy resin, loose glass fibers and sand.

The lower cabinet will remain as MDF to keep costs reasonable.

How goes the work on these speakers? in the next few months I plan on getting a table saw and drill press to start a mini workshop of sorts (so many projects I want to do, no tools to do it lol)

Just out of curiocity (I am googleing now) how do you cover these speakers? do you leave them open or somehow make grills for them or use speaker cloth? Any pics of previously completed speakers?

It's going to be a month or more before I get started on these speakers. I think I may build the small ones first. I am thinking that the small ones will give me more flexibility in the HT because I can pull down the screen more if needed. But because I'm not using the flagship Morel tweeter in them they will not have the simple first order crossover.

In the HT they will not get anykind of nice finish. Just several coats of black paint. I don't want to have any reflections or distractions from them.

The HI-VI 8.8 woofer is perfect for this speaker cabinet. It Butterworth in a 1.4 foot enclosure and is shielded due to it's design. Should have an F3 of around 34 Hz.

I don't have a garage or workshop to work in and my covered patio roof needs to be replaced (it leaks). So I'm waitng until the weather improves a little.

I am also doing a little bit of a rework on the lower cabinet bracing scheme because the HI-VI woofer is a little bit bigger and needs to go lower in the cabinet. The HI-Vi is the only ideal driver that I can find for this cabinet and it is really a nine and a half inch driver so it's a little wide for the cabinet thus requiring lower placement. I will post those models when I get them done. The original design was intending to use an 8 inch woofer.

The bass will be very good in these little speakers. For HT thats what I really want. Good overall sound but great bass dynamics.

Hmm I just happened to look at this topic. I like your design and may rip it off to use in my theater... my question for you is how would you design a center channel speaker to match the two fronts?
I'm trying to get the rest of my sound up to snuff with my infinite baffle subs.

Ideally the best solution if you can arrange it is to have the center channel identical to the fronts. So that would necessitate building three front speakers that are identical. But to do this you have to have the TV up high or use a wall or ceiling screen and put the screen high enough so that the speaker can reside below without interfering with the screen viewing. Then put all of the audio/video gear on one of the side walls or back wall.

All of the horizontal designs are designed for flexibility in placement. Which is typical of all center channel designs. But for the best sound use three identical full range speakers in the front.

THE center channel also often has quite a bit of full range information on some soundtracks so the better the center channel the better the overall sound will be.

I have actually decided on a slightly different direction for these speakers so they are going to be redesigned a little bit. But they will have similar shape as the ones shown above.

The secret to having a good match for the infinite baffle sub is to have fast transient response in the main speakers. This is accomplished with good cabinet construction with lots of bracing so the speaker settles fast. Also, use butterworth or better bass alignment and large as possible vent. This makes bass reflex a faster sound as opposed to QB or similar alignments which use a smaller cabinet.

I have decided to build a pair of speakers which are a little in between the two shown above. They are similar in external design but will be using an even better internal bracing scheme.

I have just ripped a whole lot of full rez CD's to a new HDD on the HTPC and I want to be able to playback my collection on the HT with the best speakers that I can design with the drivers that I have.

Sorry for the slow progress. But not much seems to happen on this thread anyway. I will post some drawings in the future as time permits.