Speaker Design Loudspeaker & Acoustic Engineering Design

Table Of Content

• Loudspeaker Types and How They Work
• Impedance and Resistance – what’s the difference?
• DIY Audio Speaker Building Guide / FAQ
• t and 2nd Order Crossover Calculator and Response Simulator
• How to build the perfect speaker
• Importance of Speaker Design in Hi-Fi Systems
• Pros & Cons of Various Center Channel Designs

So you could for example have the Low Pass section with a 8 ohm woofer, crossing over at 1200 Hz, and the High Pass at 16 ohms crossing over at 1800 Hz. Combinations like this are becoming increasingly common, as using a 16 ohm HF driver often negates the need to put attenuation in the HF part of the circuit. If you already have a crossover, you can simulate the response using the lower part of the controls. Please check you have component values correct, Capacitors should be specified in microFarads (uF) and Inductors in milliHenries (mH).

Loudspeaker Types and How They Work

Together, these cover different frequencies and create balanced sound with accurate tones. To better understand hi-fi speakers, delve into the world of hi-fi speakers and explore the sub-sections of “What is Hi-Fi? ” and “Importance of Speaker Design in Hi-Fi Systems.” Discover the principles and significance of speaker design within the realm of hi-fi audio, elevating your listening experience to new heights. You really start to save money when building a 3-way speaker system. If you are an experienced builder withthe right testing equipment using high end components, then a 2-way system might be right for you. The assumption many people make is that a singlesubwoofer can be placed anywhere in the room because low bass is omnidirectional.

Impedance and Resistance – what’s the difference?

In all other planar-magnetic transducers, a flat or slightly curved diaphragm is driven by an electromagnetic conductor. This conductor, which is bonded to the back of the diaphragm, is analogous to a dynamic driver’s voice coil, here stretched out in straight-line segments. In most designs, the diaphragm is a sheet of plastic with the electrical conductors bonded to its surface. The flat metal conductor provides the driving force, but it occupies only a portion of the diaphragm area. 3 shows the difference between a true ribbon and a quasi-ribbon driver.

DIY Audio Speaker Building Guide / FAQ

Sure, you can just bung some drivers in a box, but without someone like Peter Comeau pulling the strings, they won’t really sing... “At this point, you’ll expect to make design changes that ‘fine-tune’ the performance. When you’re satisfied with the pre-production unit and all the engineering wrinkles have been ironed out, you can hand over the drawings to mass production." It can be a rough and unfinished wooden box, complete with staples and splinters. This is the stage where the most research wil take place, along with the most changes. Audio specifications run the gamut from merely “nice to know” to “genuinely useful.” A speaker’s impedance rating should be one of those genuinely useful specs, but you can’t always trust them.

t and 2nd Order Crossover Calculator and Response Simulator

This has yet to be proven, but the theories seem to hold true, and could also contribute to this concept. It’s common, in fact recommended, to utilize an L-Pad arrangement for attenuating high frequencies. This technique is theoretically sound as it facilitates both effective attenuation of high-frequency response and stabilization of the load impedance within the High Pass Filter circuitry. This might not be the smoothest response, but it’s quite par for the course with most compression drivers.

How to build the perfect speaker

Dipolewoofers have the advantage of less room mode excitation, which matters even in ahighly damped recording/mixing studio. An example of the electromagnetic driver is the woofer in the Focal Grande Utopia EM loudspeaker. The system’s woofer has a very high sensitivity (97dB for 1W) but very low resonance (24Hz).

Part of the confusion around this speaker type (among other leaps of intellect) revolves around naming conventions. So-called planar-magnetic speakers are variations on the magnetostatic drive concept. To make things worse, Yamaha also promoted the term “Orthodynamic” in the headphone world as a way to brand their planar-magnetic headphone technology. The above diagram shows a passive LPF in series with the woofer, and a passive HPF in series with the tweeter.

Importance of Speaker Design in Hi-Fi Systems

The advantage to a portedbox is that is can be louder (about 3db), but this increase in db will only be at certainfrequencies, depending on how the port tunes the box. If tuned at the right frequency, thenthis bump in sound level can counteract the normal roll-off of the woofer at the low endand actually help to create a flatter response curve. A standard sealed box improves thepower handling of the driver, produces a smoother low end roll off, and basically soundstighter, but you don't get the extra bump at the end.

For professionals,these values are a starting point in designing a speaker. Every system is different andeven small changes in box shape (even if the volume is identical) have have a dramaticimpact on the system as a whole. Testing allows you to tweak the design to achievea better, flatter response curve. Without access to a lab filled with different crossovercomponents, your ability to tweak will be limited to what you have available. You canmake some simple changes without testing equipment by simply making the change and thenseeing if it sounds better. The first step Itake when designing a crossover in SoundEasy is to determine workable crossoverfrequencies and filter orders.

Guess how much this tiny Porsche Design speaker costs - Digital Trends

Guess how much this tiny Porsche Design speaker costs.

Posted: Wed, 08 Nov 2023 08:00:00 GMT [source]

A 4-way loudspeaker, designed asfull-range dipole, for flat on-axis and off-axis response in the horizontalplane and frontal hemisphere. It requires between 8 to10 power amplifiers of 50W to 200 W and a miniDSP 4x10HD. To prevent arcing—the electrical charge jumping between elements—the stators are coated with an insulating material. Still, if an electrostatic loudspeaker is overdriven, the electrostatic field strips free electrons from the oxygen in the air, making it ionized; this provides a conductive path for the electrical charge. Large diaphragm excursions—i.e., a loud playing level—put the diaphragm closer to the stators and also encourage arcing.

Its a little better, but there is a sharp dip at 1.8kHz and a lump at 2.5kHz which are both undesirable, and not as good as the red plot. A lower value capacitor, such as 2.2 uF or 1uF would tame the 2.5kHz bump, but I already knew there were phase response issues with this solution. A little more refinement, and potentially I could have got the 2.5kHz off the shelf default crossover sounding OK on-axis, but I know it would have had issues off-axis. It has the potential to sound pretty awful with a 12-15db hill across the midrange and lower hf which will require significant EQ adjustment to rebalance. As mentioned at the outset, the environment was such that room anomalies would feature in the measurements.