Single driver speakers, DIY or commercial

[Spider27]

It might be crazy idea and what happens if small to medium sized floorstanders with singe full range driver on each channel and use them as nearfield (put them behind desk close to rear wall)? i guess that small bookshelf speakers are used for nearfield because phase issue with tweeter and bass driver to ear when the distance is too close. However, single full range driver speaker may have much less issue on this crossover and phase so okay to use small to medium sized floorstander with full range driver as nearfield and still achieve good bass quantity?

[planet10]

At least one guy essentially had a pair of FH3 sticking up thru his desk for use near field.

 

dave

[Spider27]

7 minutes ago, planet10 said:

At least one guy essentially had a pair of FH3 sticking up thru his desk for use near field.

 

dave

You got me interested in FH3. I might need to get one to try frugally somehow. 

[mwhouston]

These are my speakers on Pinterest. 

[ister]

10 hours ago, mwhouston said:

Do you sell your drivers and if so pricing? 

 

9 hours ago, minim said:

The proof certainly will be in the listening.

 

The drivers look a lot like those by Cube Audio of Poland, right down to the spider design and the foam surround:

https://www.cubeaudio.eu/cube-audio-f8-magus

but looking alike and sounding alike are two different things. Also, being able to fabricate such a driver, even if it does perform well, does not have much to do with effective cabinet design. The design shown lacks the taper usually used in transmission line designs as well as the typical stuffing, not to speak of the port firing directly into the floor as opposed to the more usual front orientation. Transmission line design is not so well understood as basic bass reflex design, so I would be surprised if this box is optimal for the driver, as much as I would be surprised if the driver was without major flaws.

 

If I am wrong on both counts—congratulations!!!

Just front panel from driver is look like a Cube , everything else is our design. cabinet is designed for this driver and mesurements is shown on diagram in a blog. Work on this project is 10 monts work on cabinet with warious design and this is the best sounding. We try with ports front, down center, classic bass reflex, back, horn... And this is the best result.

[ister]

 

[mwhouston]

I made a post earlier about single driver speakers and SET amps. And possibly there is a cult following for this combination. And agree it can be very good sounding. Meaning that the simplicity of the two does very little to bugger the  sound. 

 

In the latest Stereophile mag.  with relation to the combination above, also the minimalism of the number of parts in that combo further leads to a more raw, organic sound.  Something I hadn’t thought of was parts count. 

 

Does any know any site(s) which only post about SETs and single driver speakers?

[Mushroom01]

I found this link below quite interesting!

 

https://www.transcendentsound.com/full-range-single-driver.html

 

Especially with regards to the comments about the speaker grill cover (ugly as a hat full of bum holes IMHO!) acting as a "diffuser and break up high frequency beaming".

 

 

I would've thought the very poor & limited grill open-area (looks to be approx 50%) would cause more problems than benefits! 

I guess it's worth trying different grill materials with varying open-area, to customize the sound to your liking. It just needs to look much more attractive to me than the above pebble sieve.

[mwhouston]

My Mark Audio 12P have a grill similar which I leave on if not engaged in serious listening. But a friend came over to do some frequency analysis of the speakers and there was little difference between grills on or off.

 

Il see if I can find the graphs. 
 

http://retro-thermionic.blogspot.com/2018/08/voxuno-12p-with-markaudio-drivers.html

 

Edited February 12, 2020 by mwhouston

[aussievintage]

9 hours ago, mwhouston said:

minimalism of the number of parts in that combo further leads to a more raw, organic sound.

 

After a lot of experimentation, I settled on simplicity.   All amplification is simple triode stages with no global feedback. **    2 stages for the phono, 2 for the line preamp, 2 or 3 for the power amp - depending on which one I use.  Remember when they sold transistor radios based on the number of Transistors?  I had a spiffy Seven Transistor model.    Well, each channel of my stereo is a 7 triode model  

 

** an exception is I have now put a class D amp on the subwoofer section of my speakers.

[mwhouston]

The red graph is grills off.

[Sub Sonic]

I rather like using fibreglass fly mesh to protect drivers from the kids. Works well and looks good.

 

FWIW it’s a Markaudio Alpair 5.3 and Faital Pro 15PR400 in OB.

 

SS

Edit: BTW the Alpair 5.3 has very wide dispersion and has no perceptible beaming, it is a superb little driver, and not overly expensive.

 

 

Edited February 14, 2020 by Sub Sonic

[oohms]

That looks amazing.. how do you finish the mesh behind the baffle?

[mwhouston]

On 15/02/2020 at 8:12 AM, Sub Sonic said:

I rather like using fibreglass fly mesh to protect drivers from the kids. Works well and looks good.

 

FWIW it’s a Markaudio Alpair 5.3 and Faital Pro 15PR400 in OB.

 

SS

Edit: BTW the Alpair 5.3 has very wide dispersion and has no perceptible beaming, it is a superb little driver, and not overly expensive.

 

 

I like. No tweeter. Just bass and mids+ handled by a small full range. Better than a bass/mid and tweeter. I think tweeters do not reproduce recorded music well.

Edited February 16, 2020 by mwhouston

[Sub Sonic]

4 hours ago, oohms said:

That looks amazing.. how do you finish the mesh behind the baffle?

It’s finished the same way as a flyscreen - I rout a slot around the back of the perimeter of the baffle and use fly screen spline to hold the mesh in place. The excess can be trimmed off next to the spline with a sharp knife and it looks neat.

 

The baffles are 18mm form ply - easy to work with and the front is already smooth and black. A quick spray of black paint across the front if needed covers any small blemishes, and then put the fly screen on front of that. Baffle edges are rounded with the router and sprayed black also.

 

Cheers,

 

SS
 

Edit: I’d take a photo For you but I’m currently O/S for work.

Edited February 16, 2020 by Sub Sonic

[Sub Sonic]

4 hours ago, mwhouston said:

I like. No tweeter. Just bass and mids+ handled by a small full range. Better than a bass/mid and tweeter.

Agreed, the wide range does what it does best, and the woofer takes over the lower end to spare the wide range from working hard and to give bass more authority and impact. It also keeps crossovers (active in this case) out of critical areas.

[mwhouston]

10 minutes ago, Sub Sonic said:

Agreed, the wide range does what it does best, and the woofer takes over the lower end to spare the wide range from working hard and to give bass more authority and impact. It also keeps crossovers (active in this case) out of critical areas.

What is the Xover point? 

Edited February 16, 2020 by mwhouston

[Sub Sonic]

3 hours ago, mwhouston said:

What is the Xover point? 

Currently 250Hz 4th order. Will be playing with different x over points and slopes but haven’t had a chance to do so yet.

[aussievintage]

16 hours ago, mwhouston said:

I like. No tweeter. Just bass and mids+ handled by a small full range. Better than a bass/mid and tweeter. 

I stumbled across this combo back in the 70s.  I had a pair of small speakers from a reel to reel tape deck, that had amazingly good full range speakers in them.  I combined them with some 12" woofers.    The sound was really really pleasant.

16 hours ago, mwhouston said:

I think tweeters do not reproduce recorded music well.

With so many different types of tweeters around, that's a bit wide I feel.  Remember when tweeters were just small paper cone drivers with sealed backs?  Plessey Rola made some beauties.  They would sound good to you I'd wager.

 

Also, occasionally these modern esoteric beasts of tweeters with inverse beryllium cones and waveguides, etc etc, actually get it right.  Worst tweeter I have ever heard?    A piezo horn.  ugh, ugly sound

[planet10]

On 08/02/2020 at 4:19 PM, planet10 said:

... the 6x9 oval ...

Oops.That driver is a Sonindo. Also made in Poland, and still about the same pricing as the cubes, before their price triplied when they went to distributors.

 

dave

[planet10]

On 12/02/2020 at 12:34 PM, Mushroom01 said:

... the speaker grill cover ... acting as a "diffuser and break up high frequency beaming".

Like used in the new Paradigms: https://www.paradigm.com/en/technology-design/patented-perforated-phase-aligning-ppa-lens

 

 

dave

[planet10]

On 14/02/2020 at 1:12 PM, Sub Sonic said:

FWIW it’s a Markaudio Alpair 5.3 and Faital Pro 15PR400 in OB.

The A5.2/5.3eN is becoming my favorite 3” over the FF85wKeN. 

 

I was just thinking of dragging my uFonkenWoof prototypes up from downstairs and biamping with the uMar-KenSet i have w A5.2eN. Will be swapped out for A5.3eN but only because i want the copper drivers in the box.

 

 

dave

[planet10]

7 hours ago, aussievintage said:

I stumbled across this combo back in the 70s.  I had a pair of small speakers from a reel to reel tape deck, that had amazingly good full range speakers in them

The Sony TapeCorders had Coral’s Holey-Basket version in the FE103A class of speaker. RIaled only by the Atomic (much, much rarer here.

 

Noesco (a Canadian brand not likely found elsewhere often) had a box with a Foster FE83A crossed to a 10” Foster bass driver with a monster alnico motor.

 

The reason why a small FR often works better than a tweeter is that one can get the driver centre-to-centre below the magic 1/4 wavelength distance and eliminate most of the issues that happen higher up with tweeter pysically distant from the mid.

 

dave

[Mushroom01]

3 hours ago, planet10 said:

Like used in the new Paradigms: https://www.paradigm.com/en/technology-design/patented-perforated-phase-aligning-ppa-lens

 

 

dave

Ahh.......Yes, like the new Tang Band Coaxial 6" & 8" drivers!

 

http://www.tb-speaker.com/products/w8-2314#tab-408

 

[mwhouston]

I posted early that single driver speakers and SET amps are often matched together. High sensitivity driver with a few watts of tube glory, with careful music selection, should be very satisfying. I tried my 2W 6L6 SE UL wine box amp with my Mark Audio 12Ps but with most music it didn’t sound right. The speakers are great with my Holton “Precision” 300W amp, any music, really enjoyable. And the 6L6 with my Altec/woofer setup delivers hours of audio pleasure but the former combo failed, mostly.

 

Transparency, accuracy and coherency are probably what we are looking for in a single driver speaker setup. We may even sacrifice a little bass weight for the benefit of the complete musical enjoyment. What about pairing a single drivers with low power Class A SS amps. Currently I have an extremely well made Hiraga “Le Monster“, suppose to be 8W of pure Class A but I’m told by its SNA building it delivers far more than that. Have to agree and while playing it for five hours yesterday through my 90db sensitive Altec combos it never ran out of puff. Neither on rock or classical at high listening levels. 
 

Im doing a little tweaking on the Hiraga, mainly in the PS which has 282,000uf of quality caps, just because it is the way I build PSs. Will i hear a sonic difference, I’ll let you know? When I got the amp there was no bass under 50hZ but after adding 4uf Russian PIO cap on the input the amp goes down to 30hz with ease. Reason is the amp didn’t like seeing my pot from my preamp which is on the output. Nothing lost and everything gained. The Hiraga, this Hiraga, is as close as you will get to a SS SET. I’ll hook up my 12Ps later and give the combo a go.

 

Any other member hooked up Class A power amps to single driver speakers?