Your Preferred Loud Speaker building Software ... and Why ?

[Danthuyer1503564928]

I would really like to get in and build some speakers with a bunch of driver I have here at home.

 

I've been playing with some drivers which didn't come with specs so I bought a V3 DATS system and have been playing around with it. So now I've got measurements and data etc etc, which software packages do you recommend to use to design the box and the cross overs ?

 

I had a quick look at vituixCAD 2 and winisd ... however I'm sure that there are many of you that have gone down this path already and can recommend what to play with and what to stay away from 

 

Cheers

Dan

[mwhouston]

I’ve used this a lot and one very simple other. Both seem to work OK.

 

https://www.micka.de/en/

 

Don’t get Anol about speaker and Xover design.
 

OK time to select your smallest stones and prepare yourself for an obvious and extended stoning. 
 

After 50 years of audio DIY I’ve found (and even pros agree) that +/- 10% of any calculations, value, voltage, current or whatever - “DOESN’T  MATTER”. You will not hear and your gear will never hear any difference. 

 

Commence stoning until I say “stop”. 

[davewantsmoore]

4 minutes ago, mwhouston said:

After 50 years of audio DIY I’ve found (and even pros agree) that +/- 10% of any calculations, value, voltage, current or whatever - “DOESN’T  MATTER”. You will not hear and your gear will never hear any difference. 

 

Yes, 10% is a small amount for some/many things.

 

(Remember .... 3dB is +/-100%)

 

 

Speaker frequency response vs angle (ie. driver xo, summing and layout) is critically important, and very audible.

 

22 minutes ago, Danthuyer1503564928 said:

I had a quick look at vituixCAD 2 and winisd

I use winisd to verify quick ideas about box volumes and what will be the resulting excursion and power for a driver.

 

I use VC2 to look at drivers (including "off axis") and cabinet diffraction .... although the gold standard is just build / measure a prototype.

 

I very rarely build passive XOs but when I do I model them with VC2 also.

[RoHo]

I used XSim crossover simulator recently when I re-designed the XO of my custom built speakers.  Not only are these type of programs a great tool but also provide an excellent learning environment - "what happens if I do this and this and this".  

I chose XSim mainly cos I could get it to work on my Mac using Wine.  And it's free.  What's not to like?

[niss_man]

On 25/02/2021 at 10:27 AM, RoHo said:

I used XSim crossover simulator recently when I re-designed the XO of my custom built speakers.  Not only are these type of programs a great tool but also provide an excellent learning environment - "what happens if I do this and this and this".  

I chose XSim mainly cos I could get it to work on my Mac using Wine.  And it's free.  What's not to like?

I enjoy Xsim as well and recommend it for new users  for it's simplicity and ease of use. I use winisd for box design first. I've also used bassbox (seems a bit dated now). Use Lspcad and Vituixcad later when your knowledge increases as they are more in depth. All work great as long as measurements and acoustic offsets are measured "properly".

 

For first timers to passive crossover designs I would recommend to buy the speaker design course from "Udemy" (about 3 courses available). It is difficult to know how to do proper measurements when starting out and the Speaker design course goes through everything in excellent detail. Things like far field measuring, gating your measurements (to produce a quasi anechoic measurement), close mic measuring, adding port response to measurements, acoustic offset measurements and adding baffle step to measurements (highly  important) are all things which the first timer probably doesn't know how to do. 

             Then you do all those measurements at different angles to check the power response from the speaker.

 

Have fun 

[niss_man]

Here are the courses. If you wait sometimes they offer them for 20-25$ each. 

https://www.udemy.com/courses/search/?src=ukw&q=speaker+design

[almikel]

as a self confessed "lazy diyer" I like to keep things simple.

I only build sealed boxes for woofers, and there's many options for modelling those.

Even if you get the box volume a bit wrong with sealed, it can be fixed with EQ (less so with ported enclosures)

 

I went to the darkside of active crossovers about 20 years ago, and DSP crossovers about 10 years ago.

With DSP you can prototype different crossovers quickly/easily.

 

 

On 26/02/2021 at 1:31 PM, niss_man said:

For first timers to passive crossover designs I would recommend to buy the speaker design course from "Udemy"

 

Good DIY passive crossover design is IMHO hard for a 2 way speaker, and much harder for 3 way speaker.

For first timers to passive crossover design I would recommend reading Rod Elliot's articles:

https://sound-au.com/biamp-vs-passive.htm

https://sound-au.com/bi-amp.htm

 

If you still want to build a passive crossover then read 

https://sound-au.com/lr-passive.htm

 

IMHO it's much easier/quicker to use DSP crossovers for DIY speaker design in conjunction with a measurement rig to setup DIY speakers.

 

cheers

Mike

Edited May 22, 2021 by almikel
clarification

[Sub Sonic]

I usually use DSP, but when making passive speakers, I generally just start playing, and measure frequency response and impedance. I am fortunate to have a large stack of inductors, caps and resistors though, so the design part only costs me time.

[almikel]

12 hours ago, Sub Sonic said:

I usually use DSP

 - for prototyping/testing crossovers DSP rules !

 

12 hours ago, Sub Sonic said:

but when making passive speakers, I generally just start playing, and measure frequency response and impedance. I am fortunate to have a large stack of inductors, caps and resistors though, so the design part only costs me time.

Wow - as a lazy DIYer I would never take this approach - I want my DIY stuff to be pretty close 1st time....

...one of the reasons I stopped using passive crossovers ~20 years ago.

 

IMHO DIY passive crossovers for 2 way are tricky to get right - 3 way much harder.

 

Of course active crossovers bring other issues, but for DIY, IMHO active crossovers with DSP provides the most flexibility and capability for a good result if well designed.

 

A poorly designed/deployed active/DSP solution can obviously have poor results  - but the same applies for passive designs.

 

But rectifying a poor passive design requires a soldering iron - not so with a DSP solution.

 

cheers

Mike

Edited May 27, 2021 by almikel
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