DIY Full Range Speaker Build

[Zoidburg]

Hi everyone,

I've enjoyed reading a lot of the threads on this board and its spurred me on to start a small project of my own. Its going to be my first real DIY Audio project and so I think keeping it as simple as possible is the best bet.

I fancy having a go at making a smallish pair of full range speakers and for this iv just bought a pair of Tang band W4-657 4 inch drivers with the aim of producing something similar to the kits that have been advertised in the trade sales forum.

Iv decided on this because it seems the easiest route for a novice and most of the information is already there for me to use! I would happily consider looking at any other plans if anyone can give me some ideas (as long as they will work with my chosen drivers).

Im reasonably confident I can knock up the MDF panels myself and build the cabinets easily enough in the garage and im looking forward to assembling it all.

Im happy to go with MDF but I think from an asthetics point of view if I went with plywood I could then finish them with a stain and a laquer which might be easier rather than trying to get a high quality paint finish. Im up in the air on this at the moment really (i guess paint would be usefull at covering up any screw holes / mistakes lol).


Thats about as far as iv got so far. I know I will need a few other bits and bobs, so can anyone help me with suppliers for things like speakers terminals, cable, etc please? Whos best to use?

I might not update this for a while but once I have everything to hand i will hopefully post up some photos of my progress!

[biggzy]

Hi everyone,

I've enjoyed reading a lot of the threads on this board and its spurred me on to start a small project of my own. Its going to be my first real DIY Audio project and so I think keeping it as simple as possible is the best bet.

I fancy having a go at making a smallish pair of full range speakers and for this iv just bought a pair of Tang band W4-657 4 inch drivers with the aim of producing something similar to the kits that have been advertised in the trade sales forum.

Iv decided on this because it seems the easiest route for a novice and most of the information is already there for me to use! I would happily consider looking at any other plans if anyone can give me some ideas (as long as they will work with my chosen drivers).

Im reasonably confident I can knock up the MDF panels myself and build the cabinets easily enough in the garage and im looking forward to assembling it all.

Im happy to go with MDF but I think from an asthetics point of view if I went with plywood I could then finish them with a stain and a laquer which might be easier rather than trying to get a high quality paint finish. Im up in the air on this at the moment really (i guess paint would be usefull at covering up any screw holes / mistakes lol).


Thats about as far as iv got so far. I know I will need a few other bits and bobs, so can anyone help me with suppliers for things like speakers terminals, cable, etc please? Whos best to use?

I might not update this for a while but once I have everything to hand i will hopefully post up some photos of my progress!

Hi, nice idea you got there, for speaker binding posts etc look on ebay or your local maplins store, there quite cheaply priced.

As for speaker wiring (inside the cabinets) i would use the same cable that your going to be using from the Amp to Speaker, some may have different views, but it sort of makes sense.... to me anyway.

MDF is a good and easy to work with material, it can be cut easily, shaped, sanded etc, thats what i would use or if you can, use proper planed timber planks cut to size, then if you stain it you will have a beautiful proper wood finish, and you cant beat that sort of finish.

Adam.

[lurcher]

If you are using MDF consider a mask.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medium-density_fibreboard

[Zoidburg]

Thanks for the speedy reply Biggzy,

I hadnt thought about using actual timber planks rather than MDF but im guessing that as the size of the cabinets is only 230 mm wide this could be a good option, especially when it comes to finishing them.

I notice that the kit is also supplied with 2 no. filter coils that need to be wired in. Any idea what these are anyone? Or where I could source them? Mapins again maybe?

[Zoidburg]

If you are using MDF consider a mask.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medium-density_fibreboard

Cheers, Yep im aware of that, Im pretty sure Im gonna take a cutting list along to my local timber supplier (or worst case scenario a wickes) and get most of the cutting done by them. But certainly il wear a mask for any routing / finishing work.

[The Vinyl Adventure]

i want to do somthing very similar to this ...
i found this

http://www.vikash.info/audio/W3-871S/index.asp

i know thats a different driver but it might be some help?

comments from "steve's stuff" steve here on one of my enquieries

http://theartofsound.net/forum/showthread.php?p=199180#post199180

where did you get your drivers from?

[Reid Malenfant]

I fancy having a go at making a smallish pair of full range speakers and for this iv just bought a pair of Tang band W4-657 4 inch drivers with the aim of producing something similar to the kits that have been advertised in the trade sales forum.

Iv decided on this because it seems the easiest route for a novice and most of the information is already there for me to use! I would happily consider looking at any other plans if anyone can give me some ideas (as long as they will work with my chosen drivers).
What are the driver parameters? If the parameters are known then any enclosure can be modelled...

So, what are the driver parameters :scratch: Actually i might go looking for them ;)

[biggzy]

i want to do somthing very similar to this ...
i found this

http://www.vikash.info/audio/W3-871S/index.asp

i know thats a different driver but it might be some help?


Those speakers are a work of wonder to look at, very well built from what i can see :)

Adam.

[Welder]

I don’t know how to say this like the polite chaps here might so here goes;
Don’t use Tang Band Drivers
Don’t use MDF
Don’t waste your time and money.

I’ve heard two Tang Band self built kits now, admittedly not the particular driver you’re considering and in a word, awful.
I don’t expect you to pay the slightest bit of attention to what I’ve written, I know I wouldn’t but……..

If you fancy a reasonably cheap speaker build that will at least give you some fun and a satisfactory sound at the end of it consider a kit from IPL and build your own cabs in ply or HD chipboard.

[Zoidburg]

What are the driver parameters? If the parameters are known then any enclosure can be modelled...

So, what are the driver parameters :scratch: Actually i might go looking for them ;)

Im not sure but if you find them can you put post them up here pls?

[Zoidburg]

i want to do somthing very similar to this ...
i found this

http://www.vikash.info/audio/W3-871S/index.asp

i know thats a different driver but it might be some help?

comments from "steve's stuff" steve here on one of my enquieries

http://theartofsound.net/forum/showthread.php?p=199180#post199180

where did you get your drivers from?

Yeah thats a nice looking monitor but iv a feeling that the driver isnt made any more. I might be wrong though. I like the ply finish a lot.

I bought the drivers from a site called european audio.

[greenhomeelectronics]

I built my transmission lines out of MDF rather than chip, I am very happy with them. MDF is surprisingly nasty stuff though so precautions are essential. My trannies are well braced, the design kind of takes care of that. Whatever you do have fun doing it, there is nothing more satisfying than a DIY job that works out well.
Best of luck with it, whichever way you go.

[Zoidburg]

I don’t know how to say this like the polite chaps here might so here goes;
Don’t use Tang Band Drivers
Don’t use MDF
Don’t waste your time and money.

I’ve heard two Tang Band self built kits now, admittedly not the particular driver you’re considering and in a word, awful.
I don’t expect you to pay the slightest bit of attention to what I’ve written, I know I wouldn’t but……..

If you fancy a reasonably cheap speaker build that will at least give you some fun and a satisfactory sound at the end of it consider a kit from IPL and build your own cabs in ply or HD chipboard.

Thanks for your thoughts and comments, but iv already bought the drivers so its no going back now. Im not expecting to be blown away by the sound its more of a learning curve for me really, just dipping a toe in the water. All in I'm only looking to spend about £80 to £100 and im guessing the IPLs will far exceed this figure.

[Zoidburg]

I built my transmission lines out of MDF rather than chip, I am very happy with them. MDF is surprisingly nasty stuff though so precautions are essential. My trannies are well braced, the design kind of takes care of that. Whatever you do have fun doing it, there is nothing more satisfying than a DIY job that works out well.
Best of luck with it, whichever way you go.

Thanks very much Dave, im certainly looking forward to it.

[Reid Malenfant]

Ben, exactly which drivers have you bought :scratch:

There are more than one type of W4-657 :eyebrows: They have different parameters so i need to know the exact model ;)

[Zoidburg]

Ben, exactly which drivers have you bought :scratch:

There are more than one type of W4-657 :eyebrows: They have different parameters so i need to know the exact model ;)

http://www.europe-audio.com/Product.asp?Product_ID=7967

These are the exact ones ive ordered, it dos'nt give much more information though sorry Mark.

[Reid Malenfant]

I'm assuming when you say "ordered" that they haven't arrived yet? They look like they'll be the W4-657SC as there was mention of the drivers being magnetically shielded, but they could also be the 657SH :eyebrows: You guessed it, they have different parameters again.

You'll just have to let us know what they are when you receive them ;) If it doesn't happen to say then you're in the shit :doh: Well that is unless you happen to have a function generator, frequency counter, digital multimeter & a 10ohm 1% precision resistor in which case you can test the driver to find out the parameters for yourself :)

[Zoidburg]

I'm assuming when you say "ordered" that they haven't arrived yet? They look like they'll be the W4-657SC as there was mention of the drivers being magnetically shielded, but they could also be the 657SH :eyebrows: You guessed it, they have different parameters again.

You'll just have to let us know what they are when you receive them ;) If it doesn't happen to say then you're in the shit :doh: Well that is unless you happen to have a function generator, frequency counter, digital multimeter & a 10ohm 1% precision resistor in which case you can test the driver to find out the parameters for yourself :)

Nope they wont arrive for a week or so yet but as soon as they are here il post up any information they come with. In the mean time might also drop the supplier an email asking for as much infro and parameters as possible.

Thanks for all the advise so far everyone :)

[Ali Tait]

Ben, have a look here if you haven't already. Lots of good stuff.

http://www.frugal-horn.com/

[Zoidburg]

Time for a quick update folks.

In the last week iv bought a few essential bits and bobs such as the speaker binding posts and the internal cabling which has cost me very little (thanks ebay!).

This morning iv had confirmation that the drivers have now been shipped so im expecting them any time now and hopefully they will arrive with all the information i need, fingers crossed eh!

Il post up some photos where then arrive.

[Zoidburg]

I'm assuming when you say "ordered" that they haven't arrived yet? They look like they'll be the W4-657SC as there was mention of the drivers being magnetically shielded, but they could also be the 657SH :eyebrows: You guessed it, they have different parameters again.

You'll just have to let us know what they are when you receive them ;) If it doesn't happen to say then you're in the shit :doh: Well that is unless you happen to have a function generator, frequency counter, digital multimeter & a 10ohm 1% precision resistor in which case you can test the driver to find out the parameters for yourself :)

Drivers have arrived today and they are stamped with W4-657D, im gonna check the Tang Band site later and try and find some more info / parameters.

I dont know much about drivers but they look very nice so im ;)

[Reid Malenfant]

Hi Ben, PM activeXP (Steve) & ask him for the driver parameters as i did this previously & he had them. You see he used the same drivers in his experimental double chamber reflex enclosures. Just wish i'd kept the data :doh:

Try to get as much info as possible ;) ATB, Mark.

[Zoidburg]

Hi Ben, PM activeXP (Steve) & ask him for the driver parameters as i did this previously & he had them. You see he used the same drivers in his experimental double chamber reflex enclosures. Just wish i'd kept the data :doh:

Try to get as much info as possible ;) ATB, Mark.

thanks mate will do.

[Zoidburg]

currently banging my head against the wall trying to get WinISD Pro to work. it wont save any of my data and thus i cant get it to model anything................

Any ideas anyone ? I can imput the parameters ok but it then wont save and sometimes whe it does seem to save (to desktop) I then cant review it at all. siiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiigh.

[Reid Malenfant]

Open the driver editor, stick in only the parameters i mentioned in my PM. Then hit advanced parameters & go back to parameters & a good load of blanks should be filled in.

Before doing anything you'll need to name the manufacturer of the driver, then the make as well & the model of driver - don't miss anything ;) You need to fill in 3 things to name it etc.. So "Tang Band" "Tang Band" (again) & model #

Once you have done the above hit "save" & a window should pop up asking if you want to save it as it is... Don't try to save it somewhere else, the software knows where to put it ;)

Let me know how you get on...

:cool:

[Zoidburg]

Brilliant, worked a treat Mark :). And to think I was pulling my hair out trying to get this far last night lol All i needed to do was save it in the location given:rolleyes:

Ok so iv progressed through a few screens choosing a vented box.

Its now giving me 5 choices

QB3 Quasi butterworth
BB4 SBB4 (super boom box)
C4 SC4 (sub cheby shev
etc
etc

What do these mean and which should I choose?

[Reid Malenfant]

There you go, you just need to listen to speakermark :lol:

Ok, select whichever you want ;) Me i just selected QB3 (quasi butterworth) & went from there... After looking at the p*ss poor bass responce i increased the box size & lowered the tuning freqeuncy to make an EBS (extended bass shelf) @ -6Db. This would be great for use flat against a wall, frankly it's the only way you'll get any usable bass out of the things ;)

This is what you'd end up with:-

http://i939.photobucket.com/albums/ad240/speakermark/LAB12/TBspeaker.jpg

Unfortunately if you then click on maximum power (look at the smaller window second from top left & click on it you'll get a drop down! "transfer function magnitude") you'll soon see it's excursion limited & power limited :doh:

[Zoidburg]

Cheers SpeakerMark, I deffinately owe you a few virtual beers for all this help mate.

Im getting an error message up saying "floating point division by zero" any ideas what iv done now ?

[Reid Malenfant]

Yeah, the decimal point is tiny in the box tuning frequency or box size ;) What you have done is left two or more decimal points in there & it's having a bit of a freak out :eyebrows:

[Zoidburg]

:doh: Great got it now.

So the graph you show is that the "ideal" shape i should be aiming for ?

[Reid Malenfant]

Not really no :eyebrows: Ideally you want as flat a response (IE at 0Db) as low as possible, unfortunately it means these drivers are only good for about 90 - 100Hz in a ported box. If you planned on adding a sub then i'm sure they'd do nicely, but they'll never go to a decent volume due to the driver size - they simply can't move enough air due to the diaphram size ;)

If it was me & i was determined to use them i'd stuff them in a sealed box & use a couple of 8" or 10" drivers to fill in below say 200Hz & have these doing everything else. That way they'll do a more realistic volume level & you'll get much better bass..

I'll look into what they do in a sealed box :cool:

[Zoidburg]

Well after plenty of head scratching iv decided that the best way forward for me is to continue with the clone of Steve's (activeX) design. I'd like to say a big thanks to Reid Malanfrant for his advice over the last week or so but at present im too much of a beginner to get my head round anything other than a bit of a copy job :doh:

So tonight I got the MDF cut to size at a local timber yard and kicked things off gluing the sides to the back plates.

<a href="http://s1224.photobucket.com/albums/ee377/zoidburg1/?action=view&amp;current=IMG_0454.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i1224.photobucket.com/albums/ee377/zoidburg1/IMG_0454.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket"></a>

I stuck the dividers in to keep everything square and straight but will remove them again once everything has dried as they need to have some holes cut in them.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/53210713@N06/5638431876/in/photostream/

Oh and by the way please excuse the various sofas / motorbikes and other assorted junk in the background, its not the worlds tidiest garage!!

http://www.flickr.com/photos/53210713@N06/5638433908/in/photostream/

Finally I taped in place the top and front panel just to give me an idea of their size. Looking good so far I think.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/53210713@N06/5638435776/in/photostream/

Over the weekend I have to to cut some holes in the back panels for the terminals and also measure and cut out the holes for the ports and drivers :scratch: Now to find a willing relative with a jigsaw:)

Wish me luck:eyebrows:

[Zoidburg]

Oh no what have I done wrong this time?

[Marco]

Pics no worky..... ;)

Marco.

[Reid Malenfant]

Oh no what have I done wrong this time?
Forgot the pictures :lolsign:

[Zoidburg]

I linked them to flickr is that right?

[Reid Malenfant]

Try Imageshack or Photobucket :) Never tried Flickr :scratch:

[Zoidburg]

Well after plenty of head scratching iv decided that the best way forward for me is to continue with the clone of Steve's (activeX) design. I'd like to say a big thanks to Reid Malanfrant for his advice over the last week or so but at present im too much of a beginner to get my head round anything other than a bit of a copy job

So tonight I got the MDF cut to size at a local timber yard and kicked things off gluing the sides to the back plates.


I stuck the dividers in to keep everything square and straight but will remove them again once everything has dried as they need to have some holes cut in them.



Oh and by the way please excuse the various sofas / motorbikes and other assorted junk in the background, its not the worlds tidiest garage!!



Finally I taped in place the top and front panel just to give me an idea of their size. Looking good so far I think.


Over the weekend I have to to cut some holes in the back panels for the terminals and also measure and cut out the holes for the ports and drivers Now to find a willing relative with a jigsaw

Wish me luck

I'm having a bad day today so please see the attached photobucket link for pix folks, maybe some kindly mod can help me out with the pix pl.

http://s1224.photobucket.com/albums/ee377/zoidburg1/

[Reid Malenfant]

I'm having a bad day today so please see the attached photobucket link for pix folks, maybe some kindly mod can help me out with the pix pl.

http://s1224.photobucket.com/albums/ee377/zoidburg1/
Yep pictures are there :) I always glue & screw enclosures together, this allows you to effectively assembly damn near the whole thing before it sees a bit of glue. Once i'm happy i take the thing to bits & assemble it in exactly the same order as i did without the glue, this means all things are aligned correctly.

Tbh i'd never just glue an MDF enclosure together as it's kind of like very thick paper, it can easily fracture (given enough force) & a whole layer of the stuff will detach itself from the board :rolleyes:

The stuff can split so i drill a hole into it that will take the screw shank but not the thread, you end up with an enclosure that can be tested unglued :) But then i do use a table saw for accurate cuts...

[Zoidburg]

Cheers Reid for your comments.

Im going to have a look at the enclosures tonight and see what they are looking like now they have dried. I might add a few additional screws to the mix just to be on the safe side.

I have now secured the loan of a jigsaw for the weekend so its full steam ahead on saturday.

[Marco]

Hi Ben,


I'm having a bad day today so please see the attached photobucket link for pix folks, maybe some kindly mod can help me out with the pix pl.


You need to host images through Imageshack or Photobucket. See this thread for full (and easy) instructions:

http://theartofsound.net/forum/showthread.php?t=2

:)

Marco.