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Stumped With Drivers- Not sure what to do.
Greetings-
Let's start by saying I'm an idiot. It's ok- it's true. I make rash decisions with nothing really to justify them.
In doing so I have accumulated the following and they literally just sit in my basement collecting dust.
Also SORRY- I ramble- and I have 13 different conversations in one paragraph...
XT25SC90 - 5 pieces
SDS-160F125PRO1 - 5/6 pieces
RS100-8 - 4 pieces I tried the 10F/8424 & RS225-8 FAST / WAW Ref Monitor build(xrk971) but sounded muffled maybe other driver options would have been better. ( I almost just bought 7 PS95 lol)
RST28F-4 - 5 pieces
RS225-4 - 10 pieces
JBL D220TI - 5 pieces
Faital Pro 10FE200 -2 Piece-
Faital Pro 6FE200 -4 Pieces
Celestion TF1020 -3Pieces
Celestion CDX1-1746 -3Pieces
JBL 14-45 Waveguide 2 pieces
Dayton Audio H6512 6 pieces
Dayton Audio DC300 3 pieces
And probably $500+ in crossover parts-
I wanted to go with ****Nexus Inspired build by MTG Designs MTMWW L/R WTMW C then TM Rears****.. OR the ****Anthology- series( I think one version has a center**** but my woofers are 4 ohms and I suck- and I cant get my files to play nice with that many and impedance. stays like 1-2ohm ANYWAY- im stumped- im inexperienced and I really don't want to continue DIY speakers- I don't have patience or time with a large family. I just want to use what I can and get some extras to use them all probably give away the rest. I wanted to sell all my drivers also for what eve I could get and then just build Matts Nexus rather then try duplicate it.
Now 25% of me want to just throw it all out. Then I cringe at the waste and let them waste away in my basement more...I've tried selling them and no takers despite dirty cheap price. Again im an idiot- and i've tried making speakers and it never turns out well. I suck- and I have literally no space to get good measurements. this is what I was doing a few weeks ago lol...sad.--- Yes those are my files lol XO inspired by matt g Flex 8 speakers- at mtg designs
I don't even know how bad or good more horrible i suspect my FRD/ZMA are. Heck, I might have even lost my files lol- I padded my room the best I could and took the best FRD I could- just basically useless- super small data working with. FRD- i did ok i believe. I borrowed DATS V3-
Think everything just for that one speaker is here-- yes i know bad files lol
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1HlbjLPShcMHTtNtuBTOjNfuheLNp-XKm
I cant go with the DIY kits I wanted as they're no longer available anywhere----Spitfire or the Blues MT I don't Need DIYSG stuff- just not me nor is it needed. Also Spitfire Tweeter is unobtanium lol -
Comments
Plenty of cool drivers I’ve never owned or tested.
https://www.jfcomponents.com/
I jumped in a puddle, only to find myself in the middle of an ocean...
Driver pairing is more nuanced than us newbs want to acknowledge. There are things that factory spec sheets plain won't tell you. From what I have found it takes a lot of researching to see if others have worked with the drivers and already identified it's pitfalls.
Imo difficulty goes up exponentially the more drivers/ crossovers there are in the mix. Also pa style stuff can be tough to work with.
I'd suggest trying a simple 2-way. Of what I see in your list.. The xt25 and rs100 might be a fairly straight forward pairing. Would look neat too imo. It could then be a base to try and work a woofer in, to make a 3-way. A path to step up and build skills upon.
My space for measuring also leaves much to desire. I also struggle with crossover design but I think I am slowly clawing my way up. Often I find it is a small detail that I missed or plain did not know was required. The worst part seems to be over the years there have been so many ways to do things and previous notions that were later proven incorrect that it is a minefield trying to figure out a single method just to get off the ground with. And many who already know what they are doing just don't seem to understand that
You have the drivers for the Econowaves.
If you want to build the blues I talk with Matt (Mattsk8) on the regular basis I'm sure he would share the design.
I have spent some time with the spitfires and they are a good design, but not on my list of speakers I'd like to own.
He sds and the xt's should be a good combo.
I actually built the Econowaves lol- didn't really do it for me. Id appreciate the mention if you don't mind- I did Meniscus "contact" to buy stuff but been some time. Id love to build the Blues- I was going to do the MTM for my Center and MT for other 6 speakers.
What was it about the econowaves that didn't do it for ya? Being rather HT oriented.. they were designed for use with subwoofer and thus didn't have much bass extension. Also I did read those Dayton jbl knockoff waveguides have some sort of throat defect/mismatch to the driver throat size that neuters the top octave.
As a side note.. there will be things in your non-gated in-room response that are not related to your driver quality or crossover skills so can be safely ignored. Things like floor bounce that typically causes a big dip roughly around 400hz depending on the distance of the woofer to the floor. And below that room modes will begin to take over. Even above that reflections from other nearby objects will show up in the measurement. They are just measurement anomalies and in no way means your design sucks.
I'd also add.. I think every speaker build I've done I'd get frustrated during the crossover design stage and put the whole thing on hold for a bit until I could muster up the effort to take another swing with a more clear head. Which is usually after doing some more research on the issues I'm having.
Well for one I agree I feel like that WG is a hindrance. Going to try my other one this week hopefully if i can find some scrap to alter my test cabs.. Even with the CDX1-1746 the dayton WG would fall on its face it felt like. Maybe I can re-try the Econowave- I like the idea, because I wanted something i could use without a subwoofer while im not watching movies. My garbage Klipsch R625 easily do that lol- I felt like Econowave lacked a bit maybe it is the WG-
Materials are WAY to out of control still $60 4x8 3/4 sheet here mdf. Pure greed-
Anway'm going to do something cheeky- remove WG from both and add my JBL one- and Gorilla Tape the rest of the opening. Doesn't need perfection- just keep it relatively sealed. So long as it works, it wont be a dumb idea.
I even tried using Dayton Audio DSPB-KE Kernel DSP Expansion 2-In 3-Out with the DSPB-K DSP Kernel Board and even tried their - 4/8DSP.. But unusable for active XO- the noise was evil. Also Sigma Studio---yeah not for newbies. I cant afford better DSP units so passive is the way for me.
"remove WG from both and add my JBL one- and Gorilla Tape the rest of the opening. Doesn't need perfection- just keep it relatively sealed. So long as it works, it wont be a dumb idea."
Meant just for test cabs lol ----
I know the blues MT info, have the kit sort of, as good while back (2019) tried bromo trying to naively trying to convert into a 3 way in a big monkey coffin speaker I built. For MT it had same cutouts 170mm and 100mm that blues drivers shared. Though never got around to revisiting that 'repurpose' the cabinet build. Finally may again as found some sb17cac's on fleabay at the rule of thumb 50%, have that sb26 tweet and learned few more things with xover and measurements - always have to trick/ocd self into new project of course. So, now would unload the hivi's, but seems many like them which makes one feel obligated to try them, eventually. But gonna give the sb26, sb17cac and PEclassicsub225 (which said to come from SDC2023 project when bought up also on fleabay at more like 30%) a whirl.
Totally understand the paralysis when it comes to what to do next.