Tower Build

[ninjawhiteboy12 10+ year member]

I want to build a set of tower speaker for my Home Theater system and need a little help picking drivers. I have around 3-400 to work with and am looking for a high output SQ set-up. I have a 7.1 AV Reciever with 125 rms per channel to power them. I was thinking maybe a supertweeter or horn in each paired with some midbass/midrange drivers. I have searched parts express and madi sound, but I'm not sure exactly what I'm looking for or what would work well. Any suggestions?

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[martiandancer31 10+ year member]

HTGuide Forum - A Guide to HTguide.com Completed Speaker Designs.

 

[ninjawhiteboy12 10+ year member]

thanks man, that's pretty helpful actually I will read that some more and try to see what I can come up with

Any other suggestions?

 

[keep_hope_alive Premium Member]

The TriTrix - Speaker Building Project at Parts Express

TriTrix MTM TL Speaker Components And Cabinet Kit Pair 300-702

here is a tested kit that takes all of the math and trial and error out of the process. this is the easiest first step into building your own.

building your own set takes a lot of time, and requires a fair amount of knowledge. your first book should be the Loudspeaker Design Cookbook 7th ED by Vance Dickason. Then next purchase is some speaker modeling software, like WinSpeakerz or BassBoxPro.

You want to determine your limiting factors and start to determine variables. if you know you want floor standing towers, then you can start to determine an enclosure height. then determine the type - sealed, vented, transmission line, horn, etc. that will start to narrow down your speaker selections. your budget comes into play as well, limiting what you can spend on speakers given the cost of materials and crossover parts. lastly - your own fabrication skills and access to wood working tools will determine how good they will look. it takes a high attention to detail and good quality tools to make perfectly straight cuts that are suitable for showing off in a home.

 

[ninjawhiteboy12 10+ year member]

I have seen that and considered it, but just wanted a little more

the woodworking and enclosure building aspect of it isn't a problem, I just need some help choosing the drivers and components

 

[martiandancer31 10+ year member]

Zaph|Audio

not sure if he has any towers but he's pretty highly regarded. I swear there used to be more indices of DIY speaker projects around but I can't seem to find them at the moment.

 

[keep_hope_alive Premium Member]

I have seen that and considered it, but just wanted a little morethe woodworking and enclosure building aspect of it isn't a problem, I just need some help choosing the drivers and components

you need to take the two factors (enclosure and drivers) into consideration at the same time. some drivers are better suited for vented or transmission line, so if that is your goal, you will narrow your choices.

i use the published T/S parameters to evaluate designs before i buy anything... or i buy several drivers to experiment with. if you want to make one purchase, start doing software designs with a few of your top choices to verify the enclosures meet your expectations.

seeing pics of the final product isn't as helpful as seeing the design progress. Audio eXpress was always great about showcasing projects but with a lot of background and design information.

 

[thevic24 5,000+ posts]

I built something close to these with the exception of having 2 8" woofers per cabinet

The "Noah 8's" at PE's project show case.

It was a few years ago but the cabinets were 3.5cuft and tuned to 35hz. I was running them on a pair(one each) of Adcom 565 mono amps at 4 ohms and they took the power with ease. That and IMO, no sub was really needed.

 

[duanebro 10+ year member]

I must assume you have a sub already, These will need a sub. Speaker Design Works These are designed by the same guy who did the Tritrix mentioned above. And a link to a build: Stentorians NS6 - First time speaker build - Techtalk Speaker Building, Audio, Video, and Electronics Customer Discussion Forum From Parts-Express.com

And you will have enough left to build a matching CC. LOL

 

[ninjawhiteboy12 10+ year member]

Yes I have a sub already

Would it be possible to use a separate active crossover and tuning them to sound good instead of building passive crossovers to fit the towers?

 

[martiandancer31 10+ year member]

yeah, definitely, but you might also need EQ as some of those designs have notch filters and/or baffle step compensation and things of that nature built into the passive crossovers to help achieve a flatter frequency response. FTR, preferably an active crossover that can do some time alignment as well.

IMO, active xovers usually sound better than passive when implemented well, but again that's just IMO

 

[duanebro 10+ year member]

both active and passive can be great. You need more amp channels to go active. plus a miniDSP. This is to expensive for me, and kind of a pain if you need to move it at all. Like going to a comp, friends house, or party. You will need a measurement system if you want to build your own.

I highly recommend going with a well designed, proven build first. Then try to build a better system. You need to have a reference before you start or you won't know if you succeeded.