As cheap as possible Full Range driver fun

Hi everyone.

Just wanted to post about my little experiment with Full range drivers since @shaizada and @Pyruvate said I should post more often and there's quite a good following for wide bander type speakers here.

But first a quick background: I started off with headphones since I had an idea how much a full speaker system would cost since my dad is into Home Theater and has one kicking system. Of course I would fall for expensive planar headphones and everything else associated with them. HE6 & LCD3 were the highlight of that life. Got married and didn't find time to listen to cans since my wife too enjoys music, her music is probably better than mine I'd like to add, and saw my dream speakers during college days on craigslist for a lovely price. Purchased those, got a basic turntable second hand (wife's music is lovely on vinyl), kept my Theta DAC which coincidentally just fizzled out recently RIP and then @Pyruvate told me about the magic of full range speakers specifically the Blumentein Nagas that @shaizada owns. Was lucky enough to have a listen and even luckier to meet Gaurav and @insidious meme as well. I was hooked.

Which brings us to this post..

I had a pair of cheap monoprice speakers ($35) lying around and I remembered the driver size was 8" and I also noticed on parts express sold Pioneer BOFU knockoffs for $15 each http://www.parts-express.com/grs-8fr-8-full-range-8-speaker-pioneer-type-b20fu20-51fw--292-430 and I wondered how it would sound if i took out the crossover, dropped in the 8" FR and wired it all back up.

Here are the Results!

http://imgur.com/qAN2xuc

Flipped the cabinet upside down. The speaker was originally a 3-way design however the FR drivers are directly wired straight out to a Dayton T amp. Added some acousta fill to compensate for the cabinet not being designed for the FR drivers. Original drivers are pictured behind the whole setup on the floor.

Sound: Definitely doesn't come close to @shaizada 's Nagas but for the price of the whole little project they sound great for the price of all the parts and the ease of putting it all together. Vocals are quite lovely. Never listened to this much Norah Jones until putting these together. There really isn't any bass especially compared to my Ascend towers. However, any simple mid centric music just sounds lovely.

I think I would chose this ghetto FR build of mine over any $100-200 speakers out there, all for a fraction of their cost, and even with their very apparent limitations in their current guise. (Don't even try playing modern electronic music on them. Though I might say it's not that bad, especially if you add a sub, like I tried with my HSU VTF2 sub.)

I might build proper cabinets for the drivers one day. But right now we're only renting an apartment so build space is lacking. Maybe my dad will let my build it at their house. Overall it was a fun cheap way to get a taste of Full Range sound. I'm currently using them as computer speakers and moved them into dedicated boxes. 8" sealed subwoofer boxes I picked up cheap on ebay. Maybe I should have gotten the ported boxes instead to help w the lack of bass but this was all just for fun and the sealed boxes fit my desk setup perfectly. Maybe I'll throw together @Pyruvate a pair in a different cabinet option but he seems to have fallen for smaller 4" FR drivers.

new boxes

http://imgur.com/LGZMfFn

Current setup

http://imgur.com/osg30h2

 

Congrats on growing the balls to finally post bro! I'm proud of ya. Trust me, the guys won't bite... for the most part.

Great seeing you getting your DIY feet wet on a budget. I immediately knew that you'd fall for the FR sound once I listened to the Naga's for the first time. As for which direction you'll end up taking in the future (multi range vs fullrange), let's just continue to enjoy the ride as we've been doing; we still have future meets and shows to attend, so plenty of opportunities to listen and figure out what's right for us.

Since you're getting that Nagaoka book soon, we'll try to pick out some designs to build and play with. Too bad we missed the big meet so we didn't have a chance to listen to @JK47's BK16.

Sorry about the progeny, I'm sure one of the folks here can possibly fix it for you. Or you'll find a Modi Multibit for cheap.

 

You need to add a baffle step compensation circuit. You will find the low end, 250hz and below will improve dramatically. They will do a better job at competing with your towers and sound better with electronic music. FR drivers need BSC unless you put them in a giant box with like a 40" baffle. You also maybe should put a Zobel network in there to make sure you can get all the way to 16,000hz wile keeping the top end from being harsh. I like FR speakers, but you actually need to put as much circuitry in them as a 2-way or 3-way to get them to sound there best.

 

haha yeah just wanted to have a little taste of the FR sound w/o committing too much. I'm still wondering whether I should pursue it full time and replace my Ascend towers with a complete full range system.

oh I didn't know that. I was under the impression the less that goes in between the better FR sounds. Will need to read up/ learn many of these things, I'm still quite new at speaker building. I'm considering building this cabinet for it. http://p10hifi.net/FAL/downloads/Pass-BOFU-TL-map-010910.pdf Looks like a good start and not too complicated as some designs.

 

Well it's somewhat of a paradox. Circuits do have a negative impact on sound quality, but often they are necessary due to real world compromises. Ideally, you would make up for the baffle step loss without using a circuit on the full range. For example a 1.5 way design. In that design you use 2 of the same driver in the enclosure with only having one with a low pass at the point of the baffle step loss, and the other running full range. While this technically uses a circuit, it is only used on the low range driver so the actual driver running full range is unaffected. Although you might still put a Zobel circuit on the driver running full range. I built speaking of this design, and honest can remember if I did or not. Another way to make up for the baffle step loss without using a circuit, would be to do it totally acoustically. This is exactly what that Nelson Pass TL design is supposed to due. So if you do build these enclosures, you would not need to put a lot of circuitry in them, none at all actually. That is actually a cool design and now you have me wanting to build this. I am looking for a floor standing project. Let me know if you build this.

 

That looks like a good design and all, but why is it written in comic sans???

 

Haha no clue. Stumbled upon it after reading this article http://www.enjoythemusic.com/diy/0710/bofu_pioneer.htm