Loudspeaker Design

Designing The Monochromes

By: Beau Seigfreid




































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The Louuspeakei cabinet is small, poitable, anu capable of piouucing iich,
waim sounus without the use of the sub. Easy listening is intenueu on this system
iathei than louu "in youi face" type sounus that you heai at a given venue. The iuea
was to cieate bookshelf louuspeakeis that aie pleasing to the eais fiom a shoit
uistance away. Each louuspeakei weighs less than Su pounus anu is easily capable of
being tianspoiteu to any given uesignation.
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The main goal I hau in minu was to cieate the most enjoyable listening
expeiience at the cheapest cost possible. This woulu make the speakeis affoiuable
foi college stuuents anu music hobbyists alike. The buuget I useu foi the speakeis is
a flat $Suu.

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Foi my uesign, I ueciueu to cieate a poiteu a box as it woulu yielu a lowei fS
than sealeu boxes of the same size with the same speakeis. The speakeis aie 1u" x
14" x 14" (L x W x Bepth) with an innei cabinet volume of about 1 cubic foot. The
poit is about six inches long anu locateu to the left of the left speakei anu the iight
of the iight one. 1.S inches of NBF suiiounus the entiie enclosuie. A stanuaiu box
shape has been useu foi the cabinet.

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Each louuspeakei is capable of piouucing an SPL of 88 uB at 1m away. Foi
me, 88 uB is moie than enough sounu piessing against my face anu because these
aie speakeis that aie to be built foi sounu iepiouuction at close iange, uistance
uoes not factoi into the equation as much.
Besiieu Bistance = 1m
SPL Wattage
88 1
91 2
94 4
97 8
100 16

This chait measuies the SPL level baseu on a uistance of a metei away in ielation to
wattage. You can see that an amp with veiy low wattage coulu be enough to powei
my speakeis at the potential they neeu to be at.

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By playing thiee uiffeient songs anu applying a high pass filtei to each song
to finu the highest fiequency acceptable to me foi the louuspeakeis to stop
iepiouucing sounu well, I uiscoveieu that the speakeis neeu to be able to hanule
fiequencies uown to at least 8u Bz. The songs I testeu on weie Skiillex - Roughneck
(Full Flex), BT - Emeigency, Biityphonics - Biity (Baith & vauei Remix). So each
louuspeakei neeus to hanule fiequencies fiom KO P? ,( /O ;P?. The speakeis I plan
to use aie able to hanule fiequencies of about Su Bz accoiuing to theii iesponse
chait.

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The speakeis have an accuiate on-axis iesponse that is faiily piecise. 0ff-axis
iesponse foi these speakeis is not as impoitant as they aie intenueu to be about 1m
away fiom the usei at most.

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It is impoitant to keep the bass extension to at least 8u Bz. If the buuget
allows it, the bass extension shoulu go to 6u Bz. The speakeis aie not intenueu to be
veiy louu so the SPL uoes not have to be veiy high in the enu. The impoitant thing is
to make speakeis that can accuiately iepiouuce sounu fiom about 1uu Bz - 2ukBz
anu that the speakeis be as small as possible to make them convenient foi tiavel
puiposes.
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The intention is to builu speakeis that can at least accuiately iepiouuce
sounus fiom about with an fS of at most 8u Bz.
Figuie 1 - Besign Piioiities
As seen in Figuie 1, my majoi piioiity is bass iesponse. Foi that ieason, I will
be using a venteu box. Fiuelity is also a highly iegaiueu pait of louuspeakei uesign.
Bass
Response;
6S%
SPL 0utput;
1u%
Size 2S%
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By saciificing some SPL output, I shoulu be able to come up with an affoiuable anu
effective system in theoiy.
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The louuspeakeis in question aie intenueu to iepiouuce the sounu in a club
atmospheie that mimics the "boomy" qualities of a club without being tuneu as louu
as a club. Foi this ieason, I ueciueu to keep my cap SPL level at aiounu 1uu uB.
Accoiuing to a uocument given to the stuuents on Chiistophei Plummei's }an 2S,
2u12 lectuie, that just baiely touches the iange of meuium level music. By uoing an
expeiiment out of class, I uiscoveieu that my aveiage listening level is about 76 uBA
which is way less than what I oiiginally intenueu the speakeis neeueu to piouuce.

Figuie 2 - Songs vs. Piefeiieu uBa
Songs Aveiage Listening Level
City anu Coloui - Bay 0lu Bate 74 uBa
The N Nachine - Black 8u uBa
Nacklemoie - Same Love 78 uBa

Because my own comfoitable listening level is not veiy high anu well within the
ability of my speakeis that I'm choosing, I will not neeu a veiy expensive amplifiei to
impiove the SPL of the louuspeakeis.





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Upon researching ideas for a 2-way passive speaker system, I decided to use a ~1
1/4 Dome Tweeter and an ~6-1/2 woofer. Each box will have a 1" tweetei anu an 6
12" woofei mounteu to its baffle. By calculating length of a wavelength at 18uu Bz
anu conveiting it to inches, (SS1x wheie x is the fiequency anu SS1 is the speeu of
sounu in ms) I uiscoveieu that my uiiveis neeu to be ~7" apait fiom each othei in
oiuei to peifoim auequately.
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Figuie S - Bispeision vs. Fiequency

This giaph ioughly shows the way a ciiculai tweetei anu woofei will ieact to
each othei if the ciossovei fiequency is ~18uu Bz. In theoiy, the tweeteis shoulu

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cioss ovei to the woofei fiequency at a lowei fiequency than 18uu Bz to pievent
lobing fai bettei than what they will now. But uespite the uiffiaction happening
heie, I uo not want to push the tweetei fuithei uown fiequency.
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As I went down the list of drivers on the list, I also put the drivers through modeling on
WinSpeakerz to see just how they would react to the vented enclosure. The majority of
the woofers had a very similar response to the enclosure. The woofers frequency
response charts are as follows;
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Woofers Price F3 dB Sensitivity
1. Dayton Audio RS225-8 8" Reference
Woofer
$57.42 28 Hz 86 dB
2. Dayton Audio DC160-8 6-1/2" Classic
Woofer
$21.78 34 Hz 88 dB
S. Bayton Auuio RS18u-4 7" Refeience
Woofei 4 0hm
$49.6u 4u Bz 88 uB
4. Dayton Audio ST210-8 8" Series II
Woofer

$69.7S S2 Bz 9u uB
S. Bayton Auuio BS21S-8 8" Besignei Seiies
Woofei Speakei
$4S.2u S7 Bz 9u uB
Figure 4.1 Woofer Selections
Dayton Audio RS225-8 8" Reference Woofer This speakers frequency plot can be
found on the next. I really wanted an 8 woofer to go with a set of tweeters because I
really wanted that bass response in my set of drivers. I love the response ability of these
speakers but they have some significant problems before 1 kHz with a very steep roll-off.


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Figure 4.2 - Dayton Audio RS225-8 8" Reference Woofer
The next drivers I chose were from Dayton Audio just like all the other drivers in this
paper will be. This woofer is the Dayton Audio DC160-8 6-1/2" Classic Woofer. I
wanted to push myself to stick with a particular brand of speaker in order to build loud

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speakers that had drivers that were meant for each other, so to speak. This speaker is
smaller than the speaker I intended to have.


Figure 4.3 - Dayton Audio DC160-8 6-1/2" Classic Woofer

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The speakers I got really excited to get my hands on were the Dayton Audio ST210-8 8"
Series II Woofers. Amazingly, these ones also have the dip similar to the first 8.

Figure 4.4 - Dayton Audio ST210-8 8" Series II Woofers

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After all the debate, I decided to go with the next set of drivers which are the Dayton
Audio DS215-8 8" Designer Series Woofer Speaker. The frequency response plot looks a
bit easier to work with when it comes to a cross-over at about 1800 Hz. The f3 of the
driver is fairly impressive as well at 36 Hz.

Figure 4.5 - Dayton Audio DS215-8 8" Designer Series Woofer Speaker

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Figure 4.6 A Modeled Dayton Audio DS175-8 6 1/2" Designer Series Woofer Speaker

That driver looks like this when modeled in a 18 x 14 x 14 (H x W x D) enclosure
with a 1.5 inch diameter/ 2.18 circular vent. The bass boost is what I want in order to
achieve a big, warm sound. And by dropping the diameter of the speaker from 8 to 6 -
1/2, the price dropped along with the sensitivity. This ended up with my woofer and
tweeter both having the same sensitivity.
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Tweeters Price dB Sensitivity
1. Dayton Audio ND28F-6 1-1/8"
Neodymium Dome Tweeter
$23.29 88 dB
2. Dayton Audio DC28F-8 1-1/8" Silk
Dome Tweeter
$19.75 89 dB
S. Bayton Auuio BC28FT-8 1-18" Silk
Bome Tiuncateu Tweetei
$2u.4S 89 uB
4. Bayton Auuio RS28F-4 1-18" Silk Bome
Tweetei
$S4.7S 88 uB
S. Dayton Audio RS28A-4 1-1/8"
Aluminum Dome Tweeter

$S4.7S 88 uB
Figure 5.1 Tweeter Selections Table
I ended up narrowing down my tweeter selections to the two silk tweeters based on price
and quality. The first of the two is this tweeter, the Dayton Audio DC28F-8 1-1/8" Silk

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Dome Tweeter. The tweeter looks to have some problems as the frequencies enter the
very high ranges.

Figure 5.2 - Dayton Audio DC28F-8 1-1/8" Silk Dome Tweeter

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As it turns out, the Bayton Auuio RS28F-4 1-18" Silk Bome Tweetei may cost
ioughly Su moie uollais but may be veiy woith it in the enu uue to the flat iesponse
they give.

Figuie S.S - Bayton Auuio RS28F-4 1-18" Silk Bome Tweetei

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I useu an online calculatoi to geneiate the baffle step coiiection in my given speakei
enclosuie. The equation took in my speakei sensitivity of 9u uB along with the
wiuth of my baffle in inches anu my uiivei's iesistance. This calculatoi geneiates
what is neeueu in my ciicuit in oiuei to shift fiom 2pi space to 4pi space effectively.
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0iuei Butteiwoith Ciossovei will be auueu to the ciicuit foi a smooth pass
aiounu 14uu Bz between the tweetei anu woofei.
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http:uiyauuiopiojects.comTechnicalBaffle-Step-Coiiection-Ciicuit-Calculatoi
(Accesseu Febiuaiy 2S
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2 way ciossovei uesigneicalculatoi Accesseu Apiil 1u, 2u1S
http:www.uiyauuioanuviueo.comCalculatoiX0vei

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The ciossovei was uesigneu in hopes that a pau woulu not be neeueu in oiuei to
lowei the haishness of eithei the lows oi the highs anu that the two speakeis woulu
hopefully have combineu signals in a comfoitable way.
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In the end, the response from the woofer and tweeter landed at about plus or minus 3.5
dB from 100 Hz to 10 kHz. After looking at some response charts from some KRK Rokit
6 (Which is what the box is modeled after) I saw some distinct differences in bass
extension and high extension but the response overall is not all that different without
smoothing.

This is the tweeters overall response as depicted by FuzzMeasure from around 1400 to
30 kHz.





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This is the woofers response without the tweeter being a part of the overall response.

This final graph gives the overall system response of the woofer and tweeter combined.
The f3 of the system is about 80 Hz. I think with a stronger crossover set at a higher
frequency (2000 Hz) the response will become much more clear as this response seemed
to be formed from a distorted tweeter found after presentation day. The goal was to be
able to have usable speakers at the end of the semester with the cheapest cost possible. I
originally sought out to build the speakers with only $300 and managed to save $40 of
that with this speaker design totaling out to about $260. Now with that being said, I

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expect to pay at least $60 extra on a new crossover in the future. This would total the
loudspeaker cost at around $320.





















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1. Bayton Auuio, "Woofei anu Tweetei Specs"
http:www.uaytonauuio.com
2. Baviu Noulton, !"#$% '()"*+,-./ !0( 1"23%(#( 45,+( 6"* 75+," 8*"+5)#,"- $-+
9-.,-((*,-. (2uu7): 2u7 - 217
S. Baviu Noulton, !"#$% '()"*+,-./ !0( 1"23%(#( 45,+( 6"* 75+," 8*"+5)#,"- $-+
9-.,-((*,-. (2uu7): S11 - SS6
4. Philip Newell anu Keith, :"5+;3($<(*;/ ="* >5;,) '()"*+,-. $-+ '(3*"+5)#,"-
?@AABC/ 2Su - 27u
5. Speaker City, "Classic Advanced 9" Woofer."
http://www.speakercity.com/Merchant2/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Store_Co
de=SC&Product_Code=CAW938&Category_Code=MorelCA.
6. http:uiyauuiopiojects.comTechnicalBaffle-Step-Coiiection-Ciicuit-
Calculatoi
7. 2 way ciossovei uesigneicalculatoi
http:www.uiyauuioanuviueo.comCalculatoiX0vei













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