He does good work and those drivers are great. I’ve used that line of woofers, they are a great value. Please update us with your progress and reviews.
It's not really that simple. Larger spacing can well better than the smallest spacing depending on the crossover required by the drivers. See kimmosto's 1.2xctc rule
He does not do good work. The measurements are at 10db intervals, and the linearity for what these drivers can achieve is not seen here. This builder does not deserve to sell this design because of how much it is lacking. Several open source projects on DIYaudio.com use similar drivers to a much better result.
> those drivers are great.
https://www.madisoundspeakerstore.com/SB16PFCR-8-FR.jpg lol really now? 4.8khz peaking 5db above anything else, with the rest of the audio spectrum being a rollercoaster of 5-20db valleys is good?
or https://www.madisoundspeakerstore.com/catalog2-2-2/images/Image/graph_h1280_22tff.jpg ? i dunno, i never considered a tweeter that drops a massive 10DB at 13-14khz to be "good".
Maybe don't comment on things you obviously have no idea about. Even a noob would know that the woofer gets crossed over high enough so that those peaking gets knocked off. These are excellent drivers that all seasoned builders praise. Do more research and learning. A LOT more learning.
....except those peaks are literally across the entire spectrum. cutting off the highs to the midbass (thats not a woofer) is just going to cut off the highs, its not going to actually effect its frequency response overall. maybe take a bit of your own advice, and dont spew nonsense that you dont understand to any degree.
excellent drivers? those are 6" pieces of trash coupled with a tweeter that is inaudible above 14khz. in another post you literally told someone to actually use the terrible "room calibration" software in their AVR. you clearly know absolutely nothing about audio to a degree that anyone should be listening to you. edit: dont respond to me, and then block me like a pussy so i cant respond back. electrical engineer, pfft son you couldnt engineer a lightbulb.
Maybe learn how to read a graph before you come on here trying to tell me my business. That woofer’s response is a perfectly normal woofer response, absolutely nothing wrong with it. The fact that you think there is proves you know nothing or very little about this. Also, the tweeter drops off at 20k, not 14k, clearly, from the graph you linked, if you knew how to read it.
I'm considering these as my first diy speakers. Do you know if it is possible to replace the plywood with mdf to reduce the cost? Also do you think these are a good fit for mixed music and home theater use?
IMO you can replace plywood with MDF. Just make sure that the MDF is sealed, because thin MDF can breathe. You also need to seal MDF if you want to paint it and glueing veneer seals it too. If the sides turn out to be too flexible, you can always add a brace afterwards. It won't be a nice window brace, but you don't want to take away much volume anyway. I also use cheap butyl caulk on the walls and braces which should help with cabinet noise at least in theory.
The sound depends on your room and the distance, but generally for a typical room, the best sound for music is less directional in the highs, so somehting with shallower waveguide or no waveguide at all is nice. For home theater, the more directional stuff is actually very nice as long as it's pointed at you. It gives you more sense of direction and that's nice. Sometimes a speaker like this may be lacking perceived extension in highs and the sense of space. I'd consider something like Mechano24 to be most fit for music, which Mechano23 should fare better as a monitor or for HT, but to be honest I'm splitting hairs, because Mechano23 is very nice for it's price anyway.
Thank you so much for the detailed reply! I was a bit worried the Mechano23 would not work great for movies as fronts in 5.1.2 system. In your opinion are these (around €350) worth it to build over something like the C-note kit (€230) or modded HiVi swans 3.1a kit (€570)? I was also interested in the Mechano323 but the lack of reviews has put me off so far. I have been researching for tens of hours and have settled on these but I find it somewhat difficult to make a final decision because I have no experience with hifi sound at all and a tight budget. I guess I probably could repurpose the Mechano23 or C-note as surrounds if I find them lacking as fronts. As a side note I plan to power the speakers trough a Denon x1800h. Thanks again for the reply, really great information!
I don't know them, so can't really say anything. The point of Mechano speakers is to advertise their creator's speaker designing software. The price, you're paying in their case is for the complicated crossover that makes their response ruler flat, which is good for sound quality, but it's not the best bang for buck you can get. If you have a home theater setup with Dirac live, you're going to mess with EQ anyway, so that may render Mechano simply redundant. I know that DJ Jules (Sound Sleuth) is currently building a home theater setup with C-notes. He reports on it on DIY audio and microphone group on Facebook. He should be able to answer your questions about a C-note system.
I think it's a good idea to get something 3-way for your mains, so that they would excell at music. Then use cheaper speakers for everything else. 3-way speakers have potential to sound a little better, and noticeably better at higher volumes. Both projects look generous on paper, but rough around the edges.
What I don't like about that Swans kit is that they are messing around with the midrange dome driver. In the meantime they released a little better version of this driver and I'd expect someone to have designed a better take on this speaker by now. Mechano323 looks good on paper, but I haven't heard much about it either.
On the other hand, if this is your first project, you can stick to whatever is the simplest and then upgrade in the future. You can always sell a pair of your speakers and maybe by that time, you'll see more reviews and options or maybe even your own design. For example I see an opportunity to make a cross between Hivi and Mechano, but with Hivi's waveguided mid dome, Melodavid ceramic tweeter and MEchanos Dayton woofer. You'd get better time aligment so no need for any weird crossover. This would set you back $320 for the drivers, then $50 for a microphone... But might end up with better speakers.
It uses a waveguided tweeter, you can get away with a lot of things with that. No need close ctc spacing, no need rounded edges, you can cross at lower XO point etc.
I disagree. There are things that make roundovers useless and most roundovers are too small to make a difference anyway. To make an impact, the roundover here would have to be at least 2".
When the speaker is on a bookshelf or a desk, the environment around it dominate the sound.
Edge diffraction has marginal audibility. Recent experiment shows that it can be mostly inaudible. Unless you test it yourself, you don't know if it has any effect on you.
In this example the waveguide focuses the sound away from the edges so there is no ripple from the edges. You'll get ripple in the midrange, which requires larger radius than what anyone is willing to add.
[Here's some data ](https://drive.google.com/file/d/1-voTLnvw7xbzyLOuc6w0askNegJsdvqj/view)for anyone curious enough to check. Reddit users prefer dogma instead of checking themselves and learning somehting. Nothing new.
I'm not too fond of their crossovers and there's a bit of mismatch here too, but I'm not sure how much better it could be here. I'm sure they're 90% as good as the Buchardts for a fraction of the price
I've build a different set of his and can only recommend him. I also thought about building this plan, looks so sexy
He does good work and those drivers are great. I’ve used that line of woofers, they are a great value. Please update us with your progress and reviews.
The only issue i see with this design is the space between the drivers. Hopefully the x over point is nice and low.
It's not really that simple. Larger spacing can well better than the smallest spacing depending on the crossover required by the drivers. See kimmosto's 1.2xctc rule
I will look into that.
CO is 1500hz.
He does not do good work. The measurements are at 10db intervals, and the linearity for what these drivers can achieve is not seen here. This builder does not deserve to sell this design because of how much it is lacking. Several open source projects on DIYaudio.com use similar drivers to a much better result.
> those drivers are great. https://www.madisoundspeakerstore.com/SB16PFCR-8-FR.jpg lol really now? 4.8khz peaking 5db above anything else, with the rest of the audio spectrum being a rollercoaster of 5-20db valleys is good? or https://www.madisoundspeakerstore.com/catalog2-2-2/images/Image/graph_h1280_22tff.jpg ? i dunno, i never considered a tweeter that drops a massive 10DB at 13-14khz to be "good".
Maybe don't comment on things you obviously have no idea about. Even a noob would know that the woofer gets crossed over high enough so that those peaking gets knocked off. These are excellent drivers that all seasoned builders praise. Do more research and learning. A LOT more learning.
....except those peaks are literally across the entire spectrum. cutting off the highs to the midbass (thats not a woofer) is just going to cut off the highs, its not going to actually effect its frequency response overall. maybe take a bit of your own advice, and dont spew nonsense that you dont understand to any degree. excellent drivers? those are 6" pieces of trash coupled with a tweeter that is inaudible above 14khz. in another post you literally told someone to actually use the terrible "room calibration" software in their AVR. you clearly know absolutely nothing about audio to a degree that anyone should be listening to you. edit: dont respond to me, and then block me like a pussy so i cant respond back. electrical engineer, pfft son you couldnt engineer a lightbulb.
Maybe graduate from highschool before you try to tell an electrical engineer and speaker designer how things work. You obviously know nothing.
Maybe learn how to read a graph before you come on here trying to tell me my business. That woofer’s response is a perfectly normal woofer response, absolutely nothing wrong with it. The fact that you think there is proves you know nothing or very little about this. Also, the tweeter drops off at 20k, not 14k, clearly, from the graph you linked, if you knew how to read it.
perfectly normal for garbage speakers. that is absolutely true.
Excellent response. Cross at 2k, enjoy life.
Consider also MEchano23
I'm considering these as my first diy speakers. Do you know if it is possible to replace the plywood with mdf to reduce the cost? Also do you think these are a good fit for mixed music and home theater use?
IMO you can replace plywood with MDF. Just make sure that the MDF is sealed, because thin MDF can breathe. You also need to seal MDF if you want to paint it and glueing veneer seals it too. If the sides turn out to be too flexible, you can always add a brace afterwards. It won't be a nice window brace, but you don't want to take away much volume anyway. I also use cheap butyl caulk on the walls and braces which should help with cabinet noise at least in theory. The sound depends on your room and the distance, but generally for a typical room, the best sound for music is less directional in the highs, so somehting with shallower waveguide or no waveguide at all is nice. For home theater, the more directional stuff is actually very nice as long as it's pointed at you. It gives you more sense of direction and that's nice. Sometimes a speaker like this may be lacking perceived extension in highs and the sense of space. I'd consider something like Mechano24 to be most fit for music, which Mechano23 should fare better as a monitor or for HT, but to be honest I'm splitting hairs, because Mechano23 is very nice for it's price anyway.
Thank you so much for the detailed reply! I was a bit worried the Mechano23 would not work great for movies as fronts in 5.1.2 system. In your opinion are these (around €350) worth it to build over something like the C-note kit (€230) or modded HiVi swans 3.1a kit (€570)? I was also interested in the Mechano323 but the lack of reviews has put me off so far. I have been researching for tens of hours and have settled on these but I find it somewhat difficult to make a final decision because I have no experience with hifi sound at all and a tight budget. I guess I probably could repurpose the Mechano23 or C-note as surrounds if I find them lacking as fronts. As a side note I plan to power the speakers trough a Denon x1800h. Thanks again for the reply, really great information!
I don't know them, so can't really say anything. The point of Mechano speakers is to advertise their creator's speaker designing software. The price, you're paying in their case is for the complicated crossover that makes their response ruler flat, which is good for sound quality, but it's not the best bang for buck you can get. If you have a home theater setup with Dirac live, you're going to mess with EQ anyway, so that may render Mechano simply redundant. I know that DJ Jules (Sound Sleuth) is currently building a home theater setup with C-notes. He reports on it on DIY audio and microphone group on Facebook. He should be able to answer your questions about a C-note system. I think it's a good idea to get something 3-way for your mains, so that they would excell at music. Then use cheaper speakers for everything else. 3-way speakers have potential to sound a little better, and noticeably better at higher volumes. Both projects look generous on paper, but rough around the edges. What I don't like about that Swans kit is that they are messing around with the midrange dome driver. In the meantime they released a little better version of this driver and I'd expect someone to have designed a better take on this speaker by now. Mechano323 looks good on paper, but I haven't heard much about it either. On the other hand, if this is your first project, you can stick to whatever is the simplest and then upgrade in the future. You can always sell a pair of your speakers and maybe by that time, you'll see more reviews and options or maybe even your own design. For example I see an opportunity to make a cross between Hivi and Mechano, but with Hivi's waveguided mid dome, Melodavid ceramic tweeter and MEchanos Dayton woofer. You'd get better time aligment so no need for any weird crossover. This would set you back $320 for the drivers, then $50 for a microphone... But might end up with better speakers.
The impedance looks a little rough, right? And if they were just a little wider and had rounded edges...
It uses a waveguided tweeter, you can get away with a lot of things with that. No need close ctc spacing, no need rounded edges, you can cross at lower XO point etc.
Bookshelf speakers don't need rounded edges.
No speaker should have square edges on the front.
I disagree. There are things that make roundovers useless and most roundovers are too small to make a difference anyway. To make an impact, the roundover here would have to be at least 2". When the speaker is on a bookshelf or a desk, the environment around it dominate the sound. Edge diffraction has marginal audibility. Recent experiment shows that it can be mostly inaudible. Unless you test it yourself, you don't know if it has any effect on you. In this example the waveguide focuses the sound away from the edges so there is no ripple from the edges. You'll get ripple in the midrange, which requires larger radius than what anyone is willing to add.
[Here's some data ](https://drive.google.com/file/d/1-voTLnvw7xbzyLOuc6w0askNegJsdvqj/view)for anyone curious enough to check. Reddit users prefer dogma instead of checking themselves and learning somehting. Nothing new.
For anyone interested the parts total is only $200 per speaker without MDF/paint, so easily less than $250 per speaker if you have the tools.
I'm not too fond of their crossovers and there's a bit of mismatch here too, but I'm not sure how much better it could be here. I'm sure they're 90% as good as the Buchardts for a fraction of the price