a question about speakers

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Analog_Fan

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Just out of curiosity.

these cheap 5€ pc speakers go pretty loud and reasonable clear.

What would happen if you would make a box comparable to the size of a "concert" speaker, sizewise like the Behringer speaker from the image below and put like 30 or so + their dip8 D-class amplifiers ic's and circuit inside, but well executed.
Aside from the sub woofer. Would you beat a Behringer sized speaker? in sound quality, loudness, volume.

I have seen a old man on YouTube do that, but he used mid range speakers, 7 inch or so? but the bx was like an estimated 1.5 m height vs 1 wide.

1651769954451.png

1651769973303.png

1651770060051.png
 
Just out of curiosity.

these cheap 5€ pc speakers go pretty loud and reasonable clear.

What would happen if you would make a box comparable to the size of a "concert" speaker, sizewise like the Behringer speaker from the image below and put like 30 or so + their dip8 D-class amplifiers ic's and circuit inside, but well executed.
Aside from the sub woofer. Would you beat a Behringer sized speaker? in sound quality, loudness, volume.

I have seen a old man on YouTube do that, but he used mid range speakers, 7 inch or so? but the bx was like an estimated 1.5 m height vs 1 wide.
No...

Using multiple small drivers was well executed by the Bose 901, back in the 70s I made a DIY version with 16 drivers, and my friend made one with 25 drivers. If these worked effectively you'd see them in mass market sales.

Back last century I needed to develop a cost effective full range speaker system for a portable PA (Peavey escort). After some research and prototypes, I settled on a 10" woofer with a piezo tweeter. Not hifi but it didn't suck.
03608880-Thumbnail.jpg


For today's TMI, at the time Fender was selling a small portable PA using something like 6 midrange drivers and Hartley believed their marketing BS. I ended up having the guys in transducer engineering build a prototype my way and a prototype Hartley's way for a shoot out. As I recall it scared all the junior transducer guys who were hiding in their offices when Hartley's prototype lost the shootout and he started cursing loudly. :cool: [/TMI]

JR
 
Ya, but there is a difference, taking one speaker from the shelf and putting in a a box and connect it, close, job done.
The (hr) manager of the company would probably prefer one as he running with the stopwatch around also than you still need a "heavy" rack amplifier.

I have 2 sets of "broken" pc speaker from different brands and case, but the speaker inside is the same.
the oval one from the second image.

I'm just wondering if you would put 20 -> 30 in a box witch these cheap dip8 d class amps and good capacitors, could you entertain people at a "birthday" party or would it be a waste of time. does the volume add up, that's what I'm wondering.

1651775549864.png
plus some circuit to make them go in sync volume wise.

I'm disregarding a sub woofer.
(we do have such setup, but apparently we have blown a speaker after the first birthday party, not sure yet, haven't looked in to it yet).
 
.. I'm just wondering if you would put 20 -> 30 in a box witch these cheap dip8 d class amps and good capacitors, could you entertain people at a "birthday" party or would it be a waste of time. does the volume add up, that's what I'm wondering...
Yes, the volume will increase (about 3dB for twice as many speakers), but the quality is unlikely to increase. And there will probably be a narrowing of the polar characteristic, unless ...
Unless you get a 32 channel sound card, some sophisticated multi drivers polar characteristic modeling software, 32 output amplifiers, etc.
 
Yes, the volume will increase (about 3dB for twice as many speakers), but the quality is unlikely to increase. And there will probably be a narrowing of the polar characteristic, unless ...
Unless you get a 32 channel sound card, some sophisticated multi drivers polar characteristic modeling software, 32 output amplifiers, etc.
would it become that complicated?

saw some "grandpa" doing it in his living room with 6 or 8 what looks like 5 inch speakers times 2.
Can't find it on Google nor YouTube, now.
used keywords: grandpa homebuild wall of "loudspeaker" and variants on that, but no.
Got it served some what a year ago.

kinda offtopic
once we had a private party with function One speakers.
www.funktion-one.com

some weird looking speakers around 6000's of watt and their proper amps, insane loud, but no need to shout in people ears.
think it where these: Funktion-One | Products | Res 3

something like that would be interesting, using lie 40/50 or these cheap pc speakers, load, but no need to shout in people ears or malformed audio.
 
You could build a line array - lots of info out there on building them, including info on how to reduce the level of the outermost speakers. They call it "shading"
 
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Its far more difficult to build a good speaker with a ton of drivers than a single decent speaker. You can buy a very good pro audio woofer for 150euros....and the result is pretty much guaranteed to be decent even at worst!
 
You could build a line array - lots of info out there on building them, including info on how to reduce the level of the outermost speakers. There's a word to describe the technique, can't remember it...
i have seems stuff over the period of my lifetime, had a kit in my car, little more, but not like amateur that know all the insides just made it sound well for me.

learned something new, line array.
Thanks.

It's just today, i was listening music, while routing a PCB and figured these sound quite well.
How would it be if you have a number of the in a box, but than i again, i don't know how to inside of the box should look like.
have them each isolated + "bass" ports?
these are very cheap loudspeakers, but seam to look well engineered for what it is, isolated magnets

I know that some people take this very seriously and calculate their boxes ... and without searching for it, it appears sometimes on YouTube.
: )

Might be a cool project for someday, since their dept is not that deep to hang on the wall in the living room.
 
Its far more difficult to build a good speaker with a ton of drivers than a single decent speaker. You can buy a very good pro audio woofer for 150euros....and the result is pretty much guaranteed to be decent even at worst!
it might, i have some speakers that i inherited.
1651784443589.png
technics-sb-f1
60 watts music (40 watts DIN RMS), and there is a trip protection circuit with reset button.

it's not about the woofer, not gonna make that, got one.
 
Way back at the start of this thread JRR mentioned the Bose 901. These things required an active equalizer between preamp and amp. For grins one day I tried one without the EQ and yikes, did it ever sound like carp -- no low end and very tinny at the high end. That said, Bose was great at getting big sound out of little boxes. I have one of their desktop systems now and a pair of 201 bookshelf speakers I picked out for my dad because it was so bright and he had lost a great deal of hearing. Now, with my own ears 3dB down at 2kHZ, they don't sound so bright anymore!
PS - 40 years ago Bose was an innovator. Now, they're just like everybody else.
 
bose 901, they were initially created in 1964.
almost 60 years ago.


it came to my ears that the best ever speakers produced where around the era of WWII, seemingly that person toke the recepy of the paper in his grave.

But i still think these cheap pc speakers sound rather good, if you leave the volume know half way.
Just wondering what would happen if you you 20 or so of them in a box each with their own LM386, using the Panasonic electrolytic capacitors, good resistors.
Not sure, but even KRK or someone else uses D class ic's in their studio monitors, sourced from YouTube.
 
bose 901, they were initially created in 1964.
almost 60 years ago.


it came to my ears that the best ever speakers produced where around the era of WWII, seemingly that person toke the recepy of the paper in his grave.

But i still think these cheap pc speakers sound rather good, if you leave the volume know half way.
Just wondering what would happen if you you 20 or so of them in a box each with their own LM386, using the Panasonic electrolytic capacitors, good resistors.
Not sure, but even KRK or someone else uses D class ic's in their studio monitors, sourced from YouTube.
You'll end up with a speaker that is way more complex and probablly sounds worse than 1 with a single driver. Of course if it's just because your interested in expierementing...go for it! But there is a reason why most commercial designs don't use 20 (moat likely mediocre) drivers in a box 😁😁
 
would it become that complicated?
to do it right
saw some "grandpa" doing it in his living room with 6 or 8 what looks like 5 inch speakers times 2.
Can't find it on Google nor YouTube, now.
used keywords: grandpa homebuild wall of "loudspeaker" and variants on that, but no.
Got it served some what a year ago.
back in early 60s a magazine article called a DIY speaker system "sweet 16". It used 16 drivers wired in series/parallel (4 strings of four speakers) to deliver nominal impedance of 8 ohms.
kinda offtopic
once we had a private party with function One speakers.
www.funktion-one.com
professional sound reinforcement speakers
some weird looking speakers around 6000's of watt and their proper amps, insane loud, but no need to shout in people ears.
think it where these: Funktion-One | Products | Res 3

something like that would be interesting, using lie 40/50 or these cheap pc speakers, load, but no need to shout in people ears or malformed audio.
A problem with loudspeaker design is the crossover filters so different drivers will acoustically sum with each other, this is difficult to do well, impossible to do perfectly. When you use multiple similar drivers you pretty much ignore the driver interactions (comb filtering, lobing, etc). Bose the poster boy for using multiple small drivers sued consumer reports over a bad review (poor imaging).

Loudspeaker design is another mature topic that has been well studied.

JR
 
Loudspeaker design is another mature topic that has been well studied.

JR
yeah, true.
Sometimes i see thumbnails on suggested YouTube video building some cool cabinets.
I don't have this experience nor knowledge.

but i could build a 30 cm x 30 cm x 10 cm and have each little speaker it's own enclosure, so crosswalk wouldn't occur.
Just wanted to know, could 9 or so little speakerseach having their own LM386 mimic a single let's say 5 inch speaker witch also needs an amp.
What would happen, just out of curiosity. would it be good for a "birthday" party.

i got a little portable JBL with dab tuner, like many construction personal/electricians/etc and also these things sound pretty good if you don't drive them hard.
 
as I already shared with my personal anecdote a question about speakers a properly designed 2 way speaker system (woofer/tweeter) will spank a multiple array of small drivers.

In large scale sound reinforcement they use sophisticated DSP to make multiple drivers play nice together, for example in line arrays.

JR
 
Speaker designers/builders sometimes use several drivers to get enough membrane area for the low end. The longer wavelengths are less sensitive to phase offsets. Above 200 Hz or so you'll get in trouble with driver interactions, as JR has already mentioned.

That said, if you want to have some fun and make some birthday party sound with drivers you have lying around you'll probably end up with exactly that: Some good fun!
I would opt for the circular drivers (less distortion from breakup), probably connect them to give me about 4 ohms impedance, so I can use smaller coils, and of course a efficient class-D amp.
They could even be distributed around a polygonal surface like some old B&o and Tandberg designs...
Document the thing so we can all learn?
 
for today's TMI about multi driver speakers back in 1966 Bose made a speaker with something like 22 drivers built into an octet of a sphere, the 2201 (1/8th of round sphere). The goal was to mimic a point source spherical radiator by placing this in a room corner. If this worked well, they might still be making them, but they aren't so you do the market math. The bose 901 was extremely successful commercially for different reasons. [/TMI]

JR
cq5dam.web.1000.1000.png
 
Document the thing so we can all learn?
that's something for down the line, currently working on other things.

I'm kinda novice on inductors and a bit more advance than that on capacitors.
Hifi is a total science on it's own.

some gear has a little microphone included to self adjust a system.
no thinking required.
: )

but i still think these little pc speaker sound quite good, having Akai mpc x with a Senheiser headphone, i can't really tell the difference listening the same songs.
 
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