Well, I think I'm as ready as I'll ever be to reveal my design proposal. First off, I would like to give a huge thanks to Robert C. White from the ESP forums, without whom I would be even more lost than I am now.
My plan is to use the Dayton RS150S-8 shielded in a vented alignment called the 5th Order Quasi-Butterworth. The aforementioned Mr. White wrote a nice article about it, available here (definitely read this before continuing):
http://sound.westhost.com/qb5align.htm
In a nutshell, the idea is to tune the box in such a way that you get a nice hump at the lower roll-off point, which is then corrected by an active filter (he gives all the details in the article). The net result of this is a higher net output of the driver with lower distortion, at the expense of needing a larger box for a typical vented application, as well as a small reduction in transient response. How much remains to be seen, but given the cost of these drivers, the experiment won't cost too much.
Here's the WinISD plot for this driver in a QB5-II alignment (click on thumbnail to open):
Nice little 2.55dB hump there, doncha think? :wink: Here are the values for the correction filter referenced in Robert's article (I would greatly appreciate it if someone could re-check the math for me):
C1 and C2: 100nF
R1 and R2: 25.6k
R4: 10k
R3: 4.4k
Not all of those are readily-available values, but it's possible to get "close enough" or otherwise serial/parallel several resistors to get more precise.
If my calculations and simulations are correct, this will lead to a pair of monitors with a lower -3dB point of about 55-57hz, which isn't the greatest, but may be adequate for small rooms. It does make for a possible good mate for a subwoofer, though. For that, I'm thinking the
Dayton RS270S-8 10" woofer. I'm still unsure on whether I want to go for a pair of subs, perhaps even integrated into the same cabs, or a single center sub. I still need to run some sims on this driver to see how well-behaved I can make it.
That's about all for now. Feel free to direct all comments, criticisms, and requests to have me committed later on in this thread.
My plans for the future involve working out a final idea for the subwoofer, and then hopefully simulating all of this in something better/more thorough.
PS -- For the tweeter, I'm pretty well set on the Seas 27TBFCG. There must be a reason this tweeter and it's soft-domed cousin have become the go-to choice for so many speaker DIYers out there...