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Help making the best of bad situation

post #1 of 15
2/16/10 at 12:32pm
Thread Starter 
Have lurked on this forum and others for many hours over the last 6 months and have not found info I am comfortable with. I want to build LCR speakers from scratch (not a kit). I am an accomplished woodworker, capable of building any design. Although I find speaker enclosure/crossover design theory very interesting, I do NOT have time to take it on as a new hobby. I want to procure parts and build a well respected, proven design.

The problem: All three speakers MUST be tucked inside an existing built-in cabinet. The three spaces in the cabinet are 4" off the floor and approximate diminsions are 18"w x 25"h x 18"d. The doors in front of these spaces consist of a 2.5" wide perimeter frame with grill cloth.

Currently, I have 4.0 setup driven by a Denon 5.1 receiver with a phantom center. The current LRs are in the cabinet described above and are early '70s vintage Yamaha 12" 3-way sealed units, fairly high end in their day. I do not have any place to put a separate sub. My biggest issue is that dialog is MUDDY and hard to understand.

These are also my music speakers; about 50/50 music/HT use. Is there a moderately priced solution that will significantly improve my poor situation?
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post #2 of 15
2/16/10 at 12:43pm
Augerpro's "No Quarter" might work well in your 3 cu.ft. enclosure. Nothing will sound fantastic when mounted in a cabinet though. At least not compared with standalone style speakers. You might need to look into adjusting crossovers for an "in-wall" type of BC?

What does "moderately priced" mean though?
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post #3 of 15
2/16/10 at 1:24pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by CZ Eddie View Post


What does "moderately priced" mean though?

My thought is that top dollar speakers won't sound like top dollar speakers when stuffed in a built-in wall cabinet. Would be a waste of money. My uninformed assumption is that $300 to $600 in components would be a reasonable expenditure. Please educate me if I'm off base.

I am also not opposed to just adding a center if it would fix my dialog problem.
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post #4 of 15
2/16/10 at 1:25pm
"Augerpro's "No Quarter" might work well in your 3 cu.ft. enclosure."

that would be a good suggestion.

as an alternative, those dimensions sound like you could put three 4 pi speakers in there available in kit form from pispeakers.com.

as another option, you could investigate the econowave project over at audiokarma. it is a horn loaded top w/crossover, you pick a driver/enclosure to match. lots of proven builds.

another option would be gedlee speakers. available in kit form. not sure if the 12" will fit, but might be worth investigation.

lots of options for you. good luck!
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post #5 of 15
2/16/10 at 1:29pm
"Please educate me if I'm off base."

in walls can sound great. horns tend to do better than non-horns though. for an "ultimate" in-wall, see the meyer sound x-10 control room monitor http://www.meyersound.com/products/studioseries/x-10/. for a more cost effective implementation, see the unity horn designed by danley and implemented by by william cowan (click on "unity, the finale"). http://www.cowanaudio.com/
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post #6 of 15
2/16/10 at 1:33pm
The problem with the "No Quarters" is that I don't belive a passive XO has been completed for them yet...
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post #7 of 15
2/16/10 at 1:58pm
I thought that the passive crossover version didn't pan out due to the depth of the horn. IIRC it's just too deep to get the drivers tracking phase together through the crossover region.
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post #8 of 15
2/16/10 at 5:08pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Keith Ford View Post

Have lurked on this forum and others for many hours over the last 6 months and have not found info I am comfortable with. I want to build LCR speakers from scratch (not a kit). I am an accomplished woodworker, capable of building any design. Although I find speaker enclosure/crossover design theory very interesting, I do NOT have time to take it on as a new hobby. I want to procure parts and build a well respected, proven design.

The problem: All three speakers MUST be tucked inside an existing built-in cabinet. The three spaces in the cabinet are 4" off the floor and approximate diminsions are 18"w x 25"h x 18"d. The doors in front of these spaces consist of a 2.5" wide perimeter frame with grill cloth.

Currently, I have 4.0 setup driven by a Denon 5.1 receiver with a phantom center. The current LRs are in the cabinet described above and are early '70s vintage Yamaha 12" 3-way sealed units, fairly high end in their day. I do not have any place to put a separate sub. My biggest issue is that dialog is MUDDY and hard to understand.

These are also my music speakers; about 50/50 music/HT use. Is there a moderately priced solution that will significantly improve my poor situation?


Once the new speakers are in the cabinet, can you seal off the rest of the space around the speaker with dense foam or fiberglass to eliminate cavity resonances?

How much, if any improvement in bass would you like. Using a sub would clean up the midrange. I'm not sure if there is room for a center and a sub. How far apart are the left and right speakers? I assume they are equally spaced each side of the TV. Do the speakers need to be shielded?

Maybe fit a 10" sub along with a small 2-way in the center compartment. Make it all one box like a 3-way, but only send the bass below 80 or 100 hz to the sub. Then build slightly larger 2-ways for the left and right. How far from the speakers are your seats?
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post #9 of 15
2/16/10 at 5:17pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Keith Ford View Post

My biggest issue is that dialog is MUDDY and hard to understand.

Is there a moderately priced solution that will significantly improve my poor situation?

A BBE Sonic Maximizer can help with clarity, especially with dialogue.
Or, a DBX DriveRack PX is even better.

Just showing you that there are options.
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post #10 of 15
2/16/10 at 5:22pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by LTD02 View Post

"Please educate me if I'm off base."

in walls can sound great. horns tend to do better than non-horns though. for an "ultimate" in-wall, see the meyer sound x-10 control room monitor http://www.meyersound.com/products/studioseries/x-10/.

Nope. This is the ultimate in-wall setup. Main channels consist of 30" OS wave guides with a mid-bass array incorporating 12 7" drivers with power shunted to the inner drivers at high frequencies for directivity control.

http://advanceddefinition.com/The%20Octagon.htm
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post #11 of 15
2/16/10 at 6:48pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by NEO Dan View Post

I thought that the passive crossover version didn't pan out due to the depth of the horn. IIRC it's just too deep to get the drivers tracking phase together through the crossover region.

No, Brandon hasn't had time to do the passive version. Between work and enjoying listening to the active version, he just hasn't built the passive crossover yet but he has it sketched out on paper.
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post #12 of 15
2/16/10 at 9:13pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by kbgl View Post

Once the new speakers are in the cabinet, can you seal off the rest of the space around the speaker with dense foam or fiberglass to eliminate cavity resonances?

How much, if any improvement in bass would you like. Using a sub would clean up the midrange. I'm not sure if there is room for a center and a sub. How far apart are the left and right speakers? I assume they are equally spaced each side of the TV. Do the speakers need to be shielded?

Maybe fit a 10" sub along with a small 2-way in the center compartment. Make it all one box like a 3-way, but only send the bass below 80 or 100 hz to the sub. Then build slightly larger 2-ways for the left and right. How far from the speakers are your seats?

YES. Filling the excess space in the cabinet with dense foam is no problem. BTW. the opening in the face frame the LR speakers must slide through are actually 21"w x 26"h x 16"d. The C opening is only 21"h, but is very deep.

I would LIKE more base, but understand my options are limited. I am more interested in quality musical low end than HT LFE. LR speakers are 98" apart on speaker centerlines. Shielded not required.

I like the idea of a sub and center in one box. Hey, DIY gives you options. Please note the new 21" height limit on C opening, although depth is 27". Seats are 13' from speakers.
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post #13 of 15
2/16/10 at 9:58pm
Regarding the diaglogue issue, I have an econowave based on JBL 2226H 15" midwoofers. I don't run any center channel and my diaglogue is way better than any setup I've run in the past with center channel, including a Rocket RC200 "bigfoot" which is reputed to be a pretty good center speaker.

If no passive is ready for the No Quarter, then you could take a look at the Econowave which is likely very similar. Also, Zilch and a guy over parts express are working on a No Quarter clone with a simple passive crossover. I think they made some progress a couple days ago on it.

Ask Zilch if he can make a no-BC version of his econowave crossover?

http://www.audiokarma.org/forums/sho...cono+Waveguide
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post #14 of 15
2/16/10 at 10:01pm
Actually, I just remembered that Wayne Parham made an in-wall crossover for the 4PI for one of his customers awhile back. So the 4PI kit suggestion made above is one you might look into. And it comes in different flavors (inexpensive to expensive).

http://www.pispeakers.com/catalog/pr...roducts_id/108
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post #15 of 15
2/17/10 at 9:18am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Keith Ford View Post

YES. Filling the excess space in the cabinet with dense foam is no problem. BTW. the opening in the face frame the LR speakers must slide through are actually 21"w x 26"h x 16"d. The C opening is only 21"h, but is very deep.

I would LIKE more base, but understand my options are limited. I am more interested in quality musical low end than HT LFE. LR speakers are 98" apart on speaker centerlines. Shielded not required.

I like the idea of a sub and center in one box. Hey, DIY gives you options. Please note the new 21" height limit on C opening, although depth is 27". Seats are 13' from speakers.

The muddy sound you hear may be due to the woofers being too near the floor, and your ears being well above the tweeter. Here's what I would try.

Turn down the bass control to minus 10 or so, and see if dialog is improved. This will reduce some bloat in the 200 to 300 hz range. You could then add a sub in the center opening.

The other issue of the listening axis, could be worked around by tilting the speakers back. This unfortunately may cause reflections from inside the cabinet unless you seal up the cavity around the speaker. One option you could try, is inverting the speakers. Woofers up high, tweeters near the floor, and try tilting the box. This may help with the muddiness as well.
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