The very low budget DIY synergy horn build - Page 4

I'm not sure what I am going to do with these yet, backyard theater comes to mind with the V1's as L&R and the V2 as center. What I am doing now is waiting for the pricing of Erich's CD's becuase I want to try one of those out in this horn.

I had the V2 playing as center channel on a few scenes from Pixar's The Incredibles out in the backyard and WOW. From 200' away the clarity is amazing, if you turned your back to it you would think the speaker was 5' away if not for the echo.


I have some new projects on the drawing board that I would like to try which should come together a bit faster with a whole lot less work. I need to sell some of my older projects though as I am running out of room to put them all.

I have not listened in stereo with the V2 because thats kind of hard to do with only one built. I have with the V1 horns and listening in stereo is so much better then trying to listen with one speaker to stereo music.

Another Video this time with the V2 in the backyard from yesterday, we all like videos right?

LFM2, MK, thanks guys

I have started the second one and am going to put the woofer ports at the sides on this one, moving the ports on the other one will be a hard but I plan to do that also.
I don't know how far I can get on building the second one as I have two vacations coming up so any progress on this (and my other 7 projects I have lined up ) may be on hold until mid july.


MK your right that speakers do sound better when there are no reflections to muddy up the sound. On the subject of other drivers I have not thought about using other drivers besides the HF driver, I don't know how much difference using better drivers could make. I know I could get drivers with higher power handling so it could play louder and with less power compression. But as Paul Spencer pointed out earlier the bandpass design used reduces distortion above the cutoff allowing even cheap drivers to sound really good.
As for the size it is about 26"H 22"D 24"W in front and 8" in back.

Made some progress with this after being put on the sidelines for a while.
The ports on the first horn have been moved to the sides, it was not as hard as I thought it would be and it looks better too.
Also added some more dampening material to all three chambers which helped flatten the low end out alot.






I got the DNA-350 CD from Erich and mounted it up also, it was almost a drop in replacement as far as the crossover goes needing only two resistors changed for this:




I might fix the bump at 250hz if it bothers me, impeadance drops close to 3 ohms at 1000hz but that does not bother me.

The second one is almost done, I still need to apply gasket to all the removable panels and mids. Need to seal up the mids mount all the drivers, run wires for the drivers into all the chambers and build the crossover.

Thanks Bill, when I get the crossover in it I'll measure, though I know the mids and CD are in the 100's.

I had hoped to do that today but my other project (16' x 9' outdoor projector screen) used up more time then I expected.

Outdoor theater with synergy LCR oh yeah.

I had the crossover in yesterday but was to lazy to take it outside and measure, also to lazy to hook it up and gice it a listen. Did both today, listened first sounded like the bass was low, brought it outside and sure enough its down by about 4-5dB. I need to double check my crossover and maybe pad the mids/CD a bit more.




I also did a sensitivity test, REW speaker cal pink noise 2.83v/1m 102dB, Wow higher then I expected but if I pad the mid/CD equal to the woofers its going to be in the high 90's

A little update on this, the dip at 200 Hz was a crossover issue, thought I had a 6 mH inductor in there ended being a 9, oops. Finished up the second one today and gave them a listen in stereo for the first time.

Super clear detailed sound, very good imaging, bass needs a little EQ but after it can really hit you in the chest hard, these dont play much below 80hz though. Sensitivity is just under 100dB 2.83v/1m.

Well I am cheating using 2.83v, my woofers are in parallel giving a 4 ohm load so in reality they are 3 dB lower, so mid 90's.

I have the woofers moved so far back into the enclosure there is a 1.7ms delay between them and the mids and while I have the phase aligned well they are not time aligned and I am pretty sure it makes a difference. The lower range that the woofers cover seems to sound repressed even though the speaker measures flat. I think it has to do with the sound from the woofers reaching my ears after those from the mids/CD. There are only two options to fix it, EQ the bass until it sound right, easy but not the right way, or go active and add delay onto the mids/CD to bring them in line with the woofers. I heard that PE may be offereing the miniDSP soon I may try that out, run the mids/CD with a passive x-over on one channel and the woofers on another, that way I need only one miniDSP.

I would have loved to get over to the MWAF, meet you and Erich and listen to your synergy's and the SEOS designer 12's not to mention all the other very nice speakers there, but I got back from a two week trip to Italy on Wednesday and felt like crap the whole week, getting up early for a 6 hour drive just was not going to happen.

Thats almost what the response looks like after I bump up the bass a bit, the response I had a few posts back was before I stated tweeking by ear. I padded the CD and mids some more and also removed some of the top end boost so the response does have a bit of a forward tilt to it. I agree it sounds better then perfectly flat which can often come off sounding dry with the highs a bit bright.

Today was a nice day to go out side relax, 80 degrees a light breeze, perfect for blasting the neighbors with music!
400' away this time with the pair playing, still the same 100 watt/channel old sony receiver. The microphone I was trying out this time is pretty noisy, it causes most the hiss you hear, the rest is the bugs in the field in front of me. The vehicle noise is from the road 40' behind me.
WinISD shows that the woofers will take 200+ watts without exceeding xmax so I am wondering if I should get a bigger amp and crank the annoying neighbor factor up a notch.
I cannot imagine running these indoors at that level, it would be loud enough for the deaf to hear.

Thanks PI,
100 degrees now but I bet you don't get this when winter comes around:




They are pointed away from most the houses and behind where I was standing Is just a road then more field.
I cut the music before it got the the louder part of the song because It was quite loud aready, you could hear the echo off the houses really well and I did not want to make it worse.
I should record something other then vocals playing through them just to show how they handle more a complex track. Hmm... if it is nice out tomorrow afternoon you might see another video up tomorrow night.

Thanks, that was some sort of paperboard material about 1/16" thick that I had found while looking around the house for somthing to use. I cut it into shape using scissors and used hot glue to attach it. Worked well with no noticeable flexing or resonance.