Conductors

[Musicman]

Jed,

Cabinets are all most finished with the exception of the front baffle and the back panel are not glued on yet. I am trying to configure were the best location would be for the giant crossover boards that will also not interfere with each other and the inside 2" precision flare as well. The best location and pretty much the only location is going to put 2 conductors about 2" apart. Is there anything that I could place between the two to cancel or eliminate the magnetic interference? I will also have to do most of the interenal wiring before I glue on the back panel.

I'll try to post some photos later this week.

Thanks,
Gary

[Clearwave]

Jed,

Cabinets are all most finished with the exception of the front baffle and the back panel are not glued on yet. I am trying to configure were the best location would be for the giant crossover boards that will also not interfere with each other and the inside 2" precision flare as well. The best location and pretty much the only location is going to put 2 conductors about 2" apart. Is there anything that I could place between the two to cancel or eliminate the magnetic interference? I will also have to do most of the interenal wiring before I glue on the back panel.

I'll try to post some photos later this week.

Thanks,
Gary

Gary, if the direction of the winding of the inductor is perpendicular then I wouldn't worry about the proximity. I did a test recently where I put an inductor next to another and took a reading and it was hardly effected at all. I know Troels G.'s tests, but realize the tolerances of the coils themselves are probably greater than any variance you'll get by placing 2 inductors 2" apart.

[Musicman]

Thanks Jed,

Also being that my Cabinet is 14.5 deep will the 5" length still apply to the 2" precision flare port using the 1" thick MDF? Reason I ask I want to be sure before a glue it in place.

- Gary

[Clearwave]

Thanks Jed,

Also being that my Cabinet is 14.5 deep will the 5" length still apply to the 2" precision flare port using the 1" thick MDF? Reason I ask I want to be sure before a glue it in place.

- Gary

Gary,

Given your volume is the same... or what we talked about, then the port should remain the same length.

I HIGHLY suggest you not glue the port until you have listened to the speaker. It is very easy to use the precision port and adjust the length if you want a leaner bass, for example. In that case you might change the length to 6". The beauty of DIY is that you are not locked in to my preferences. There are small things that can be changed to fit the response necessary for your room.

I say glue it after things are all dialed in. It won't vibrate at all, if that is what you are worried about.

[Musicman]

Jed,

Here is an update on my speaker cabinets...

All crossover's are installed and cabinets are all dampened, all internal wiring and binding post are also complete. Used Black hole on the back wall, 1 1/4 sonic barrier on top and bottom behind brace and 3/4 (3 layer) sonic barrier everywhere else. They are now in process of Laminating.

Have lots of pic's of the process that I still need to upload.

I do have a question on the Scanspeak woofers, when I counterbored for the offset I only went down (depth) to the thickness of the straight part of the frame. That still leaves the contour around the frame above the front surface of the baffle which is about 1/8th of an inch. Is that the correct way to install these drivers? Also I used the hole cut out the Scanspeak recommends for the woofers which leaves the holes pretty darn close to the edge of the cut outs. I drilled the holes for # 10 screw for the woofers and a # 8 screw for the tweeter. I'am surprised that there is only 5 holes to fasten down the heavy woofer's.

- Gary

[Clearwave]

Hi Gary,

You countersunk them correctly. I used #8 for the woofers and tweeters. 5 screws on the woofers is plenty strong to keep them in place.

Jed

[Bear]

Finally got some time off my my bicycle to get back to finishing these. The speaker cabinets are ordered, along with all of the hardware. I'm missing screws for mounting drivers, though I can hopefully score some nice hex head ones locally.

[Clearwave]

Hey there good to see you are back at the project. Look forward to seeing some pics of those cabinets!

Jed

[Bear]

Looks like I'm spending Memorial Day weekend trying to clear out my old/unwanted electronics. I think my next window is July 4th. That being said, I couldn't help but notice the CC version has a teaser on the home page. Any details to share?

[Clearwave]

This past month has been very busy and I'll update my website with all the new designs I've been working on. The Minue5CC is the center channel version of the mains. It has the same specs but I used the square PE cabinet instead of the curved one. I'll have more specs later on but it's the perfect partner for the Minuet5 main speaker. I think you'll like it.

Jed

[Clearwave]

Here's a customer's Minuet5CC I built for him:

[ZRH]

How does the off axis (lobing etc...) look for this Minuet5CC? What kind of specs would one be looking at in a sealed box? Most everyone I know has subs to handle the low end for HT and monitor type speakers like these, and prefer unported designs, and I think it would be wonderfull to include the F3 down point both sealed and ported along with optimum box size for each. Does this design work equally well sealed?

[Clearwave]

How does the off axis (lobing etc...) look for this Minuet5CC?

Room artifacts make their way into my measurements when I do a full gate in this room so ignore the slight room related hump at 200hz. I know it is room related because the same hump appears when I do this type of measurement in ARTA with other speakers.

So to start things off, here's the On Axis FR:


15 Degrees off axis in the vertical plane (Minuet5CC):


45 Degrees off axis in the vertical plane:


15 Degrees off axis in the horizontal plane:


So in summary the power response is very flat resulting in no peaks through the presence region of 1-5k.

What kind of specs would one be looking at in a sealed box?

F3 around 68hz 20L sealed

Most everyone I know has subs to handle the low end for HT and monitor type speakers like these, and prefer unported designs, and I think it would be wonderfull to include the F3 down point both sealed and ported along with optimum box size for each. Does this design work equally well sealed?

For the best bass extension use them ported. I'm working on a tower version soon to get more bass out of them. But sealed with a subwoofer is probably all anyone could ever need. Depending on the quality of the subwoofer of course.

[ZRH]

Thanks for the F3 20L sealed info, sound like they will go plenty low for a good sub cross. My conversational sofa is 11’ long and is about 9’ or 10’ from the CC, so that puts it more at like 30 deg horizontal off axis. My current old MTM (it uses little 4.5” M drivers) CC doesn’t do to well, and I notice a midrange drop off sitting at the ends of my sofa (along with a lack of dynamic capability). I’m no speaker design guru, but I do know enough to know crossover order and driver placement all play into it. I’m just looking for a design like the Minuet 5CC that will work better for me. What is your opinion about this CC working well in my particular situation? Other than this concern I think they would make a perfect smaller sized monitor HT set up for me.

[Clearwave]

Thanks for the F3 20L sealed info, sound like they will go plenty low for a good sub cross. My conversational sofa is 11’ long and is about 9’ or 10’ from the CC, so that puts it more at like 30 deg horizontal off axis. My current old MTM (it uses little 4.5” M drivers) CC doesn’t do to well, and I notice a midrange drop off sitting at the ends of my sofa (along with a lack of dynamic capability). I’m no speaker design guru, but I do know enough to know crossover order and driver placement all play into it. I’m just looking for a design like the Minuet 5CC that will work better for me. What is your opinion about this CC working well in my particular situation? Other than this concern I think they would make a perfect smaller sized monitor HT set up for me.

My opinion is that all horizontal MTM arrangement center channels will have there pros and cons. The vertical dispersion is excellent, but as you go off axis on the horizontal plane the woofers will start to cancel some of the sound in the lower treble--where and how severe depends on the order of the crossover and most importantly how low the system is crossed to the tweeter. So, the plot I show in the above post where the treble starts to dip a little at 15 degrees off axis on the horizontal plane will dip more at 30 degrees off axis. How much one accepts is a personal choice and I think it is important to consider how the mains will fill in the presence region as well.

The best CC solution for listeners sitting way off axis... and remember it will cost more using similar drivers, is a 3 way in WmtW configuration because it will have better horizontal coverage and less of a dip in the response. The reason for that is we can cross much lower to the midrange between the woofers than a tweeter, therefore the woofers cancel less because the center to center distances relative to the wavelengths of sound they reproduce is favorable.

If you are looking for something with the best dispersion possible, in a similar bookshelf sized speaker as the Minuet5CC, I'd recommend the same woofers or something like a pair of Seas W16 plus an Accuton C44, and small format tweeter such as the 3/4" Illuminator.

This is not to say you wouldn't be happy with a system made up of Minuet5 speakers, I just wanted to give you the theoretical maximum and how to achieve that goal.

Regards,

Jed