Very nice build - I am a huge fan of transmission line speakers. I have designed several mass loaded transmission line speakers, including the crossover, and built them. And I agree that they sound fantastic - much better bass & midrange quality than any speaker I have ever heard, and with much better bass extension from a given driver. My favorite so far, use a 6" paper cone SB Acoustics woofer, and are essentially flat in my room to 32Hz. I used a 3D acoustic modeling program called Hornresp to design the cabinet; and drafted it in DataCAD. I used a miniDSP 2x4 HD to digitally design the crossover, listening to the speakers. I then used XSim to design an analog version of the crossover.
@@chrisferris3303 A possibly good way to get your feet wet in Hornresp (which is free) is to model this speaker, since you have the dimensions. The driver Thiele/Small data is available; maybe in a TXT file that can just be loaded into Hornresp?
@@talktoeric The inside dimensions are pretty important. The most critical is the area of the terminus section. In the final stages of the design, I was moving things in 1/16" (~1.5mm) increments.
Great video with tons of good information! Just one small correction in case someone is doing it for the first time: contact cement….you wait until the cement is dry enough that is NO LONGER sticky to the touch. Thank you! 🙏🏻
Been using Parts Express and Dayton Audio for over twenty years. I have a pair of rebuilt Sansui Speakers that now use Dayton Audio products, as well as all of my vehicles sound systems being designed around Dayton Audio Reference Series speakers. Incredible performance at an Incredible price point!!!!
Those look great and I'm sure they sound amazing with that transmission line design. I do have one suggestion though, when wiring two speakers together it is always recommended to put them in parallel, not series. The reason for this is that though out the speakers travel the resistance changes, which changes the power its given, so when two speakers are in series as one changes resistance it changes the power the other one is getting too. When in parallel the speakers are completely independent of each others resistance and power. Putting two 8 ohm speakers in parallel for a 4 ohm resistance would have been better, I'm pretty sure that crossover has a woofer resistance selector too.
Hey thanks so much for watching. Working on a new build currently. Gonna try out a 2.5 and compare it to an MTM and see what I like better. Building my own crossover for the next build as well. Comments like this pushed me to research deeper so thank you!
The speakers would also probably be out of sync due to the phase shifting in the first speaker coil before it reaches the second. Otherwise, great build!
Amazing video! Did not really expect anything going into this but was just blown away by the production quality of the video and way you explained your process. Keep up the good work!
As a woodworker i will give you my advice about glue. PVA glue is not a filler. put just a thin film of glue and dont clamp very tight so it wont squeeze out. Less is more with wood glue.
You'll say less is more, until your box bust apart at the glue lines. Trust me i've built 1000s of mdf boxes for speakers, 2 10s can cause a box to come apart when using MDF And if you tell me plywood i'll ask you are you positive the sheets have no voids? That should make a nice sound buzz buzz.
As a furniture builder i can vouch for op's advice. As this wood glue is not a filler (it shrinks when it dries) it wil not fill in any surfaces that do not contact each other while clamped down. Again, more glue does not help with a better bond with this paticular wood glue as it does not fill. Having lots of contacting area helps though, so make sure the contacting area is as straight and smooth as possible. There are special "filling" glues who do this. PU glue for instance will do this. It is notoriously more messy to work with though. Trust the advice from professionals or be stuborn and pay for the learning curve.
I have never used a router on veneer when glued to my cabinets, it can chip the veneer with the wood grain and cause aesthetic issues like the ones you can see on 11:34.
Hey Rui Pedro Silva thank you for watching. Yeah the router worked well but for sure had some issues with chipping. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
@@chrisferris3303 I always used a X-acto knive but there are proper cutting tools for veneer (you can also make your own!). For me the trick was, multiple passages especially when you are cutting along the grain to avoid separation of the sheet (perpendicular cuts are easier to do!), but this ways if it happens you can fix it, and with the router you can say good bye to that lost veneer chip.
Great speaker build ! A cent of suggestion, as I saw the picture that tweeter speakers placment are a bit under the cutting holes as I assumed it being cut a bit over deep. Actually in order to compensate the height, you can get a 3-5mm thick EVA foam sheet to cut a ring ,that its size idential to the tweeter mouting hole. And then put it underneath the tweeters and mount it onto the cabinet as a buffer cushion pad. And then slowly adjust the tweeter mounting screws until the tweeter suface being the in same level as the speaker baffle surface to make it look better like a pro built. Also the EVA pad can help to absorb some twitter resonance as well. You can also do the same way for the woffers with thinner EVA foam sheet to compensate the mounting height as well . For the crossover, its better to change the same value air core inductors instead of iron core inductor will make the mid bass sound greater ! Good luck!
I have one bit of advice as a fellow DIY'er, novice wood worker and music junkie.....Nothing! you nailed it. Great video production, great build, and anything you are going to do differently in the future is learnt from this video. Experience is the only true source of knowledge. Keep it up. I hope to make a video as good as yours some day. Cheers.
@@chrisferris3303 Àwesome job! i was first confused because i thought this was about making actual speakers but ITS NOT , this is indeed about making youtube videos. the DIY speakers is just an idea that is used for the production of this video.. no wonder all the relevant information was missing from the video!
Nice work Chris. I built a pair of TL speakers from a kit by a well known diy speaker kit supplier and designer here in the uk. They are still sounding good after twenty years. Room acoustics play a big part with your sound system, but you can tailor your kt to suit. There was a few tweaks I could do on my kit, that the designer had thought to include, was crossover adjustments, and driver damping. Might be one for a future build, if you hook up with the guy that designs crossovers. Mid band adjustments by removing some turns of wire from the inductors. Mount the xovers externally, then you can play till your hearts content.
Good morning 🌅, Very interesting, I just started watching the build, there is 45° finger locking joint router cutter you can purchase, that will help you to look your joints together a lot easier, retired English dude living in France
I built a pair of these inspired by this video - a few changes: I made the cabinets taller by 4" to extend the TL, and kept the drivers in roughly the same location. Also coated the interior completely with 1/2" padding, and added acoustic foam over 1/2 the tunnel. They sound amazing - originally they were scheduled for the garage, but I liked them so much, I replaced my Klipsch F2's with them in my home theater.
Very underrated! This is just next level content. When I started to watch video I didn’t look at the subscriber count. I was just watching the video and in my mind I had “ this is a million subscribers channel”. Truly he deserves it.
Great job, Chris! I've made about a dozen or so speakers myself. Looks like you checked all the boxes. Great work with the speakers and the video. Well done! Like button smashed!
Congratulations for your great build! Top passion and excellent videomaking here. Just a few suggestions to improve your wonderful creatures: 1) Glue is super well made on your side and a good base, but not enough to ensure proper stiffness. One screw each 10 cm approx is needed to keep all panels together, included lateral ones for internal panels. Top importance for the front baffle, even if difficult implementation now because of the rounded edges. 2) Tweeter looks a bit recessed, but it must be exactly in line with gaskets of the other drivers. 3) Stands must be much more rigid, if properly coupled with the floor, then soundstage will take huge profit. If you also fine tune them on your room resonance by adjusting length of the tube port, then I'm sure you will be even more satisfied about the comparison. Hope it helps! Cheers
Awesome build Chris, got a few ideas for my current design and helped me understand a little bit more. Just a tip, wear a mask next time you cut mdf, its really horrible for your lungs
Wow, you really did a great job, i might as well wanna build them myself, perhaps, could you please give the messurements of all the internals? Thanks in advance!
Dayton Audio's parts show up in everyone's builds so it seems. (including mine)......... I believe it's Parts Express's House brand. PE is located in Springboro Ohio, a suburb of Dayton OH. Yeah, I'm in the Cleveland area, so I'm 1 day away for them shipping me stuff. I am glad you are happy with your project, and I hope it brings you lots of enjoyable listening.
Just a suggestion that will save you some saw dust. Us a smaller diameter router bit, an 1/2" up cut bit will take out less material, and still get the job done. Thank you for the Dayton Audio info.
Listening through headphones to me the Customs sound of the best out of the three. I would really like to build a set of these but I didn't hear or see any Dimensions given on the internal brace that creates the transmission line or what size the port opening was. Or where it is placed in the cabinet.
Hi 👋, Chris, Nice job, A few tips on connecting the back and sides together, That is depending on what tools you’ve got available remind me to help line up the joint to keep it square, Biscuit joints about every 5060 mil apart or small Domino, I see you’ve got around the table, There is a router bit that is at 45° angle but it’s got a finger joint in it which makes it very very strong, When using it you have to remember which part of the cabinet or the side or the front or the back it’s been jointed to which component because you run one piece flat on the table up against the fence you run the other piece up against the fence with his end against the table so when you put the two pieces together they lock together and line everything all up, I hope you can understand what I am trying to explain, I am into transmission line speaker cabinets I’ve built mine 40 odd years ago they are quite big however I stand approximately 1 1/2 m in height 30 cm across the front 37 cm deep. I just recently put new drivers into the cabinet the drivers are made by Seas 8 ohms 150w , I used a Fibre quilt Which you tease to open up the fibres and it’s got a Sounds exorbitant pitch like paper I can’t remember what it was called, The crossover unit it’s built into a box, Which plugs into the back of the unit so If you need to change any of the components you can do, And they are Bywired , They set on a metal frame with large spikes so I can adjust the cabinet either to stand upright or lean forward or back, Spikes then sit on four steel blocks with sound absorbent material underneath, Because they fire out of the bottom there is a 10 cm gap underneath, Play are made out of 1 inch thick or 24 mil thick MDF needless to say they are very heavy, They where built from a plan that I’d found in a hi-fi magazine back from the 70s, I hope this can be some help to you and some other people, I am a great believer of transmission line loudspeaker cabinets especially if you’ve got the room, These have got a very good face response not for the faint hearted, They sound amazing . I might be an old dude as they say approach and 71 years young, my choice of music is very varied , From heavy metal to classical, blues, Viking war music, and the list goes on, Good luck with your next build , I look forward to seeing your next project, How you explained the construction of your cabinet, I thought that’s quite interesting.. PHIL FROM THE DARK SIDE OF THE MOULIN FRANCE.
Hi Chris, Sorry the content was a bit long and probably spelling wasn’t very good, I miss being at work as I work for myself/subcontract work for approximately 44 odd years, I am self-taught as I progress in my career so my work got more high end to the point where I don’t work for universities and organ building company, The last 18 to 20 years I have been more involved in the barn conversions and renovating all properties doing very high-end joinery, I now live in old Mill in France that I have partly renovated/converted from 2013 which I’m now hoping to finish in the next year or so which should keep me busy, Over the past few months I’ve left comments similar to what I have left you and people have sent messages back saying that I should start up a RUclips channel explaining how I make things and what my experiences have been over the last 40 years. And I now live by myself so I can go and do what I want when I want, Thank you for the chat, I look forward to your next project, Stay safe especially when machining working with MDF, PHIL FROM THE DARK SIDE OF THE MOULIN 🎼🎶🎸FRANCE
So how does the port work? It seems like the loading chamber is ported into another loading chamber and then ported to the outside through the visible 'port hole'... Not sure of the design or how any of this actually works, never seen a box designed so oddly. Looks like it was just thrown together and I dont know how you made the design or even tuned it.
Hey thanks for watching. Take a look at some of the PMC speakers transmission lines and you’ll see where I was going. We did the math on the 1/4 and 1/2 wavelengths of some of the bottom end frequencies and compromised on a line that gave the speaker a nice low end growl.
The reason you get better sound on the highs is silk dome tweeters that are some what good vers the horns or other speakers. Want really good tweeters go with Ribbon tweeters.
Hey Chris! thanks for sharing your buid, I'm planning on doing the same build, do you happen to have a cutting sheet like in your sub video? or the mesurements of the center T section? thanks! Great Video
Sit stores won't have made a cut straight edge to start with. Assuming a 8x4 sheet is square won't be square as you have to cut a side of the sheet square to start as a ref edge.
They’re all sealed up. Big regrets lol. My intent was to do a larger terminal plate so I could access the internals but I couldn’t find one. I fully plan on building a version 2 of these with all the suggested upgrades. I think that would make for a decent video. Thanks Guy B.
Yow! The purpose of the port and its design is critical, is to allow the back pressure to exit the box in-phase with the front pressure, thereby allow you to harness the total movement of the woofers. Unlike an acoustic suspension where only the the front pressure is utilized and the back pressure absorbed by damping material.
Hey thanks for watching. I did not account for the foam but I’ve wondered the same thing. I could be wrong but as the foam isn’t dense enough to affect the lower frequencies I’d imagine it’s all good.
Thanks for showing the way , hehehe... i got a Question the woofers are 4 Ohms and you wired it in serial so it became 8 Ohms and its ok, but the twitter is 4 Ohms also so the crossover do the magic, I mean the amp its rated to work ok from 6 Ohms to 16 Ohms... i do not know if the crossover do something for it to work perfectly...
How do you tune and design a transmission line speaker? I am looking to build a pair of T-line tower speakers using two 6.5in dayton audio signature series woofers and a dayton audio reference tweeter. Any suggestions?
Hey thanks for watching. This is a pretty loaded question. For this build I referenced acouple different designs then made sure the tunnel length was equivalent to 1/4 wavelength of 160hz…ish. I do wish I made the tunnel alittle longer as 1 extra fold woulda got me down closer to 60hz. The end result for me was a speaker that had real nice low mid grunt but needs a sub. I could have gone 1 step further and taken advantage of the tuned box and design a cross over to match its characteristics. Depends how involved you wanna get. As far as figuring out the math for the tunnel pathway my buddy is a physics teacher and crunched the numbers for me but an easier way…ask chat gpt :).
Hi Chris, I heard you say spikes decouple the loudspeakers. As a matter of fact, spikes couple the loudspeakers, allowing vibrations reflecting back into the cabinet out of fase. To decouple the loudspeakers, you should shove something under the loudspeaker that absorbs vibrations to really isolate. I use IsoAcoustic Gaia feet with far better results than with cones or spikes.
The customs sounds noticeably better! It has more transparency and the top end details are more present and airy. Well done! You must be so happy with it, and a fraction of the cost of a "Branded" high end speaker. I think if you pull it away from the walls you would get a distinct improvement in the soundstage. And oh, next time, a better choice of music, which includes vocals, drums, guitars and pianos.
Thanks Chris, Do you think can I change the RS180S-8 in replacement of RS150-4? And what else about the crossover? This because at this time it’s no longer available the components on Amazon that it’s the most cost effective way to bring to Colombia.
Chris your video is awesome & really inspiring to DIY build. Videography, Content & your step by step explanation are really motivating to build Speaker. Great fan of your work. keep doing more videos. i have watched you video already close 10+ times.
Great build I think you have just answered my question about using the acoustic lining as I am looks forward to my first built I notice you complete covered the interior with the foam is that the write way And is that the best one to use ?
Hey @hamazatatta952 thanks for watching. So PMC which is one of my favourite speaker manufacturers does it this way. Now I don’t know what the density of there foam is but still I took a gamble and it paid off. I think it’s a great way to control the high mid standing waves.
Hey Angel, Thanks for watching. All the drivers get connected to a crossover unit which distributes the signal and determines the frequencies going to the tweeter and woofers.
@@chrisferris3303 Oh Ok, So, the woofers are connected to the crossover (serial) and the tweeters are also connected to the crossover but independently from the woofers. I think I get it now. Thank you so much!
@@chrisferris3303 Hi Chris, I'm planning to build these speakers, I've already bought the components, but I have a couple of doubts, as I mentioned I don't know much about electricity: all drivers are 4 ohms, although the woofers are connected in series (that make them an 8ohm), but the tweeters still are 4 ohms, so what is the final impedance of the speakers? Also, what amplifier power do you recommend for these speakers? I'm Planning to bough the Yamaha A-S801SL (100w) Thank you very much my friend!
@@AngelCorso Hey Angel the nominal impedance will be close enough to 8 ohms with this setup. No problem for that amp. This is a great place to start for a first build good luck and enjoy.
Thank you for the detailed video. I'm fascinated in the wiring of 4ohm speakers to 8ohm impedance. I never knew that could be done. i'm still learning. So can i wire all 4ohm speakers in this manner and will it be safe for my amp which allows from 6 ohms ? Thank you sir.
You can simulate basic ported and sealed cabinets with a program called winISD. Also, many full-speaker simulation software suites (that take into account baffle diffraction, step loss, room, crossover components, driver response, real impedance and phase data) also have a basic box simulator built in. I like a program called "speakersim." This sort of approach allows you to do a more thorough design than the one shown in this video, which fails to address about 70% of the issues that need to be addressed for a speaker to be called "reference" quality. If you want to simulate more sophisticated boxes, use hornresp. Hornresp can simulate just about any box you can imagine, from bass horns, to transmission lines, with rear-chambers or with the driver installed somewhere along the line between the halves. It's hard to use but very rewarding once you learn it as it opens up very interesting speaker box options.
High quality compnents. High quality build by great craftsman. Now, how do they measure? What's the frequency response? What's the vertical and horizontal dispersion?
Some speakers just looks like they play well - this pair is one of them. You make some good mechanical choices during the building process - well done! When you have full control of the design process , why not make the baffle from thicker material - 1" or maybe 1 1/2"? I'm confused about the choice of the height of the speaker in relation to the choice of the stand. As the tweeter have a limited spread of sound, it will be placed in a non optimized place (too high) when sitting in a normal listening position.
They look great. Next logical step would be a custom crossover as I'm sure the stock is going have some issues and is really leaving performance of the Dayton Reference drivers on the floor.
Great build job. They look fantastic. And from what I could hear over my headphones they stood up well. I am a Klipsch fan but they sounded really balanced. Do you have build plans available at all???
Great video and build Chris. I'm working up the courage to build a set of speakers too. I'd love to know where you're purchasing your supplies like audio components and veneer. It looks like you're in Ontario (from your license plate) just like me. Thanks!
Hey thanks @clintmarcham. Go to parts-express.com. Everything you need! Veneer I got from Home Depot. As for building, it’s incredibly rewarding. If you’re at all nervous about the design checkout some of the build kits from companies like CSS. Good luck and thanks for watchin.
I love this video so much it makes me want to build my own speakers. The build is clean and solid, and the finish is very nice. I don't exactly understand the purpose of the transmission line instead of just a port, what's the adventage ?
If you want to upgrade it in the future, try to find a pair of silk ring radiator tweeters, preferably some based on the legendary VIFA XT25 lineup, as they are absolutely fantastic tweeters. The long-winded explanation of transmission line speaker porting is that you are using a combination of air volume and the rate of transmissivity of sound through air to tune a speaker enclosure for a specific frequency that you want it to amplify. Most commonly, this is used to reinforce at or just below the resonant frequency of the main woofer to create a stronger bass or mid-bass performance, though it is possible to tune your enclosure volume and transmission line length to allow your speaker to dig even lower, though this can cause additional issues with time alignment. Unfortunately, I don't understand the equations and the physics behind them well enough to give an even more in-depth explanation, but it's a truly fascinating subject. You can also use folded enclosures with a certain shape to attenuate rear wave, like what KEF does with the Helmholtz resonator chambers on their Meta speakers. Inversely, you can also horn-load your transmission line by allowing the tube to expand in cross-section at a specific rate in order to amplify certain frequencies, though you typically only see people bother with this in the very niche point-source driver applications in order to get a usable bass response out of larger full-range drivers without needing to cheat like Bose does with their single driver crossover networks.
@@davidlong1786 they're roughly the same impedance, sensitivity, and the xt25 can actually cross over even lower if necessary, plus they're ruler flat down to, like, 1000Hz and out to 30kHz. So, yeah, you can just swap the driver out and expect it to perform as well.
@@mndlessdrwer "Roughly the same impedance" means close but no cigar. Same goes for " cross over lower if necessary". Who's going to rebuild the crossover for that? Not 99% of those that buy this kit. What about the impedance bumps at FS? Are they the same, if not then a big difference for the crossover.
@@davidlong1786 It really isn't that important. If you're running a fairly simple crossover and neither of your tweeters are being run down to their resonant frequency, then matching their impedance there really doesn't matter. On top of all of that, dude is using pre-built fairly generic crossovers, so the significance matters even less. Would I recommend swapping drivers like that to someone who spent five hours building custom crossovers to really eke the most out of their drivers and reshape their FR to his preference? No, no I wouldn't. But he isn't to that stage yet, so this is the ideal time to reuse the generic crossovers and see if the sound signature of the tweeters is more to his preference compared to the ones from Dayton.
Good woodwork! Tech wise: The with the foam it really depends. Most use polyester wool. The crossover always should ve made specifically to the drivers as every driver is different and needs a different crossover because of it. Apart from that solid work!
The crossover is where the majority of the magic happens, those simple PE crossovers are definitely the weak link. You could start with high-end drivers like Scan Speak or Accuton and destroy the potential with x-overs like those. Designing the x-over and voicing the speaker takes a lot of work, measuring, and reworking to tease out the best performance from a speaker. It is a bit of a disservice to novice speaker builders to suggest using those x-overs.
Isn't the bottom driver too far away from the Twitter to be crossed over 2K? You didn't make this a two and a half way? Also what about a baffle step filter?
Hey Jason thanks for watching. You’re not the first person to mention this. Definitely a direction I’ll go for future builds. Especially when I dive into building my own crossovers. All in all though they still sound great just means they can get even better.
Hi Chris, really well done video and expertly done speakers! They are works of art and simply gorgeous, especially the way you designed & built the stands. Now fill in the Tweeter and top woofer holes and recut for a center Tweeter, D'Apolito design, or did you already consider it from the start and have a reason why not? Yes that was inspiring and I need to get back to a sawdust-eyebrows weekend! 👊😁👍
Interesting dialect of replacing the word "the" with "that" or "those". Where are you from? Is it written that way in the script or do you change it spontaneously when speaking? Once I started to hear it, I can't un-hear it!
I also wanted to know if you did the sound comparesent after you broke the speakers in because mine started sounding noticably better after a month of constant listening even my friend asked what I did to them because he said they amazing and they sounded better
@@chrisferris3303 I really liked the way you shot the video also. Easy to follow and good directions alot of build videos make it look intimidating for people but explained everything perfectly talked slow enough to follow. Thanks for responding
@@chrisferris3303 yeah I can tell the spiders and everything is so stiff at first then after a while they start to really shine and I can only imagine what the reference drivers sound like
@@chrisferris3303 I used an old record cabinet I was going to set up a retro silver faced apm record player but I had no room and on the way to dumpster to leave the thing I got an idea with no real plan but I took it apart and sanded the shit out of it and the speakers almost made themselves because it cracked in a certain the biggest pieces of hard maple it dictated the size of the speaker and it took on its own life and I was I could show them to you. They came out one of a kind
Nice work! I've never been any good with painting MDF so I'm going to try the sealant idea next time. As for the Dayton Reference drivers, I think these are better than a lot of far more expensive drivers. I use lots of Dayton Reference!
Nice work man, those look classy. Not easy to do. Long term suggestion: develop the skills if you wish to design your own crossover designed specifically for those drivers, it will be far superior to that pre built crossover and as a result, your speaker will be far superior. The drivers you picked out are better quality than what is used in the Infinity, so it gives you an idea of how good the speaker can be. Short term suggestion: build up some gasket tape behind the tweeter so that when you tighten the screws down that the front of the tweeter face is flush with the front baffle. Super quick fix. Your tweeters are inset about 1/16”-1/8” or so. For the same reason you rounded the corners on the front, to reduce tweeter diffraction as those high frequencies roll off the front baffle, same for that. As the high frequencies go across the tweeter face plate they’ll hit that ridge where they sit slightly below the front baffle of the speaker and you’ll get pretty bad diffraction, basically eliminating any benefit you got from rounding the front corners of your speakers.
@@chrisferris3303 Hi Chris. Dayton is one of the only driver manufactures that publishes frd and zma files for their speakers. You can download these files and import them directly into crossover simulation software and get to work without even having to take measurements. (The only measurement you really should take is that of the offset between the tip of the middle of the phase plug and the tip of the tweeter dome cover, as this is the point the measurements are taken from 1M away according to Dayton). Since your baffle is a basic shape, you can easily simulate the baffle diffraction and step loss in the speaker simulation software. I like SpeakerSim personally as I find it intuitive and easy to use. I would suggest redesigning your crossover network in a 2.5-way configuration to improve vertical off axis response and imaging. Use the lower woofer to fill in the baffle step loss and give a nice bass boost. When reading about 2.5 way designs you'll probably notice that most use parallel woofers, but don't fret, it can be done with series woofers as well, you'll just be using a capacitor and resistor shunted across the lower driver to pull down the mid-range. With a custom crossover design you can also pull down the crossover point to around 1500hz, which will improve off-axis response and imaging characteristics for the speakers. These speakers have a lot MORE to give!
Hey Jason, not yet. Gonna get myself a proper measuring kit. I plan to do a subwoofer build in the near future maybe I’ll include the measurements there. For this build I looked at a bunch of builds and the suggested speaker specs and went from there. Thanks for watching.
@@chrisferris3303 well you did a great job, I’ve built a whole 5.1 soon to be 5.1.2 using the Dayton reference 7” drivers with a peerless tweeters. My mains are mtm design my center is a wmtmw and surrounds and atmos are just tm versions
Thanks Good Goat. 224hz ish for the tuning. My buddies a physics teacher he helped with the math lol. There pretty even down to about the mid 60’s then they drop off. Working on a sub to compliment them. Video coming soon :)
Possibly a dumb question from an admittedly novice at such things, but you wired the two woofers in series to achieve an 8 ohm impedance, however, and I may be wrong, but the tweeter was still a 4 ohm driver, wasn't it? Does it just not matter that they are differing impedances?
Not a dumb question at all. I’ll probably get chewed apart for this answer lol but the woofers require the most power and thus have more impact on the systems nominal impedance.
Cool build! What are your impressions of the transmission line? Could you elaborate on the "focused bass" you mentioned? The Dayton Reference Tweeter is a 4 ohm tweeter, what did you do to end up with an 8 ohm nominal system? Very nice video, I liked the way you managed to pack that into a short video and the step by step narration explaining and showing what you're doing and why.
Hey, thanks for watching. So the transmission line works by absorbing and reflecting sound waves up to a certain wave length. The result is an enhancement in bass with sound waves that come out of the tunnel. Depending on the length and dimensions you get different results. As for the tweeter and impedance the over all speaker impedance is more based on the woofers as they require significantly more power. So if the woofers nominal impedance lands at 8ohms in this case it safe to run the speakers with an 8 ohm amp.
Nice speakers.!!! I been building speakers and I been using the Dayton crossover myself up for not building my own but know I saw someone else who knows what he's doing maybe I should just leave them also I ran 2 4 ohms drivers to get 8 ohms like you and I wanted to use the reference tweeter that you use but I saw it's 4 ohms and I don't know I can run a 4 ohms tweeter with 8 ohms woofers obviously I you did it so it must be ok to do unless that's an 8 ohms reference tweeter but I think they had 8 reference tweeters .
Hey thanks for watching. You can use the 4 ohm tweeter because the over all impedance is more effected by the woofers as they take a larger percentage of the power being delivered.
@@chrisferris3303 oh good I really wanted to use that tweeter. I'm going to replace the one in there with one of reference tweeters. And I like the little cover.
Excellent wood work, very competent and perfect video footage and editing. I would like to give some input though, it might help you in this or future projects. First of all you didn't tell anything how transmission line is calculated. But ok, the other things I noticed.. this premade crossover seems to be optimized for 4 or 8 ohm load on woofer side, but 8 ohm load only on tweeter side, however your tweeter is 4 ohm nominal so there will be some shifting from theoretical xover frequency. But that doesn't have to be a problem if measurements are OK, but did you made them? I mean, there is very slim chance that acoustic xover point and slope will be what you think it is, with custom build front baffle and random drivers and generic xover, huh. Apart from that, your tweeter is flushed too deep into front baffle, that stepping will create diffraction and coloration. You can help with adding small depth of sealeant under tweeter to lift its surface in level with front baffle. The last thing I noticed... did you put that crossover into transmission line tunnel? Huh? If you did you defeated its purporse a big time. Also, you've made it non accessible after gluing front baffle? I hope you won't take those comments wrong way, also I might be wrong about some points as something might be just not shown in the video. Other than that great job!
Great videov CHRIS. The only improvment to the Dayton Audio components would be Pearless and better quality crossover parts a la GR Research or similar supplier. YOUR DIRECTIONS ARE SPOT ON. 10/10 100%
PVA glue doesn't fill gaps. What it does is absorb into the pours of the material, then as it dries it pulls the two pieces together forming a bond between the two. Assuming your joints are straight and you have even clamping pressure to begin with the seal should be perfect. But if you can't guarantee a perfect fit, then you can inlay the panels into eachother to improve the seal. You can't really have "too much" glue, but a thin layer will form just as good a seal and cause less mess. Another technique to fill gaps with PVA is to mix it with 30-60% sawdust, preferably of the same material as what you're filling. Pro tip: you can seal MDF with PVA. Dilute the PVA with water then spray or wipe it on.
![I.N "HALLUCINATION" | [Stray Kids : SKZ-PLAYER]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/n5B5q1Hwt_U/mqdefault.jpg)
Very nice build - I am a huge fan of transmission line speakers. I have designed several mass loaded transmission line speakers, including the crossover, and built them. And I agree that they sound fantastic - much better bass & midrange quality than any speaker I have ever heard, and with much better bass extension from a given driver. My favorite so far, use a 6" paper cone SB Acoustics woofer, and are essentially flat in my room to 32Hz.
I used a 3D acoustic modeling program called Hornresp to design the cabinet; and drafted it in DataCAD. I used a miniDSP 2x4 HD to digitally design the crossover, listening to the speakers. I then used XSim to design an analog version of the crossover.
Awesome Stuff! Thanks for the kind words. Looking forward to designing my own electronics and dialing in my cabinet designs in the future.
@@chrisferris3303 A possibly good way to get your feet wet in Hornresp (which is free) is to model this speaker, since you have the dimensions. The driver Thiele/Small data is available; maybe in a TXT file that can just be loaded into Hornresp?
How critical are the dimensions of the cabinet to optimizing the sound quality?
@@talktoeric The inside dimensions are pretty important. The most critical is the area of the terminus section. In the final stages of the design, I was moving things in 1/16" (~1.5mm) increments.
I designed some using crayon paper, a magnet from a flux capacitor, and an I-drive system from a bmw.
Great video with tons of good information! Just one small correction in case someone is doing it for the first time: contact cement….you wait until the cement is dry enough that is NO LONGER sticky to the touch. Thank you! 🙏🏻
Been using Parts Express and Dayton Audio for over twenty years. I have a pair of rebuilt Sansui Speakers that now use Dayton Audio products, as well as all of my vehicles sound systems being designed around Dayton Audio Reference Series speakers. Incredible performance at an Incredible price point!!!!
Good stuff!
Those look great and I'm sure they sound amazing with that transmission line design. I do have one suggestion though, when wiring two speakers together it is always recommended to put them in parallel, not series. The reason for this is that though out the speakers travel the resistance changes, which changes the power its given, so when two speakers are in series as one changes resistance it changes the power the other one is getting too. When in parallel the speakers are completely independent of each others resistance and power. Putting two 8 ohm speakers in parallel for a 4 ohm resistance would have been better, I'm pretty sure that crossover has a woofer resistance selector too.
Hey thanks so much for watching. Working on a new build currently. Gonna try out a 2.5 and compare it to an MTM and see what I like better. Building my own crossover for the next build as well. Comments like this pushed me to research deeper so thank you!
The speakers would also probably be out of sync due to the phase shifting in the first speaker coil before it reaches the second.
Otherwise, great build!
Amazing video! Did not really expect anything going into this but was just blown away by the production quality of the video and way you explained your process. Keep up the good work!
Thanks so much Andy!
The Klipsch RP250F sound amazing...especially for $700 a pair. Worth every penny. :)
As a woodworker i will give you my advice about glue. PVA glue is not a filler. put just a thin film of glue and dont clamp very tight so it wont squeeze out. Less is more with wood glue.
Mdf is so diff than wood tho... same advice applies fir that?
@@chinmeysway clamp tight, use a liberal amount of glue, and wipe off the excess with a warm damp towel
You'll say less is more, until your box bust apart at the glue lines.
Trust me i've built 1000s of mdf boxes for speakers, 2 10s can cause a box to come apart when using MDF
And if you tell me plywood i'll ask you are you positive the sheets have no voids? That should make a nice sound buzz buzz.
As a furniture builder i can vouch for op's advice. As this wood glue is not a filler (it shrinks when it dries) it wil not fill in any surfaces that do not contact each other while clamped down. Again, more glue does not help with a better bond with this paticular wood glue as it does not fill. Having lots of contacting area helps though, so make sure the contacting area is as straight and smooth as possible. There are special "filling" glues who do this. PU glue for instance will do this. It is notoriously more messy to work with though. Trust the advice from professionals or be stuborn and pay for the learning curve.
I have never used a router on veneer when glued to my cabinets, it can chip the veneer with the wood grain and cause aesthetic issues like the ones you can see on 11:34.
Hey Rui Pedro Silva thank you for watching. Yeah the router worked well but for sure had some issues with chipping. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
@@chrisferris3303 I always used a X-acto knive but there are proper cutting tools for veneer (you can also make your own!). For me the trick was, multiple passages especially when you are cutting along the grain to avoid separation of the sheet (perpendicular cuts are easier to do!), but this ways if it happens you can fix it, and with the router you can say good bye to that lost veneer chip.
Great speaker build ! A cent of suggestion, as I saw the picture that tweeter speakers placment are a bit under the cutting holes as I assumed it being cut a bit over deep. Actually in order to compensate the height, you can get a 3-5mm thick EVA foam sheet to cut a ring ,that its size idential to the tweeter mouting hole. And then put it underneath the tweeters and mount it onto the cabinet as a buffer cushion pad. And then slowly adjust the tweeter mounting screws until the tweeter suface being the in same level as the speaker baffle surface to make it look better like a pro built. Also the EVA pad can help to absorb some twitter resonance as well. You can also do the same way for the woffers with thinner EVA foam sheet to compensate the mounting height as well .
For the crossover, its better to change the same value air core inductors instead of iron core inductor will make the mid bass sound greater ! Good luck!
Thanks so much for the suggestions!
I have one bit of advice as a fellow DIY'er, novice wood worker and music junkie.....Nothing! you nailed it. Great video production, great build, and anything you are going to do differently in the future is learnt from this video. Experience is the only true source of knowledge. Keep it up. I hope to make a video as good as yours some day. Cheers.
Devin. Thanks so much!
@@chrisferris3303 Àwesome job! i was first confused because i thought this was about making actual speakers but ITS NOT , this is indeed about making youtube videos. the DIY speakers is just an idea that is used for the production of this video.. no wonder all the relevant information was missing from the video!
Dude... How you don't have more subs is beyond me. I'm loving the shit out of this!!! So tastefully done too!
Thanks Bark Industry. Stoked you like it. New video coming soon.
@@chrisferris3303 Can't wait!!
Love the build ! Really inspiring. Thanks for sharing it.
Could you tell us the size (lengths) and the angle between the inner bracing (tr line )?
Nice work Chris.
I built a pair of TL speakers from a kit by a well known diy speaker kit supplier and designer here in the uk. They are still sounding good after twenty years.
Room acoustics play a big part with your sound system, but you can tailor your kt to suit. There was a few tweaks I could do on my kit, that the designer had thought to include, was crossover adjustments, and driver damping.
Might be one for a future build, if you hook up with the guy that designs crossovers.
Mid band adjustments by removing some turns of wire from the inductors.
Mount the xovers externally, then you can play till your hearts content.
Good morning 🌅, Very interesting, I just started watching the build, there is 45° finger locking joint router cutter you can purchase, that will help you to look your joints together a lot easier, retired English dude living in France
I built a pair of these inspired by this video - a few changes: I made the cabinets taller by 4" to extend the TL, and kept the drivers in roughly the same location. Also coated the interior completely with 1/2" padding, and added acoustic foam over 1/2 the tunnel. They sound amazing - originally they were scheduled for the garage, but I liked them so much, I replaced my Klipsch F2's with them in my home theater.
JR B - This is so cool! So satisfying hey.
Aside from that buzzkill guy saying pva isn't a filler .... this is a very good video on how to and ur skills are on point 👉 😊
Very underrated! This is just next level content. When I started to watch video I didn’t look at the subscriber count. I was just watching the video and in my mind I had “ this is a million subscribers channel”. Truly he deserves it.
Wow thanks Motion Fiction! This means a lot.
@@chrisferris3303 make more videos on hifi sound speakers
I'm late to the party, but this is awesome! Also, you have great taste- that lamp shade at the end is DOPE.
As a beginner learner, I appreciate your teaching. 🙏🏻
Great job, Chris! I've made about a dozen or so speakers myself. Looks like you checked all the boxes. Great work with the speakers and the video. Well done! Like button smashed!
Thanks Brian. So much fun!
Congratulations for your great build!
Top passion and excellent videomaking here.
Just a few suggestions to improve your wonderful creatures:
1) Glue is super well made on your side and a good base, but not enough to ensure proper stiffness. One screw each 10 cm approx is needed to keep all panels together, included lateral ones for internal panels. Top importance for the front baffle, even if difficult implementation now because of the rounded edges.
2) Tweeter looks a bit recessed, but it must be exactly in line with gaskets of the other drivers.
3) Stands must be much more rigid, if properly coupled with the floor, then soundstage will take huge profit.
If you also fine tune them on your room resonance by adjusting length of the tube port, then I'm sure you will be even more satisfied about the comparison.
Hope it helps!
Cheers
Thanks so much for the feed back! And thanks for watching @enricobassani6175 . It’s nice to get real pointers, thank you.
Awesome build Chris, got a few ideas for my current design and helped me understand a little bit more. Just a tip, wear a mask next time you cut mdf, its really horrible for your lungs
Great build and video!
+subscriber
Could you please tell more about transmission line. How did you calculate it?
Foamed port baffles? And why not birch? Looks good, need to work on the crossover. Mdf is usually used for subs
That was a great video. I would like to have a try at it.
Could you please provide more details on the port size and its internals dimension wise?
Wow, you really did a great job, i might as well wanna build them myself, perhaps, could you please give the messurements of all the internals? Thanks in advance!
Many have tried..and yet you make it like so simple and very very awsome!..thank you for sharing this ! 👏👏👏
Dayton Audio's parts show up in everyone's builds so it seems. (including mine)......... I believe it's Parts Express's House brand. PE is located in Springboro Ohio, a suburb of Dayton OH. Yeah, I'm in the Cleveland area, so I'm 1 day away for them shipping me stuff. I am glad you are happy with your project, and I hope it brings you lots of enjoyable listening.
They are such a great company. I’m super happy. Thanks for the Love!
@@chrisferris3303 no worries. If you feel like building yourself a tube amp, my channel may come in handy.
The production quality is top tier.
You are really amazing
Thank You Reginald!
Just a suggestion that will save you some saw dust. Us a smaller diameter router bit, an 1/2" up cut bit will take out less material, and still get the job done. Thank you for the Dayton Audio info.
Good stuff. Thanks for the tip.
Very impressive. I'm considering building my 1st set. How did you determine cabinet size?
Hi Chris , it’s amazing DIY Speaker 🔊 i want to build my own Diy speaker can you share the measurements of the speaker box thanks
Hey Jing. Thank you. Very soon. I have new video coming out with plans for a matching subwoofer.
Listening through headphones to me the Customs sound of the best out of the three. I would really like to build a set of these but I didn't hear or see any Dimensions given on the internal brace that creates the transmission line or what size the port opening was. Or where it is placed in the cabinet.
Hi 👋, Chris, Nice job, A few tips on connecting the back and sides together, That is depending on what tools you’ve got available remind me to help line up the joint to keep it square, Biscuit joints about every 5060 mil apart or small Domino, I see you’ve got around the table, There is a router bit that is at 45° angle but it’s got a finger joint in it which makes it very very strong, When using it you have to remember which part of the cabinet or the side or the front or the back it’s been jointed to which component because you run one piece flat on the table up against the fence you run the other piece up against the fence with his end against the table so when you put the two pieces together they lock together and line everything all up, I hope you can understand what I am trying to explain, I am into transmission line speaker cabinets I’ve built mine 40 odd years ago they are quite big however I stand approximately 1 1/2 m in height 30 cm across the front 37 cm deep. I just recently put new drivers into the cabinet the drivers are made by Seas 8 ohms 150w , I used a Fibre quilt Which you tease to open up the fibres and it’s got a Sounds exorbitant pitch like paper I can’t remember what it was called, The crossover unit it’s built into a box, Which plugs into the back of the unit so If you need to change any of the components you can do, And they are Bywired , They set on a metal frame with large spikes so I can adjust the cabinet either to stand upright or lean forward or back, Spikes then sit on four steel blocks with sound absorbent material underneath, Because they fire out of the bottom there is a 10 cm gap underneath, Play are made out of 1 inch thick or 24 mil thick MDF needless to say they are very heavy, They where built from a plan that I’d found in a hi-fi magazine back from the 70s,
I hope this can be some help to you and some other people, I am a great believer of transmission line loudspeaker cabinets especially if you’ve got the room, These have got a very good face response not for the faint hearted, They sound amazing . I might be an old dude as they say approach and 71 years young, my choice of music is very varied , From heavy metal to classical, blues, Viking war music, and the list goes on, Good luck with your next build , I look forward to seeing your next project, How you explained the construction of your cabinet,
I thought that’s quite interesting.. PHIL FROM THE DARK SIDE OF THE MOULIN FRANCE.
Phil thank you so much for the advice! I definitely understand and learn a lot from people like yourself. Thanks for watching :).
Hi Chris, Sorry the content was a bit long and probably spelling wasn’t very good, I miss being at work as I work for myself/subcontract work for approximately 44 odd years, I am self-taught as I progress in my career so my work got more high end to the point where I don’t work for universities and organ building company, The last 18 to 20 years I have been more involved in the barn conversions and renovating all properties doing very high-end joinery, I now live in old Mill in France that I have partly renovated/converted from 2013 which I’m now hoping to finish in the next year or so which should keep me busy, Over the past few months I’ve left comments similar to what I have left you and people have sent messages back saying that I should start up a RUclips channel explaining how I make things and what my experiences have been over the last 40 years.
And I now live by myself so I can go and do what I want when I want, Thank you for the chat, I look forward to your next project, Stay safe especially when machining working with MDF, PHIL FROM THE DARK SIDE OF THE MOULIN 🎼🎶🎸FRANCE
So how does the port work? It seems like the loading chamber is ported into another loading chamber and then ported to the outside through the visible 'port hole'... Not sure of the design or how any of this actually works, never seen a box designed so oddly. Looks like it was just thrown together and I dont know how you made the design or even tuned it.
Hey thanks for watching. Take a look at some of the PMC speakers transmission lines and you’ll see where I was going. We did the math on the 1/4 and 1/2 wavelengths of some of the bottom end frequencies and compromised on a line that gave the speaker a nice low end growl.
Amazing video and project!!! next time I would love to see your process in designing the port.
The reason you get better sound on the highs is silk dome tweeters that are some what good vers the horns or other speakers.
Want really good tweeters go with Ribbon tweeters.
Hey Chris! thanks for sharing your buid, I'm planning on doing the same build, do you happen to have a cutting sheet like in your sub video? or the mesurements of the center T section? thanks! Great Video
Nice vid. But question, what is that amazing blue soilder holder thing you have there?
Hey DumA2034. Thank you for watching. If you go onto Amazon and search “Soldering helping hands” you’ll find the blue soldering thing. :)
Sit stores won't have made a cut straight edge to start with. Assuming a 8x4 sheet is square won't be square as you have to cut a side of the sheet square to start as a ref edge.
Are all panels glued making servicing only through woofer openings?
They’re all sealed up. Big regrets lol. My intent was to do a larger terminal plate so I could access the internals but I couldn’t find one. I fully plan on building a version 2 of these with all the suggested upgrades. I think that would make for a decent video. Thanks Guy B.
Yow! The purpose of the port and its design is critical, is to allow the back pressure to exit the box in-phase with the front pressure, thereby allow you to harness the total movement of the woofers. Unlike an acoustic suspension where only the the front pressure is utilized and the back pressure absorbed by damping material.
Great build. Can you please elaborate on measurements
Nice build. Do you account for the foam in your enclosure volume?
Hey thanks for watching. I did not account for the foam but I’ve wondered the same thing. I could be wrong but as the foam isn’t dense enough to affect the lower frequencies I’d imagine it’s all good.
@@chrisferris3303 gotcha, pal. Nice build! Thanks.
Thanks for showing the way , hehehe... i got a Question the woofers are 4 Ohms and you wired it in serial so it became 8 Ohms and its ok, but the twitter is 4 Ohms also so the crossover do the magic, I mean the amp its rated to work ok from 6 Ohms to 16 Ohms... i do not know if the crossover do something for it to work perfectly...
Hey Luis, thanks for watching. The woofers take a majority of the power and thus have the most impact on the nominal impedance
How do you tune and design a transmission line speaker? I am looking to build a pair of T-line tower speakers using two 6.5in dayton audio signature series woofers and a dayton audio reference tweeter. Any suggestions?
Hey thanks for watching. This is a pretty loaded question. For this build I referenced acouple different designs then made sure the tunnel length was equivalent to 1/4 wavelength of 160hz…ish. I do wish I made the tunnel alittle longer as 1 extra fold woulda got me down closer to 60hz. The end result for me was a speaker that had real nice low mid grunt but needs a sub. I could have gone 1 step further and taken advantage of the tuned box and design a cross over to match its characteristics. Depends how involved you wanna get. As far as figuring out the math for the tunnel pathway my buddy is a physics teacher and crunched the numbers for me but an easier way…ask chat gpt :).
Hi Chris,
I heard you say spikes decouple the loudspeakers. As a matter of fact, spikes couple the loudspeakers, allowing vibrations reflecting back into the cabinet out of fase. To decouple the loudspeakers, you should shove something under the loudspeaker that absorbs vibrations to really isolate. I use IsoAcoustic Gaia feet with far better results than with cones or spikes.
Learning everyday. Thanks John. Just found a great article clarifying this. Good Stuff.
The customs sounds noticeably better! It has more transparency and the top end details are more present and airy. Well done! You must be so happy with it, and a fraction of the cost of a "Branded" high end speaker. I think if you pull it away from the walls you would get a distinct improvement in the soundstage. And oh, next time, a better choice of music, which includes vocals, drums, guitars and pianos.
its like going astell to cayin very noticeable but maybe not worth for you, lessfox soundstage upgrade, enleum bass upgrade
its like going astell to cayin very noticeable but maybe not worth for you, lessfox soundstage upgrade, enleum bass upgrade
Thanks Chris, Do you think can I change the RS180S-8 in replacement of RS150-4? And what else about the crossover? This because at this time it’s no longer available the components on Amazon that it’s the most cost effective way to bring to Colombia.
Great video and great job ! … Just wondering why the speakers are sitting so tall ( tweeter well above ear-level) ?
I thought this channel might have couple of million subs.Great content !
Thanks for watching @rizaadam
Chris your video is awesome & really inspiring to DIY build. Videography, Content & your step by step explanation are really motivating to build Speaker. Great fan of your work. keep doing more videos. i have watched you video already close 10+ times.
Wow thanks Rajesh. Almost done my next video. I’m building a subwoofer to match the speakers. Stay tuned and thanks for the support :).
@@chrisferris3303 Awaiting your next video post on Subwoofer..
@@rajeshselvaraj3654 should be done in the next 2 weeks. Just putting some finishing touches on the Video.
This is one of the very few DIY RUclips video's that I have actually ENJOYED watching! What more needs to be said except...Great Job!
Definitely one of the best detailed video's , with a beautiful set of home speaker's , thank's .
Great build I think you have just answered my question about using the acoustic lining as I am looks forward to my first built I notice you complete covered the interior with the foam is that the write way And is that the best one to use ?
Hey @hamazatatta952 thanks for watching. So PMC which is one of my favourite speaker manufacturers does it this way. Now I don’t know what the density of there foam is but still I took a gamble and it paid off. I think it’s a great way to control the high mid standing waves.
Excellent work, very beautiful speakers. I don't know much about electrical stuff but, how do you connect the tweeters to other drivers??
Hey Angel, Thanks for watching. All the drivers get connected to a crossover unit which distributes the signal and determines the frequencies going to the tweeter and woofers.
@@chrisferris3303 Oh Ok, So, the woofers are connected to the crossover (serial) and the tweeters are also connected to the crossover but independently from the woofers. I think I get it now. Thank you so much!
@@chrisferris3303 Hi Chris, I'm planning to build these speakers, I've already bought the components, but I have a couple of doubts, as I mentioned I don't know much about electricity: all drivers are 4 ohms, although the woofers are connected in series (that make them an 8ohm), but the tweeters still are 4 ohms, so what is the final impedance of the speakers? Also, what amplifier power do you recommend for these speakers? I'm Planning to bough the Yamaha A-S801SL (100w) Thank you very much my friend!
@@AngelCorso Hey Angel the nominal impedance will be close enough to 8 ohms with this setup. No problem for that amp. This is a great place to start for a first build good luck and enjoy.
@@chrisferris3303 Thank you very much!
those 250F are pretty bright on the treble, but also give it great clarity in comparison.
Hi Chris, Do you take custom orders? I am looking for a proper 7.2 channel setup with Dayton Audio components?
Hey thanks for watching! Hit me up on my Instagram. @cfschris
What are the angles and specific location of the inner baffle ? Or does it make a difference ?
Thank you for the detailed video. I'm fascinated in the wiring of 4ohm speakers to 8ohm impedance. I never knew that could be done. i'm still learning. So can i wire all 4ohm speakers in this manner and will it be safe for my amp which allows from 6 ohms ? Thank you sir.
Great looking speakers!! Great job! How do you get the cabinet size ? Would be nice a video about this. Thank you
You can simulate basic ported and sealed cabinets with a program called winISD. Also, many full-speaker simulation software suites (that take into account baffle diffraction, step loss, room, crossover components, driver response, real impedance and phase data) also have a basic box simulator built in. I like a program called "speakersim." This sort of approach allows you to do a more thorough design than the one shown in this video, which fails to address about 70% of the issues that need to be addressed for a speaker to be called "reference" quality.
If you want to simulate more sophisticated boxes, use hornresp. Hornresp can simulate just about any box you can imagine, from bass horns, to transmission lines, with rear-chambers or with the driver installed somewhere along the line between the halves. It's hard to use but very rewarding once you learn it as it opens up very interesting speaker box options.
High quality compnents. High quality build by great craftsman. Now, how do they measure? What's the frequency response? What's the vertical and horizontal dispersion?
Nice Job !! All the best from The Netherlands EU..
Some speakers just looks like they play well - this pair is one of them. You make some good mechanical choices during the building process - well done! When you have full control of the design process , why not make the baffle from thicker material - 1" or maybe 1 1/2"? I'm confused about the choice of the height of the speaker in relation to the choice of the stand. As the tweeter have a limited spread of sound, it will be placed in a non optimized place (too high) when sitting in a normal listening position.
Why did you not use denser foam or rockwool?
Youll still have resonate frequency with that foam
They look great. Next logical step would be a custom crossover as I'm sure the stock is going have some issues and is really leaving performance of the Dayton Reference drivers on the floor.
Great build job. They look fantastic. And from what I could hear over my headphones they stood up well. I am a Klipsch fan but they sounded really balanced. Do you have build plans available at all???
We see the work of a good furniture maker. In addition to the sound, there are many questions.
Great video and build Chris. I'm working up the courage to build a set of speakers too. I'd love to know where you're purchasing your supplies like audio components and veneer. It looks like you're in Ontario (from your license plate) just like me. Thanks!
Hey thanks @clintmarcham. Go to parts-express.com. Everything you need! Veneer I got from Home Depot. As for building, it’s incredibly rewarding. If you’re at all nervous about the design checkout some of the build kits from companies like CSS. Good luck and thanks for watchin.
I love this video so much it makes me want to build my own speakers. The build is clean and solid, and the finish is very nice. I don't exactly understand the purpose of the transmission line instead of just a port, what's the adventage ?
Wow thank you so much kloug2006. The TML is just a different way of porting a cabinet. Thanks for watching.
If you want to upgrade it in the future, try to find a pair of silk ring radiator tweeters, preferably some based on the legendary VIFA XT25 lineup, as they are absolutely fantastic tweeters.
The long-winded explanation of transmission line speaker porting is that you are using a combination of air volume and the rate of transmissivity of sound through air to tune a speaker enclosure for a specific frequency that you want it to amplify. Most commonly, this is used to reinforce at or just below the resonant frequency of the main woofer to create a stronger bass or mid-bass performance, though it is possible to tune your enclosure volume and transmission line length to allow your speaker to dig even lower, though this can cause additional issues with time alignment. Unfortunately, I don't understand the equations and the physics behind them well enough to give an even more in-depth explanation, but it's a truly fascinating subject. You can also use folded enclosures with a certain shape to attenuate rear wave, like what KEF does with the Helmholtz resonator chambers on their Meta speakers. Inversely, you can also horn-load your transmission line by allowing the tube to expand in cross-section at a specific rate in order to amplify certain frequencies, though you typically only see people bother with this in the very niche point-source driver applications in order to get a usable bass response out of larger full-range drivers without needing to cheat like Bose does with their single driver crossover networks.
This great info Robert thanks for sharing!
You don't just swap different drivers in a speaker and think the crossover will match as well as with the original one.
@@davidlong1786 they're roughly the same impedance, sensitivity, and the xt25 can actually cross over even lower if necessary, plus they're ruler flat down to, like, 1000Hz and out to 30kHz. So, yeah, you can just swap the driver out and expect it to perform as well.
@@mndlessdrwer "Roughly the same impedance" means close but no cigar. Same goes for " cross over lower if necessary". Who's going to rebuild the crossover for that? Not 99% of those that buy this kit. What about the impedance bumps at FS? Are they the same, if not then a big difference for the crossover.
@@davidlong1786 It really isn't that important. If you're running a fairly simple crossover and neither of your tweeters are being run down to their resonant frequency, then matching their impedance there really doesn't matter. On top of all of that, dude is using pre-built fairly generic crossovers, so the significance matters even less. Would I recommend swapping drivers like that to someone who spent five hours building custom crossovers to really eke the most out of their drivers and reshape their FR to his preference? No, no I wouldn't. But he isn't to that stage yet, so this is the ideal time to reuse the generic crossovers and see if the sound signature of the tweeters is more to his preference compared to the ones from Dayton.
Would this be better to have speakers wired direct and using a minidsp?
Absolutely! I’ve been considering it. Thanks for watching :)
Good woodwork! Tech wise:
The with the foam it really depends. Most use polyester wool.
The crossover always should ve made specifically to the drivers as every driver is different and needs a different crossover because of it.
Apart from that solid work!
The crossover is where the majority of the magic happens, those simple PE crossovers are definitely the weak link. You could start with high-end drivers like Scan Speak or Accuton and destroy the potential with x-overs like those. Designing the x-over and voicing the speaker takes a lot of work, measuring, and reworking to tease out the best performance from a speaker. It is a bit of a disservice to novice speaker builders to suggest using those x-overs.
Hello, thank you for your interesting review and experience! Could you please share the drawings with dimensions? Thank you!
Isn't the bottom driver too far away from the Twitter to be crossed over 2K? You didn't make this a two and a half way? Also what about a baffle step filter?
Hey Jason thanks for watching. You’re not the first person to mention this. Definitely a direction I’ll go for future builds. Especially when I dive into building my own crossovers. All in all though they still sound great just means they can get even better.
Hi Chris, really well done video and expertly done speakers! They are works of art and simply gorgeous, especially the way you designed & built the stands.
Now fill in the Tweeter and top woofer holes and recut for a center Tweeter, D'Apolito design, or did you already consider it from the start and have a reason why not?
Yes that was inspiring and I need to get back to a sawdust-eyebrows weekend!
👊😁👍
@4:41 "A Double Diamond works wonders" Those were the days!
Is there a acoustic reason for using MDF?
A lot of manufacturers I trust use it. Probably a good balance of acoustic balance and affordability.
Very nice 👍 how do they sound ?
Thanks for watching @eddievega1100. They’re great! I really enjoy them.
Good morning 🌅, Very interesting, very nice job, from France
Interesting dialect of replacing the word "the" with "that" or "those". Where are you from? Is it written that way in the script or do you change it spontaneously when speaking? Once I started to hear it, I can't un-hear it!
Haha uh oh. I had no idea. From Canada :). Thanks for watching.
I also wanted to know if you did the sound comparesent after you broke the speakers in because mine started sounding noticably better after a month of constant listening even my friend asked what I did to them because he said they amazing and they sounded better
Yeah for sure. The speakers were pretty fresh when I made the video maybe had about 20 hrs of listening on them.
@@chrisferris3303 I really liked the way you shot the video also. Easy to follow and good directions alot of build videos make it look intimidating for people but explained everything perfectly talked slow enough to follow. Thanks for responding
@@chrisferris3303 yeah I can tell the spiders and everything is so stiff at first then after a while they start to really shine and I can only imagine what the reference drivers sound like
@@chrisferris3303 I used an old record cabinet I was going to set up a retro silver faced apm record player but I had no room and on the way to dumpster to leave the thing I got an idea with no real plan but I took it apart and sanded the shit out of it and the speakers almost made themselves because it cracked in a certain the biggest pieces of hard maple it dictated the size of the speaker and it took on its own life and I was I could show them to you. They came out one of a kind
@@BostonMike68 those sound awesome! Such a cool feeling bringing new life to gear. Love it
Nice work! I've never been any good with painting MDF so I'm going to try the sealant idea next time. As for the Dayton Reference drivers, I think these are better than a lot of far more expensive drivers. I use lots of Dayton Reference!
This is beautiful, and your work is really clean, taking care of the details.
Thanks Joshua G
Nice work man, those look classy. Not easy to do. Long term suggestion: develop the skills if you wish to design your own crossover designed specifically for those drivers, it will be far superior to that pre built crossover and as a result, your speaker will be far superior. The drivers you picked out are better quality than what is used in the Infinity, so it gives you an idea of how good the speaker can be.
Short term suggestion: build up some gasket tape behind the tweeter so that when you tighten the screws down that the front of the tweeter face is flush with the front baffle. Super quick fix. Your tweeters are inset about 1/16”-1/8” or so. For the same reason you rounded the corners on the front, to reduce tweeter diffraction as those high frequencies roll off the front baffle, same for that. As the high frequencies go across the tweeter face plate they’ll hit that ridge where they sit slightly below the front baffle of the speaker and you’ll get pretty bad diffraction, basically eliminating any benefit you got from rounding the front corners of your speakers.
Dan love this. Can’t wait to start building my own crossovers. Love all these suggestions. Thanks so much for the input!
You can also add a felt ring on the front surface between the dome and the lip, which can also work
@@chrisferris3303 You could have Danny at GR Research design a crossover for you to build.
@@EskWIRED how cool would that be!
@@chrisferris3303 Hi Chris. Dayton is one of the only driver manufactures that publishes frd and zma files for their speakers. You can download these files and import them directly into crossover simulation software and get to work without even having to take measurements. (The only measurement you really should take is that of the offset between the tip of the middle of the phase plug and the tip of the tweeter dome cover, as this is the point the measurements are taken from 1M away according to Dayton). Since your baffle is a basic shape, you can easily simulate the baffle diffraction and step loss in the speaker simulation software. I like SpeakerSim personally as I find it intuitive and easy to use.
I would suggest redesigning your crossover network in a 2.5-way configuration to improve vertical off axis response and imaging. Use the lower woofer to fill in the baffle step loss and give a nice bass boost. When reading about 2.5 way designs you'll probably notice that most use parallel woofers, but don't fret, it can be done with series woofers as well, you'll just be using a capacitor and resistor shunted across the lower driver to pull down the mid-range.
With a custom crossover design you can also pull down the crossover point to around 1500hz, which will improve off-axis response and imaging characteristics for the speakers.
These speakers have a lot MORE to give!
nice speakers. did you take any measurements of them ? how did you come up with the design and volume for the cabinets
Hey Jason, not yet. Gonna get myself a proper measuring kit. I plan to do a subwoofer build in the near future maybe I’ll include the measurements there. For this build I looked at a bunch of builds and the suggested speaker specs and went from there. Thanks for watching.
@@chrisferris3303 well you did a great job, I’ve built a whole 5.1 soon to be 5.1.2 using the Dayton reference 7” drivers with a peerless tweeters. My mains are mtm design my center is a wmtmw and surrounds and atmos are just tm versions
Hey I loved your Project, só My question is can i use old speakers like ss-mf-515 and change the old speakers to some new ones ?
Terrific job on the video and a great looking set of speakers. What is the transmission line tuned to and how low does the bass go? Plans?
Thanks Good Goat. 224hz ish for the tuning. My buddies a physics teacher he helped with the math lol. There pretty even down to about the mid 60’s then they drop off. Working on a sub to compliment them. Video coming soon :)
Great work! What sealant before painting do you use? There are many types, acrylic, shellac, silicone, etc. Definitely not oil based I guess.
Thank You. I used shellac but I’m told that wood glue diluted with water is the best way to go.
Very Very nice .
let's this be a lesson to those that think you can't do excellent with crappy tools . 😂😉
seriously man ,you did a great job !
How does it sounds like? Can you make another video?
Nice video. Speakers look great!
Music was a touch loud in the mix for my taste just as some unsolicited feedback.
Possibly a dumb question from an admittedly novice at such things, but you wired the two woofers in series to achieve an 8 ohm impedance, however, and I may be wrong, but the tweeter was still a 4 ohm driver, wasn't it? Does it just not matter that they are differing impedances?
Not a dumb question at all. I’ll probably get chewed apart for this answer lol but the woofers require the most power and thus have more impact on the systems nominal impedance.
Cool build! What are your impressions of the transmission line? Could you elaborate on the "focused bass" you mentioned? The Dayton Reference Tweeter is a 4 ohm tweeter, what did you do to end up with an 8 ohm nominal system? Very nice video, I liked the way you managed to pack that into a short video and the step by step narration explaining and showing what you're doing and why.
Hey, thanks for watching. So the transmission line works by absorbing and reflecting sound waves up to a certain wave length. The result is an enhancement in bass with sound waves that come out of the tunnel. Depending on the length and dimensions you get different results. As for the tweeter and impedance the over all speaker impedance is more based on the woofers as they require significantly more power. So if the woofers nominal impedance lands at 8ohms in this case it safe to run the speakers with an 8 ohm amp.
Nice speakers.!!! I been building speakers and I been using the Dayton crossover myself up for not building my own but know I saw someone else who knows what he's doing maybe I should just leave them also I ran 2 4 ohms drivers to get 8 ohms like you and I wanted to use the reference tweeter that you use but I saw it's 4 ohms and I don't know I can run a 4 ohms tweeter with 8 ohms woofers obviously I you did it so it must be ok to do unless that's an 8 ohms reference tweeter but I think they had 8 reference tweeters .
Hey thanks for watching. You can use the 4 ohm tweeter because the over all impedance is more effected by the woofers as they take a larger percentage of the power being delivered.
@@chrisferris3303 oh good I really wanted to use that tweeter. I'm going to replace the one in there with one of reference tweeters. And I like the little cover.
Excellent wood work, very competent and perfect video footage and editing. I would like to give some input though, it might help you in this or future projects. First of all you didn't tell anything how transmission line is calculated. But ok, the other things I noticed.. this premade crossover seems to be optimized for 4 or 8 ohm load on woofer side, but 8 ohm load only on tweeter side, however your tweeter is 4 ohm nominal so there will be some shifting from theoretical xover frequency. But that doesn't have to be a problem if measurements are OK, but did you made them? I mean, there is very slim chance that acoustic xover point and slope will be what you think it is, with custom build front baffle and random drivers and generic xover, huh. Apart from that, your tweeter is flushed too deep into front baffle, that stepping will create diffraction and coloration. You can help with adding small depth of sealeant under tweeter to lift its surface in level with front baffle. The last thing I noticed... did you put that crossover into transmission line tunnel? Huh? If you did you defeated its purporse a big time. Also, you've made it non accessible after gluing front baffle? I hope you won't take those comments wrong way, also I might be wrong about some points as something might be just not shown in the video. Other than that great job!
Great videov CHRIS. The only improvment to the Dayton Audio components would be Pearless and better quality crossover parts a la GR Research or similar supplier.
YOUR DIRECTIONS ARE SPOT ON. 10/10 100%
Hey Michael Hastie. Thanks so much! I’ve heard awesome things about those pearless drivers. Stoked for future builds.
Why is hdf not used? Can't remember the last speaker built with high density fiberboard. Anybody?
I would have if Home Depot had it. PMC is using HDF in there builds. I love there speakers!
I do not recommend too big cables for internal wiring. 0.8 mm2 is more than enough. For example, look at the wiring of the Speaker Magico
Makes sense. Thanks for watching Mario
PVA glue doesn't fill gaps. What it does is absorb into the pours of the material, then as it dries it pulls the two pieces together forming a bond between the two.
Assuming your joints are straight and you have even clamping pressure to begin with the seal should be perfect. But if you can't guarantee a perfect fit, then you can inlay the panels into eachother to improve the seal. You can't really have "too much" glue, but a thin layer will form just as good a seal and cause less mess.
Another technique to fill gaps with PVA is to mix it with 30-60% sawdust, preferably of the same material as what you're filling.
Pro tip: you can seal MDF with PVA. Dilute the PVA with water then spray or wipe it on.
Love the expertise. Thanks for the info