jkc
04-07-2004, 05:12 AM
The motivation for building this stereo is a story in its own right and I will relate it briefly here.
Directly across the road a100 meters away and 25 meters bellow my house is a Bar.
On Fridays they have rock and roll bands and they would play into the small hours with the doors and windows open.
The highest level I recorded at my front door was between 85 and 90 dBA.
Between 70 and 80dBA would not be uncommon.
Complaining to local council who are responsible noise control meet with no action and when they gave the second pub a license I took it as an insult.
Now you need to know that I am the only house affected by this and when I approached the company that run the bar I was told that if I new anything about local politics I wouldn’t bother complaining.
Indeed the company is run by a trust which is comprised of councilors and an ex mayor is the company director and trust chairman.
Well I decided if it is good enough for them to have bands it is good enough for me so the original design criteria was for 130dB @ 1 meter.
This was later discarded as being impractical as it became too big to fit in the house especially as it had to sound good and be used every day and be Hi Fi.
1 year later after much scrounging around I was finally on air.
As this project went along I decided that if the room was bigger I could have better base response so I looked at the wall between the dinning room and the lounge and decided that could go as well and why not the kitchen wall as well.
After 2 layers of noise line, (Drywall with fibers and its heavy to stop noise) 2000 screws and countless tubes of glue there are no more rattles in the house.
This also allowed me to run all the speaker cables in the walls and build the amp racks under the house.
This project is almost finished just need the curtains and carpet as can be seen from the photo.
So its time for some wood grain cabinets.
Attached is a picture of the 3rd prototype speaker I built. The 1st one was all in 1 box but I realized that I couldn’t carry it up the steps from my garage to the house.
The 2nd version had an E120 as the mid base driver and the latest version has a 2225 as a mid base driver
I am about to build a 4th version and would appreciate any suggestions for improvement may main concern being the mid base driver
From the top down
JBL Slots X-Over 6 KHz passive
Altec Lansing 822k compression drivers on DDS wave guides X-Over 1 KHz
JBL 2225 X-Over 120 Hz
Radian 2218
All vented cabinets 3rd order Butterworth alignment with 18dB Linkwitz-Riley aligned Active X-Overs
The wheels are so I can wheel the speakers up to the French doors and have the stereo outside.
The center speaker is a 2225 with a K110 and a bullet tweeter currently under construction.
The rears are Altec Lansing 9846’s
I got to like the sound of this thing so thought it worth carrying on.
But where to from here.
I was wondering what suggestions you folks had for a mid base diver may main concern now being better quality sound.
Perhaps I should splash out on a pair of 2020’s for 100Hz to 1 KHz
Or perhaps double 2225’s (I have some) with a 10”
Any ideas from you folks who have been down this road before would be appreciated.
What suggestions do you folks have for sound damping I would like to dampen the room more as this stereo sounds much better outside. I was thinking of some wall panels immediately in front of the speakers to start with but what to make them from.
Unfortunately the other side is glass doors but was thinking of heavy Velvet drapes.
Directly across the road a100 meters away and 25 meters bellow my house is a Bar.
On Fridays they have rock and roll bands and they would play into the small hours with the doors and windows open.
The highest level I recorded at my front door was between 85 and 90 dBA.
Between 70 and 80dBA would not be uncommon.
Complaining to local council who are responsible noise control meet with no action and when they gave the second pub a license I took it as an insult.
Now you need to know that I am the only house affected by this and when I approached the company that run the bar I was told that if I new anything about local politics I wouldn’t bother complaining.
Indeed the company is run by a trust which is comprised of councilors and an ex mayor is the company director and trust chairman.
Well I decided if it is good enough for them to have bands it is good enough for me so the original design criteria was for 130dB @ 1 meter.
This was later discarded as being impractical as it became too big to fit in the house especially as it had to sound good and be used every day and be Hi Fi.
1 year later after much scrounging around I was finally on air.
As this project went along I decided that if the room was bigger I could have better base response so I looked at the wall between the dinning room and the lounge and decided that could go as well and why not the kitchen wall as well.
After 2 layers of noise line, (Drywall with fibers and its heavy to stop noise) 2000 screws and countless tubes of glue there are no more rattles in the house.
This also allowed me to run all the speaker cables in the walls and build the amp racks under the house.
This project is almost finished just need the curtains and carpet as can be seen from the photo.
So its time for some wood grain cabinets.
Attached is a picture of the 3rd prototype speaker I built. The 1st one was all in 1 box but I realized that I couldn’t carry it up the steps from my garage to the house.
The 2nd version had an E120 as the mid base driver and the latest version has a 2225 as a mid base driver
I am about to build a 4th version and would appreciate any suggestions for improvement may main concern being the mid base driver
From the top down
JBL Slots X-Over 6 KHz passive
Altec Lansing 822k compression drivers on DDS wave guides X-Over 1 KHz
JBL 2225 X-Over 120 Hz
Radian 2218
All vented cabinets 3rd order Butterworth alignment with 18dB Linkwitz-Riley aligned Active X-Overs
The wheels are so I can wheel the speakers up to the French doors and have the stereo outside.
The center speaker is a 2225 with a K110 and a bullet tweeter currently under construction.
The rears are Altec Lansing 9846’s
I got to like the sound of this thing so thought it worth carrying on.
But where to from here.
I was wondering what suggestions you folks had for a mid base diver may main concern now being better quality sound.
Perhaps I should splash out on a pair of 2020’s for 100Hz to 1 KHz
Or perhaps double 2225’s (I have some) with a 10”
Any ideas from you folks who have been down this road before would be appreciated.
What suggestions do you folks have for sound damping I would like to dampen the room more as this stereo sounds much better outside. I was thinking of some wall panels immediately in front of the speakers to start with but what to make them from.
Unfortunately the other side is glass doors but was thinking of heavy Velvet drapes.