Baffle layout question

[stevem]

If it can be physically accomplished, is there any reason why you wouldn't want all the drivers on a baffle close enough to almost touch each other? Is there any minimum recommend spacing?

[badman]

Sometimes there's a reason for more spacing, particularly regarding room loading, which is why you sometimes see woofers on the floor but mid and tweet at ear height.

Center-to-center spacing becomes more important with increasing frequency of crossover. The closer you get a mid to a tweet the further off axis lobing (cancellation) occurs. With a woofer to mid XO, the distance is less important, again, this is dependent on frequency. A common rule of thumb is center-to-center should be no more than 1/4 wavelength. At 1kHz this is only app. 3", so you can see how difficult this can be with large flange tweeters and big midwoofers.

At 100Hz though, it's 30". So not difficult to do.

Also good to try to keep components in a vertical line where possible.

[stevem]

Thanks very much, I appreciate the answer. So having drivers as close as possible (in a line array) can only be a good thing.

[spkrman57]

With my 2-way system with horns on top, the closer the 15" LF driver is to the HF horn, the more it performs like a single driver for best imaging.

The further apart they are shows smearing at the crossover frequency.

Regards, Ron

[duaneage]

In addition to the distance on a plane, the distance the voice coils have to the baffle matter as well. If you have the means, use pink noise and microphones to actively measure the impact on driver placement after a crossover is chosen.

Choose the crossover for protection and best response of each driver, then manipulate the physical position to get the best result near field and at angles.

This is a perfectionists path,.

I happen to think slight tweaks to the crossover network with subjective listening is an effective method that yields good results.