The more I learned about Sound Systems : Design and Optimization, the more I realize that until I understand how speakers are designed, how crossovers frequencies are chosen, how boxes are ported, etc… I can’t possibly grasp what my measurement rig is showing me. One of the things that is clear when you’re taking Bob McCarthy’s class is that Meyer speakers are well designed boxes. I see (1) Meyer speaker out of 1000 other brands, most of which are passive, non self powered and no where near the quality of a Meyer speaker. Meyer speakers are nice but if you don’t know how to optimize and tune a lessor speaker, how well can the process go for you? Long before I will see a Meyer, I’ll see a Mackie or a Yamaha or a Renkus Heinz or a EAW or a QSC. While I would prefer to work exclusively with Meyer speakers, it’s not gonna happen any time soon. What I am left with are typically 2 way passive designs. My current mission is to learn about how to design, build and optimize a 2 way loudspeaker. Fortunately I have a sibling that is way ahead of me. True, owner of Toby Speakers.
The first pair of speakers are going to be based on a coax 8″. Why? Because I already have (2). I’ll pull the spectral crossover board off the back and extend the 4 wires to locate it on the back of the box. This way I can play with both a passive configuration and also an active configuration where I can use DSP (digital signal processing) to time align / phase align the two drivers and also flatten the frequency response. Next I’ll build a non coax pair with the same design concept. Once I understand what to expect out of a two way loudspeaker, I have a three way design I want to experiment with.