Sound hook up to receiver help

[Kanna]

I need answer for a simple question, I have 4 woofers and tweeters, plan to use 2 of each on left and right but I’m unsure how I do the cablage inside on for example left side, do I hook them all up together and if so would I need some extra stuff other than cables?

[Kanna]

Btw if any more info is needed I'm glad to answer 

[cmndr]

Could you provide more context. Is this car audio? Are you building speakers using the woofers and tweeters? What receiver do you have?

If you're trying to build speakers for a stereo set up be aware that 2 woofers together can cause issues since you get comb filtering. https://www.sweetwater.com/insync/what-is-it-comb-filtering/

If you are building speakers, have you given any thought to set up cross overs?

If you hypothetically had a standard AVR and 2x bookshelf speakers the only thing you'd need to hook this all up would be speaker wire (sometimes lamp wire) ideally solid copper.

[Kanna]

52 minutes ago, cmndr said:

Could you provide more context. Is this car audio? Are you building speakers using the woofers and tweeters? What receiver do you have?

If you're trying to build speakers for a stereo set up be aware that 2 woofers together can cause issues since you get comb filtering. https://www.sweetwater.com/insync/what-is-it-comb-filtering/

If you are building speakers, have you given any thought to set up cross overs?

If you hypothetically had a standard AVR and 2x bookshelf speakers the only thing you'd need to hook this all up would be speaker wire (sometimes lamp wire) ideally solid copper.

This is home theater audio, 8 ohm  if that matters and the woofers and tweeters will be used. I don't really know much more. My receiver is Yamaha HTR-5740 btw

[cmndr]

45 minutes ago, Kanna said:

This is home theater audio, 8 ohm  if that matters and the woofers and tweeters will be used. I don't really know much more. My receiver is Yamaha HTR-5740 btw

Are you referring to speakers which have these woofers and tweeters? Are you referring to just raw parts? Are you referring to the m-audio active (as opposed to passive speakers regularly used with an AVR) speakers you recently posted about elsewhere?

If you have just raw parts you're going to need to build a speaker. This is usually NOT worth the cost, effort or complexity. There are guides to building speakers online. Be aware that in an ideal world you're running computer simulations and have relatively high precision gear to make parts.

If you have passive speakers and you're overspecifying what makes up the speakers then...
https://www.amazon.com/AmazonBasics-Speaker-Wire-14-Gauge-Oxygen-Free/dp/B0758CSSF2/
 

[Kanna]

18 minutes ago, cmndr said:

Are you referring to speakers which have these woofers and tweeters? Are you referring to just raw parts? Are you referring to the m-audio active (as opposed to passive speakers regularly used with an AVR) speakers you recently posted about elsewhere?

These are speakers I haven't posted anywhere, they are basically raw IG. Both receiver and speakers are 8 ohm 

[cmndr]

So those aren't speakers so much as they are drivers.

Building speakers from drivers is not something I've personally done.

Generally speaking you need

1. A box to place them in (free floating drivers don't work well and much of the sound you get comes from the interaction between the drivers and box)
2. A crossover network (this gets finicky and requires some proper electrical engineering knowledge - loosely speaking you want to take the signal and power that comes from AVR and then breaking it out into two parts, one for the tweeter, one for the woofer)
3. Binding posts or similar (this allows you to take standard speaker wire and connect it to the speakers).

If you want to BUILD speakers you should probably be using a kit instead of trying to design and build them when you first start out. You WILL almost surely make errors.

You'll almost certainly be better off just buying used speakers. This is the first guide that I found for making a DIY speaker. It's really not worth the effort (getting tools, materials, etc.).

https://www.instructables.com/How-to-Build-Custom-Speakers/

[Kanna]

1 minute ago, cmndr said:

So those aren't speakers so much as they are drivers.

Building speakers from drivers is not something I've personally done.

Generally speaking you need

1. A box to place them in (free floating drivers don't work well and much of the sound you get comes from the interaction between the drivers and box)
2. A crossover network (this gets finicky and requires some proper electrical engineering knowledge - loosely speaking you want to take the signal and power that comes from AVR and then breaking it out into two parts, one for the tweeter, one for the woofer)
3. Binding posts or similar (this allows you to take standard speaker wire and connect it to the speakers).

If you want to BUILD speakers you should probably be using a kit instead of trying to design and build them when you first start out. You WILL almost surely make errors.

You'll almost certainly be better off just buying used speakers. This is the first guide that I found for making a DIY speaker. It's really not worth the effort (getting tools, materials, etc.).

https://www.instructables.com/How-to-Build-Custom-Speakers/

I'm already working on a box for them, my original question was how would I hook them up when they are in box for example

[cmndr]

6 minutes ago, Kanna said:

I'm already working on a box for them, my original question was how would I hook them up when they are in box for example

Do you have any of the cross over gear, ideally that someone else already figured out for you...

The unfortunate part is that making a decent crossover means matching the parts that go into the crossover to the woofers and (to a lesser degree) the cabinet built. Like... ideally you do some mathematical modeling and then use that as a foundation... and then start swapping parts. You could easily spend A LOT of cash on parts (much more than you'd "save" vs just spending a few hundreds on a good used set off craigslist).

I'm also NOT a proper engineer and have 0 experience building a crossover so any advice that I'd give would be "expect complexity,


Here's SOME videos I've found -

 

I want to emphasize - I am ignorant. I don't know what I don't know. The only bit I do know is where to start. I'd have a rough time evaluating the quality of any resources I link.

[Kanna]

2 minutes ago, cmndr said:

Do you have any of the cross over gear, ideally that someone else already figured out for you...

The unfortunate part is that making a decent crossover means matching the parts that go into the crossover to the woofers and (to a lesser degree) the cabinet built.

I'm also NOT a proper engineer and have 0 experience building a crossover so any advice that I'd give would be "expect complexity,


Here's SOME videos I've found -

 

I want to emphasize - I am ignorant. I don't know what I don't know. The only bit I do know is where to start. I'd have a rough time evaluating the quality of any resources I link.

Yeah I will look with a local company probably in the end but thanks for the help now I know I need some extra stuff

[cmndr]

9 minutes ago, Kanna said:

Yeah I will look with a local company probably in the end but thanks for the help now I know I need some extra stuff

You're welcome.

This is something I wouldn't mind tweaking with myself but I'd need to find myself with a TON of free time. I'd expect that anything I designed would be worse than what I could get off the shelf for like $300 or so unless I put in HOURS and HOURS. There's A LOT of ways to make mistakes (I'm also a dash of a perfectionist).

I do want to emphasize, it's VERY likely that TWO tweeters will work worse than just one tweeter.

Eyeballing the SECOND video I linked and the associated series it does look a little easier than I expected (assuming you bought parts that have known frequency properties and link you to the associated FRD files).

[Kanna]

6 minutes ago, cmndr said:

You're welcome.

This is something I wouldn't mind tweaking with myself but I'd need to find myself with a TON of free time. I'd expect that anything I designed would be worse than what I could get off the shelf for like $300 or so unless I put in HOURS and HOURS. There's A LOT of ways to make mistakes (I'm also a dash of a perfectionist).

I do want to emphasize, it's VERY likely that TWO tweeters will work worse than just one tweeter.

Eyeballing the SECOND video I linked and the associated series it does look a little easier than I expected (assuming you bought parts that have known frequency properties and link you to the associated FRD files).

So should I run 2 woofers per side and one tweeter? Or should I maybe go simple and do one woofer and one tweeter per side

[cmndr]

15 minutes ago, Kanna said:

So should I run 2 woofers per side and one tweeter? Or should I maybe go simple and do one woofer and one tweeter per side

Rule of thumb, one tweeter, one woofer, directly aligned. 

Roughly this design - https://www.whathifi.com/reviews/elac-debut-b52

The tweeter here plays different sound frequencies than the woofer. It's relatively close to the woofer and elevated above it. High frequency sound is generally more directional than low frequency sound and the goal of this design is to get the single tweeter at ear level. Having the drivers somewhat close is to minimize the effect of feeling like the sound is coming from a different location. The woofer is NOT placed to the side to limit the impact of the end user moving left/right and being "off angle" where the sound hits your head at a slightly different time for different frequencies.

Note that there's a hole on the bottom. The hole is called a port. Port design is its own can of worms and there are design tradeoffs (do you want it in the front? the back? do you want no port?) each design choice comes with its own set of tradeoffs (back ports mean you don't hear as much distortion from the port because it's pointed away from you... UNLESS the speaker is near a wall in which case things can go wrong... no port means less distortion and a bit more responsive of a design BUT the speaker won't be as power efficient and won't go as low in terms of frequency response/bass).

Adding in more drivers doesn't necessarily make the sound better. You MIGHT be able to get a little bit more efficiency or a little less distortion... BUT comb filtering is a VERY real thing that can mess with sound quality (so some sound waves at the same frequency cancelling out and other sound waves amplifying each other). There is a concept of a 2.5-way and 3-way design where somewhat different signals get sent to each woofer but I'm at the edge of my knowledge and I risk saying something inaccurate. I suspect that the crossover design for a 2.5 or 3 way design is trickier to get going.

And yeah... as a hypothetical it's not that hard to "outsource the design" and find that it costs $10,000 to design a speaker from $500 of parts that performs worse than a $250 speaker.

---

As an aside there IS a second way other than making a crossover - if you have a MUCH more expensive AVR you might be able to bi-amp (I might be using the wrong term). The AVR will then handle the crossovers and amplification and whatnot. This is a lot easier. It's also just tossing $ somewhere else and letting the software on the AVR handle it.

[Kanna]

8 minutes ago, cmndr said:

Rule of thumb, one tweeter, one woofer, directly aligned. 

Roughly this design - https://www.whathifi.com/reviews/elac-debut-b52

The tweeter here plays different sound frequencies than the woofer. It's relatively close to the woofer and elevated above it. High frequency sound is generally more directional than low frequency sound and the goal of this design is to get the single tweeter at ear level. Having the drivers somewhat close is to minimize the effect of feeling like the sound is coming from a different location. The woofer is NOT placed to the side to limit the impact of the end user moving left/right and being "off angle" where the sound hits your head at a slightly different time for different frequencies.

Note that there's a hole on the bottom. The hole is called a port. Port design is its own can of worms and there are design tradeoffs (do you want it in the front? the back? do you want no port?) each design choice comes with its own set of tradeoffs (back ports mean you don't hear as much distortion from the port because it's pointed away from you... UNLESS the speaker is near a wall in which case things can go wrong... no port means less distortion and a bit more responsive of a design BUT the speaker won't be as power efficient and won't go as low in terms of frequency response/bass).

Adding in more drivers doesn't necessarily make the sound better. You MIGHT be able to get a little bit more efficiency or a little less distortion... BUT comb filtering is a VERY real thing that can mess with sound quality (so some sound waves at the same frequency cancelling out and other sound waves amplifying each other). There is a concept of a 2.5-way and 3-way design where somewhat different signals get sent to each woofer but I'm at the edge of my knowledge and I risk saying something inaccurate. I suspect that the crossover design for a 2.5 or 3 way design is trickier to get going.

And yeah... as a hypothetical it's not that hard to "outsource the design" and find that it costs $10,000 to design a speaker from $500 of parts that performs worse than a $250 speaker.

---

As an aside there IS a second way other than making a crossover - if you have a MUCH more expensive AVR you might be able to bi-amp (I might be using the wrong term). The AVR will then handle the crossovers and amplification and whatnot. This is a lot easier. It's also just tossing $ somewhere else and letting the software on the AVR handle it.

I will probably use a port in the back so it's not airtight, probably sound better. My sub for sure did sound better when I ported it

[cmndr]

6 minutes ago, Kanna said:

I will probably use a port in the back so it's not airtight, probably sound better. My sub for sure did sound better when I ported it

Do keep in mind that subs are relatively simple to build, assuming you're buying a pre-done power supply, since you don't need to design and then tweak the crossover for it and it's only one drive (or two with the second one mirroring the first).

Anecdotally speaking, plugging the ports on my bookshelf speakers shifted the drop off frequency from ~80Hz to more like 110Hz - so around 30% higher.

The design for a ported speaker (and sub) usually need to be a bit bigger. And port design and config is its own can of worms.
 

[Kanna]

1 minute ago, cmndr said:

Do keep in mind that subs are relatively simple to build, assuming you're buying a pre-done power supply, since you don't need to design and then tweak the crossover for it and it's only one drive (or two with the second one mirroring the first).

Anecdotally speaking, plugging the ports on my bookshelf speakers shifted the drop off frequency from ~80Hz to more like 110Hz - so around 30% higher.

The design for a ported speaker (and sub) usually need to be a bit bigger. And port design and config is its own can of worms.

Only sub I worked with was for the car tho so can't really compare. Should have mentioned

[cmndr]

As an FYI you might want to look at OTHER forums for info on this. ASR (audio science review) maybe... avs forum.

I would STRONGLY look at this as a fun project, NOT a way to save cash. You'll probably spend more cash and the resale value will be way lower (maybe $0 - good luck selling a DIY project).

There are DIY kits out there that take care of most of the engineering for you. There is value in "learning slowly" instead of trying to learn how to do EVERYTHING all at once (CSS, GR-Research, PE, etc. all send kits that are pre-cut, pre-engineered and you basically do something reminiscent of building a computer - adult legos WITH an instruction guide). Having a guide for the first time building things is NICE.

https://www.parts-express.com/speaker-components/speaker-subwoofer-kits


Here's a dude I've listened to before ramble a bit -

The C-Notes from PE are generally seen highly.

[Kanna]

11 minutes ago, cmndr said:

As an FYI you might want to look at OTHER forums for info on this. ASR (audio science review) maybe... avs forum.

I would STRONGLY look at this as a fun project, NOT a way to save cash. You'll probably spend more cash and the resale value will be way lower (maybe $0 - good luck selling a DIY project).

There are DIY kits out there that take care of most of the engineering for you. There is value in "learning slowly" instead of trying to learn how to do EVERYTHING all at once (CSS, GR-Research, PE, etc. all send kits that are pre-cut, pre-engineered and you basically do something reminiscent of building a computer - adult legos WITH an instruction guide). Having a guide for the first time building things is NICE.

https://www.parts-express.com/speaker-components/speaker-subwoofer-kits


Here's a dude I've listened to before ramble a bit -

The C-Notes from PE are generally seen highly.

Well I'm already at a money spent of 0 but yeah I'm just doing this as a fun thing. Also don't really plan in selling this but if I do I could easily get some cash everyone does it here

[cmndr]

8 minutes ago, Kanna said:

Well I'm already at a money spent of 0 but yeah I'm just doing this as a fun thing. Also don't really plan in selling this but if I do I could easily get some cash everyone does it here

So that's the sunk cost fallacy. I could probably find a shirt that I wore when i was 12. It is paid for. It doesn't mean it's a good fit.

I don't know how much all of your drivers cost but if you have to make 10 different crossovers to get something that's not awful, you'll have spent more on crossovers than a kit.

Similar story for having to design and make a cabinet several times.

This assumes your time is worth $0 as well.

----

In the PC building space the analogy I would use would be having someone with 0 building experience build and design EVERYTHING in a custom water cooled system. They go out and buy an Intel motherboard, AMD CPUs, DDR2 RAM from 2007 that works with nothing, a 15,000RPM server harddrive for $300 that's got less capacity than a $70SSD, an aluminum water block and a copper radiator with brass fittings... the end product is a CPU with bent pins, a board with bent pins, RAM that is exposed to water damage and so on. Obviously a worst case scenario but...

I would see myself struggling with building a cross over network. I'm not great at soldering. I'd probably also want to do several different iterations. I'd see myself struggling to learn CAD software when designing a case and a port. I'd see myself struggling a lot and I view myself as being more technically inclined than most.

DO have a feel for how many hours you want to put in. Have a feel for what budget you're willing to put in. Have set of goals you'd like to achieve.

[Kanna]

5 minutes ago, cmndr said:

So that's the sunk cost fallacy. I could probably find a shirt that I wore when i was 12. It is paid for. It doesn't mean it's a good fit.

I don't know how much all of your drivers cost but if you have to make 10 different crossovers to get something that's not awful, you'll have spent more on crossovers than a kit.

Similar story for having to design and make a cabinet several times.

This assumes your time is worth $0 as well.

----

In the PC building space the analogy I would use would be having someone with 0 building experience build and design EVERYTHING in a custom water cooled system. They go out and buy an Intel motherboard, AMD CPUs, DDR2 RAM from 2007 that works with nothing, a 15,000RPM server harddrive for $300 that's got less capacity than a $70SSD, an aluminum water block and a copper radiator with brass fittings... the end product is a CPU with bent pins, a board with bent pins, RAM that is exposed to water damage and so on. Obviously a worst case scenario but...

Idk the price for my driver's in reality because I paid 0 but I think I will just do 1 woofer and tweeter per side because that's enough and less work. And iirc one of the speakers sounded a little bad 

[cmndr]

1 minute ago, Kanna said:

Idk the price for my driver's in reality because I paid 0 but I think I will just do 1 woofer and tweeter per side because that's enough and less work. And iirc one of the speakers sounded a little bad 

One question I'd have - do you plan on using these much? If this is just a "can I make it work" project that you'll never use, then you can discount what I said a lot.

I probably obsess over my own sound and if I built a kit I'd be using it and it'd need to be "worth it" over the pretty well made speakers I already have.

And yeah, just because you HAVE materials doesn't mean that they MUST be used. Especially if they're of unkown quality (what would be interesting is if you happen to know part numbers and can see if anyone did builds with those exact parts before).

[Kanna]

53 minutes ago, cmndr said:

One question I'd have - do you plan on using these much? If this is just a "can I make it work" project that you'll never use, then you can discount what I said a lot.

I probably obsess over my own sound and if I built a kit I'd be using it and it'd need to be "worth it" over the pretty well made speakers I already have.

And yeah, just because you HAVE materials doesn't mean that they MUST be used. Especially if they're of unkown quality (what would be interesting is if you happen to know part numbers and can see if anyone did builds with those exact parts before).

I'm just planning to use these for music mostly at a TV I rarely use

[cmndr]

8 hours ago, Kanna said:

I'm just planning to use these for music mostly at a TV I rarely use

Just thinking out loud...

1. Try to copy an existing speaker design for making the case. This includes things like stuffing and bracing. You might be able to find blue prints or similar.
2. Figure out how to plug in each driver (tweeter, woofer) into monitoring software to get an FRD file or similar. If you have a monitoring microphone like the U-MIK1 this is a good start. You might be able to use REW.
3. Use software to figure out where you want the low pass for the woofer to be and the high pass for the tweeter to be. Error on the side of the simplest/cheapest design possible.
4. Build crossover. Assume that the simulated design is "good enough"
5. install assembly.

 

Fact check everything I just said because I'm pulling it out of my rear. This would be my starting point if I were you. I wouldn't be surprised if it's cheaper to build a "C-Note" DIY speaker or to buy something used. If you're trying to cut on costs and don't care that much about sound quality you might also be able to skip making a crossover and just add a resistor to the tweeter. This means that both drives would be playing at full range and will be more distorted.

[cmndr]

One thing I've realized which MIGHT be useful...

You might be able to buy crossovers off of sites like Amazon. You might be looking at car parts or other DIY stuff.

Do be aware that the idea is "send only low frequencies to woofer and high to the tweeter" and the right thresholds for your low pass and high pass WILL depend on the parts you have. If you can get away with "OKish" measurements you might be able to find an off the shelf part to handle the crossover even if it's not "ideal". Making numbers up (these WILL be wrong) you might want something like an 800Hz low pass and a 1000Hz high pass. The output doesn't immediately drop off so 800-1000Hz will be a mix of the woofer and tweeter.

I do want to emphasize that if you spend $30 on making the cases and another $30 on crossovers and $10 on stuffing and $10 on misc materials, you're starting to get VERY close to the on sale price of a Sony SS-CS5 which might end up working better.

[cmndr]

@Kanna

This looks reasonably concise and gives SOME context.
Just be aware it's for a kit so 0 training wheels with your approach.