List of good drivers for Diy enthusiasts

The fact I am not able to fathom till date is gross violation of CTC rule and still some builds sound amazing !
!
CTC is highly overrated. A very short CTC gives a wide directivity and a healthy CTC gets us narrow directivity at crossover. A narrow directivity avoids the floor and ceiling reflections in vertical MTMs. Though the effect is constrained to a very narrow bandwidth.
Also polar plots are rarely published so its difficult to guage the real performance of a speaker
 
Hi Guys... throughout your diy journey, you might have done so many experiments with differnt drivers.

Can you let us know a few good drivers you came across please???
It helps new people like me to try to build diy speakers.

Just a few words about the drivers .... Like why it is good.... And in which area its good...
Is it musical, or suitable for movies, soft sound or punchy ... mids or good, or bass is good....Etc etc will help a lot...

There are thousands of models out there....
Lets say we mention at least two or three good models in different sizes like 4" 6" 8" etc .....it will be fine too.... just my taught....

Thanks a lot in advance

Speaker building is quite the opposite, it starts with what target we want to achieve in terms of spl, bandwidth, directivity etc. Once these are known the drivers are pretty much irrelevant, in the sense that same design can be implemented with various drivers.
Many speaker systems use very common drivers.
DIYers stick to specific drivers primarily because they can avoid redesigning, in particular the crossover. Boutique drivers are very popular amonst DIYers but thats not due to performance. Good drivers have very low distortion, by distortion we mean distortion that matter ie higher order ones.
So its difficult to answer your question.
 
If done right with the crossover and settings, Oval produces the best midrange you ever heard in an OB.

The thread is about drivers and I don't wish to overwhelm the thread with OB and OB worthy drivers but would share some interesting builds, since you asked:

An amazing multi driver OB was made using this very Oval for midrange duty. One of the most revealing and musical OB built by a friend using all passive crossover networks and Alnico drivers including woofers, driven by 6c33c tube amplifier and sourced from a CDP and a Double Crown TDA1541 DAC !!!

View attachment 28873


Another simple Oval OB setup, very musical, defines what midrange is all about:

View attachment 28874
TBH, i am not a fan of using too many multiple drivers in an OB - reasons - crossovers, lobing issues, cancellation of common frequencies, phase errors, level matching,driver integration ............. I was lucky enough to get one single FR driver and use it across the entire audible bandwidth. IMO, multiple drivers are required because of the inability of the other drivers to faithfully reproduce the frequencies beyond its range.
 
That's nice to know.... It looks like kefB200 has few varaities based on magnet size etc. Can you pm me few more details and price please...

Basically i bought Fostex drivers recently. Need to build it first.
 
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That's nice to know.... It looks like kefB200 has few varaities based on magnet size etc. Can you pm me few more details and price please...

Basically i bought Fostex drivers recently. Need to build it first.

Huge magnets with bespoke British quality.
 
it would be great to have some pointers on the price range as well (and availability info if available)

For DIY, at the high end of the spectrum are Altec Drivers, however they are hard to come by and will require a complete restoration. A pair of LF units and compression drivers with horns can set you back between 40-50k at the low end and another 30k to restore them and bring them to factory specs. The rest of the 1L budget would go for the cabs and cross overs.
 
Electro Voice T35 on the Top of Kef driver B200 TL can sound really good..... No big bucks involved. Yes, it takes patience and time to get great drivers suited to design in your mind.

However B200 as I read comes in different models with varying Qts.

Above TL design is split wave as used by Bose in one of their home theatre subwoofers as well. Folds and line length depends on the driver being used. Best option is to simulate before starting to make one.


Which model ? Topping it off with a horn tweeter crossed at 3000Hz and the driver in a TL can sound great. Fs is good. Qts should be low,

This is the model I have - http://p10hifi.net/TLS/drivers/images/B200_SP1039.gif
 
availability of drivers is a bit tricky till you establish a relation with one or two vendors.

For new people like me in the beginning of DIY, don't we have at least one or two good brands easily available in the market or online?
May not be very rare and selective models. Regular models, but they should be good enough to build.
All I see is Pioneer, Sony, JBL etc, and that too car audio drivers.
 
ya I spoke to a person form Faital Pro... waiting for some budget models to be in stock. :):)
Thanks for pointing again !!
 
you shared quite a lot, and still saying you have limited knowledge. :D:D Thanks a lot indeed !!!
But yes.... watching DIY videos by people from US is too enjoyable. Its like everything they want is at hands reach for them !!!
 
Qts 0.4 is a bit on higher side but very much doable in a TL. There is still one great software for TL. Let me fish out the links. I am not sure if Basta simulates TL as well. Haven’t used it much. Hari could comment.
Basta cannot simulate TL. Known to me are mathcad and LA. Both are not available now. Hornresp can simulate a TL but there are some pitfalls.
 
I am too learning, experimenting and correcting my mistakes and try to optimize. Today I played a new CD and suffered a series of goosebumps !

There is no comparison to joys of DIY. A clip of what I could manage to capture:

That sounds great. I checked out the other videos on Vimeo too. Nice job.
 
I haven't used it nor do I know its price in India but it was used by a DIYer in his HUGE OB and I did get to hear his clip once and it was nothing short of magical. He uses minDSP and all active amplified speakers. I will try to fish out his recording. With a Qts of 0.4, it makes great boxed speaker as well and should not be considered as OB driver only. Here is what he built:

View attachment 29007

Reviews on the FP driver is available on Parts Express.


Impressive speakers , could you share some more details of this
 
A beautiful, well-constructed speaker with class-leading soundstage, imaging and bass that is fast, deep, and precise.
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