New loudspeaker plans... Part B

In an earlier post I started writing up some plans for a loudspeaker that I want to build...

To summarize, it's a 3-way design with a somewhat classic choice of driver sizes: 25cm (10") woofer for the bass, 12cm (4.5") midrange, and a fairly standard 25mm (1") dome tweeter. They will have sealed enclosures so I won't have to deal with issues like temperamental tuning and a peaky bass response. For the woofer I looked at the idea of "pressure loading" (or at least, that's what I'm calling it), whereby the box is small enough so that air resonances only occur at frequencies outside of the speaker's operating range.

The midrange

Before continuing with the box design for the bass, I need to start thinking about what to do for the midrange speaker. Firstly, I have a feeling that a pressure-loaded box won't be a good idea. Given an estimated cut-off frequency of 3~4kHz, the half-wavelength will be around 3~5cm, which is tiny! The air volume behind the midrange speaker would have to be less than one litre, so let's do some quick estimates and go from there:

Half wavelength at 5kHz:

λ/2 = 340/5000/2 = 34mm

Given a cone area of 50cm² (I'm using the Seas L12RCY/P for this example) the effective radius is:

r = √(50/π) = 40mm

A cylindrical volume that is slightly wider than the cone would be approximately:

[ π*(34mm + 40mm)² ]*34mm = 584914mm³ = 584.9cm³ = 0.58L

According to Subwoofer Simulator, when I specify 0.58L as the box volume for a Seas L12RCY/P, the system forms a mechanical high-pass filter with a cut-off at approximately 150Hz. That is decidedly annoying because it's fairly close to the 200~300Hz cut-off that I want. It means that if I want to electrically filter out some of the bass, then the combined filter response will have to be at least 3rd-order and its accuracy will be highly dependent on mechanical and environmental factors such as the speed of sound on a particular day.

Another thing that I'm not sure about is: what happens to the cone when it's cushioned by a relatively small pocket of air? Maybe it will flex and resonate at substantially lower frequencies than predicted in tests that use large air volumes? Maybe the air suspension will be sufficiently affected at low frequencies that it cause inter-modulation distortion when combined with other frequencies?

I think that the midrange needs a relatively large box instead, together with a highly effective means of absorbing resonances.

Anechoic wedges

What better way to describe my idea than to draw it?

What I originally had in mind was a sort of "reverse horn" where the sound waves gradually become more and more concentrated as they radiate away from the speaker. Eventually the energy becomes so concentrated that the surrounding enclosure turns into a heat sink. That idea evolved from a cumbersome spiral-shaped horn into an array of miniature wedges – it's basically still the same thing but in a different format.

Part C: enclosure materials, crossovers, and cohesion between bass and midrange.