BillFitzmaurice.info

Hi!

I have an old pair of TLAHs and one CurveArray SLA. I build it when i was a student on a limited budget which has now changed.
I would love to build a pair of new speakers.

So i wonder what is the best mid and tweeters element I can get for the TLAH pair and the CurveArray SLA?
I'm thinking of spending up till 1000$ for the elements, I have no idea, that may be overkill?

Since I live in Sweden it's easiest for me if it exists on https://www.parts-express.com

Hope someone has time and the knowledge what I have to buy to spoil my ears. This time for real!

Best Regards
John Johansson

Hey John, I'm Seth. Welcome (back).

Out of curiosity, is there something about them, the way they are now, that you'd expect to improve with new drivers?

Welcome to the forum!

I was wondering the same thing as Seth.

Hi Tom and Seth!

Th current ones isn't built with the recommended drivers cause I couldn't afford it at the time.
The midrange I got is really weak on the lower frequencies and make some voices sounds like the are living in a can.

So I guess I want more full range and especially some power in the ranges below 2000hz.
Want to get really clear and nice audio

Spending $1000 US dollars on drivers is everything this forum is against. Bill made all his designs with specific speaker parameters. It's listed in the plans with a couple of choices (based on your budget). It doesn't matter if you find speakers in an old Sony boombox, as long as it meet the T&S requirements Bill laid out. Most of us here just get what the plans say (Eminence), but TLAH and SLA's are a little different, though. There's a larger range of speakers you can use. You can save some money if you do some searching and find drivers on sale. My SLA's were within the parameters, but not quite the proper size. I had to do all kinds of re-designing and math to get them to work. I'll never do that again. Now that I can afford it, I just buy the best driver option the plans require. Believe me it's just easier to follow the plans word for word. Bill's pretty smart

Hi Jimbo!

I guess I know that to be true...
I just wanted to sure that this I get a little bit more blown away. Like my THT, it is impressive.
So I guessed I rather spent a bit to much than less this time around.

I can't make a recommendation for a potential upgrade without seeing what you have now.

Hi Bill!

I'm gonna rebuild the whole speakers from scratch.

Not really sure what drivers it is today, we bought some 3*5" drivers for 1,25$ each and some tweeters about 0.7 dollar each. This was 2010.
I got help by who friend who picked them out during that time, I think he went more on the price to help me out then on the T&S.

Clearly will all recommended drivers perform a lot better. I just want to do a much better job this time and spoil myself so just wanted to see if any of you have any good recommendation that will be better than the ones in the plans, since as you say part of the plan is to keep it inexpensive.

I paid about a dollar each for my midbasses, and fifty cents each for the tweeters, on a close out, so you can't go just by price. If I was to build today these would be the most expensive drivers that I'd use:
https://www.parts-express.com/dayton-au ... r--295-160
https://www.parts-express.com/advent-09 ... --299-2004

Drivers are like pencils. You can easily snap a pencil in half. You can't snap a bundle of a dozen pencils. Well, Chuck Norris can, but he'd be the exception to the rule.

Perfect, I agree with you that the price doesn't matter at all. I guess I just see it as a way to measure performance, which may be a totally wrong.
I just don't want to be "supidly cheap" this time. Wanna build speakers I can enjoy for at least 10 years and really love the quality and clarity

Thanks for all answers here!

Im thinking maybe 16 tweeters and 8 mids, is the idea to keep as simliar resistance as possible with the mids and tweeters?
I thinking tweeters connect 4*4 to keep 8ohm and mids 2*4 which gives 4 or 16ohm? Any recommendations?

For the SLA(curve) to keep good distance between the tweeters is it recommended to maybe fit 2 tweeters per mid as well?

You can wire 9 mids (3x3) for 8 ohms and 16 tweeters (4x4) for 8 ohms. I wouldn't bother using two tweeters per midrange on the SLA. If you use 16 tweeters you must use the nine driver (8 ohm) high pass filter shown in the SLA plans.

Bill Fitzmaurice wrote: ↑Sat Jul 25, 2020 8:53 am I paid about a dollar each for my midbasses, and fifty cents each for the tweeters, on a close out, so you can't go just by price. If I was to build today these would be the most expensive drivers that I'd use:
https://www.parts-express.com/dayton-au ... r--295-160

That mid-bass is almost exactly the same cost as the Goldwood referenced in the plans. I'm about to order drivers for my TLAHs - any reason to prefer one or the other? The Dayton looks like it might be easier to front mount (The Goldwood has a gasket on the front of it, but none on the back - if front mounting would I need gasket tape?

Thank you,

-Bill Katz

The price on the Goldwoods has gone up a lot since the last time I looked. The Dayton looks a bit better, with flatter response and longer xmax. The Dayton has a rear gasket, but if you zoom in on the picture you need to do a recess for it. The way to cut the baffles would be to first rout a circle the diameter of the gasket, then use a hole saw for the actual diameter of the frame.

Bill Fitzmaurice wrote: ↑Mon Aug 17, 2020 12:21 pm The price on the Goldwoods has gone up a lot since the last time I looked. The Dayton looks a bit better, with flatter response and longer xmax. The Dayton has a rear gasket, but if you zoom in on the picture you need to do a recess for it. The way to cut the baffles would be to first rout a circle the diameter of the gasket, then use a hole saw for the actual diameter of the frame.

Thank you for the quick response - I will order them and take a look at the gaskets - could one also use a jasper jig at two different settings - first with a controlled depth for the gasket recess, then plunge through to cut the hole? I have had much better luck cutting holes with the router and spiral bit than I have had with hole saws.

That would work.