Building my home theater rig, Tlah, Table Tuba

[ACUA]

Hello everyone, I have started the ground work on building an entertainment center and home theater sound system. The attached picture is the center piece which the tv will sit on and there will be built into it a 9 driver horizontal sla cabinet. I will be building two book shelf pieces to sit either side of the center piece and they will house a Tlah each. The bottom of one of them will conceal a table tuba behind some dummy doors.

My initial question, there is a buyout speaker on partsexpress that is real cheap:
https://www.parts-express.com/4-Treate ... hm-299-320
At $4.90 each that would save a ton of money vs the $14 some odd bucks for the normal recommended drivers. Problem is that they are 16ohm rated!!! I was hoping to build the 9 driver versions but that gives me a 16 ohm load no matter how I wire it. Can I make this work does the filter need to change? Should I pursue use of this driver? Or should I just dine out for the normal recommended driver. This buy out unit only claims 1mm excursion not sure I need any more but it’s nice to have.

Thanks in advance for the thoughts and comments guys I do appreciate the value this forum adds to Bill’s products.

[ACUA]

I could wire 4 of the drivers parallel for a 4ohm nominal and 5 in parallel for a 3.2ohm and then series those for a 7.2ohm nominal load but it is not symmetrical, my brain tells me that this is not good. I do not know what the effect would be except for maybe output would not be even perhaps the 5 drivers would see more power and be louder than the 4 driver circuit. I am interested to hear what any of you know or think regarding this. I would claim I know what I am doing but I admit ignorance here. there are a ton of series parallel options I can play with I just do not know exactly how this effects the filter circuit or with the odd number of drivers used how the odd loading effects things?

[Bill Fitzmaurice]

Use 8 drivers. Wiring four 16 ohm drivers in parallel is 4 ohms, wiring two sets of those in series gives you 8 ohms. To make an 8 driver curve array make the top and bottom 42 inches wide, the back is 41 inches wide. The baffle end segments are still 2" wide but the end angle is 12 degrees. Otherwise everything else is the same as the 9 driver version.

[ACUA]

I like that idea. Thank you Bill for the details regarding the sla horizontal unit. I shall keep you all posted as I progress along!

Another question, if I may, I have seen this question asked here elsewhere but I want to revisit it. Someone asked about putting two tweeters per mid driver in the horizontal array and as I recall the conclusion was that it was not of any real benefit. I am considering putting 12 tweeters into the horizontal cabinet to make it match the tlah cabinets. I would put two tweeters in either the center four driver panels or the sides and the other four would get only the one tweeter per mid driver. This simply with the intention of the symmetry between the three speakers.

If there is no gains to try is but no loses either I am intent to do it. Thank you all in advance.

[Bill Fitzmaurice]

I don't see any benefit to two tweeters per midbass. BTW, in the center use these 4 ohm tweeters. Wire four in series to get 16 ohms, the two sets parallel for an 8 ohm total load. https://www.parts-express.com/GRS-1TM-4 ... hm-292-438

[ACUA]

Radian just sold me a dusty box full of the old JVC 3x5 buyouts that he had been sitting on. I was told that several people here had purchased and used them a few years ago now. I tried to search "JVC 3x5" and I located a few threads dating back about the 2011 range. I find no pictures of builds with these drivers. Radian assured me that these drivers are a good match spec wise for the Tlah/SLA cabinets, I have plenty of reasons to believe him.

I am happy to use these components and for what I paid it is definitely worth the attempt.

My first question now is how do I orient the rectangular framed speakers? For the TLAH cabinet at 40in high, only 8 may fit if I install them long side vertically. To me this orientation is correct in adherence to the line array method, but it seems like I read that 9 drivers is possible which indicating a long side horizontal orientation. Can I get clarification on this?

Second question is related to the horizontal curved SLA cabinet and the rectangular driver. How should I orient the drivers for that design? I am inclined to say long side vertically oriented is going to be correct but I have no idea why I think that. I hope to get clarification on this as well.

The tweeters I picked up from Radian are 4ohm, I will have to glue them to the cabinet from the inside by the looks of it. As I understand they were a cheap buyout that existed during the same time that the JVC 3x5 drivers did.

Shout out to Radian, I had a chance to see the progress he is making on his Titan48 cabinets, not to mention his SLA pros and everything else he has going on. His methodologies are refreshing and impressive.

[Bill Fitzmaurice]

I'd place them vertically, increasing the cab height as required.

[ACUA]

Attached is a pic of the drivers I picked up. They measure exactly 4 7/8” long ways, I will make them work. Is that vertical recommendation for both cabinet designs?

[Bill Fitzmaurice]

Yep, vertical in both.

[ACUA]

Attached pic of the tweeters that Radian supplied me with. I do not know much about them except that they were a buyout and they are 4ohm rated. This poses a bit of a challenge as the plans call for 8ohm high frequency drivers.

I turned down the mounting surface of these tweeters for easier use. I will be rear mount/gluing them to the cabinets where the mid woofer will be front mounted.

[Bill Fitzmaurice]

Those are the same tweeters I used in my CurveArray, glued to the inside of the baffle. Using eight of them you can wire four in series to get 16 ohms, two banks wired parallel to get a total 8 ohm load.

[ACUA]

Progress update, started staining the wood. Using provincial color stain. I really like the color. Price of plywood has gone down some but I still struggle to afford it, as soon as I can I will get to work on the speakers.

[Strange Kevin]

Yeah that color is looking great man!!!
I really like the metal frame too!

[Radian]

I turned down the mounting surface of these tweeters for easier use.

Those ended up looking great! Nice work!

[ACUA]

Cut out and router worked the baffles to the curved SLA cab, this to be my center channel. I think so far so good I will be ordering the filter components in a few days if things go my way. This is turning into a build thread.