# Designing my first tower speakers...



## jwesenick79 (Sep 25, 2008)

ok, i'm new to building a 3-way speaker setup. I have only done subwoofer enclosures, so nothing with other components in it. My question is: If i have a woofer, 2 mids, and 2 tweeters, do i need to put each component in its own individual chamber? or should i just put the tweeters in one, the mids in another, and the woofer in another? or can i just leave it all open as just one big chamber for all components? 
Like i said, im new to designing a 3-way speaker, so i really dont know what to do here, thank you for any help! hope it's not a dumb question, but im new lol. :nerd:


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## PT800 (Feb 19, 2008)

At the very least, the bass and midrange should have their own sub enclosures. The sizes of the enclosures would depend on the driver used, by the TS parameters


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## jwesenick79 (Sep 25, 2008)

ok, that's what i was thinking. thank you for the reply!:bigsmile:


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## looneybomber (Sep 20, 2006)

Well yes the mids and tweeters will need their own enclosure, because you'll only use one tweeter (or many ribbon tweeters in a "line array") per speaker/channel.

In each L or R speaker, the woofer will need to be in it's own enclosure as mentioned, but the mid(s) and tweeter can be placed together in an enclosure isolated from the woofer enclosure.

This is what I'm talking about.








Don't do dual tweeters like this. Bad idea.

Even worse of an idea is building a center like this one, with tweeters on each end.


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## jwesenick79 (Sep 25, 2008)

if i may ask, why is it a bad idea to put two tweeters in the same enclosure? (just tryin to gain some knowledge now)


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## JCD (Apr 20, 2006)

I don't have the science to back up the following statement, but two dome tweeters are supposed to act in very unusual ways if they're in the same speaker like that -- wave interaction is just suppose to be all screwy. I'm not sure about a huge line of dome tweeters though.

loonybomber can probably give you the real science behind it, but I've heard the same thing.

Ribbon tweeters just act different, so having a couple or more isn't suppose to be a bad thing -- has to do with the their sound dispersion, which, if I remember correctly, has a more horizonal dispersion than a dome. That's why you'll see them so often in line arrays.

Not that this helps all that much, but it's something... :dunno:


JCD


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## 1Michael (Nov 2, 2006)

Having built quite a few differant speakers, I would advise against trying to design a 3way as your first project. A 2way is difficult enough. You could build a documented project such as these http://www.htguide.com/forum/forumdisplay.php4?f=39 or one of Zaph's designs to get your feet wet. This will at least give you a clue as to what's involved.


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## jwesenick79 (Sep 25, 2008)

yea, i've been leaning away from trying a tower as my first project until i gain a little more knowledge on whats exactly involved. I had all the components figured out, but now i dont think its gonna work as well as i hoped. I guess ill just start out with a sub enclosure since i already have the speakers for that lol. thanks guys!


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