# how do I know what drivers sound good together?



## jeremy7 (Feb 7, 2008)

I often hear of people finding drivers that sound good together, drivers that compliment eachother, etc. Other than buying a bunch of drivers and listening to them to hear which drivers sound good together, does any one have any methods for choosing driver combinations or thoughts on the subject.


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## JCD (Apr 20, 2006)

My quick answer is "no".

I think it'd be good if you could find drivers with a similar Q and that had a usuable frequency that overlaps by at least one octave.

But, from what I've seen/heard, testing together is the only reliable method.

JCD


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## Anthony (Oct 5, 2006)

Another way people do it is to read sites with proven designs, experimenters, or people who do the tests for everyone else's benefits. Read: here, DIYaudio, ZaphAudio, HTguide, Parts Express, and Madisound (among others).

But in my quest for Open Baffle HT speakers, I have bought way more drivers than I'll use, simply because I tried something, it didn't work, and now I'm trying some new things.

that all being said, look at some of the nice high end speakers. Often they'll have three drivers that look completely foreign together, but I'm sure were picked for good reason. One set I saw (forget the model, but they were fantastic) had a paper sub woofer, kevlar woofer, metal midrange, and dome tweeter. In picking drivers for my speakers, I would have never considered all the drivers of different construction, but I'm sure they work well, because they sound great.

Hope this helps.


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## BoomieMCT (Dec 11, 2006)

+1 to what Anthony said. I have a friend who has a set of B&W 801's. I love how they sound. I think they have carbon fiber sandwich woofers, kevlar mids and some type of metal dome tweeter.


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## yourgrandma (Oct 29, 2007)

Boom, B&W's 800 series has "diamond" tweeters. I have no idea how it's made, but it looks like a diamond based cerametallic. I'd love to find out, though.


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## WmAx (Jan 26, 2008)

BoomieMCT said:


> +1 to what Anthony said. I have a friend who has a set of B&W 801's. I love how they sound. I think they have carbon fiber sandwich woofers, kevlar mids and some type of metal dome tweeter.


The premium B&W models( 802, 801, 800 and Natilus) have more than just good drivers: they have virtually inert cabinet systems that add very little or no audible output, thus not distorting the timbre of the sound presentation. It appears that most commercial and DIY systems are an utter failure in this regard. I wager that if you were to build new cabinets for those B & W speakers that you liked, and insured didentical internal volume, and identical exterior baffle dimensions, and used the original crossovers, but used the common cabinet building methods(some 3/4" mdf all around with somewhat significant bracing) used by most, they would not sound the same; but substantially inferior - riddled with timbre distortion.

-Chris


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## BoomieMCT (Dec 11, 2006)

yourgrandma said:


> Boom, B&W's 800 series has "diamond" tweeters. I have no idea how it's made, but it looks like a diamond based cerametallic. I'd love to find out, though.


Quite right. I'm used to the older 800 series that had aluminum tweets. I haven't heard the diamond ones yet.


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## WmAx (Jan 26, 2008)

thylantyr said:


> I auditioned B&W 800D [$12k/pair here] with McIntosh preamps and amplifiers,
> the 500w monoblocks. This was the system they showed off as being their
> best cost effective rig. I brought my reference CD and fell asleep. It was nice
> to know that DIY still remains supreme  :hide: :reading: :innocent:


Being a system that seems to be designed to minimize errors, in order to provide the over all most accurate monitoring of the signal sent to it, it would not be expected for it to be ideal for straight listening; it is shown by perceptual research that a specific treble roll off is ideal, with a specific target slope. But it is ideal for a normal user, from the perspective of being able to reliably modify the sound to one's preference to start with linear. One can add a precision high quality DSP equalizer to said speaker get about the best sound one can get from a monopole speaker of that general off axis radiation pattern(_of course, a wider, more even pattern would be even better, perceptually, in the proper environment_). The system is also superbly suited to studio monitoring - although only the most high-end studios seem to budget for speakers of that caliber for monitor purposes. It seems that almost no DIYers or commercial manufactures build closed cabinet speaker systems that have no(_or at least very little_) audible cabinet resonances.

-Chris


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## BoomieMCT (Dec 11, 2006)

Getting slightly off topic . . . 

I had mentioned the B&Ws just to show how drivers of different compositions can work together. My favorite music setup at my house has a silk dome tweeter, an aluminum mid and PPM woofers. The sub I use with it has paper cones. I never would have guessed these things would have sounded well together but they do. I had experimented with quite a few setups before I settled on this too - it didn't just happen by chance.


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## WmAx (Jan 26, 2008)

thylantyr said:


> The B&W website - click 'Home Theater'.
> http://www.bowers-wilkins.com/display.aspx?infid=769
> 
> They are showing a list of speakers for 'Home Theater', includng
> ...


I am not concerned as to how they market the products. I specified the most suited purposes in straight form(studio monitor), and the most ideal circumstance (in home use) using precision EQ.



> It is possible that they are decieving people into thinking these make
> good listening speakers when maybe they aren't ?


Like most speaker companies, I would assume that they believe the compromises that they chose are best, from their perspective, even if it does not agree with some one else's idea of best compromises. As it appears they primarily market these to home use, where most people are not willing to use the ideal EQ, then it would seem like a treble down shelving curve should idealy be built in, or at least available with a switch on the back of the speaker, being such a curve is found to be preferable to most listening subjects in controlled circumstances when listening to most commercial music.

-Chris


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## Anthony (Oct 5, 2006)

That's one of the reasons why DIY is so great for speakers. You can make the trade-offs the way you want and not worry about what will sell 100, 1000, or 1,000,000 units.


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