It’s not surprising that our last piece generated a lot of interest among our loyal readers. Choosing the right speaker system, after all, could be the most crucial step in building a decent stereo system. Yes, you can’t expect a speaker system to perform the way it does in a showroom. This is a most problematic area, and many people fall into a virtual trap. Some go through an expensive upgrade process, thinking that the electronics which make the speakers sing are at fault. Truth is, neither the electronics nor the speakers are to be blamed.
As we had previously discussed, the room in which the speakers are to be finally placed plays a major role in how sound is reproduced. Sound quality is dictated by how friendly or unreceptive your room acoustic is. There are lucky ones who may not have endured this particular problem; with their room acoustic proving to be hospitable to the speakers they have just bought. But more often; uneven walls, a low ceiling, irregular room size and reflective materials present in the room (especially sliding doors and windows made of glass) make listening to music unbearable.
Ideally, an acoustically treated room should be built first before housing in it the sound equipment of your choice. The reason is simple: If you could afford to buy pricey audio components, investing in an equally expensive room, designed by an acoustic engineer, shouldn’t be a problem for you. But good music shouldt not discriminate. Many music lovers who are just starting to appreciate high fidelity systems and are on a budget are stuck with the room that they already have. Doing spot acoustic treatment may do the trick: you can place in the room absorbing or reflecting materials, such as foams, heavy drapes or wood panels. In fact there are cheap room treatment techniques available on the net, and they are just a click away.
But aside from room acoustic treatment, are there other ways to go around this problem? What if you can design your own speaker system to conform to your room acoustics? If you are creative and adventurous, why not? Branded speakers are made to sing in an ideal acoustic environment. Their drivers, crossovers and enclosures may be designed using sophisticated sound computing equipment, but some may still fail to measure up in a hostile room setting.
Many audiophiles are finding joy and satisfaction by building their own speaker systems. This route affords them flexibility in choosing their own drivers (woofer, mid-range and tweeter), crossovers and speaker enclosures to conform to the size and acoustic of their respective listening rooms. You don’t actually have to do it yourself. You can consult and commission do-it-yourself (DIY) experts. Just tell them what you need and they will do it for you.
My speaker system was made in Pampanga by Lin Gomez of Music Box. He provided me with vintage Altec woofers, Altec mid compression drivers and JBL tweeters which he expertly restored to their original singing forms. The Uichi wood horns, as well as the enclosures, were also designed by Lin but sculpted by his partner Larry Roxas, an expert wood craftsman. I chose to go the multi- driver route for total control.
Multi-driver speaker systems have more than one loudspeaker driver to reproduce sounds, and use crossover circuits to feed each driver its own suitable signal. This is why no driver in a multi-driver loudspeaker system is full-range. The number of drivers is normally between two and four, but there may be five or more. In my case, I opted to use five drivers per channel: two 15-inch Altec 421 woofers in a d’Apolito configuration (the two woofers sandwiching the mid-horn), an Altec 290 compression driver and two tweeters (Aurum Cantus ribbon and JBL 075 with the JBL designed to fire backwards). All multi-way speaker systems employ either an active or passive crossover circuit to filter the frequencies sent to each driver. I chose the former, and use three separate amplifiers to power each driver (the two woofers and two tweeters use only one amp each).
This audio philosophy gives me full and total control of my system. The fun starts when you begin tweaking the sound of your system to your listening environment. With the help of the active crossover, you can choose the frequency cutoff, the slope and the sound pressure level of each driver until you have fully “tuned” your system to your room acoustics. It takes patience, but it’ll be pure bliss when you start bobbing your head and tapping your feet to the fascinating rhythm of music.
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For comments or questions, please e-mail me at audioglow@yahoo.comor at vphl@hotmail.com. You can also visit www.wiredstate.com or you can tweet audiofiler at www.twitter.com for quick answers to your audio concerns.