NOTE: This is a lower priority section of Don Klipstein's web site. Progress has been slow and is projected to remain slow for the near and foreseeable future as of 2011.
Please beware that as of when this information was first put in place at this web site, it was highly incomplete. It may also take a fair amount of time for this loudspeaker plan section of this web site to become reasonably complete. This section of this web site is recommended mainly for those who already have some knowledge of building loudspeaker enclosures.
Plans for a low cost bass reflex box to give fairly full range response from a cheap 5-inch fullrange. Bass -3dB point 53 Hz, and this fullrange works fairly OK without a tweeter. Sorry, power handling is only what you pay for, a watt or two continuous, 5-10 watts peak maximum for good sound and good reliability. Nominal sensitivity 91 dB 1W, 1m.
(new document 10/2/96, slight updating 3/24/2015)
Plans for extra-deep bass from the Radio Shack woofer 40-1036. Large bass reflex boxes, also use in the rear decks of cars with trunks - no port needed there for amazing bass.
Plans for bass bins (bass sound reinforcement speakers) using Pyle's lower cost 15 inch bass guitar speaker, the MH1540. Use lots of MH1540 speakers and lots of box volume and you can get a lot of bass for your money. You can get more and deeper bass with these than with most 18 inch speakers and with horn-like efficiency, since the low cost of the MH1540 lets you buy more of them. (Slightly updated 5/12/96)
Get my loudspeaker enclosure software, with consideration for most "real-world" factors such as air mass loading, the 6 dB shelf if not wall-coupled, etc.
How to make piezo tweeters sound better!
Filter out frequencies below 800 Hz from the human voice and reduce amplifier power requirements by 70 percent. Gain even more if you use loudspeakers that specialize in frequencies above 800 Hz, such as the usual non-reentrant 1-inch and 2-inch horns as opposed to those muddy and muddy-squawky sounding reentrant horns and other folded horns. (Not for music systems - use for voice communication systems.)(new file 12/12/99, updated 1/3/2011)
NOTE ON USING LOUDSPEAKERS AS MICROPHONES: Frequency response when used as a microphone will be the same as that when used as a loudspeaker, when temination impedance is the same, but with a modification:
The frequency response when used as a microphone will be bass-tilted by 6 dB/octave.
Also consider that microphone usage tends to have higher termination impedance than loudspeaker usage. Loudspeaker usage is typically done with low source impedance, while microphone usage tends to be done with a load impedance comparable to or above the rated impedance of the loudspeaker. This higher load impedance will accentuate frequencies at which the loudspeaker's impedance runs high - such as most low frequency resonances.
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