Rockin’ It Old School Alternate

Rockin’ It Old School Alternate


 

Designer:
Matt Phillips / RB

Project Category:
Tower Speakers

Project Level:
Beginner

Project Time:
20+ Hours

Project Cost:
$500 – $1,000

Project Description:
I wanted to build Matt Phillips Rockin’ It Old School speakers, but the woofers he used are discontinued.

Design Goals:
Front speakers for my living room that would have deep bass extension to eliminate my cheap subwoofer. And like the original speakers I wanted speakers capable of being driven with a home av receiver.

Driver Selection:
The same tweeter and mid as the originals but replaced the woofer with the Dayton Audio DC380-8 15″.

Enclosure Design:
Some would consider these gaudy, I ended up with a box 40″ H x 20″ W x 20.25″ D I wanted an F3 at no higher than 30 hz since I am not going to be using a subwoofer. The recommended vented volume for the DC380 woofer is a massive 5.27 cu. ft., and I enlarged it to 6.5 cu. ft. to get the f3 I wanted.

Enclosure Assembly:
Everything is similar to the originals but I doubled up the baffle for 1-1/2″.

Crossover Design:
I used X over pro and used the same crossover points with 2nd order filters.

This was my first speaker build and admittedly I don’t know very much about designing crossover networks. I also don’t have a mic or software for measuring frequency response so there were no in box measurements.

Conclusion:
After listening to these speakers several times I have discovered my ears are sensitive to very low frequency bass, so I have actually had to set the bass management to 40 hz in my receiver to avoid hurting my ears. :/

About the Designer:
Someone with too much time and money on their hands to buy a nice pair of speakers from the store

Project Parts List:

Dayton Audio DC380-8 15″ Classic Woofer
PRV Audio 8MR400-NDY 8″ Neodymium Midrange Speaker 8 Ohm
Peerless by Tymphany DX25TG59-04 1″ Fabric Dome Tweeter
Acry-Tech DuraTex Black 1 Gallon Spray Grade Speaker Cabinet Coating
Dayton Audio BPA-38G HD Binding Post Pair Gold

2 Comments

Add yours
  1. 1
    Chris Lambert

    Looks good. I like the retro style speakers. Off hand, what are the dimensions on your ports? Did you model the vent velocity for an F3 of 30Hz on that box with the 15″ speaker?

    • 2
      RB

      The Specs on the box design were FB 23Hz , F3 29 Hz, with 2 – 3″ ports at 7.83 inches. Also I modeled everything for only 60 watts input power. With over 80 watts input the models showed too much cone displacement. With that said, I really never listen to anything over 90db so the 60 watts input was more than enough for me.

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