Great Sound Stereo Speaker Manual (Tab Electronics) [Misc. Supplies]

David B. Weems (Author), G. R. Koonce (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 17, 2000 | ISBN-10: 0071348743 | ISBN-13: 978-0071348744 | Edition: 2

Design and build customized, professional-quality speakers. From drivers to crossovers and custom enclosures, the possibilities for designing speakers that will provide the best possible performance are endless. Great Sound Stereo Speakers Manual, Second Edition, by David Weems and G.R. Koonce, eliminates much of the guesswork--not to mention the ripping out of parts and trying of alternative values--associated with proper design. More than a normal revision, this edition is virtually a new book, with a solution to an old problem, crossover design. This reader-friendly guide puts equipment-enhancing, computer-aided design techniques at your disposal. You get six complete projects, with lucid illustrated instructions for modifying and testing designs, along with 24 proposed projects. The CD-ROM packaged with the book gives you system design software, crossover network design applications, and files for all project drivers, allowing you to alter a project to fit a different physical arrangement of the drivers, explore driver substitution, perform driver tests, simulate box and network design, or customize the included projects.

Editorial Reviews

From the Back Cover

ON THE CD-ROM Files for all project drivers System design software Crossover network design application GREAT SOUND STEREO SPEAKER MANUAL With Projects Second Edition Professional-Quality Speakers-- 6 Complete Computer-Aided Projects Speakers make the stereo system, and this manual shows you how you can create the best, from the ground up. This reader-friendly guide puts equipment-enhancing, computer-aided-design techniques within reach of any hobbyist or audiophile for the first time. Clearly and simply, Audio and High Fidelity writers David B. Weems and G. R. Koonce show you how to assemble speakers that match your needs, your space, your budget, and your ear. Featuring six completed projects, with lucid illustrated instructions for modifying and testing designs, along with 24 proposed projects, Great Sound Stereo Speaker Manual shows you how to: Understand the ins and outs of speaker systems. Save hundreds of dollars by building your own peak-performance, high-end stereo speakers. Design and build professional-quality speakers customized to your tastes and budget, step by step. Anticipate or correct problems with computer modeling techniques. Tame peaks and dead spots with computer-aided component selection and modification. Design and construct an optimal crossover network. Build and mount enclosures for all types of speakers. Tweak your system with professional tips for the best possible sound. You need not be an audio engineer to use this book, although audio engineers will use it. Weems and Koonce wrote Great Sound Stereo Speaker Manual so that even complete novices could design and build their own high-quality speakers. Complete with lists of needed parts, it takes you step by step through the process, starting at the very beginning. And even if you intend to buy high-end speakers off the shelf, Great Sound Stereo Speaker Manual belongs on your reading list. It will give you what you need to become an informed speaker purchaser, one who gets real value for the dollar.

About the Author

David B. Weems is an acknowledged expert in speaker systems and speaker enclosures. He has written several books, including all four editions of Designing, Building, and Testing Your Own Speaker Systems—with Projects and the first edition of this volume. Weems also has contributed numerous articles on speaker systems to such widely read electronics publications as Audio, High Fidelity, Popular Electronics, Radio Electronics, and Speaker Builder. G. R. Koonce is a member of the Audio Engineering Society and contributes many articles to Speaker Builder magazine.

Product Details

• Misc. Supplies: 320 pages
• Publisher: McGraw-Hill/TAB Electronics; 2 edition (May 17, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0071348743
• ISBN-13: 978-0071348744
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 7.4 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,224,011 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars OK for starters., January 5, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Great Sound Stereo Speaker Manual: With Projects (Paperback)

A good beginner's book for those interested in building their own speakers without getting into heavy mathematics, passive electronics, complex woodworking, or folded horns. The book explains some the rudiments of speaker theory, and barely enough to design your own simple crossover network. The book has several economical projects which the author already debugged and are ready to build, including: the make and model of the speakers, list of passive components, schematic - which usually include extras like a Zobel network, and the cabinet dimensions. Their are several two-way projects and one three-way with a ten-inch woofer. Most designs use a soft-dome tweeter, if that's what you like. There is a list of raw component vendors in the back of the book. The designs for the ported boxes use the Thiel method, and I am finding that this may be conservatively sized toward the large side with respect to a flat bass response. The prose is a bit wordy, but still easy to read. Overall, I have learned a few things from this book.

33 of 43 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Thorough introduction - worthless projects, April 20, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: Great Sound Stereo Speaker Manual (Tab Electronics) (Misc. Supplies)

Great introduction to loudspeaker design theory. Very good, in-depth discussion of crossovers with usable equations.

However, the projects and suggested projects aren't worth the paper they're written on. After studying the theories on cabinet and crossover design, and researching available drivers, I don't think many people are going to be interested in using the cheapest crap available for drivers. The projects all use Audax, Peerless, Seas, and Vifa drivers - the worst junk available. The authors themselves state that these drivers deteriorate quickly, and that all the drivers for one particular project can be purchased for seven dollars each! Are you interested in investing all the time required to learn, design and build a set of speakers and then invest $28 in four drivers? I'm certainly not.

The included software Crossover Modeling Program certainly has potential, and are useful for building the low-buck projects in this book. It includes treatment for virtually all the variables available for manipulation by the designer/builder. However, it's DOS based, almost impossible to navigate, only has data files available for the trash drivers used in the project, and, in fact, doesn't even have all the data files for all of those drivers. If they've got data files for good drivers like Focal, Eton, or even Dynaudio available on a web site or something, the program would be VERY USEFULL. And it is still usefull for modeling the crossover, but without linking in the driver specs, it's guesswork as to how the response curves are going to come out, let alone the actual speaker performance.

It's amazing to me that the authors give such a good treatment to everything, go to all the trouble of developing a good modeling program, and then build garbage. You're going to have more invested in this book than you will in the speaker projects themselves. They even go into buying and/or building fairly sophisticated test equipment - for what? To test your $15 driver? After discussing all the advanced considerations, the projects use surface-mounted drivers with defractions rings instead of routing out the cabintes to flush-mount the drivers. Are you going to put the hundreds of hours into a project and then forego the extra few minutes to properly rout out the driver openings? I'm not!!

Another serious shortcoming is that all the test data only goes down to 200 hertz, and almost all the response curves show a 3+ decibel rise in the 200-500 hz range. Well hey, bass response is where the going gets tough! But it makes the low-dollar, two- way, 5-6" 'woofer' projects look acceptable. The three-way projects are also a joke since the 'woofers' are still only 6.5". Believe me, there is going to be NO appreciable bass response at any significant volume level with ANY of these projects, and who wants to be crossing over to a subwoofer at 200 hz. I like 60-80 hz much better. And I'm not interested in having a system where a 5-6" driver is resonsible for handling everything from 3000 Hz on down - approximately seven octaves!

I DO RECOMMEND buying this book - and then tearing out everything after page 165 .

7 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Disappointing after initial promise, December 13, 2002

By 

"newmz" (Western Australia) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Great Sound Stereo Speaker Manual (Tab Electronics) (Misc. Supplies)

If you are only interested in "spoonfed" recipe loudspeaker designs, this book will be great for you. It does cover some important theory initially and has some very clear and succinct illustrations, but I felt that it was a let down of my expectations, especially if you pay too much attention to things like the cover illustration (way too "hi-end" and complex for this book!).

Speaker building can easily become an addictive and engaging hobbie, and if you think at all that you may want more than a "casual glance" I'd strongly recommend "LOUDSPEAKER DESIGN COOKBOOK" by Vance Dickason instead. It may seem to be a more technical book but it has "staying power" and is a longer term reference text that the Weems/Koonce book.

On the positive side, if you do lack the time, inclination or confidence to get into the "nitty gritty", this book does have projects that feature relatively simple enclosure construction, require readily available (and not too expensive) speaker drivers and components and it has choice in terms of scale, complexity (to an extent) etc in the projects.