Speaker Building Book

There are numerous ideas behind building loudspeakers. Why speakers can be set into motion relies on a basic tenet of current and magnetism, namely the force created in a wire that carries current when placed in a magnetic field. This wire, when wound around a cylindrical "former," and when AC (as opposed to DC) current is applied, changes this force into up and down motion. From this relatively simple idea develops the full blown story of speaker systems and speaker building.

Speaker Building 201, by Ray Alden. "A comprehensive course in Speaker Design and building, a perfect mix of theory and practical application. With 11 completely designed speaker systems including a 5.1 home theater system."

Published October 2004, Audio Amateur Press.

"The eleven completely designed speakers systems alone make the book worth the cost, but the wealth of well-written information and diagrams make this book a real value. Very highly recommended" Review in AudioXpress magazine.

"This new book cleared up many mysteries of speakers for me. It's a great resource even if you don't intend to build speakers. It's very detailed and goes into the deep math for building enclosures and designing crossovers, and even covers popular CAD programs, all the while being easy to read. The author makes you believe that anyone can do the math, but even if you skip it you will gain a much deeper understanding of speaker design. You'll more easily spot the compromises in commercial designs too." Joseph Lemmer, Tape-OP magazine.

To Order

• Send a check for $36 (includes shipping) made out to and sent to: Ray Alden, 124 Quaker Bridge Road, Croton, NY 10520. Please include an address to which to ship the book.

Contents: Twelve chapters, including

• Chapter One: The Adventure begins, including; Steps needed to design a pair of speakers. A history of the sciences needed to develop speakers. How waveforms and music are related. Considerations needed to decide how to choose drivers for your speaker. Math Tips.
• Chapter Two: The "Big Three" Parameters and the Closed Box, including; the Small Thiele parameters Fs, Qts, Vas. Equations to design a closed box. Graphic explanations, including why you cannot put even a specially designed 12" woofer into a very small box. Box stuffing.
• Chapter Three: The Vented Box, including; The physics behind a ported enclosure. Finding F3, Fb and how to design the "best" vented box. The trade-offs to design a smaller box.
• Chapter Four: Pandora's Box, including; How to find locations on the Internet that will help with calculations for closed and vented boxes. How to find conversion calculators (i.e. metric to English, vice versa, etc.). How to download and use free software such as WinISD.
• Chapter Five: Special Applications, including; Multiple speaker systems and the change of parameters. Push-Pull systems. Isobaric systems. MTM systems. Dual voice coil drivers.
• Chapter Six: Subwoofers, including: Constant pressure subwoofer systems. Compound pair subwoofer systems, with or without push-pull. Simple bandpass subwoofer. Sixth order bandpass subwoofer. Software for subwoofer design.
• Chapter Seven: Two-Way Crossovers, including; Inductors, Capacitors, resistors. First, second, third and higher order two-way crossovers. Dr. Robert Bullock and Ralph Gonzalez modifications using "A" and "Q" in various formulas. Impedance compensation, Zoebels, attenuation to drivers. Available Internet help.
• Chapter Eight: Three-Way Crossovers; Flm and Fhm modifications to the bandpass section. Bullock's second-order APC Linkwitz-Riley three-way crossover formulas. The transformation bandpass (T-bandpass) circuit. Bullock's CPC Butterworth second-order crossover. Software to help with calculations.
• Chapter Nine: Hardware and Software, including; the "woofer tester". Harris Tech's BassBox software, X-Over software. How to import impedance, T/S parameters, frequency response into BassBox. How to glean information from BassBox on power, box response, F3, cone travel, Xmax, vent velocity, and phase. Example, how to design a 3-way crossover using X-over software.
• Chapter Ten: Crossover Optimization & Measurement Techniques, including; Heiser Spiral. Imaginary numbers. How professionals design crossovers. 3 examples of non-optimized crossovers and the results they produce in the same speaker system. Fourier Analysis.
• Chapter Eleven: Eleven Speakers Systems, including: all the parts and plans you need to build eleven speaker systems. Most were tested by Dr. Joseph D'Appolito. Two-way, three-way and horn loaded systems. Detailed frequency response graphs of each speaker given.
• Chapter Twelve, Construction Techniques, including; Materials to use (Plywood, Luan, MDF, Baltic grade plywood). Methods to cut holes for drivers. Simple and advanced joinery, butt joints, splines, 45 degree cuts. Crossover construction. Cutting large 4x8 foot panel sheets. Construction details for the eleven systems found in the previous chapter 11.