The uglings: Mechano24

[XMechanik]

Asymmetrical driver placement has always seemed visually unappealing to me, but I tried it in my previous (3-way) design and noticed some advantages. So I used this approach again, this time with a 2-way design, and… omg, what an eyesore. What do I to do with it? Maybe a little manipulation of the picture frame, moving the units away from the camera, bringing curves and slopes of the stands to the foreground, a bit of overexposure... ok, here they are.

Mechano24:

Enclosure dimensions: HxWxD: 290x174x263mm, polyester fiber filling.

18mm birch plywood, front panel glued "on top".


Rear panel flushed into the enclosure.


Bass reflex 8l, 45Hz. BR tunnel made of a piece of HDF glued on slats.


Crossovers assembled on a plywood scrap, attached with screws on an anti-vibration pad to the rear panel (installation through the woofer mounting hole).


Crossover schematic and the characteristics (rating 6.78/EQ9 6.133/EQ10)


THD measurements: ~1.4% peak at 2kHz (87dB/1m)


The design is based on ScanSpeak drivers:

• D2608_913000
• 12W4524G00

 

[XMechanik]

A little summary. Some time ago I made an attempt to build speakers that would have flat on-axis characteristics and linear PR, In-room, ER, etc. characteristics. The design besed on 13cm Satori driver and a regular Seas dome. Achieving the goal turned out to be difficult. The only way that I found to get closer to the target was rising the crossover frequency to a strange level of 5kHz. On the other hand, the sound I got from the speakers seemed a way better than what I had created before. The question arose what would be a simple and effective method to obtain dBspl and CTA linearity at more reasonable crossover frequencies? The Mechano line is experimental testing of various inexpensive options.
So a little summary. I don't know how much it's worth because the designs may be too different to draw final conclusions. Anyway, if anyone would like to take a look, here it is.

Id	Nr of ways	Directivity matching method	Crossover frequency	CTA	Midwoofer diameter	Tweeter	Midwoofer	design link*	matrix pos.
Mechano	2	None	5kHz		13cm	Seas H1396-4	Satori MW13P-4	None	B2C3
Mechano22	2	integrated WG​	3.6kHz		13.5cm	Dayton ND25FW-4	Dayton DSA135-8	link	A3B3
Mechano23	2	integrated horn	3.4kHz		15cm	ScanSpeak H2606/920000	SB-Acoustics SB13PFCR25-4	link	A2C2
Paper cone (not "promoted" to Mechano line)	2	large tweeter diameter (6cm)	4kHz		12cm	Monacor HT-22/8	ScanSpeak 12W/4524G00	link (Polish site)	A1C1
Mechano323	3	small mid diameter	4kHz		10cm(mid), 16.5cm(woofer)	Dayton AMT2-4	Dayton RS100-4 (mid) Dayton DC160-8 (woofer)	link	None
Mechano24	2	profiled faceplate	3.7kHz		12cm	ScanSpeak D2608/913000	ScanSpeak 12W/4524G00	link	None

* in most cases VXP with off-axis measurements included.


Mechano matrix


CTA comparison on gif (spl levels not calibrated)