New to Home Audio, looking for some opinions and ideas for a first set

[johny24 0]

Hey hows everybody doin?

well I moved out and next year once im out of residence my parents decided they would give me the 7 year old 56" projection tv plus all the lazy boys in the house. I thought it would be genius to have a decent (awesome sounding first setup) setup. So what i have planned is mostly coming from partsexpress. The towers will be a MTM setup with 2 8" Dayton references (4ohm) and a Vifa D27TG-05 1" silk dome tweeter (8ohm). The crossovers are going to be the dayton 2 ways crossed over at 2kHz.

The problems im having since im new to this is what should i set the crossover point to, i dont know how to build one so i have an option of 2 - 4.5kHz in 500Hz increments. And i dont know what volume i should build the enclosure to. I believe i should do a sealed enclosure for my first home audio setup

I plan on using the Pioneer 5.1 Channel A/V Receiver (VSX-517-K) because i am on somewhat of a budget and it appears to have everything i would need. for the substage which will come later, i plan on taking the Fi Q18 out of my automobile and putting it in a 7.5 cube box tuned to 26Hz powered by the Dayton 1000watt rack mount amp.

I think i covered everything, any ideas/suggestions are welcome!!! Thanks

[///M5 2,833]

You should use those drivers with an off the shelf crossover, no way no how it will sound terrible. You have to build a custom crossover in particular with drivers with such nasty breakup modes. If you are unwilling to buy measurement equipment your ONLY choice is to build something that someone else has already built and put together your own crossovers.

[JimJ 11]

Unless you're going right away with 5.1 surround, I can think of a lot better options for amplification than a generic Pioneer receiver...

[johny24 0]

Its going to be mostly used for home audio and not HT so I think JimJ's idea on better amplification sounds pretty good paired with the idea that i want to go 2.1

I'd like to learn how to build my own Xovers for sure so if thats what i have to do, then i can do it but i dont think im going to be buying any pricey measurement equiptment, i do have several quality DMMs at my house though

what would be my best bet for the 2.1 setup, would i still use the pioneer receiver and then just amp the signal to the towers? and any good resources for crossover design would be useful

Thanks

[Robert_J 0]

Check out the DIY section of htguide.com. Those guys have dozens on different designs based on the Dayton RS series. If you want to save a little money on your first build, then the Dayton Classic series drivers are no slouch either. I'm running the Dayton II's and the Dayton III's (plans are at the PE Showcase). Since you mention 8's, there's also a plan called the Dayton 8. link 1 link 2 A few guys at ICIX built these as well. Nothing but great things to say about them.

For comparision purposes, are the RS designs worth the extra money? Maybe. The guys that designed them are hard core audiophiles. Follow their design and you will get a world class set of speakers. Are the Classic designs good? Absolutely! They are not up there with the RS designs but they will beat the crap out of anything sold at Best Buy and Circuit City.

-Robert

[///M5 2,833]

I would highly encourage you to build a design someone else already has, the ones at HTGuide are a great place to start.

[johny24 0]

thanks guys this is really useful

[JimJ 11]

For simply two channels you have a lot of choices in electronics, I'd a separates whore so I'd recommend a preamplifier/power amp or monoblocks combo but it'll depend on your budget...

[johny24 0]

basically i think i could get away with a decent setup for 1000 bucks. thats for everything except the sub. is it possible? because i would really like to use an active crossover setup, but i never even used one of those in my car. I know how to set it up in a car but home audio kind of intimidates me.

the reason i think active would be better for me is because i know im going to have another home audio project soon enough and not having to build crossovers for both setups would be pretty sweet. I dont know what equiptment i would need though.

so let me know if $1000 is good enough for everything excluding the sub. oh and the amp i have planned is $330 (dayton 1000wrms). so i guess is $670 enough?

-edit-

the amp is on for 250 bucks today only so im about to buy it, and that makes my budget 750 now!

Edited December 16, 2007 by johny24

[johny24 0]

I bought all the componants to make the Dayton 8s linked above but one of the 20 ohm 10 watt resistors is chipped and the core is visable for about 1/4". Will this hurt the crossover or not?

[topgun 262]

So the sub amp is going to knock out 300 bucks of that budget, so that leaves 700 for the mains and amplification. What I'm going to suggest going with is a BIB full range build... Easy to power, doesn't take a whole lot of power to get them loud, good low end, cheap to build, don't have to screw around with a complex crossover (only baffle step if you want to).

What size of room is this going to be in do you know?

*edit* Nevermind, I didn't see that you had bought the stuff for the Dayton 8's. On the topic of going active in a household setup. You do not have the budget to go there, believe me. You need a preamp, crossover, then at least three amps, it'll be over 1k in just equipment if your starting out.

On the topic of the resistor, just call up PE and tell them about it, they will probably just send you a new one free of charge.

[///M5 2,833]

Get new ones for sure. They should take care of you if you call.

[johny24 0]

Can I just power the Dayton 8s with a receiver? What kind of receiver could I get for about 500 that would power the dayton 8s well and work well with the Dayton sub amp?

[///M5 2,833]

If you build the plan with the whole crossover almost any receiver will power them, of course some will be better at it than others.

[johny24 0]

Ok thats perfect, I wasn't to sure on the impedence of the entire speaker though.

aha and you might laugh at this crap that just happened, because I live in Canada, it would cost 35 bucks to ship the $1.25 resistor so they just credited me and now I can only build one speaker... sweet! So unless radioshack or whom ever has one of these, I'm going to be buying the most price inflated resistor ever!

[ANeonRider 3]

Where are you located? Almost every city has a electronics hobby & supply shop.

[johny24 0]

It's been resolved, I called back and suggested putting the resistor in a bubble wrap envelope and they said they could do it up for free so that is just all fine and dandy!

THANKS EVERYONE

if it wasnt for you and this site I'd have bought some el cheapo best buy towers