Nord User Forum

I'm designing a pair of (DIY) monitors, mainly for stage use. This is my first speaker build, but being the engineer/perfectionist I am, that wont stop me designing them thoroughly for my intended purpose.

Primary focus will be saving the valuable square meters i have on stage. I initially tried to somewhat replicate/beef up the Nord Piano Monitor form, but the speakers would have been to heavy to mount to the keyboard stand.

I've settled on the following:
Speakers will sit on the ground (either side of my K&M 18810 legs) facing up and slightly tilted in to aim directly at my head.

A very basic, passive 2-way architecture prioritising a compact enclosure and decent headroom over bass extension. I'm the only one listening to these, and no one wants unnecessary noise on stage, especially in the low end of the spectrum. Through a few calculations and simulations i settled on this woofer-tweeter combo:
SB Audience BIANCO-8MW125 - (8" Woofer)
Dayton Audio Reference RST28F-4 - (Dome Tweeter)

Rule of thumb is that the tweeter sensitivity (SPL / V / 1m) should be as much or more than the woofer, because the tweeter can easily be attenuated to match the woofer, but not the other way. These 2 should match very well without attenuation (if my calculations are correct...).

Enclosure design is a work in progress, but I bought the elements, in conjunction with a moderate-budget measurement kit. Once the enclosure is done, I can make the required (both electronic and acoustic) measurements and design the electronics (crossover) properly.

Thus far I've used WinISD and VituixCAD. The measurement hardware I've just aquired and will use for the rest of the design process (and the inevitable next project):
Dayton Audio EMM-6 (run through a Focusrite Scarlett 8i6 3rd Gen)
Dayton Audio DATS V3

Will do my best to keep this thread updated when I make some kind of progress. Just laying this information out there to help people on the off chance that someone intends to take on a similar challenge.

Before moving over to piano a couple years ago I spend 50+ years playing guitar and mainly Jazz guitar. I want smaller setup but still with full sound. 8" speaker have become popular in the Jazz guitar world so that is the direction I went. Raezer’s Edge is the speaker cabinet company that is know for the best in small cabinets so I got a 1x8 ported cab. It was nice but not full enough and not that much volume especially sitting on the floor. Then I found another brand of cabinet it was okay, but not full enough. Then I got a Raezer’s Edge 2x8" cabinet and that is great. With two 8" speaker you move enough air for volume and to make the ported cabinet a full button. So I would say think about two 8" not one in a cabinet.

For the speaker checkout the Eminence Beta 8" that is the one most the cabinet makers use. It is actually speaker designed for a PA but works great for instruments too.

Just a couple things to think about in your design, don't sacrifice low end for smallest cabinet. Here's the link to Raezer's Edge you can see the sizes and design of there stuff for ideas. https://www.raezers-edge.com/

If I understand correctly you are talking about a guitar speaker cabinet. This is completely different as I'm building pair of full range PA speakers, specifically for personal monitoring. I've put together a few guitar cabs as well but thats often a largely unscientific process of "I like this method" or "let's see how these elements sound together". Guitar speakers aren't used together with tweeters, but instead only woofers forcably driven at "too high" frequencies, resulting in a messy frequency response, or "character". I'm going for a flat frequency response, so I'm also using a tweeter.

Same principles apply to all speakers including guitar cabs, but my approach this time is more like "research -> simulation -> assembly -> measurement -> simulation -> assembly -> done -> (what kind of speaker next?)".

Elias wrote:If I understand correctly you are talking about a guitar speaker cabinet. This is completely different as I'm building pair of full range PA speakers, specifically for personal monitoring. I've put together a few guitar cabs as well but thats often a largely unscientific process of "I like this method" or "let's see how these elements sound together". Guitar speakers aren't used together with tweeters, but instead only woofers forcably driven at "too high" frequencies, resulting in a messy frequency response, or "character". I'm going for a flat frequency response, so I'm also using a tweeter.

Same principles apply to all speakers including guitar cabs, but my approach this time is more like "research -> simulation -> assembly -> measurement -> simulation -> assembly -> done -> (what kind of speaker next?)".

A Jazz guitar speaker cabinet is very different from your typical guitar amp cab, they are designed for clean sound and larger range that a typical guitar amp cab that is open back, or if sealed just a bunch of speakers in a box. As I said the Jazz cab's are sealed ported cabs like a PA cab, many do have small tweeters with a tweeter level control, the speaker I mentioned is one designed for PA use. So have fun with your project.