Heartland Hybrid

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The Heartland Hybrid is a four way passive-active speaker using a WMTMW-SW driver arrangement. For competition I used it full range passive, while at home the subwoofer section is powered by a dedicated amp. Drivers are the Fountek NeoCD 3.5H, Tangband W3- 1364SA, Peerless 830875 and Dayton RSS315HF-4. The passive crossovers are outboard. This is my most complicated build to-date. My friend Gaelen Bolland and I collaborated on the model in Sketchup . His skill, my choices. I built it as close to the drawing as I could.

The baffle is laminated plywood. Details on the baffle can be found on the Parts Express Tech Talk website. The rest of the build details can be found HERE.

DESIGN GOALS

I wanted something full range but my room has a big problem – a slanted ceiling. No matter what I did, the right speaker was always louder because the ceiling reflects directly at my seat. The goal with this build was to limit the ceiling and floor reflection as much as possible. The MTM arrangement creates a forward lobe and not as much vertical output. The mids are open back, using a 4” pvc pipe around them so rear output reflects off the wall creating a nice sense of spaciousness. Midrange quality is highly dependent on distance from the wall.

CROSSOVER

MEASUREMENTS: This is without the subwoofer

This is with the tubes stuffed in the middle of the room. 1k to 4k fills in nicely with them unstuffed and up against the wall. This is also without the sub:

LISTENING IMPRESSIONS

I think they sound very good. They will play as loud as my amp will take them. Mostly they are used for home theater and maybe 20% for 2.1 music. They received a lot of kudos at IowaDIY 2013. One long time builder’s wife said “yours were the only ones that got the double bass right!” I’ll take that compliment!

ABOUT THE DESIGNER