Peerless Pop
Copyright Lou Coraggio 2002 (Last Update 1 Feb 2002) Back to Home Page

This mini monitor is based on the 4" MCM 55-1840 Carbon Fiber woofer and a small Peerless 840277 Aluminum ring dome tweeter ( I used these mostly because I have a few on hand.) I wanted a fairly small speaker that could be mounted on a shelf or wall bracket. Adire Audio's POP looked like a good starting point.

I used the basic box size and shape (11"H X 5.5"W X 8.5" D) from the Adire site in 1/2" mdf. I rearraged the baffle layout to accomodate the smaller tweeter and added a brace between the tweeter and woofer. I also used a 1" PVC port from PE to make tweaking the bottom end a bit easier. I pretty much left the woofer circuit alone.

After dinking around I wound up tuning this 5.7 liter box to about 67 hz. (about 1.6" long) I found the Adire alignment (4" port length) to be a little thin on the bottom for my tastes (especially when these were out from the wall about three feet) While the overall balance seemed better with the lower tuning, there is definitely a lot more cone excursion. Nothing sounded strained, but I'd be leary about pushing too many full range watts thru this alignment. For "SMALL" setting surrounds, they should be OK. I will likely try some alternative tunings when I place these against a wall. The little Peerless tweeters (from the Madisound sale page) are pretty nice. A bit more sizzle than the soft domes used on the mains, but not overly "metallic". With the effective crossover at about 4000 hz, these do a commendable job.(My models indicate that the tweeters used in the mains MAY be a drop in replacement. (one might have to adjust the lpad, I haven't tried this yet.) I did find that PE's speaker sealing caulk is great for temporary mounting of drivers -- as shown in the prototype box below.)