Docere Loudspeaker Kit

Product Description

Docere Loudspeaker Kit by Jeff Bagby  AKA Docero – which is easier to pronounce.

The Docero kit is the product of the one-day intensive design seminar held by Jeff Bagby in December 2013.  The name is Latin for “Teach”

The Woofer After Jeff announced his seminar date, he asked for suggestions on which woofer to use.  Looking for something new, I remembered samples we had for resurrecting an old 6.5″ model in our Eclipse line.  Jeff took a few measurements and deemed them excellent candidates and we immediately started the production process.

 The Tweeter next obvious question was: “Which tweeter shall we use?”  I offered a few suggestions based on popularity and price concerns and Jeff narrowed it down to a Morel unit and a Scan Speak.  The Scan Speak won out, due in some respects that Jeff was already using it in his reference, three-way system at home.

The Design  The network design was pretty straight forward with Jeff settling on acoustic 4th order roll-offs and very good phase tracking.  And, as one would imagine, the design process went smoothly (Jeff had done the complete design before the seminar – to make sure there were no surprises).

The woofers work well in a small, sealed cabinet with system Q around .7.  Those demanding lower bass extension can opt for the larger vented or MLTL design.

The kit – (4-ohm woofer) The kit is available in two forms – a full package that includes everything you need except the cabinet and a Bare Bones kit that includes just the drivers and crossover parts. The photo above shows just one channel.

Here is what you get in the Bare Bones Kit:

• 2 x Scan Speak, D2608/9130, HDS Tweeter
• 2 x Eclipse, W6520R-4  Mid woofer
• 2 x Crossover parts, featuring MDL capacitors and specified inductors -You can choose other brands of capacitors.

This is what is added when you order the Full KIt:

• 2 x Boards and terminals for crossover wiring
• 2 x Choose your input Terminals
• 2 x Color-coded twisted-pair Hookup wire
• 2 x All mounting hardware
• 2 x Dacron Damping material (not pictured)
• Complete plans

Additions or substitutions are welcome.

Got a question?  Feel free to ask or visit the seminar thread at http://diyspeakerforum.com/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=54

Many have asked the difference between the bookshelf design and the MLTL.  Bryan K. had a chance to compare the two and this is his assessment:

” I put together a demo for the Docere bookshelf/MLTL comparison that covered a broad range of music that I believed would highlight potential differences between the two systems.  Honestly, I thought the sonic signature of both systems was identical until we touched on music that dug really deep.

In my demo, the revealing tracks were “Say Something” covered by Pentatonix and “Royals” from Lorde.  Both of these tracks have lower octave information that was noticeably absent from the bookshelf version.

On the bookshelf version, I had my fingers crossed when I notched up the volume on”Royals” but the Eclipse woofer seemed very well behaved for such a brutal track.  I was thoroughly impressed.

At home, I put some more time into these and I stick with my initial impressions.   I favor the MLTL because it works with the types of music I listen to.  If I can have a system that will reproduce a low octave without the aid of a sub, I’m going to prefer it every time.

However, that’s the only difference and if you listen to the types of music that have that characteristic 40Hz roll-off, you’d be hard-pressed to tell the difference between the two systems.

You should hear the Docere MLTL with some Deadmau5 or Infected Mushroom.  There’s a clear winner there, IMO.

 FWIW, if there was going to be any group delay, I suspect that it would really rear its ugly head on any sort of dubstep material.  I’ve not experienced that at all.

The bass is punchy, present, and deep and I’ve had the MLTLs in three different listening spaces in my house. No difference from space to space.  I’ve also beat the living crap out of them and even at high volume, they are clear, revealing, and non-fatiguing.”

Docero Box

Docero MLTL Box