WinISD

[stewblack]

Is it worth trying to learn winisd or do you need multiple degrees in astro navigation to even open the programme? 

Would someone educated all the way up to CSE Home Economics and O Level grade U in Physics be able to drive it? 

It has slowly dawned upon me how important all this stuff is in getting the best from my gear but a little knowledge is a dangerous thing and all that. 

[Balcro]

Your starter for 10.

 

It's not that difficult. If you can calculate the internal volume of a speaker cabinet (HxWxD) you're part of the way there. It's mainly of use if your choosing or replacing a speaker drive unit in a existing cabinet or if you're building your own loudspeaker from scratch.

Download the latest version 0.7.950  directly from here : -  linearteam.org

Install and start the program.

The program needs you to enter the Thiele / Small Parameters which you can find on nearly every manufacturers web-site.

For example: https://faitalpro.com/en/products/LF_Loudspeakers/product_details/index.php?id=101060100

These go into a "Parameters" dialog box / panel on the program and are saved into a database of "drivers"

You start by creating a "NEW" (White Icon) project - select / highlight  the Manufacturer or Brand, double click to reveal individual drivers.

Select ADD NEW. The driver for which you entered the data e.g as above.
When the dialog box appears click on the "Parameters" Tab.

Enter the values for Qes, Qms VAS, Mms, Cms, Re, Le, Xmax, Pe(rated power in watts) and Znom (Impedance - usually 4 or 8 Ohms) into their respective boxes.
 winISD auto-calculates the other details. Be careful to select the right units at the side of the data boxes - click if necessary on the tiny script. Click SAVE & give the data a name. You don't need to understand the meaning of the parameters, you can find that elsewhere if you interested in an academic exercise.

Return to "Create New Project"  and find the named file that you've just saved. You should see a green bar with the words "integrity checks OK". Click LOAD.
A file manager appears from where you select the driver you want. Click "Open".

Thereafter it's a couple of clicks -

1. Standard placement,
2. Vented or not,
3. Alignment - nearly always QB3
4. Give the project a name
5. Click "create" and winISD produces a graph.

If you click on BOX, it shows you a chosen volume. You can adjust this. If you click on Vents, it shows you the diameter of the ports for a given tuning. Again, this is adjustable.

At the top of the screen there's a sort of Tab called Transfer Function Magnitude; click on that and you get a drop down menu with a number of useful options most of which are easy to understand like Maximum Power. At the bottom left of the screen click on "Signal" and enter the rated RMS or SAE (not program or music-power) power into the box marked as System Input Power (Watts). Then go back and try the options again. Select the Driver, Box or Signal, make your changes & check the graphs again to view the changes.

 After that, it's practice.

[stewblack]

Sorry @Balcro I missed this - thank you so much for the reply.

[Stub Mandrel]

On 16/08/2019 at 14:27, Balcro said:

Your starter for 10.

Wish I'd seen that first! It's a bit less than 100% intuitive. Took me ages to find the transfer function pulldown!

[Phil Starr]

One last tip, open the project twice and change the colour of the second plot. Then when you make changes you can compare the results with the original plot.

Then you can change the volume of the cab and the tuning frequency of the cabinet if you've gone for a ported cab. Win ISD calculates a maximally flat response with good bass extension (sort of) The problem is that you will usually want something more portable than the ideal for frequency response.

You can do the same trick for comparing different drivers in the same cab as all the frequency curves and so on are displayed on a single graph.