9 replies to this topic

[DaberAudio]

Hey guys, some of you may have seen this at the SSA car audio forum, but I have been advised to post this over here too, and I thought "why the heck not?".



I thought I’d drop a quick line and show you a project I was working on. This is my interpretation of a project I had found online and had found interesting. This is a pretty basic build, nothing too special. All of these pictures are from inside of my house since I needed my amp to make final crossver adjustments if needed. I sold my Thiel CS 2.2's to fund this build. The drivers are: 8” Hi-Vi M8N magnesium/aluminum driver woofer, 3” Dayton dome mid, and Hi-Vi RT-1C planar tweeter.




The crossovers are not yet tweaked and soldered, but you can see the individual boards for the woofers, mids, and tweets. All parts are Jantzen, Dayton, and Mills.



The cabinets are pretty sweet, though I cannot take credit for them completely. These are actually pretty high quality prefabs. That's not to say that I don't have to make some minor modifications I have to port the rears still and install the binding posts. The front baffles are in need of another coat or paint. The router marred them and you can see the natural MDFs color around the sides of the mid (which is really only about 1/64th of an inch gap.)



Thought you guys might find this interesting - more to come

[DaberAudio]

put the binding posts in and soldered the connections. They don't look bad, but they don't look that great either. However, they are on the rear of the speaker and if anyone ever even sees it I will be surprised (except for on here I guess).


Here is the port. It's a basic flared port, nothing fancy. Sounds good though! No detectable turbulence without overdriving the woofer.

Oh look, a tweeter.


Pictures of the completed speakers. They are dusty, I have not polished them yet.






I have stands for these but they are at a machine shop being shortened. They are 24 inch stands but are WAY too tall for these speakers. I'm having 11 inches taken off. I will take more pictures when I get the stands back tomorrow.

I will also dig out some Tympanist pictures, and a recent $1,000 restoration on a pair of Acoustic Research AR-3a speakers. Yes, you read the correctly.....a thousand dollar resto mod to a pair of AR-3s.

[DaberAudio]

Alright , stands are cut, refitted, and lead filled. I have an estimated 20 hours of listening/break in time on them. I am shocked, awed, and absolutely blown away. They are not bass monsters, but for most listening needs I do not need my subwoofer. The imaging is breathtaking, precise is the only way to describe it. The sound stage is HUGE, both in height and width. Accuracy is top rate. Well recorded live instruments take on an eerie realism that gives me chills.

I torture my friends and family with speakers. Every time I build something, buy something, or repair something we test it out. This time has been great. I have a track I start off with that is all live jazz horns. It starts out the same with these every time. - their eyes narrow, then they begin to smirk, and then they get a shit eating grin on their head and usually look at me and say "oh my GOD". I then move on to things they are more familiar with. Oh well, enough rambling, I know you only came here for pics anyway

[nem]

Nice build!

[Deephaven]

You ever go to Iowa DIY? I am in Mpls and thinking about it again this year.

[DaberAudio]

Deephaven, on 08 March 2010 - 11:55 PM, said:

You ever go to Iowa DIY? I am in Mpls and thinking about it again this year.

No, I have never done it. I have thought about it. The concept of a DIY home audio competition is something I always thought would be fun. When I was in to SPL competition I never shyed away because I knew what numbers my systems put up and the microphone was not subjective. I would consider doing it. When is it this year?

[turdburst]

Very Nice build. Was the whole system a pre designed system or was it just the enclosure that was pre-fabricated? Either way awesome speakers. I love those stands.

[DaberAudio]

todd.brust, on 09 March 2010 - 11:56 AM, said:

Very Nice build. Was the whole system a pre designed system or was it just the enclosure that was pre-fabricated? Either way awesome speakers. I love those stands.

The enclosure was prefab. There is a similar project on the internet that inspired this one. I modified some of the xover topology, tuned the port differently, didn't use the rear tweeter, etc. I can't take credit for the whole thing. It's about 50% original. I wish I could say it was all me but that would be a lie.

I was going to build an MTM tower using Usher drivers and the acoustic equivalent to my "Tympanist" subwoofer integrated in to each cabinet, but the build was ultra expensive and the wife was frowning upon it so I went small.

[Deephaven]

DaberAudio, on 09 March 2010 - 09:31 AM, said:

Deephaven, on 08 March 2010 - 11:55 PM, said:

You ever go to Iowa DIY? I am in Mpls and thinking about it again this year.

No, I have never done it. I have thought about it. The concept of a DIY home audio competition is something I always thought would be fun. When I was in to SPL competition I never shyed away because I knew what numbers my systems put up and the microphone was not subjective. I would consider doing it. When is it this year?

Almost always in October, hasn't been announced yet. More of a gathering than a competition, but listening "judging" is included.

[sandt38]

I have never listened to any small planar tweeters, but have heard some 3 foot planars on some high end gear. I really liked how effortless and airy they sounded, and they imaged amazingly... but with 3 feet of tweeter you expect such imaging, and with all that surface area they had best sound effortless .

I was wondering what you thought about the smaller planars. I have contemplated using some in some builds but I just have not found the balls to actually buy some and use them. I have a project now I am planning on doing for myself, and I may be willing to give them a go. But I am interested in your take on them.