I have considered building speakers a couple of time before this one. Previously I’d looked at Troels Gravesen designs, that I know are popular on here, as well as Falcon LS3/5a and CSS kits but each time hadn’t started for one reason or another
I recently read a few reviews for Devore o’Baby and Orangutang speakers which really got my interest and I’d like to hear them but they’re quite pricey and there aren’t any dealers nearby. A few weeks on and the itch won’t go away so I started to think about building something similar instead
I’ve spent a month or two studying the design, as well as the basics of speaker builds and have now taken the plunge, starting the build a week or two ago. I’m hoping to make something that looks good, sounds good and costs around 10% of the original design. I’m under no illusion that what I manage to construct will be as good as the original but if I can achieve these goals I’ll be more than happy
Excuses first, this Is my first build and I have no previous experience of woodwork or electronics so I’m finding this a very enjoyable and rewarding project however there may be breaks in the build at stages of the project whilst I swot up some more on various aspects
The design I came up with is 725mm tall, 430mm wide and 310mm deep, its a ported design with Morel CAT378 tweeters and SEAS A26 10" woofers, the woofer is particularly good for me because the characteristics lend it to being fed the full signal form my amplifier meaning a crossover is only required for the tweeter. The seems to be a relatively simple design and because of the small number of components required the budget for the build stretches to high quality items which will hopefully improve performance
I’ve gone for 18mm baltic birch, cut by my local diy store as I don’t have a table saw. They’re pretty spot on with the measurements I gave them on a cutting plan but the face they pulled when I gave it to them was priceless
I’m constructing the enclosures using glue and dowelling all sides then the front and back baffles to give additional strength and integrity, depending on the results I may also add wood screws to further improve this
So far I’ve got the hang of the doweling using a jig I purchased (along wit ha few other tools for this project) and am pretty happy with the accuracy so far
I’ve bought the ports and speaker terminal plates in order to cut the holes for these before final construction of the cabinets
Hopefully the drivers will arrive next week, that will allow me to cut the front baffle for these and get on wit the final bits of construction before turning to the crossovers
The cabinets will be braced with some 2x1 but not with a cross cabinet brace, in order to have something similar to the original inspiration and then a small amount of acoustic damping will be added to the back baffle only
The crossover design I have seems relatively straight forwards though I haven’t done anything like this before I think it should be straightforwards enough however I’m using 4 binding posts and will go straight t the woofer then have the crossover feeding the tweeter as more of a filter. I think this is the right way to do this but am open to further suggestions here, as well as the intricacies of making the connections from binding post>crossover>driver
After that, and once I’ve tested the speakers I’d like to veneer the cabinets, at the moment I’m thinking black ash for the sides and rear but with something more interesting on the front baffle
Any thoughts, ideas or suggestions for the build are welcome and if anyone else was thinking of having a go but putting it off from lack or experience I highly recommend giving it a go as its a most enjoyable project, so far…