Electronics Beginning of some DIY speakers ***DONE!***

Glued together, and everything sanded smooth, true and square. Ready for tung oil application.









Brendan

 

June 9
-First coat of tung oil put on (seems kinda blotchy, but that disappears when sunlight shines on them), binding posts and port tube secured in enclosure, pics coming in a sec when I complete the front baffle tonight.

Brendan

 

hey the enclosures/cases are looking really good! but how are you attaching the front? i cant see a lip or anything?

 

I'm attaching stop blocks to the interior of the enclosure.

June 11
-Drilled my tweeter holes, drum sanded them, did some manual sanding after. It turns out 120 grit sandpaper with a tiny jar of Tamiya model paint fills up the tweeter hole EXACTLY. A bit of sanding, and I was left with some perfect holes. One thing I don't like about the Dayton tweeters is that the body is slightly flared, so it makes it harder to get the actual diameter. Also, tweeter recesses on the back completed an holes for drivers drilled. Second coat of oil put on, but no pics of that.













Brendan

 

99% DONE!

June 13, 2008
-Finally :B Still have to glue the cleats in, you can probably see the baffles are not fixed yet. First impressions: Alot of bass, hmmm, how to fix this? Will dampening improve this, as I didn't put any yet...and will sealing in the baffle decrease the muddiness?





The finish looks spectacular in sunlight, but looks like crap under regular indoor lights. The tung oil adds alot of depth to the wood.

Brendan

 

Making your own speakers is a big thing to undertake, finish looks great to me.

However id have no idea how to control the sound for less bass etc, theres soooo many variables there to consider.

 

What audio source are you using? Portable media players tend to have pretty aggressive bass to compensate for crap headphones. (basically making it sound crap whatever you use).

 

I just realized I had my Sansa's EQ on to compensate for my bass-less IEM, tweaked it a bit, and it sounds pretty good now. Just need to trim the port length and seal the woofer in.

 

man you must of put in a lot of work to get that finish! all my speaker enclosures are covered in something like PA carpet! lol. are these tuned?

 

amazing! i want a pair =)

 

I thought you where going to use a darker stain. Natural with tung oil is still good.

 

I just realized I didn't finish my log...stupid me. The following pictures are a couple months old....sorta like a look back in time LOL. Finished assembling the dampening that will go in the speakers. Zaph's plans called for some Sonic Barrier...but ever the cheap-ass, I decided to use a mixture of carpet padding with two different densities, similar to the 3-layer approach. For the back and the top I layered two pieces of chopped foam padding with some denser open-celled padding to create a 1 1/4" pad. The sides and bottom were covered in a pad consisting of two sheets of chopped-foam. My homemade approach worked relatively well...absorbed the unnecessary bass frequencies and tamed down the muddiness...which left me with a pair of pretty balanced and neutral bookshelf speakers.


General shot of dampening.


2-layer stuff.


1-layer.


Best spray adhesive for open-celled foam...impossible to tear apart bond...foam rips first.


Back and top done.


Closeup.


Current source (rockboxed Sansa with attenuator and JBL Power 20)


Angle shot (temporarily home)


Another angle shot (temporarily home)


Beauty shot (temporarily home)


Living on my desk for the time being.

I know I should get some stands...believe me, it's in the works...plans are to get a couple of cinder blocks and glue them end to end so that they make a column. Seal, then paint them, install some spikes at the bottom, and voila...homemade 'dead' stands. I hoped you enjoyed this thread...pretty rewarding and satisfying.

Brendan

 

haha its MD! I was pleasantly surprised to see the woodshop again =P

that a nice pair of speakers! Quality woodworking
Damn I just made a cheap firewood speaker from the comm tech class back then should've made a good MDF one when I had the chance... if only I took woodworking too And you even made a pair!

Patterson must be proud =D

though I can't believe you actually just glued the xover together. Don't they fall off from the weight? At least its neatly layout though.

Damn... I'm jealous makes me itching to make a real one now...

 

Hehe, not from Patterson...made it for Hughes...didn't take electronics...shoulda though. Had to stomach the costs for this myself, but seeing his turnout, I'll say mine looks better

BTW, I ziptied all of the heavy components to the board, only the resistors and the caps were glued on.

Brendan