Hi again terry, nice to read about the progress.I Can hardly wait to hear about the end result with pics of course.
I wish I could get up for the Bathurst do,but to many things happenning around that time.
Oh yea, sorry about the bracing thing.haha!
I'm sure you'll understand thats its worthwhile though..
I wish I could get up for the Bathurst do,but to many things happenning around that time.
Oh yea, sorry about the bracing thing.haha!
I'm sure you'll understand thats its worthwhile though..
thanks for the comments so far guys.
doogy, tah mate.
Things are a bit slow at the moment...including the internet!! The missus takes all our past phone bills.net usages whatever into the 'big provider' in aus, seems shes a bit jacked off with the old company we were using.
So they look at it and put us on 'plan b' or whatever it is, one that allows us our accustomed levels of usage.
This was, what three/four weeks ago?? (I mentioned earlier in the thread that I'd been offline and so got more work done, that was the changeover).
So four days ago we get a message from the new provider that we have exceeded our limit!!! After three weeks or whatever.
AND they were going to charge us $1000 as a result!!!!!
AND because (I assume) we have exceeded our limit the internet connection is at a crawl (suppose they hobble it)...how about two minutes to load a page??? (and that is with turning off pictures in the firefox options)
Customer bloody service eh?
Anyway, steam valve released.
A little progress, but unfortunately I simply HAVE to get this damn bit of antique furniture I'm restoring finished. The one that as it turned out was the inspiration for how to finish the speakers, black gloss with brass highlights.
Hmmm, after all this hard work spose I should post a photo of the finished bookcase. What?? not interested??
Hmmph.
It should be wrapped up pretty much today, so it will free a bit of attention.
Doogs, regarding the rear decoration, well I think I will need it, it might be a bit plain otherwise. Dunno yet. The way I'm thinking of doing the front baffle may fix a lot of that, but still need to do the basic experiments to see how it looks.
If I do go with some brass inlay on the back, it may just be a simple edging type look, a bit like some of the pinstriping you see done on big truck rigs type of thing. Hard to explain, but that may give a little idea.
Anyway, not heaps of progress, and trust me, there is NO WAY I would even attempt to upload pictures etc with my connection the way it is at the moment!!
So it may be a few days before any updates occur.
doogy, tah mate.
Things are a bit slow at the moment...including the internet!! The missus takes all our past phone bills.net usages whatever into the 'big provider' in aus, seems shes a bit jacked off with the old company we were using.
So they look at it and put us on 'plan b' or whatever it is, one that allows us our accustomed levels of usage.
This was, what three/four weeks ago?? (I mentioned earlier in the thread that I'd been offline and so got more work done, that was the changeover).
So four days ago we get a message from the new provider that we have exceeded our limit!!! After three weeks or whatever.
AND they were going to charge us $1000 as a result!!!!!
AND because (I assume) we have exceeded our limit the internet connection is at a crawl (suppose they hobble it)...how about two minutes to load a page??? (and that is with turning off pictures in the firefox options)
Customer bloody service eh?
Anyway, steam valve released.
A little progress, but unfortunately I simply HAVE to get this damn bit of antique furniture I'm restoring finished. The one that as it turned out was the inspiration for how to finish the speakers, black gloss with brass highlights.
Hmmm, after all this hard work spose I should post a photo of the finished bookcase. What?? not interested??
Hmmph.
It should be wrapped up pretty much today, so it will free a bit of attention.
Doogs, regarding the rear decoration, well I think I will need it, it might be a bit plain otherwise. Dunno yet. The way I'm thinking of doing the front baffle may fix a lot of that, but still need to do the basic experiments to see how it looks.
If I do go with some brass inlay on the back, it may just be a simple edging type look, a bit like some of the pinstriping you see done on big truck rigs type of thing. Hard to explain, but that may give a little idea.
Anyway, not heaps of progress, and trust me, there is NO WAY I would even attempt to upload pictures etc with my connection the way it is at the moment!!
So it may be a few days before any updates occur.
ahh yes Rob, but the problem as I see it is that an update would tend to imply that some poor lazy bugger has gotten off of his poor lazy **** and actually done something that would actually be an update.....
the simple truth is that (desperately trying to come up with reasonable reasons why) I haven't had the time to do anything in the last few weeks.
the good news?? even I am starting to get itchy and realise I'd better pull a finger out and get back into it. It won't be before the new year tho, but I can just sense it's gonna be soon!
the simple truth is that (desperately trying to come up with reasonable reasons why) I haven't had the time to do anything in the last few weeks.
the good news?? even I am starting to get itchy and realise I'd better pull a finger out and get back into it. It won't be before the new year tho, but I can just sense it's gonna be soon!
Finished?? now please what is this term "FINISHED"
Nothing is ever finished when DIY is concerned, theres almost good, almost good enough, waiting to start something better, maybe if I*****??????
But "**Finished***"
Yes! Terry more pictures please, more comments and lots more inspiration, I like to point to your woofers and say to the boss 'You see that! Thats a woofer'
Regards
Ted
Nothing is ever finished when DIY is concerned, theres almost good, almost good enough, waiting to start something better, maybe if I*****??????
But "**Finished***"
Yes! Terry more pictures please, more comments and lots more inspiration, I like to point to your woofers and say to the boss 'You see that! Thats a woofer'
Regards
Ted
I have been re-enthused!
Ok hold ups to date. I changed the tweeter to the scan speak radiator. Funnily enough the major improvement has been in the are of intelligibilty. Have lost a little ambience, but am willing to put up with that.
I needed to do these last minute driver decisions before finalising the baffle of course.
I though it prudent to also try a few different mid drivers, and will start on that round of auditioning soon.
Anyway, I fully admit to being a thief when it comes to the following finishing idea/technique.
I had always known that the make or break of this would be how the finish came out. I fully intended to veneer the back of the box, and stain it black so that the grain just came out. I did not take a photo of it, but it was a great look.
However, as it is built up in sections the difficulty (esp playing with .75mm veneer) was getting the perfect fit so that no gap appeared between each section horizontally, but also each succeeding section being a perfect flush fit vertically. no room for error then when I use my belt sander with 40 grit to smooth the veneer to match heh heh.
And then had thought that the baffle MAY be able to be covered in leather or vinyl.
Then this thread appeared very recently....http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=140086 and my problem was solved. I fell in love with his look, and thank him that he posted his pics.
No more worrying about how to finish the backs etc.
Next day I went out and bought vinyl etc and started mucking about. It was a bit of an heroic effort getting it stretched and wrinkles removed, but I managed it.
Now my thoughts have been turned around, and will prob have vinyl on the back and veneer on the baffle.
This was just a test run to see if I could finally get it smoothly wrapped (was convinced for a while that it was impossible) so don't worry about the little bumps that might show under the vinyl, that was just tape to hold the boxes together as one unit (not glued yet)
I will be putting some closed cell foam under the vinyl when I do it, this is just vinyl direct on to the box.
Ok hold ups to date. I changed the tweeter to the scan speak radiator. Funnily enough the major improvement has been in the are of intelligibilty. Have lost a little ambience, but am willing to put up with that.
I needed to do these last minute driver decisions before finalising the baffle of course.
I though it prudent to also try a few different mid drivers, and will start on that round of auditioning soon.
Anyway, I fully admit to being a thief when it comes to the following finishing idea/technique.
I had always known that the make or break of this would be how the finish came out. I fully intended to veneer the back of the box, and stain it black so that the grain just came out. I did not take a photo of it, but it was a great look.
However, as it is built up in sections the difficulty (esp playing with .75mm veneer) was getting the perfect fit so that no gap appeared between each section horizontally, but also each succeeding section being a perfect flush fit vertically. no room for error then when I use my belt sander with 40 grit to smooth the veneer to match heh heh.
And then had thought that the baffle MAY be able to be covered in leather or vinyl.
Then this thread appeared very recently....http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=140086 and my problem was solved. I fell in love with his look, and thank him that he posted his pics.
No more worrying about how to finish the backs etc.
Next day I went out and bought vinyl etc and started mucking about. It was a bit of an heroic effort getting it stretched and wrinkles removed, but I managed it.
Now my thoughts have been turned around, and will prob have vinyl on the back and veneer on the baffle.
This was just a test run to see if I could finally get it smoothly wrapped (was convinced for a while that it was impossible) so don't worry about the little bumps that might show under the vinyl, that was just tape to hold the boxes together as one unit (not glued yet)
I will be putting some closed cell foam under the vinyl when I do it, this is just vinyl direct on to the box.
well a bit of progress finally.
let's see...I have wrapped the boxes in the vinyl, underneath I used 5mm or so foam stuff. So the vinyl has a tough yet spongy feel to it. VERY tactile. Makes you want to caress it mmmmm, vinyl (homer voice) Feel I could have a vinyl fetish I hadn't realised before, the shape of the boxes (oh mama!) does not help either I think.
My shrink did warn me what might happen if I skipped too many sessions...think he's right
Ok, any probs with doing that? Not really, the vinyl does seem to have more stretch than you'd initially think, just take your time and gradually tug out the wrinkles.
However, when you stretch the vinyl over a hard edge, due to the compressibility of the underlying foam, you end up with a rounded over edge. Not bad as such, but if two rounded over edges were to meet there is a pronounced joint, if that makes sense.
So all I did to ameliorate that was to add a three mm mdf piece sized to the foam, so the vinyl sits on the foam basically everywhere except for the three mm at the edge, and you end up with a hard flat (uncompressed) termination. Make sense??
The next aesthetic hurdle was the baffle. I originally was going to do some sort of avalon rip off, big deep bevels. Just didn't work, mainly cause the 18 really dictated what could and couldn't be done.
So I just ended up using the box shape (frontal) and duplicated that in 12 mm mdf. I set back by roughly 6mm all round and then built up the baffle to the depth, was gonna do something like 75mm (helped me gain more volume) but it became apparent that 75 would have been too deep, ended up with around 60 I think (three layers of 16mm plus the original 12)
That built up slightly reduced baffle was then fixed to the 12 back plate, and the edges of the built up was rounded over with the biggest roundover bit I could get (19mm). I then simply bogged and scraped from the 12mm backplate to where it met the roundover.
If it is not too small, you should be able to see what I meant.
I did not want to do the same all round the baffle, and also as I intend to veneer the baffle it would have been very hard to get the longwise grain of the veneer to follow such a radius. So I went for a straight cut from the bottom, and echoed ( at a lesser angle) such a cut at the top. That should also be evident in that shot.
Of course the top plate is also veneered with black stained mahogany
Anyway, it is a lot easier to veneer a flat surface to an edge and be able to meet the next section of veneer at that hard edge, and the veneer can easily fold over the other rounded edges lengthwise (as the grain is going in the right direction)
The big question is, does it work in looks??? The top and bottom kinda look funny, yet I also feel that a lot of that is to do with the fact that the bog looks different from the mdf, ie an optical illusion if you will.
The veneer will be stained dark black and then finished, and so be in keeping with the vinyl and also the entire baffle will 'look the same'.
But I don't want to do that if it still looks 'odd' at the end of the day. Funnily enough, the missus reckons it looks great and does not share my concern that it does not quite look right ATM.
The baffles (just the way it came about) will be fully removable, have to bolt them on from the inside (at least I have an opening big enough to take an 18) The biggest concern with having it bolt on is of course getting a good seal. (gluing I felt to be a bit problematic, with the stapled vinyl etc not really giving the flat surface we would normally glue to)
I also used a 1.5 mm thick rubber strip on the back of the baffle, and cut in about 6mm. Than means the baffle 'sits off' the box by that 1.5mm thickness, think it's called a 'shadow line.' Dunno if that will come out in the pics, but it helps the eye adjust/compensate for any unevenness etc between the two mating faces.
If I cannot get a good seal (will use 25mm hard yet compressable rubberish stuff, should hopefully be able to bolt it hard enough to sufficiently compress that hard foam to get the seal) then I will just have to work out another solution.
So, comments good or bad (feel free to let rip) on whether the flat cuts at the top and bottom 'work'. As I say I am a bit 50/50 on it, yet feel having it homogenous should make a big difference.
Let's face it, if I'm gonna change NOW is the time yeah?
let's see...I have wrapped the boxes in the vinyl, underneath I used 5mm or so foam stuff. So the vinyl has a tough yet spongy feel to it. VERY tactile. Makes you want to caress it mmmmm, vinyl (homer voice) Feel I could have a vinyl fetish I hadn't realised before, the shape of the boxes (oh mama!) does not help either I think.
My shrink did warn me what might happen if I skipped too many sessions...think he's right
Ok, any probs with doing that? Not really, the vinyl does seem to have more stretch than you'd initially think, just take your time and gradually tug out the wrinkles.
However, when you stretch the vinyl over a hard edge, due to the compressibility of the underlying foam, you end up with a rounded over edge. Not bad as such, but if two rounded over edges were to meet there is a pronounced joint, if that makes sense.
So all I did to ameliorate that was to add a three mm mdf piece sized to the foam, so the vinyl sits on the foam basically everywhere except for the three mm at the edge, and you end up with a hard flat (uncompressed) termination. Make sense??
The next aesthetic hurdle was the baffle. I originally was going to do some sort of avalon rip off, big deep bevels. Just didn't work, mainly cause the 18 really dictated what could and couldn't be done.
So I just ended up using the box shape (frontal) and duplicated that in 12 mm mdf. I set back by roughly 6mm all round and then built up the baffle to the depth, was gonna do something like 75mm (helped me gain more volume) but it became apparent that 75 would have been too deep, ended up with around 60 I think (three layers of 16mm plus the original 12)
That built up slightly reduced baffle was then fixed to the 12 back plate, and the edges of the built up was rounded over with the biggest roundover bit I could get (19mm). I then simply bogged and scraped from the 12mm backplate to where it met the roundover.
If it is not too small, you should be able to see what I meant.
I did not want to do the same all round the baffle, and also as I intend to veneer the baffle it would have been very hard to get the longwise grain of the veneer to follow such a radius. So I went for a straight cut from the bottom, and echoed ( at a lesser angle) such a cut at the top. That should also be evident in that shot.
Of course the top plate is also veneered with black stained mahogany
Anyway, it is a lot easier to veneer a flat surface to an edge and be able to meet the next section of veneer at that hard edge, and the veneer can easily fold over the other rounded edges lengthwise (as the grain is going in the right direction)
The big question is, does it work in looks??? The top and bottom kinda look funny, yet I also feel that a lot of that is to do with the fact that the bog looks different from the mdf, ie an optical illusion if you will.
The veneer will be stained dark black and then finished, and so be in keeping with the vinyl and also the entire baffle will 'look the same'.
But I don't want to do that if it still looks 'odd' at the end of the day. Funnily enough, the missus reckons it looks great and does not share my concern that it does not quite look right ATM.
The baffles (just the way it came about) will be fully removable, have to bolt them on from the inside (at least I have an opening big enough to take an 18) The biggest concern with having it bolt on is of course getting a good seal. (gluing I felt to be a bit problematic, with the stapled vinyl etc not really giving the flat surface we would normally glue to)
I also used a 1.5 mm thick rubber strip on the back of the baffle, and cut in about 6mm. Than means the baffle 'sits off' the box by that 1.5mm thickness, think it's called a 'shadow line.' Dunno if that will come out in the pics, but it helps the eye adjust/compensate for any unevenness etc between the two mating faces.
If I cannot get a good seal (will use 25mm hard yet compressable rubberish stuff, should hopefully be able to bolt it hard enough to sufficiently compress that hard foam to get the seal) then I will just have to work out another solution.
So, comments good or bad (feel free to let rip) on whether the flat cuts at the top and bottom 'work'. As I say I am a bit 50/50 on it, yet feel having it homogenous should make a big difference.
Let's face it, if I'm gonna change NOW is the time yeah?
terry j said:Makes you want to caress it mmmmm, vinyl (homer voice) Feel I could have a vinyl fetish I hadn't realised before, the shape of the boxes (oh mama!) does not help either I think.
My shrink did warn me what might happen if I skipped too many sessions...think he's right
LOL
Looks much better with the foam. Are you happy with the pleather edges at the baffles and top piece so far?
Brett said:
cheers brett. so is that a yes or no on the flat planes, or merely a mehh, do what you want?
That you responded reminded me of something I didn't mention. Since the thread started (and obviously since you heard them) I went on a bit of a 'driver hunt'. Made sense (if I was ever going to) try different drivers before finalising the design. made mention a bit on sna, dunno if you (brett) saw it.
I had the phl 1660 mids at the beginning, and the cabasse tweeter. W/out going into a long story (sigh of relief from all) I now run the phl 1360 as the mids, and a morel tweeter. dunno what tweeter model it is!! has no markings (other than pos and neg). have had them for years, and now for the life of me cannot remember what they are, and no amount of image searching has turned up anything remotely like them.
Am very very happy with the new mids. I have had these laying around for a few years too, never bothered to try them. had some idea that they would have been 'more of the same', ie same manufacturer etc so no big difference in sound.
hah! did I learn a thing or two. completely different, much much nicer. Same slam and dynamics etc, but much clearer and far less 'dark' if that is a word that can be used when describing drivers.
Soundstage is just massive and all encompassing now, much better than before. Feel like a 'fish in a fish bowl', immersed in the sound (the water) rather than 'watching the sound on a screen before you'.
One last thing I'll try is the ss ring radiator. have tried it before, liked it yet always had to cut it back a db or two (don't find the need to do that with the morel) It had exceptional vocal intelligibilty tho, but with a slight loss of ambience.
Funny story, and apropos of your comment this morning re eq being best used in the modal region. I have always been bugged by a slight screechiness with the old setup, when it became apparent on a recording I used to handle with the remote eq on the deqx. Since changing the mid that has dissappeared mostly, yet at times was still there.
It would be easier to explain with room graphs, but I found a great 'trick' with eq. I too had only ever used eq in the bass region, yet had the speakers flat and accurate. 'what you got in the room above the modal region was what you got in the room'. In other words, full range room correction I had a lot of problems with 'intellectually', won't go into them now.
Anyway on a whim (dunno why I tried it, had tried before and not liked the results) yet exploring an 'aha' moment re full range room correction, nuff said that I found a method that DOES correct above the modal region, with extremely good results.
The funny part of the story? I said earlier I used to use the eq, to cut back the 'offending highs/peaks'. That worked to whatever degree, but the actual solution was to boost the dips (caused by the room-the speakers are already accurate remember) at the lp!
I now have a flat in room response all the way till the natural hi end roll off (about 7k from memory). Due to my bad reactions to the 'harsh high frequencies' I used to look with suspicion at 'flat' in room responses, feeling they would have been too bright for my ears. No, it only felt bright because the balancing low frequencies were missing (room), not because there was an excess of the highs.
Dunno if that made sense, would be a lot clearer if/when I post graphs (if there is any interest)
So,back to the ss ring radiator, I may find that I will no longer 'need' to cut them back a db or two, due to what I have since found re full range room correction. If I still find that increased intelligibility (even at a slight loss of ambience..the new mids have given that in spades) then I will prob pop for them
So, I too look forward to when you see them, but also hear them as except for the bass driver they are a totally different (and much better) animal.
infinia said:
LOL
Looks much better with the foam. Are you happy with the pleather edges at the baffles and top piece so far?
Yes
yes, already told you
YES!!!
(ahh, see you removed the duplicate posts, joke doesn't work if they're gone)
ha ha, well maybe not yes. not quite sure what you meant..but if you're asking does the vinyl work when folding over the front (bottom, top etc) then yeah, it looks fantastic.
My only aesthetic concern atm is whether or not the sloping top and bottom works.
rounding corner, final stretch beckons
so where were we last time?
have made a few adjustments to the baffle, and decided on the roundover vs the bevel.
I think the last pic had a sort of lip at the top (between the top plate and the baffle), have moved the slope of the baffle up higher and incorporated it into the top plate, and the very steep slope on the bottom of the baffle has gone, is now the same slope as the top.
This method of construction allows me to remove the baffle at will, tho wonder if that would ever be required. I bolt the baffle on rather than glue it. That has mainly come about because of the stapling of the vinyl, it's quite hard to attach the baffle and hold it there whilst glue goes off. So there is by default a 'joint' between the baffle itself and the top plate
some of the holes that hold the bass driver are blind holes, as they fall on the edge of the baffle. That meant I was unable to use t-nuts from behind (or whatever they're called, the ones with the teeth that bind into the wood when you tighten the bolts)
I got around that by using gyprock fasteners, drilled a largish hole (but with enough left for the screw to bite into) and held in place with araldite. I then drilled the fastener out with the tapping size bit, and tapped the hole with a 6mm tap. I can then use hex head bolts to hold the drivers in place. Have never had any problems with wood screws, but this looks a bit more professional.
You can see the fast approaching finished look, and can make out the sanding marks where I have bogged over and smoothed the tapped holes
and a shot showing more of the rear
Sooooo, I am now up to veneering the front baffle.
It is hard to get a good shot, showing both the shine finish and a good representation of the colour, but for now this should suffice
african mahogany, stained black then six or so coats of tung oil (light sanding etc between coats), then buffed with ajax no less!, then finally waxed.
Ok, wonder if I can get it done before the anniversary of the first post in this thread!!
just kidding, (famous last words) it's all downhill from here.
so where were we last time?
have made a few adjustments to the baffle, and decided on the roundover vs the bevel.
I think the last pic had a sort of lip at the top (between the top plate and the baffle), have moved the slope of the baffle up higher and incorporated it into the top plate, and the very steep slope on the bottom of the baffle has gone, is now the same slope as the top.
This method of construction allows me to remove the baffle at will, tho wonder if that would ever be required. I bolt the baffle on rather than glue it. That has mainly come about because of the stapling of the vinyl, it's quite hard to attach the baffle and hold it there whilst glue goes off. So there is by default a 'joint' between the baffle itself and the top plate
some of the holes that hold the bass driver are blind holes, as they fall on the edge of the baffle. That meant I was unable to use t-nuts from behind (or whatever they're called, the ones with the teeth that bind into the wood when you tighten the bolts)
I got around that by using gyprock fasteners, drilled a largish hole (but with enough left for the screw to bite into) and held in place with araldite. I then drilled the fastener out with the tapping size bit, and tapped the hole with a 6mm tap. I can then use hex head bolts to hold the drivers in place. Have never had any problems with wood screws, but this looks a bit more professional.
You can see the fast approaching finished look, and can make out the sanding marks where I have bogged over and smoothed the tapped holes
and a shot showing more of the rear
Sooooo, I am now up to veneering the front baffle.
It is hard to get a good shot, showing both the shine finish and a good representation of the colour, but for now this should suffice
african mahogany, stained black then six or so coats of tung oil (light sanding etc between coats), then buffed with ajax no less!, then finally waxed.
Ok, wonder if I can get it done before the anniversary of the first post in this thread!!
just kidding, (famous last words) it's all downhill from here.
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