Shot of the internals. I built these speakers with scraps of plywood I had lying around. My next build will be 100 percent BB or Apple ply (even better!). Notice all the bracing. The screws holding part F were put in because I felt it would resonate without them. All voids are filled with cat litter. For the CC I decided to use half rounds of dowel. This solved the problem of parallel surfaces. In the end, I still had to add a block of wood 1.25 x 1.25 x 5 inches and two blocks 1.25 x 1.25 x 1 to the CC to get the volume down to where I liked the sound. Notice the small amount of stuffing. That's the only place it really sounded good to me.
When finally finished, the cabinets are completely dead except around the bottom mouth, where they ring slightly when knocked on.
When finally finished, the cabinets are completely dead except around the bottom mouth, where they ring slightly when knocked on.
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gexter said:
Thanks. I've learned over the years that when building something I allocate 50 percent to the actual bulding and 50 percent to finishing. It always seems to work out that way.
The binding posts are the five-ways from Parts Express, $5-6 or so. They are not really recessed, per se. They have the knob part you attach the leads to and then a threaded post through the wood with a nut and plate for the internal wire on the backside. I think it's a 3/16 hole which is all that is needed for mounting them. On the shot of the notch filter, you can see the two ends at the top of the recess in the base.
Doug
wow, very nice. 
you get bass all the way down to 50hz with the 108s? I may have to rethink my driver selection...
I'm slowly building my frugels, I need to buy more clamps so I can have more glue drying at a time. That's my real bottleneck right now.
I quickly threw together the fostex recommended bass reflex boxes for my 126's, as a noob to full-range I'm looking forward to hearing the difference from the BR to the horn.
you get bass all the way down to 50hz with the 108s? I may have to rethink my driver selection...
I'm slowly building my frugels, I need to buy more clamps so I can have more glue drying at a time. That's my real bottleneck right now.
I quickly threw together the fostex recommended bass reflex boxes for my 126's, as a noob to full-range I'm looking forward to hearing the difference from the BR to the horn.
TerryO said:
Hi Terry. Yes, if I can make it, I will bring either these or my next pair to the Vashon meet in August.
planet10 said:
Dave, I was going to send you some better, higher resolution pics this weekend. Do you still want them?
klocwerk said:wow, very nice.
you get bass all the way down to 50hz with the 108s? I may have to rethink my driver selection...
I'm slowly building my frugels, I need to buy more clamps so I can have more glue drying at a time. That's my real bottleneck right now.
I quickly threw together the fostex recommended bass reflex boxes for my 126's, as a noob to full-range I'm looking forward to hearing the difference from the BR to the horn.
Well, there's bass and then there's BASS!!!! If you want BASS!!!!, then these speakers probably wouldn't be the ones. I did some frequency sweeps at 1 meter, and they are only down 6 dB at 50 Hz and still getting measurable levels (i.e., +50 dB) in the 40 and 30 Hz range, but that's all room boost at that frequency. The overall frequency curve is m shaped, with that famous Fostex dip at 1k Hz and rounded humps on either side. I've managed to reduce the dip to about 5 dB but can't get it any less. There are no overt spikes in frequency, though, which I understand are much more critical to remove than dips.
Doug
Scottmoose said:
Thanks Scott. I believe the bracing has added a lot. The speakers will play much louder cleanly now. It's funny, though, when I started AB testing them, I couldn't get the two boxes to sound exactly the same. I discovered that the most minor wave or hump in the wood prevented me from clamping the free side securely. It took ten clamps and two cauls on each speaker to get to a point where both sounded identical to even start the process of tweaking them. After that, things went much more smoothly.
I would like to do a spawn design eventually, but my wife really likes these smaller speakers, so I don't want to push my luck right now
Doug
I've been watching this thread with interest now for a while, knowing that I wanted to try some homemade speakers, but not sure which ones, or which drivers etc...
Anyway, a couple of weeks ago I made the decision to build the frugel-horns. So I duely purchased enough MDF for the job (thought I'd try with that first then move on to the ply if it worked out ok). As it happened, I also had a 1 3/4 inch thick piece of mahogony lying about which I thought would be good to split in two for the fronts.
After a few days of cutting, routering and glueing I had two very nice sturdy cabinets ready for fronts, and veneers, oh and some drivers too. A couple of days later, the cabinets were complete and looking great. The only thing missing was drivers. Now, over the years, I've had a variety of different audio systems, so I can quite happily differentiate between good and bad sounding setups. Given this I decided to try something very different, I had some 5 inch mids and 1 inch tweeters lying around after an expensive car audio install I did last year, so I thought I would see how they would sound in the frugel-horns.
For the source I used a highly modified Micromega Stage 2 driving through a friends NAIM pre and power combo, a know quantity since I've used this setup quite often to test various commerical speakers.
I did this with no idea as to what the frugel-horns with these drivers would sound like, and switched on the system with an open mind..... By all accounts, they shouldn't sound that good, but the sound was sweet and neutral, and not overtly coloured. There was depth, not too much, quite balanced in fact. I listened to a variety of albums, but settled for a while on the Cowboy Junkies - 200 more miles. This is a live album and it totally drew me in. The vocals were tight and crisp, the bass lively, drums fell into place, nothing muddied, it all sounded much better than I could have hoped for, better than some speakers costing upwards of £1000.
The drivers were not cheap, nor were they overly expensive or my usual choice, they were a test, and a surprising one at that. All together, these speakers have cost me about £200 including cables, connectors, drivers, wood etc... and I feel it has been worth it. I intend to live with them for a while to see how they mature.
I'll post some pictures tomorrow.
Anyway, a couple of weeks ago I made the decision to build the frugel-horns. So I duely purchased enough MDF for the job (thought I'd try with that first then move on to the ply if it worked out ok). As it happened, I also had a 1 3/4 inch thick piece of mahogony lying about which I thought would be good to split in two for the fronts.
After a few days of cutting, routering and glueing I had two very nice sturdy cabinets ready for fronts, and veneers, oh and some drivers too. A couple of days later, the cabinets were complete and looking great. The only thing missing was drivers. Now, over the years, I've had a variety of different audio systems, so I can quite happily differentiate between good and bad sounding setups. Given this I decided to try something very different, I had some 5 inch mids and 1 inch tweeters lying around after an expensive car audio install I did last year, so I thought I would see how they would sound in the frugel-horns.
For the source I used a highly modified Micromega Stage 2 driving through a friends NAIM pre and power combo, a know quantity since I've used this setup quite often to test various commerical speakers.
I did this with no idea as to what the frugel-horns with these drivers would sound like, and switched on the system with an open mind..... By all accounts, they shouldn't sound that good, but the sound was sweet and neutral, and not overtly coloured. There was depth, not too much, quite balanced in fact. I listened to a variety of albums, but settled for a while on the Cowboy Junkies - 200 more miles. This is a live album and it totally drew me in. The vocals were tight and crisp, the bass lively, drums fell into place, nothing muddied, it all sounded much better than I could have hoped for, better than some speakers costing upwards of £1000.
The drivers were not cheap, nor were they overly expensive or my usual choice, they were a test, and a surprising one at that. All together, these speakers have cost me about £200 including cables, connectors, drivers, wood etc... and I feel it has been worth it. I intend to live with them for a while to see how they mature.
I'll post some pictures tomorrow.
I will try to get as much information on them as I can, but I have moved a cople of times since I got them, and the original box went ages ago, however, the basics are
* Manufacturer: Kicker
* Woofer (in., cm): 5, 12
* Tweeter (in., mm): 1/2, 13
* Crossover (Hz): 6k
* Impedance (Ohms): 4
* Frequency Response (Hz): 38-20k
* Power (Watts): 45
These were the basic details I wrote down about them at the time.
So now I've spent 24 hours listening to them, I'm still very happy with the sound. I ran through a few frequency range tests last night using a Reference disk supplied by Nakamichi. There are a few obvious peaks around 180Hz, but I think this might be down to compression chamber tuning issues, however, this asside, the spimd was clean and fairly consistent to my ears from 80Hz ish, below that, there was a nice gentle rolloff.
I'm sure they will not be to everyones taste, for some, the thought of using car speakers in this situation is just plain wrong. And if I'm honest, had anybody suggested it to me before I tried it, I would have said it was wrong too.
Over the next few days, I will make adjustments to the compression chamber size and see what effect this has.
I've attached a photo to show how they look.
* Manufacturer: Kicker
* Woofer (in., cm): 5, 12
* Tweeter (in., mm): 1/2, 13
* Crossover (Hz): 6k
* Impedance (Ohms): 4
* Frequency Response (Hz): 38-20k
* Power (Watts): 45
These were the basic details I wrote down about them at the time.
So now I've spent 24 hours listening to them, I'm still very happy with the sound. I ran through a few frequency range tests last night using a Reference disk supplied by Nakamichi. There are a few obvious peaks around 180Hz, but I think this might be down to compression chamber tuning issues, however, this asside, the spimd was clean and fairly consistent to my ears from 80Hz ish, below that, there was a nice gentle rolloff.
I'm sure they will not be to everyones taste, for some, the thought of using car speakers in this situation is just plain wrong. And if I'm honest, had anybody suggested it to me before I tried it, I would have said it was wrong too.
Over the next few days, I will make adjustments to the compression chamber size and see what effect this has.
I've attached a photo to show how they look.
Attachments
Another pic, showing the placement of the banana sockets which are mounted on a pice of mahogony so as not to intrude into the horn passage.
You can also see the original crossovers hanging down below the sockets during testing. These crossovers are really bad, muddy the sound up a lot. The soundstage opened up by miles when I removed them.
You can also see the original crossovers hanging down below the sockets during testing. These crossovers are really bad, muddy the sound up a lot. The soundstage opened up by miles when I removed them.
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CossieGlyn said:
Thanx for the pics. The mounting ring gives them a "gothic" kind of character, but they are a bit over the top.
What comprised the XO? You will need at least a blocking cap on the tweeter.
Nothing wrong with some car speakers. Like any others you just need to pick thru them to find the jewels.
dave
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