finished Cheap Trick CT 227 with Aurasound NS3-193-8A

[Ralphono]

Hello to all,

after learning that much from here, now its time to give you something back and do my contribution to this forum.

I finally finished a pair of CT227 which was developed by Christian Gather and published at KLANG + TON 6/2006, a german diy-magazine. I built it as a birthday present for my sister and she likes the look and the sound - so i see the WAF as given. :-) Since she doesn´t hear music very loud it´s ok that the speakers are beginning to first drop the soundstage and then create distortion at high levels, but for her intended use as TV-speakers for the LCD-panel its really sufficient.

The CT227 uses Aurasound NS3-193-8A full-range drivers to create a response of 50Hz to 16kHz via bassreflex if placed ca. 20cm in front of a wall. You can nicely set the bass level and -sound if you move the speakers away and towards the wall.

Crossover is built from 0,33 mH 1 mm aircore, 0,1 mH 1 mm aircore, 10 uF Elko, 2,2 uF MKP, 3,9 uF MKP, 2,2 Ohm MOX resistor, 22 Ohm Resistor.

The enclosure measures 27,4 x 12,4 x 25,5 cm and was built from 12mm beech plywood. All pieces are rectangular, the bass reflex tube is also made from wood and hidden at the bottom behind the overstanding frontpanel. The surface was 3 times sanded with 120 and 240 sandpaper and finished with beeswax.

One word for the sanding: Beech plywood is extremly hard to treat manually so make shure you have proper equipment like a tapped grinder to make life easier. Although i had only 0.5 to 1mm height to correct, it took me about one day to do this manually. No pain - no gain

At normal listening volume the sound is balanced and clean, soundstage is wide and voices are not glued to the speakers. Those tiny things made me crouch 2 hours over my floor (since i had no stands) being fascinated by the sound of guitars. The bass is very lightfooted and not thick at all, although it plays deeper than you would think. It depends very much to the music material you play, if there´s no bass recorded you won´t hear any. While listening to the synthetic bass of "Trentemoller - moan" a friend said "ok, now put on the new speakers" but they were already playing... my "old" speakers are the EX4 by Intertechnik who have a Seas 20cm bass in 60 liter enclosure. Shurely the CT227 is no groundshaker and not as clean as the EX4 - but it has a beautiful soundstage and it costs 1/10 of it. For my bedroom or as PC speakers it would be perfect.

Check out my pictures!


Ralphono

[Ralphono]

size comparison

*edit*
this pic shows the ct227 fresh sandpapered and without wax on it

[Ralphono]

back and reflex opening

[Ralphono]

top view with wax

Cheers and regards,

Ralphono

[Taperwood]

Nice. I noticed you said they were hooked up to a TV. In my opinion, these are the worlds best cheap TV speakers. Mine are very similar to yours except they are front ported. I built them over a year ago.

Doug

[Ralphono]

Hi Doug,

very beautiful finish on your little ones, i like the black-wood combination and the rounded frontpanel. Looks professional.

the worlds best cheap TV speakers

yes that´s true. I couldn´t find an other speaker in this size with that bass capability, nor at this price. Some years ago i built a floorstanding BR-supported Fostex FE127 that made almost no bass compared to the Aurasounds who are really good value.

It totally cost 44 Euro for each box and 12 Euro for the complete cut wood.

Regards
Ralphono