First build - miniOnken

[matherp]

Hi all

I've been inspired by the site to get back into DIY HiFi after many many years. I decided to build a pair on miniOnkens for my son as a Christmas present but when I got into the build I realised they were bigger than I'd expected and he lives in a very small cottage so I built him a pair of uFonkens (forgot to photograph them) and completed the miniOnkens for myself - both currently using standard drivers.

I'm just amazed at the performance of both speakers. The uFonkens were stunning from first power up. The miniOnkens took a few hours and additional accoustic wadding in the boxes before they came into their own.

I'm driving the miniOnkens with one of the Sure TK2050 Class-D Audio Amplifier boards and 350W SMPS Meanwell supply. Music source is FLAC files played through a Aune DAC.

The speakers are great but what is extra-ordinary is the comparison of music played from the PC and DAC rather than through the CD player. The speakers originally seemed a bit muddy compared to my existing shop bought ones (BLQ) when sourced from the CD player. But when I switched the source to the DAC the music really seemed to expand and the speakers took on a whole new life totally outperforming the BLQs.

The speakers were built with 12mm MDF but with all the joints routed so that the internal panels were positively located and the outer box joined with stepped overlaps. Then it was cheap mahogony veneer to complete them. I did just remember to paint the ports matt black before gluing up the boxes!

Anyway thanks to Dave for making these designs available to us all. Next time I'll try his modded drivers although I'm so blown away with the performance of these as-is it will be fascinating to see how they can be improved further.

Happy New Year to all

Peter

[mgrabow]

Nice job. I like the look and your veneer selection...

Mark

www.pirateacoustics.net

[planet10]

Those look very nice. Glad you like them.

Your miniOnken hasve the same veneer as my personal Fonkens ,,,

dave

[doorman]

Very nice build!
I like that you've flush-mounted the drivers--
Don

[InclinedPlane]

Are those Usher bass drivers on your Pillage, mgrabow? I've wanted to try those.

[Geek]

Beautiful!

Dave's Onken (Donken? ) family are fantastic performers.

Cheers!

[matherp]

Guys - thanks for the compliments.

Next job is to weld up some speaker stands.

I'm thinking 200mm x 250mm x 4mm steel plates top and bottom of a single 300mm long piece of 40mm x 80mm x 3mm box section filled with sand. Speakers to sit on gel pads and the bottom plates tapped at the corners for M8 spikes. Any comments?

Best regards

Peter