Any folks still around from the NHT surplus sale days?

[Hibernator]

Howdy y'all,

I'm a little late to the party, but am finally getting around to unpacking the big box of drivers I bought around 2007 from somebody on the East Coast selling on eBay dirt cheap.

Recently I found all the NHT sale threads and Jack Hindley's spreadsheet, so I don't know whether I got lucky and part of the sale or what, but it seems I have the following laying around:

- 10 6.5" Foster woofers from the 3.3 and 2.9
- 10 4 inch shielded drivers, appear to be from AC2 and thus the same as in the 3.3 and 2.9
- 5 tweeters I thought were Superseries tweeters, but they look like the tweeter in my AC1 and have a sticker on the back that reads "050/1 2101 NORWAY".
- 1 NHT 1259 is in the mail right now, and I have 2 new 10 inch NHT woofers (might be VT-2 replacements, but the number is not-11-125-1 so it doesn't match Jack's spreadsheet)


I would like to build myself a 3.3 clone. Since NHT 1259s are a little, umm, "hard to find" and I only have 1, I was thinking of trying to make it more of a 3.3 sat with a single 1259 sub or maybe using the other 10 inch woofers if I can find out a little more about them.


I've seen the VR-3 threads and found the plans for them as well as a (partial?) cabinet drawing for the 3.3 and a XO schematic. I was planning to use a Behringer active XO, because I am a little out of my swimlane when it comes to electronics at the moment.

Has anybody else made a 3.3 or 2.9 mid/high sat and have any advice to offer?

Is there a 2nd page to the 3.3 cabinet schematic? There are references to detail drawings and the various measurements don't all add up (overall height is 48 inches, but I added it up to be 48.883). To be fair, reading schematics isn't my day job and I could be way wrong here. Do the two mid range woofers have separate chambers or share one open volume space (this may be a dumb question to a seasoned speaker builder, sorry if it is)?

If I build the sat/sub config, is the 21 degree angle on the front no longer relevant as long as I simply point the sats at the listening position using the correct angle?

And while helping out could also be offers to take the drivers off my hands and help me clean out my garage, I will have to ever so graciously decline ...

[454Casull]

I bought a plate amp. Still using it.

[SY]

I have a few more drawings than the ones on my website- let me see if I can dig them up and make them public (I was given permission by Jack to do so). Unfortunately, I've moved three times since then...

The 3.3s are superb- you picked a fine speaker to clone.

[Hibernator]

Thank you very much Sy. I emailed you through your website too before I thought about posting here (just FYI).

I've wanted to hear these speakers ever since 1997 when went for the VT-2 setup with surrounds instead of the 3.3s only. Can't complain really though, the VT-2s have served us well and survived 5 cross country moves since 1997.

[rhubarb9999]

Hibernator, you have a PM

[PB2]

Hibernator, you have another PM. I got your PM, and mentioned that I simulated the 3.3 years ago in CALSOD, first taking a guess at the crossover, then updating it when it was made public. I considered cloning them but never did.

I suggested the sub-tower version many years ago so were are thinking along the same lines. You can probably find a modern woofer to use as a sub for the 1259 there is nothing real special about it or you could experiment with slightly lower crossover points and the single 1259 that you have.

I'd agree that canting in the towers should work fine as you mentioned.

I believe that the upper mid used a plastic enclosure from SEAS - not positive about that.

The lower mid was partitioned off from the 1259 space but I'd have to dig to try to determine the correct volume. It should not be very critical.

[Hibernator]

I'm too exhausted to try and recreate the NHT 1259 subwoofer post here tonight, so here is a link to a post with some pics:

http://thecarversite.com/yetanotherf...645#post120645

WARNING --- WARNING --- WARNING

- pix are all bunched at the end, scroll down if you are not in the mood for my possibly incoherent rambling ... :-)

- long read, don't take what I type too seriously, and remember I am doing this for fun

- I learn by understanding my mistakes, not by being told I am wrong. I say this here and will probably repeat it somewhere more visible because I have seen several threads on audio forums and even back in the old newsgroups and mail lists/digests where the new guy is seemingly berated for his plans (sometimes over the top, sometimes it's smart people really trying to help, some times the new guy is really out there, sometimes he just needs a little help here and there and doesn't care his product won't be audiophile quality). This is a can of worms and potential flame topic, so please no insult intended. Instead, I'll come back to me and why it matters:

I want to make a cool sounding speaker with a bunch of drivers I bought years ago. I am not and never will be a professional audio/design engineer. I am OK with making subpar/failed attempts and learning by it along the way. Woodworking is a hobby and keeps me sane after 8-10 hours at the computer at work. It's no big deal to me if I have to do this a few times to get to a final product.

The dream is big: "clone* the NHT 3.3" - if the choice of the word "clone" offends anybody please speak up and tell me what the more appropriate non-offensive term is. How about this: I am building a 3-way sat/sub combo and happen to have the same woofers as used in the NHT 3.3. XO and cabinet schematics are not hard to find, so I'm going to use that loosely as a starting point. "Man, it would be freaking cool if I could get even close to the incredible sound of that commercial product".

The reality is ... well, we'll see. And to me there is a lot of fun in that.

Thanks to some very generous people there is way more information publicly available than you could ever hope for, so the probability of success is way higher than you'd think, even for someone with very little audio experience. I do believe I'll end up with something pretty good.

Pretty good could mean I like/love it (but to a pro it sounds like fingernails on a chessboard), it's a pretty close to the NHT sound for a DIY speaker, or anything in between.

Or I could crash and burn along the way ... but then I have an awesome story to tell about how I had a great vision and failed worse than Charlie Brown flying a kite or kicking a football.

Geting off the soap box now... toys calling my name from the garage workshop ...

[Hibernator]

Testing file attachments.

-----

edit: wow, that was easy.

Pic shows dry fit of woofer and front baffle. Glueing interior braces and front tonight.

[SY]

I found a few more of the drawings for the NHT box. I'll have them up later today.

[PB2]

Here are links to SY's page on the 3.3 and thread:
http://syclotron.com/?p=160

NHT 3.3 Modifications