Looking to build cheap, efficient, good sounding floorstanding speakers - the results

[tool49]

First of all, I'd like to thank everyone who contributed in the original thread. Every bit of help has been greatly appreciated.

I've completed the first pair just in time for the Christmas party and they turned out great! I've analyzed them a bit and they're surprisingly well behaved.

Compared to my previous speakers, they are way better. I'll probably fiddle with the crossover sometime in the future, but until I get some good crossover software, they'll do the job. I went for a simple Linkwitz-Riley second order crossover fixed at 3500Hz.

At $200CAN the pair, they are definitely the speakers with the best price/performance ratio I've seen.

Are they Hi-Fi? Most definitely not! Do they sound good? You bet they do! Are they efficient enough for a 20W Gain Clone? Of course; with an average of 5W, they fill the whole room effortlessly (my listening room is quite big at 19'x29'x7').

My microphone being rather cheap, it might not be all that realistic, but I measured the F3 points to be at 32Hz and 24500Hz which is more than acceptable and make them perfect for use without a sub, even in a HT setup. Since they'll be used primarily for music, this also makes them quite good for electronic/techno music, where bass is often in the 30-50hz range.

I will apply a layer of birch veneer in the coming weeks, but for now, they're still on the raw MDF. For the face plate, I was thinking of adding another 1” layer of birch, would that be a good idea?

The base construction is of ¾" thick MDF, fully glued. I've braced them with different depth/height making sure that every brace was not placed at a multiple of another. They are quite silent cabinets. They weight just a little over 65 pounds each and that will probably go up to 90 if I add the birch faceplate.


The first cabinets I built were too big; at 130L they were impossible to fit anywhere. So I lowered their internal volume to 60L and pushed the tuning frequency to 34Hz instead of 30Hz. I tried not to vent them and the sound of these speakers in sealed configuration was to lean in bass for my tastes. So I simply added a front loaded port. (On the right are the previous 130L/105 pounds behemoth and on the left, the sweet little ones)


Overall I'm very satisfied with the experience of building my own speakers and this, being my first project, it went quite well. They are definitely not my last pair of homemade speakers.

Here's one last picture of the speakers powered by my homemade SS 300W amp. (As you can see, the volume is at 9 o'clock and the speakers are pounding)


Well enough babbling for now!
Sébastien

[Bricolo]

Beau travail

How do these Vifas sound? They are dirt cheap at partsexpress
http://www.partsexpress.com/pe/showd...D=121783&DID=7

Too bad I didn't found much information about them, it looks like nobody uses them.

[tool49]

Merci,

They sound good actually, I guess nobody uses them because they are not an official Vifa product. They are labelled as Infinity drivers built by Vifa. I've compared them with the regular TC Vifa 7" driver and they sound quite similar, the modifications seem to be only of cosmetic nature.

I've only compared those speakers with some older speakers very similiar to the Lyra, and they outclass them right away. In a close future (read after the holidays) I will compare them more seriously with the Paradigm Studio 60 and the Paradigm Studio 20. I'll also ask a couple of friends to bring some Jamo, JMLabs and PSB speakers to compare. Then I should have a better idea of where they belong in terms of sound.

Sébastien

[Bricolo]

In fact, my comment was for the original Vifa TC line, not especially for the infinity

[tool49]

Oh then, they are definitely above average, in between good and excellent. They behave very well from 20Hz to 4.5kHz. They don't have any nasty breakups. I've heard some Seas and Scan Speak that were better but at a price. I'd say that the TC line from Vifa is a sure value. The only downside is the relatively low power handling. Their efficiency does make up for it though. I've just compared them to the Dayton 8" and the Vifa are hand down better, especially over 500Hz.

Sébastien