Building my Focal Triga

[mark.carline]

Well I thought I would start a thred on here to show a few people what i'll be doing as I make my DIY speakers over the next few weeks.

As I am based in the UK I have also attached all the links for suppliers and rough costs for the components incase anyone else wants to do anything similar.

My inital design breif was quiet simple:

1) Great sound
2) Cost around £700 ish (but get the value of a pair around five times this)
3) Great looks (she has to like it - Very hard !!)
4) They are going to be used as a front pair of speakers in a home theatre and so will be used for 5.1 and normal stereo.
5) I already have a nice sub (just finished making it a week or so ago) so very low bass entention isnt that important but I do want a nice punchy bass.

Before I decided to build my own speakers I listerned to all the current range of speakers from many different companies (a very wise thing to do as you get to know what kind of sound you like). I finally decided on two makes that i really liked the sound of which where B&W and JM Labs / Focal.

My initial idea was to make my own system using drive units from Focal (B&W where not interested in supplying me drive units! - ok BYE!!) so all I then needed to do was decice on which of the following drive units I was going to use:

http://www.focal.tm.fr/gb/compo/index.htm

My deciding factor was that sombody on here was selling a pair of the "Audiom 6 WM" drive units for £165 a pair and I jumped at the chance:

http://www.focal.tm.fr/gb/compo/midrange/a_6wm.htm

I did spend some time looking at the focal range and trying to theoretically model a three way cross over and after pulling myhair out with Loudspeaker Workshop and then worrying about getting a "theoritically great" speaker that sounds rubbish I decided to copy a design that i found on a German AUDIO DIY magazine :

http://www.clofis.nl/nl/zelfbouw/HH_5-2003.jpg

The full kit can be purchased from a German site as follows:

http://www.lautsprechershop.de/hifi/triga.htm

I managed to pursuade them to let me have the crossover for this speaker and after a week I received all the Resistors, capacitors and inductors needed for 178,20 EUR.

I have also purchased the following drive units that I will be using:

Tweeter - TC 120 TD5 (£53 each)
http://www.focal.tm.fr/gb/compo/tweeter/tc120td5.htm

Woofer - 10 W 6411 (£150 each)
http://www.focal.tm.fr/gb/compo/woofer/10w6411.htm

from a UK based company called Falcon Acoustics. Their web site is:

http://www.falcon-acoustics.co.uk

and the page with all the focal drive units on it is as follows:

http://www.falcon-acoustics.co.uk/pl28p11.htm

So thats the crossover and drive units sorted I am now currently sorting out the bits for the boxes. The design is going to look like the Triga speakers above that will consist of three completely independant boxes on top of each other. The sizes of these boxes (WxDxH) are as follows:

Midrange:
30cm x 34cm x 20cm
Tweeter
30cm x 34cm x 15cm
Woofer unit
30cm x 34cm x 60cm

The crossover for each of the drive units will be inside each respective box (makes the wiring a bit neater and also allows for biwiring ).

The boxes are going to be made from 18mm MDF which will be supplied from the local B&Q superstore which not only can they supply the MDF at a cost of around £30 they also can cut the MDF to size for an additional £20.

The Woofer and Midrange cabinets (not needed for Tweeter) are also going to be lined with "Acoustic Laminate Panels" and then filled Lambswool - All available from www.wilmslow-audio.co.uk

I am also considering lining the Woofer unit with grade 4 lead flashing (30cm x 3m from B&Q for £30) which is somthing similar to what JM labs do on their real high end cabinets (£30,000 plus units!).

The cabinets are then going to be finished using real wood Veneer. I have managed to get ahold of some Eurpoean Walnut Veneer that I managed to get from a local company. I am going to need four "leafs" each measuring around 35cm x 2.9m and costing around £25/leaf.

I'll post some pictures up on here when I start to build them.

Feel free to contact me if anyones got any questions / comments !

Mark.Carline@btinternet.com

[C37]

Hi Mark,

If you're interested I have the copy of the HH article which describes the triga kit. could mail it to you. ( It's in german). It looks like a very well thought out and optimised speaker kit with sanded sandiwch walls that come in two versions: a cost effective one with a dc 90 tweeter if I remember well and a high end version with the ribbon tweeter as pictured on your link

let me know
T

[mark.carline]

Yep i've got the PDFs that sombody sent me from an earlier post.

Its nearly exactly the same design (cabinets are slightly smaller and the Woofer is a sealed unit rather than ported).

[mark.carline]

as promised some pictures....

I've done the main boxes for the bass, midrange and tweeter.

No internal bracing (yet!)

[mark.carline]

and the focal tweeter TC 120 TD5 ....

[mark.carline]

The Focal 10 W 6411....

p.s Dont worry about the dust - This seems to be how they are made and it comes off dead easy....

[mark.carline]

not bad for a days work, finished the main part of the boxes plus routing the holes for the speakers:

[mark.carline]

plus a lead lined woofer box with reenforcement....

[LaMa]

Looks promising, you are working fast.

Maybe you can put some additional braces to stiffen the bass-cabinet.

[BrianGT]

Originally posted by LaMa
Looks promising, you are working fast.

Maybe you can put some additional braces to stiffen the bass-cabinet.

I agree. The speaker looks great, but I would stiffen it.

I like how the bass cabinet is created for this project:
http://home.hetnet.nl/~geenius/Andromeda.html
for a focal 13 series.

--
Brian