Just a bit of nostalgia here, but I am wondering what other old farts here built their own loudspeaker cabinets back in the 80's?
I built 2 different 3 way pairs from Radio Shack components and particle board. One had (I kid you not) ribbon tweeters and a soft dome midrange with 10" woofers. Quite frankly, I LOVED those things.
I wish I had them again to see if they were anywhere as good as the speakers I have now (Warfedale EVO 4.4--ribbon tweets and soft dome mid)
I built 2 different 3 way pairs from Radio Shack components and particle board. One had (I kid you not) ribbon tweeters and a soft dome midrange with 10" woofers. Quite frankly, I LOVED those things.
I wish I had them again to see if they were anywhere as good as the speakers I have now (Warfedale EVO 4.4--ribbon tweets and soft dome mid)
I started seriously into building diy loudspeakers in the mid 70s.
Lots of Philips drivers (in Radford S90 clones), Jordan Watts, Lowther and more. And then when i moved seriously into retail, KEF, Audax, and Falcon.
dave
Lots of Philips drivers (in Radford S90 clones), Jordan Watts, Lowther and more. And then when i moved seriously into retail, KEF, Audax, and Falcon.
dave
My first speaker box was a 4 by 12 inch cabinet for a mobile disco.
Tried to get in the car and it wouldnt fit.
So cut it down the middle to make two 2 by 12 inch cabinets.
I used Fane 12-50WRMS speakers (50Hz-3KHz) from Maplin.
They were very loud.
I used chipboard covered in vinyl.
Fitting one of the speakers my screwdriver slipped and went through the cone.
Glued the hole up and it was fine after that.
Tried to get in the car and it wouldnt fit.
So cut it down the middle to make two 2 by 12 inch cabinets.
I used Fane 12-50WRMS speakers (50Hz-3KHz) from Maplin.
They were very loud.
I used chipboard covered in vinyl.
Fitting one of the speakers my screwdriver slipped and went through the cone.
Glued the hole up and it was fine after that.
late 80's I did a pair of 3-ways -all SEAS drivers - birch plwood - lots of bracing- - about 65 liters reflex ducted to floor ala. G.R. Koonce method with "V" ramp expanding vent.. 10" lower qts SEAS foam surround woofer - a 3" SEAS soft dome midrange and 1" SEAS aluminum dome tweeter - not very good - ugh. Later on as no one wante3d them and foam shot, we took turns with a sledge hammer to destroy them (they were held together with cleats and many screws besides glue) Things like that exercise only increased my already great respect for Henry Kloss in his KLH days.
I have heard and owned a number of mediocre - to pretty bad commercial speakers.
I have heard and owned a number of mediocre - to pretty bad commercial speakers.
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I did some in the 70's. One was a bookshelf with the little 4" Goodmans woofer (with the giant magnet) and a CTS 3.5" cone tweeter. Another was a ported job with a 10" Eminence guitar speaker, along with a Phillips dome tweeter - the kind Dave still has a bunch of. I cant recall how I did the port, but they were plexiglass tubes maybe 5" in diamater. There was another one, with Phillips woofers that had butyl rubber surrounds and were octagonal... They made sound, is all I can say.
All parts sourced from McGee radio. Anyone remember them? Fun catalogue to browse and imagine what you could do.
All parts sourced from McGee radio. Anyone remember them? Fun catalogue to browse and imagine what you could do.
My first speaker build took place in the late 1960s.
I fitted a 12" Fane 122/10 in a 5 cubic foot enclosure which was tuned to the driver's 40 Hz resonant frequency by way of a large, rectangular tunnel - the dimensions of which were calculated according to Gilbert Briggs' formula.
I was astonished at how deep the bass line descended in the Small Faces 1967 hit, 'Tin Soldier'. 😎
I eventually added a paper cone tweeter for a tad more 'sparkle'!
I fitted a 12" Fane 122/10 in a 5 cubic foot enclosure which was tuned to the driver's 40 Hz resonant frequency by way of a large, rectangular tunnel - the dimensions of which were calculated according to Gilbert Briggs' formula.
I was astonished at how deep the bass line descended in the Small Faces 1967 hit, 'Tin Soldier'. 😎
I eventually added a paper cone tweeter for a tad more 'sparkle'!
Attachments
That is a story worth a chuckle!
Teenage standards, or just a simpler time?
My first speaker build was in about 1970. It was an 8-in woofer and a tweeter and a plywood box. On top I burnt in the name "Funky 50" with a Weller soldering gun. It was a takeoff on Lafayette radios popular $30 speaker the criterion 50. The pair ended up in the back of my Chevy Bel Air station wagon hooked up to a Sony cassette deck and took me back and forth across the country many times in audio heaven.
Criterion have been a fantastic source of some really good Coral dri vers. But each box (the most useful) had 2x as many drivers as they should.
My first speaker build was when i was 12. 1966.
dave
I worked at Speaker City in the 80s and built speakers using so many brands that no longer sell to the DIY market. We’re talking everything from Dynaudio, Focal, Pyle, CV, Scan Speak, Ciare, Peerless, Vifa, to name a few. There were a lot of options back then.
I started building speakers in 78 or 79.first i used drivers out of my parents old console.then i made a 12" three way using radio shack drivers.then in 82 or so i built another set of 12" three way using radio shack soft dome mid and a panasonic or jvc leaf tweeter.that was a decent sounding rock and roll speaker.the last diy dpeakers i built in the 80s was in 87 or so two large subs for my spica tc50.one used morel 9 inch in multiples and the other 10s from zalytron forgot the brand. All long gone now even though i still use radio shack linnaeum tweeters love those.
re:1966 - (I was 16) the year of my first 12" speaker cabinet assembled in shop class. It was a 5 cubic foot 3/4" plywood box initially tuned with 8- 3/4" holes drilled in the lower right baffle area as a semi-resistive vent. (had to be something by David Weems) I can't remember the driver model number nor find that Allied catalog but it had a light cast frame - maybe by Jensen - a high compliance cloth suspension - 1 1/4" voice coil - perhaps a 20 ounce ferrige slug. It ran from a mono Knight push-pull 6bq5 amplifier (kit). I liked it a lot for what it was. I tried tuning it via"the little red book" nomograms and it sounded worse than the resistive vent. As the baffle was removable, It later ran other drivers such as a Poly
Planar styrene speaker (boom-tizz) then as a BVR with a no-name McGee Radio 6.5" foam surround unit. I later cut it down the middle into two cabinets - then ran Utah "Celesta" 12cx - I still remember the pretty sounds of an opera overture LP with an EICO
ST40. (EICO ST70 is just as good as an HF87 - actually made better)
Planar styrene speaker (boom-tizz) then as a BVR with a no-name McGee Radio 6.5" foam surround unit. I later cut it down the middle into two cabinets - then ran Utah "Celesta" 12cx - I still remember the pretty sounds of an opera overture LP with an EICO
ST40. (EICO ST70 is just as good as an HF87 - actually made better)
So true! And you would think the internet would have made it even more so. Alas.
Speakers out of a console! Had totally forgotten about that. Had a classmate did the same--I remember listening to Styx "Renegade" really loud to hear/watch that 12" papercone do it's thing.
All* my speakers have been DIY, since 1970. I once built identical pairs from MDF and 700kg/m3 chipboard, in around 1975. The chipboard pair sounded better. Hard to get that grade now, it's all MDF.
* Apart from a pair of QUAD 2805s a couple of years ago. Back to Tannoys again now, in my own cabinets. Not MDF, BTW.
* Apart from a pair of QUAD 2805s a couple of years ago. Back to Tannoys again now, in my own cabinets. Not MDF, BTW.
Around 1980 I thought I knew enough to attempt time-aligned 3-way speakers using drivers from B&F Surplus. And with 3rd order crossovers using air-core coils wound with wire salvaged from discarded washing machine motors. Woofers were unlabeled, with inverted foam surround 10", thick paper cone, 40 ounce magnet, bumped backplate, about 19 Hz Fs, which I attempted to use with passive radiators (I had measured the T-S parameters at least). Sealed back midranges (can't remember any details), MG hard dome tweeters. Unsurprisingly they were terrible. No Zobels, coils wound based on tables or formulae, not measured. Capacitors were back-to-back polarized electrolytics (also not measured or matched). Thirteen years on, with the benefit of speaker modeling software, it dawned on me that I possessed a pair of classic East Coast acoustic suspension woofers, got a refoam kit, and used one as a subwoofer in 2.4 cubic feet sealed box in my Mustang, where it delivered wonderful deep bass from CDs like the Orb Live '93.
In the later '80s my ambitions were more modest, and I built a pair of the "Octalines" from plans in Speaker Builder or Audio Amateur. They used the Radio Shack 40-1022 4" mid woofer and the Audax 10mm dome tweeters.
In the later '80s my ambitions were more modest, and I built a pair of the "Octalines" from plans in Speaker Builder or Audio Amateur. They used the Radio Shack 40-1022 4" mid woofer and the Audax 10mm dome tweeters.
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