Hi all.
Not sure if this is appropriate here, but I believe somebody recently inquired about the availablity of the Vifa PL18WO08 woofer and that prompted me to share this, in these stay-at-home times...
In late 2009 Madisound was offering leftover RB3 kits, just the drivers and crossovers for 235$US. At that time, Parts Express still had piano finish cabinets of the right size, so I ordered two along with port kits and stuffing. It then all sat in the basement for more than ten years...
Only last week I started putting it together!
First, protection is mandatory! Not for me, this time. Two layers of masking tape. Second picture shows the port flare inserted in the recess cut with the help of a Jasper's circle cutting jig. Very accurate. Because of the shape of the cabinet, the port needed to be mounted with the 'inside' flare outside. The other flare is huge, but the 7" overall port assembly (insane luck here) happened to juuuust clear the shelf brace round hole (see photos 3, 4 and 7).
The only way I could fit the crossover in the curved cabinet was behind the tweeter. Not seen on the photo, but there is stuffing between the crossover and the PCB. This makes for a very easy to modify/repair setup, as the front baffle is attached with four hex machine bolts into metal inserts: no problem when re-opening multiple times. Baffle appears to be sufficiently air tight for a ported design (would have to use some sort of gasket for a sealed box).
I hate the shiny screws, but black ones are on the way from Parts Express. The speakers sound very sweet, the bass does not seem to be too boomy/lazy. This is the first ported system I build, everything else before was 'transmission line'. For instance you can see them next to my poor man's Thor approximations, those were designed (in 2002) with Vifa 5.25" plastic frame drivers costing around 20$ each and nice Vifa tweeters. The enclosure was designed by extrapolating/interpolating the numbers found in J. D'Appolito original AudioXpress article. I had Madisound calculate a LEAP crossover for that. This service will be missed...
Anyway, folks might be interested to know that a kit that had sat in a basement for a decade is now alive and well! Cheers.
--Christian
Not sure if this is appropriate here, but I believe somebody recently inquired about the availablity of the Vifa PL18WO08 woofer and that prompted me to share this, in these stay-at-home times...
In late 2009 Madisound was offering leftover RB3 kits, just the drivers and crossovers for 235$US. At that time, Parts Express still had piano finish cabinets of the right size, so I ordered two along with port kits and stuffing. It then all sat in the basement for more than ten years...
Only last week I started putting it together!
First, protection is mandatory! Not for me, this time. Two layers of masking tape. Second picture shows the port flare inserted in the recess cut with the help of a Jasper's circle cutting jig. Very accurate. Because of the shape of the cabinet, the port needed to be mounted with the 'inside' flare outside. The other flare is huge, but the 7" overall port assembly (insane luck here) happened to juuuust clear the shelf brace round hole (see photos 3, 4 and 7).
The only way I could fit the crossover in the curved cabinet was behind the tweeter. Not seen on the photo, but there is stuffing between the crossover and the PCB. This makes for a very easy to modify/repair setup, as the front baffle is attached with four hex machine bolts into metal inserts: no problem when re-opening multiple times. Baffle appears to be sufficiently air tight for a ported design (would have to use some sort of gasket for a sealed box).
I hate the shiny screws, but black ones are on the way from Parts Express. The speakers sound very sweet, the bass does not seem to be too boomy/lazy. This is the first ported system I build, everything else before was 'transmission line'. For instance you can see them next to my poor man's Thor approximations, those were designed (in 2002) with Vifa 5.25" plastic frame drivers costing around 20$ each and nice Vifa tweeters. The enclosure was designed by extrapolating/interpolating the numbers found in J. D'Appolito original AudioXpress article. I had Madisound calculate a LEAP crossover for that. This service will be missed...
Anyway, folks might be interested to know that a kit that had sat in a basement for a decade is now alive and well! Cheers.
--Christian
