Well, I just finished off the Saburos I'm building and they sound great! Thanks to Scott for putting a design out there that someone like me can use to build some great sounding speakers. Also thanks to Dave for the moded drivers, they sound great, and the care and craftsmanship put into them is outstanding.
Below are some pictures and comments about the build. I'm a complete newbie to building speakers, so this project took me a long time -- about 7 months of working a few hours here and a few there. The total hours spent though was still a lot. Before starting these I thought that anyone who sold them for $3500+ was out of their head. Now I see that that number is perfectly in line with the time and resources these speakers require. Also, when you think about how much high quality living room furniture costs these days, you can see that several thousand dollars is quite reasonable -- plus they sound sweet.
Anyway, here are the details.
I started with some wood that I picked up from a local cabinet shop. The wood has 12 or 13 plys like Baltic birch, but it is defiantly a lower quality wood. It has some small voids and the sheets were not laid up very well. Also, some portions were damaged and there are problems with the surface veneer layer in some places. The wood was only $20 a sheet and unfortunately I got what I paid for. If I were going to do it again, I would either use Baltic birch, or if I were still on a tight budget, go with the plywood at Lowes.
When I picked up the wood I noticed that the cabinet shop had a huge table saw with about 12' of out feed area. After some quick negotiations, I got them to rip the panels into boards. Price was an additional $20 a sheet, but worth every penny. It did only take them about 15 minutes for the work, which included a blade change before starting, but it saved me many hours. I don't have a table saw, so I was very worried about getting all of the internal boards a uniform width.
One of the nice things about building the saburos is that the internal boards are only about 5" wide. that allowed me to easily cut them on my miter saw. Unfortunantly this led to a bit of a measure once and cut twice process of working. About half way through I realized that I was short at least one 8' length because it was now just a pile of sawdust in the garage. I ended up having to rip a couple of boards with my circular saw, but they turned out OK.
I don't have a router, so I used a hole saw from Harbor Freight to cut the opening for the driver. The kit of hole saws only cost about $14 and it was very easy to use.
One thing I wasn't prepared for was all the extras you have to buy to finish the speakers. I spent $40 on edge banding, about $60 on clamps, and about $60 on finish and glue. Add in the $120 for the cut wood and $125 for the drivers (used), and you can figure out what the build cost.
Here are some photos. I'll post more too.
Below are some pictures and comments about the build. I'm a complete newbie to building speakers, so this project took me a long time -- about 7 months of working a few hours here and a few there. The total hours spent though was still a lot. Before starting these I thought that anyone who sold them for $3500+ was out of their head. Now I see that that number is perfectly in line with the time and resources these speakers require. Also, when you think about how much high quality living room furniture costs these days, you can see that several thousand dollars is quite reasonable -- plus they sound sweet.
Anyway, here are the details.
I started with some wood that I picked up from a local cabinet shop. The wood has 12 or 13 plys like Baltic birch, but it is defiantly a lower quality wood. It has some small voids and the sheets were not laid up very well. Also, some portions were damaged and there are problems with the surface veneer layer in some places. The wood was only $20 a sheet and unfortunately I got what I paid for. If I were going to do it again, I would either use Baltic birch, or if I were still on a tight budget, go with the plywood at Lowes.
When I picked up the wood I noticed that the cabinet shop had a huge table saw with about 12' of out feed area. After some quick negotiations, I got them to rip the panels into boards. Price was an additional $20 a sheet, but worth every penny. It did only take them about 15 minutes for the work, which included a blade change before starting, but it saved me many hours. I don't have a table saw, so I was very worried about getting all of the internal boards a uniform width.
One of the nice things about building the saburos is that the internal boards are only about 5" wide. that allowed me to easily cut them on my miter saw. Unfortunantly this led to a bit of a measure once and cut twice process of working. About half way through I realized that I was short at least one 8' length because it was now just a pile of sawdust in the garage. I ended up having to rip a couple of boards with my circular saw, but they turned out OK.
I don't have a router, so I used a hole saw from Harbor Freight to cut the opening for the driver. The kit of hole saws only cost about $14 and it was very easy to use.
One thing I wasn't prepared for was all the extras you have to buy to finish the speakers. I spent $40 on edge banding, about $60 on clamps, and about $60 on finish and glue. Add in the $120 for the cut wood and $125 for the drivers (used), and you can figure out what the build cost.
Here are some photos. I'll post more too.
