So I built the Zaph Audio ZA5.5tt. It was my first DIY speaker project.
Definitely the best speakers I've ever owned. Much better than the
Kevlar-coned Bowers & Wilkins that are built into the ceiling of my home
or the $1800 THX set I used to use for HT.
I'm surprised with the performance of these speakers. As far as clarity
of movie dialog, they outperform my headphones in A-B testing. Sure, I
wanted to have speakers but I thought that my headphones would still let
me hear dialog more intelligibly. I didn't expect that any speakers
would do that better than headphones. These speakers also have enough
bass for my music needs. I was concerned that I might still need to use
my subwoofer since the room is quite large(26 feet by 36 feet) but a sub
won't be necessary, so I can donate my old subwoofers to Good Will.
Reasons I picked the ZA5.5tt:
1. It was the lowest cost DIY product that gave me hope of having
performance I'd be happy with. Total cost of everything was
less than $600 for the pair.
2. John Krutke's posts and website gave me the feeling that we had
compatible engineering sensibilities.
3. It was the largest physical size speaker that I any hope of
having my wife accept in the living room. They are 8" wide. I
went with the ZA5.5tt instead of the ZA5.3 since the ZA5.5t uses
the same amount of floor footprint yet has twice the extra bass
radiating area.
What I learned:
1. Butt joints are fine. I make furniture with dowels and planned
to do that, but when I got out my dowel jig, I saw I was out of
dowels. Since the MDF cuts were fairly precision from the store,
I just used lots of clamps and tapped the MDF pieces into
position with a rubber mallet and then tighten the clamps.
Doweling would have been a waste of time.
2. It's OK not to buy the whole accessory kit from Madisound. I
bought just drivers/crossovers plus foam, port tubes and peglock
grill fasteners(wifey requires speaker grills though the design
is specified without them). The port tubes aren't flared and
require a good bit of time to remove the excessive casting flash,
but are convenient all the same. The Zaph design shows flares,
but computations suggested it might not be necessary. I did not
buy the $1.25/foot wire Madisound suggests. I used some 14 AWG
wire that the previous house owner used to wire some exterior
speakers near the Jacuzzi. I did not buy quick connects but
simply soldered directly to the speaker lugs. I shielded the
speakers from the process while soldering with sheets of paper.
3. I didn't need a plunge router. If the guide hole of the circular
jig I used was close fitting, I could plunge a stationary router
well enough by hand.
4. It's hard to get veneer perfect, but it's not too hard to get it
good enough even just using Tightbond wood glue. It's all about
getting the right amount of glue(too much causes wrinkling and
too little means fixing up all the edges). Despite that my taste
is solid wood, monolithic veneer is quite endearing. It was my
first experience doing veneer. Next time I might consider an
iron on glue. I was very happy with this source for raw
veneer: lepkowski of ebay.
5. 3M Super 77 is great for gluing the damping foam to the inside
of the cabinets.
6. Textured Rust-Oleum(#7220830) doesn't hide surface scratches. I
should have sanded and sealed before applying like I would have
done had I carefully read through John Krutke's advice on this.
7. Phasing the tweeter was confusing because I expected that I'd
have to reverse the phase because I thought it was a 2nd order
crossover. Anyway, they're wired in phase as the diagram
indicates. Ultimately, I just followed the directions carefully
and didn't try to out-smart the documentation. I did check the
woofer phasing -- all were correctly marked.
8. Using linseed oil finish on cherry veneer, it took 6 weeks total
time to let the oil cure between coats. Building my own
speakers took a lot of time, but I enjoyed it.
The final weight of the speakers is 59 lb each. I followed the enclosure
drawing best as I could, scaling the drawing for the port and internal
brace locations. I didn't fill the base with sand or kitty litter because
that is were I put the xovers, since the Madisound xover PC boards don't
both fit onto the bottom piece of MDF. Right now they're just resting on
dense felt pieces to protect the hardwood floor, but eventually I will
museum putty them to the floor for earthquake proofing.
Anyway, this is my first post, too. I found this group because I
sometimes Google LTspice to find how it is used(I'm the author of that
simulator). I'm contributing this post out of gratitude of the advice I
found looking through this forum. While this was my first DIY speaker
project, my wife tells me it's also my last, so I don't see that I'll
continue to be particularly active here.
Thanks are due to John Krutke for this awesome-performing speaker design.
--Mike
Definitely the best speakers I've ever owned. Much better than the
Kevlar-coned Bowers & Wilkins that are built into the ceiling of my home
or the $1800 THX set I used to use for HT.
I'm surprised with the performance of these speakers. As far as clarity
of movie dialog, they outperform my headphones in A-B testing. Sure, I
wanted to have speakers but I thought that my headphones would still let
me hear dialog more intelligibly. I didn't expect that any speakers
would do that better than headphones. These speakers also have enough
bass for my music needs. I was concerned that I might still need to use
my subwoofer since the room is quite large(26 feet by 36 feet) but a sub
won't be necessary, so I can donate my old subwoofers to Good Will.
Reasons I picked the ZA5.5tt:
1. It was the lowest cost DIY product that gave me hope of having
performance I'd be happy with. Total cost of everything was
less than $600 for the pair.
2. John Krutke's posts and website gave me the feeling that we had
compatible engineering sensibilities.
3. It was the largest physical size speaker that I any hope of
having my wife accept in the living room. They are 8" wide. I
went with the ZA5.5tt instead of the ZA5.3 since the ZA5.5t uses
the same amount of floor footprint yet has twice the extra bass
radiating area.
What I learned:
1. Butt joints are fine. I make furniture with dowels and planned
to do that, but when I got out my dowel jig, I saw I was out of
dowels. Since the MDF cuts were fairly precision from the store,
I just used lots of clamps and tapped the MDF pieces into
position with a rubber mallet and then tighten the clamps.
Doweling would have been a waste of time.
2. It's OK not to buy the whole accessory kit from Madisound. I
bought just drivers/crossovers plus foam, port tubes and peglock
grill fasteners(wifey requires speaker grills though the design
is specified without them). The port tubes aren't flared and
require a good bit of time to remove the excessive casting flash,
but are convenient all the same. The Zaph design shows flares,
but computations suggested it might not be necessary. I did not
buy the $1.25/foot wire Madisound suggests. I used some 14 AWG
wire that the previous house owner used to wire some exterior
speakers near the Jacuzzi. I did not buy quick connects but
simply soldered directly to the speaker lugs. I shielded the
speakers from the process while soldering with sheets of paper.
3. I didn't need a plunge router. If the guide hole of the circular
jig I used was close fitting, I could plunge a stationary router
well enough by hand.
4. It's hard to get veneer perfect, but it's not too hard to get it
good enough even just using Tightbond wood glue. It's all about
getting the right amount of glue(too much causes wrinkling and
too little means fixing up all the edges). Despite that my taste
is solid wood, monolithic veneer is quite endearing. It was my
first experience doing veneer. Next time I might consider an
iron on glue. I was very happy with this source for raw
veneer: lepkowski of ebay.
5. 3M Super 77 is great for gluing the damping foam to the inside
of the cabinets.
6. Textured Rust-Oleum(#7220830) doesn't hide surface scratches. I
should have sanded and sealed before applying like I would have
done had I carefully read through John Krutke's advice on this.
7. Phasing the tweeter was confusing because I expected that I'd
have to reverse the phase because I thought it was a 2nd order
crossover. Anyway, they're wired in phase as the diagram
indicates. Ultimately, I just followed the directions carefully
and didn't try to out-smart the documentation. I did check the
woofer phasing -- all were correctly marked.
8. Using linseed oil finish on cherry veneer, it took 6 weeks total
time to let the oil cure between coats. Building my own
speakers took a lot of time, but I enjoyed it.
The final weight of the speakers is 59 lb each. I followed the enclosure
drawing best as I could, scaling the drawing for the port and internal
brace locations. I didn't fill the base with sand or kitty litter because
that is were I put the xovers, since the Madisound xover PC boards don't
both fit onto the bottom piece of MDF. Right now they're just resting on
dense felt pieces to protect the hardwood floor, but eventually I will
museum putty them to the floor for earthquake proofing.
Anyway, this is my first post, too. I found this group because I
sometimes Google LTspice to find how it is used(I'm the author of that
simulator). I'm contributing this post out of gratitude of the advice I
found looking through this forum. While this was my first DIY speaker
project, my wife tells me it's also my last, so I don't see that I'll
continue to be particularly active here.
Thanks are due to John Krutke for this awesome-performing speaker design.
--Mike
Attachments
excellent job! glad to hear that you're pleased with the outcome. lot's of discussion on these mmtmm's but it's hard to find a review from someone who has built them.
david
david
Thanks for this. I've always wanted some third party opinions on them. 🙂
P.S. what are your headphones?
P.S. what are your headphones?
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Blue934 & RockLeeEV,
> ...it's hard to find a review from someone who has built them...
> ...I've always wanted some third party opinions on them...
Yes. Halfway into the project I realized that I had never heard
a review from an ordinary DIY'er(or newbie)and wondered what they'd
sound like. I was reassured from a guy with more audio experience
then me, though, that I would definately like them.
> P.S. what are your headphones
Sennheiser RS 120. They have quite reasonable performance
with dialog, certainly better than my built in B&W's or the
$1800 THX system, but not as good as these Zaph speakers.
BTW, I have no association with John Krutke. We've never
communicated -- he doesn't know me.
--Mike
> ...it's hard to find a review from someone who has built them...
> ...I've always wanted some third party opinions on them...
Yes. Halfway into the project I realized that I had never heard
a review from an ordinary DIY'er(or newbie)and wondered what they'd
sound like. I was reassured from a guy with more audio experience
then me, though, that I would definately like them.
> P.S. what are your headphones
Sennheiser RS 120. They have quite reasonable performance
with dialog, certainly better than my built in B&W's or the
$1800 THX system, but not as good as these Zaph speakers.
BTW, I have no association with John Krutke. We've never
communicated -- he doesn't know me.
--Mike
Thanks Tux for the link. Thanks PanamMike for the review. I'm glad to hear they sound great. I'll probably build some here in the next few weeks
PanamMike - nice job and great info. I built the Zaph VMV5 with my son as a project a few years ago and was impressed with the sound quality for the value. I think this will be my next project based on the solid info from your post. Thanks!
Hey Those speakers look amazing!! I'm also thinking about starting this project. I have read many forums that argue both sides of these speakers. I change my mind about them and want ones with better more expensive tweeters but then I always find something that someone says that changes my mind back to them. I'm prepared now to do this speaker i'm so excited I want to go order the kit from maddisound right now and do not only the FL and FR tower but maybe some zr71 for the SL and SR. what do you guys think?
Also to the author of this post. I want to know how hard it was to put the veneer on. I would also like to do veneer because i find paint to look cheap. I would like to veneer around the speakers as well. how hard do you think it would be to veneer around the speakers? maybe get some 1/2 MDF with some 1/4 veneer and then veneer it make it look nice and then cut out the speaker holes. do you think this would be even considerable?
Also to the author of this post. I want to know how hard it was to put the veneer on. I would also like to do veneer because i find paint to look cheap. I would like to veneer around the speakers as well. how hard do you think it would be to veneer around the speakers? maybe get some 1/2 MDF with some 1/4 veneer and then veneer it make it look nice and then cut out the speaker holes. do you think this would be even considerable?
This tweeter (Vifa DQ25SC05-04) is discontinued. Does it mean this line of Zaph ZA5 designs is forever lost and it's no longer possible to build them? Has someone looked into possible substitute tweeter options (and the required crossover tweaks)? The ZA14W08 woofers seem to be readily available on Madisound.
I'm thinking of building the MMTMM tower myself.
I'm thinking of building the MMTMM tower myself.
Well, the ZA14's still are no-brainers wrt quality vs price. Having used them, I'd say designing around them isn't really that hard if you know what you do. And the NE25 should be available if you would like to stick to the Zaph designs. But you will have to redesign the transfer function of the tweeter, for sure. Have you contacted Madisound by any chance?
I'm at the point of choosing a DIY design for under about $1000 in parts (that is, drivers + crossover parts + extras, but without the cabinets). ZA5.5tt is one of the designs I'm looking at. They should come out at about $700, it seems (without cabinets), would you say it's a good choice or should I look at something better for $1000-1100?
I wish there were thorough measurements available, like what Erin at Erin's Audio Corner does (for instance, I was looking at Philharmonic BMR, $950 kit at Meniscus, and I didn't like some aspects of it so it's off my shortlist, but it's silly to leave other options on the list that haven't been evaluated with the same level of scrutiny).
No, what would I contact them about?
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Well, they might know some answer. And or might try to persuade Krutke. Or try it yourself, maybe you can lure him into it, deceiving him with some talk about motorcycle racing...
As for advice on what to build: if you aren't up to a successful exchange of tweeters, you'd be wise to pick another design. I know I would give the Zaphs a try with a replacement tweeter like the Vifa NE, but that's me for myself speaking.
As for advice on what to build: if you aren't up to a successful exchange of tweeters, you'd be wise to pick another design. I know I would give the Zaphs a try with a replacement tweeter like the Vifa NE, but that's me for myself speaking.
It appears the DQ25SC05-04 has been replaced by the DQ25SC16-04, at least that's what Madisound is now using in the Zaph kits. The specs for both drivers are identical so it looks like it was just a name change. You could contact Madisound to get their explanation.