For no good reason, I've got the bug to build some speakers. Its probably related to rebuilding PP EL84 integrated rigs. I'm listening to a Scott 222B that I've just changed the output caps to Russian PIO while I am rebuilding a Scott 299B--it worked fine. I just enjoy totally rebuilding these simple tubed rigs.
For the present, I plan on getting a Big Box place to cut up some Birch plywood for that I can make a 14x12x14 box for Fostex 8 inch full range speakers.
With box-plot. I varied the speaker dimensions and didn't find any significant differences by making the box a little larger. It did seem as if there was a slight benefit to using the FE206E vrs the FE208ESigma I want to buy, at least in this small box. If the 208Sigmas do sound great, I'll use them in a larger box and get OK sounding drives for the small box.
To begin with, this will replace a pair of Paradigm Titans, 89db two ways with a simple xover that I've replaced the stock cap with Russian Teflons.
Now, I'm considering buying Birch 4X8 or 4X4s and building either a Chang or Sachikos for the Fostex drivers as a Christmas project. Santa might bring me a table saw. Since I've never done wood working, I'm not sure if I'll use a table saw for anything more than building these speakers, or, if I really need it to build speakers with mostly 90 degree angles. The cost of the table saw might be put towards a cabinet company just cutting up what I need to put the cabinets together?
The room I want to put these in is around 18X18 with a solid half height wall into a much large living room. On the back side of this room is another half height wall opening onto my kitchen. There are cabinets from the ceiling down above the hall wall with a resulting 16.5 inch opening into the kitchen.
My thought is to use corner horns. Since I'm a widower and live alone, I'm free to make function over ascetics play toys.
My objective is to make high sensitivity, easy to drive with tubes speakers without xovers or need for correction inductors. While imagining is nice, I don't need to be able to pin point the lead violinist on a symphony stage--I can do that with my vinal system in my living room. Most of my listening now is Muddy Waters type blues, and old time late 60s rock. I've had a Hsu sonatube type sub for years that I've used for movie playback, but its been a few years since I've bothered to rent a movie.
This new system will be used just for FUN listening where I won't be using vinal, or at most, or occasionally spin an album with an inexpensive used Technics.
I'm currently using PP El84s but have a HeathKit 5881 monoblock waiting to be rebuilt. I'm intrigued by trying 6B4 triodes in place of the 5881 types of tubes or simply running the pentode as a triode. Eventually I'll find a mate for the Heath monoblock.
In advance, thanks for your insight, experience and suggestions for drivers, cabinet and needed tools.
Bob
For the present, I plan on getting a Big Box place to cut up some Birch plywood for that I can make a 14x12x14 box for Fostex 8 inch full range speakers.
With box-plot. I varied the speaker dimensions and didn't find any significant differences by making the box a little larger. It did seem as if there was a slight benefit to using the FE206E vrs the FE208ESigma I want to buy, at least in this small box. If the 208Sigmas do sound great, I'll use them in a larger box and get OK sounding drives for the small box.
To begin with, this will replace a pair of Paradigm Titans, 89db two ways with a simple xover that I've replaced the stock cap with Russian Teflons.
Now, I'm considering buying Birch 4X8 or 4X4s and building either a Chang or Sachikos for the Fostex drivers as a Christmas project. Santa might bring me a table saw. Since I've never done wood working, I'm not sure if I'll use a table saw for anything more than building these speakers, or, if I really need it to build speakers with mostly 90 degree angles. The cost of the table saw might be put towards a cabinet company just cutting up what I need to put the cabinets together?
The room I want to put these in is around 18X18 with a solid half height wall into a much large living room. On the back side of this room is another half height wall opening onto my kitchen. There are cabinets from the ceiling down above the hall wall with a resulting 16.5 inch opening into the kitchen.
My thought is to use corner horns. Since I'm a widower and live alone, I'm free to make function over ascetics play toys.
My objective is to make high sensitivity, easy to drive with tubes speakers without xovers or need for correction inductors. While imagining is nice, I don't need to be able to pin point the lead violinist on a symphony stage--I can do that with my vinal system in my living room. Most of my listening now is Muddy Waters type blues, and old time late 60s rock. I've had a Hsu sonatube type sub for years that I've used for movie playback, but its been a few years since I've bothered to rent a movie.
This new system will be used just for FUN listening where I won't be using vinal, or at most, or occasionally spin an album with an inexpensive used Technics.
I'm currently using PP El84s but have a HeathKit 5881 monoblock waiting to be rebuilt. I'm intrigued by trying 6B4 triodes in place of the 5881 types of tubes or simply running the pentode as a triode. Eventually I'll find a mate for the Heath monoblock.
In advance, thanks for your insight, experience and suggestions for drivers, cabinet and needed tools.
Bob
I had never used a table saw before I started building some Makizou clones. I found an inexpensive (and cheap!) used one on Craigslist. I found it difficult to use without a little practice. Get some cheap chipboard, and make lots of trial cuts before you start the actual project. Don't expect your first box to turn out to your satisfaction. I'm not trying to discourage you from going for the saw and doing it yourself - to the contrary, I highly encourage it! Just realize it is a skill which requires a little time to develop. Oh, and look for a table that's nice and big. The cheapo little two foot wide tables (like the one I found) are too small, and make everything harder than it needs to be.
http://s69.photobucket.com/albums/i43/Ty_Bower/Makizou/P1120533.jpg
http://s69.photobucket.com/albums/i43/Ty_Bower/Makizou/P1120536.jpg
Thank you for your considered responses.
Are there drivers better suited to the Chang style cabinet?
Are there better cabinets than Sachiko suited to the Fostex drivers? The frequency response curves I see for the Sachiko look like undesirable saw-tooths to my untrained brain.
I see a lot of information for Frugal-Horns. I shy away from those plans because all the angled cuts look daunting. Building the box looks doable.
Best from Tucson
Bob
Are there drivers better suited to the Chang style cabinet?
Are there better cabinets than Sachiko suited to the Fostex drivers? The frequency response curves I see for the Sachiko look like undesirable saw-tooths to my untrained brain.
I see a lot of information for Frugal-Horns. I shy away from those plans because all the angled cuts look daunting. Building the box looks doable.
Best from Tucson
Bob
The Chang cabinets are best suited for Fostex FExx7 drivers (in the fostex lineup) and many other drivers suited for bass reflex use.
The upper frequency in the sims does not take into account the many low pass filters in Sachiko style horns and in practise those ripples do not exist.
When Scott gets some time, he has promised to generate a more detailed sim (a lot more work, and really unnecessary as far as designing them goes) to be able to (at least partially) illustrate this point. Scott is very busy at the moment thou (work, school, family and his other work) and this is not high in his queue.
dave
I have just built a curvy chang with a FE207. A friend at work had previously built sachiko's also with the FE207. They are both good cabinets, I find the imaging on the changs a little nicer. They are also a fairly simple build. I think room size and placement is a big question the sachikos are huge and need a large room to work well. I have my changs in a 12x12 room and they seem to work very well.
Thank you for your time and experience. Fortunately, the room these speakers will go in have a cathedral ceiling, the lowest point is around 10 feet.
Some day, I'll master speaker design software, and build floor to ceiling speakers for my TV room.
For quite awhile now, I thought the difference between Fostex drivers was that one had insulation for use next to TV-monitors.
Best from Tucson
Bob
Some day, I'll master speaker design software, and build floor to ceiling speakers for my TV room.
For quite awhile now, I thought the difference between Fostex drivers was that one had insulation for use next to TV-monitors.
Best from Tucson
Bob
pardon if this has already been revealed, but what is the approx area in sq ft, and distance of your anticipated primary listening position from most likely speaker location(s)
pardon my amusement, but the first part of that could be a bit of a treadmill, and the second part might not be the right solution for any room 
There's actually rather more differences between the 2 series than simply magnetic shielding for video display protection. Certainly enough so that in some enclosure designs very tightly tailored to the measured T/S parameters of one version, a "drop-in" substitution of the other could lead to a variety of (predictable by some) performance quirks or disappointments. And there is only so much that even most judicious amounts of EQ can resolve before the cure becomes a problem of its own.
Hi Chris
Thanks for your time and expertise.
Room "The room I want to put these in is around 18X18 with a solid half height wall into a much large living room. On the back side of this room is another half height wall opening onto my kitchen. There are cabinets from the ceiling down above the hall wall with a resulting 16.5 inch opening into the kitchen."
Listening will be on the far wall.
I'm open to any suggestions, driver, box etc.
Best from Tucson
Bob
Thanks for your time and expertise.
Room "The room I want to put these in is around 18X18 with a solid half height wall into a much large living room. On the back side of this room is another half height wall opening onto my kitchen. There are cabinets from the ceiling down above the hall wall with a resulting 16.5 inch opening into the kitchen."
Listening will be on the far wall.
I'm open to any suggestions, driver, box etc.
Best from Tucson
Bob
Ignoring the half walls what is the volume of the space? All the partial discontinuties are usually helpful with room acoustice, acheivable volume levels, and bass mostly ignore those partial discontinuities. A Big room means that problems with bass standing waves etc are pushed down in frequency.
My room is somewhat analogous to yours, the listening arae being about 18' x 12' but the entire house is "open" yielding an estimated 250 m^3 volume.
I'm currently listening to the 1st ever set of Prime sized miniOnken enclosures for the EL70eN (Mar-Kel70) and with about 20W of PP tubes* on tap i am very satisfied with their performance *(note that this amp does not sound as good as the 4W PP beast we made using LK48= Scott 222 iron (within its limits) -- we are playing with that amp to see if we can strecth it to 12-15W without sacrificing sonics))
This shows that you can probably play to aesthetics in your choice, as there are LOTs of choices of good sounding boxes that should work.
Besides, diy is very much like cookies -- it is very hard to just have one (don't tell us you weren't warned)
dave
My room is somewhat analogous to yours, the listening arae being about 18' x 12' but the entire house is "open" yielding an estimated 250 m^3 volume.
I'm currently listening to the 1st ever set of Prime sized miniOnken enclosures for the EL70eN (Mar-Kel70) and with about 20W of PP tubes* on tap i am very satisfied with their performance
*(note that this amp does not sound as good as the 4W PP beast we made using LK48= Scott 222 iron (within its limits) -- we are playing with that amp to see if we can strecth it to 12-15W without sacrificing sonics))This shows that you can probably play to aesthetics in your choice, as there are LOTs of choices of good sounding boxes that should work.
Besides, diy is very much like cookies -- it is very hard to just have one (don't tell us you weren't warned
)dave
I'm figuring 18x18x12, 3800 cubic feet.
My first DIY was a power supply for a dual 6L6 from a 1948 schematic; 6L6 oscillator and 6L6 output tube with 5u4 power supply, 400V on the plate. I wound the output coil on an old pill bottle--about 6 watts out on 40 meters CW.
Since BIGGER is always better, I started construction of a BIGGER transmitter with a bigger power supply, 6AG7 driving a pair 6L6GC, 450V to the plates. I found some cheap KT88 from China that I picked up and made the box for the xmitter so that KT88s will fit.
So far, I have HeathKit UA-1 that I gutted and rebuilt, a HeathKit AA-151 I gutted and rebuilt; I listen to a Scott 222B while I rebuild a Scott 299B.
The idea of a 5 foot high Fonken seems intriguing?
May be I need a different pair of speakers for each integrated I build?
Best from Tucson
Bob
My first DIY was a power supply for a dual 6L6 from a 1948 schematic; 6L6 oscillator and 6L6 output tube with 5u4 power supply, 400V on the plate. I wound the output coil on an old pill bottle--about 6 watts out on 40 meters CW.
Since BIGGER is always better, I started construction of a BIGGER transmitter with a bigger power supply, 6AG7 driving a pair 6L6GC, 450V to the plates. I found some cheap KT88 from China that I picked up and made the box for the xmitter so that KT88s will fit.
So far, I have HeathKit UA-1 that I gutted and rebuilt, a HeathKit AA-151 I gutted and rebuilt; I listen to a Scott 222B while I rebuild a Scott 299B.
The idea of a 5 foot high Fonken seems intriguing?
May be I need a different pair of speakers for each integrated I build?
Best from Tucson
Bob
Table Saw
I'll weigh in having built two pairs of Sachiko's, three pair of Saburo's and a pair of Mikasas. Despite having a fairly nice, heavy table saw, I still use the lumber yard to make the long rips on the big outside panels. Most lumber yards have a panel saw and will do this for typically .50 cents a cut. It is well worth the cost as ripping 4x8 sheets can be tricky and a real back breaker loading them in and out of your vehicle and into the shop. Not to mention if you spend $60 or more on a sheet of ply, you don't want to mess it up with a crooked or notched rip. You should be able to do all your cross cuts with a nice Circular Saw and home made fence. And Dave is right, diy speaker building is addictive!
I'll weigh in having built two pairs of Sachiko's, three pair of Saburo's and a pair of Mikasas. Despite having a fairly nice, heavy table saw, I still use the lumber yard to make the long rips on the big outside panels. Most lumber yards have a panel saw and will do this for typically .50 cents a cut. It is well worth the cost as ripping 4x8 sheets can be tricky and a real back breaker loading them in and out of your vehicle and into the shop. Not to mention if you spend $60 or more on a sheet of ply, you don't want to mess it up with a crooked or notched rip. You should be able to do all your cross cuts with a nice Circular Saw and home made fence. And Dave is right, diy speaker building is addictive!
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Thank your for your time and relevant information.
I've been looking at a few plans/kits and concluded that cutting up the larger panels might be done better locally. When I talked to an employee at the closet big box store, he wanted to make certain I understand that their saw wasn't calibrated, that it wasn't appropriate for cutting pieces for a box I was planning--good for cutting shelving tho.
My guess has been that having the big box place do the long cuts for the large panels would work out OK though.
I was scanning eBay in Germany for some tubes and then full range drivers, and discovered two companies selling speakers kits including the Frugal Horn level 2, and Sachiko.
Best from Tucson
Bob
I've been looking at a few plans/kits and concluded that cutting up the larger panels might be done better locally. When I talked to an employee at the closet big box store, he wanted to make certain I understand that their saw wasn't calibrated, that it wasn't appropriate for cutting pieces for a box I was planning--good for cutting shelving tho.
My guess has been that having the big box place do the long cuts for the large panels would work out OK though.
I was scanning eBay in Germany for some tubes and then full range drivers, and discovered two companies selling speakers kits including the Frugal Horn level 2, and Sachiko.
Best from Tucson
Bob
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