Pictures: ZD5 build complete; thank you John Krutke

[DancesWithBeers]

I have finally completed the Zaph Audio ZD5s. As you can see, the only part of the original design I kept was the driver spacing, baffle height, and I am within .5" of the baffle width, but used a 7/8" round over. I have no idea if they sound as good as the originals, but, to me, they sound amazing. Hopefully the current issues with the tweeters are solved and jkrutke can put the design back up.

I am posting here the images of the finished project. For pictures of construction and other details, you can get them here:

http://www.webherrera.com/blog/category/speaker-building/

This is the most involved wood working project I've ever undertaken, so there were a lot of mishaps, mistakes, and learning along the way, but I think the months of work paid off (I'm sure an accomplished woodworker could have done this in about a hundred hours less time).

Anyway, thanks to all who helped, especially my girlfriend who suffered through stressful glue-ups and held things down while I twisted clamp handles in a panicked frenzy.



















Crossover Box:



-DWB

[joecarrow]

Very nice job there! Perhaps it could have been done faster, but the results are outstanding. I like the contrast in wood grains.

Can you share more details on the sub stands?

[soundemon]

The curved cabinets are beutifull! How about some "in process" pictures?

[Jed]

Congrats on some speakers that will rival the looks and sound of speakers costing many thousands. Beautiful work.

[CraigJ]

(I'm sure an accomplished woodworker could have done this in about a hundred hours less time).-DWB

Ha Ha Ha,

DWB,
Obviously you are a very good artist then. Congrats on an exceptional job, especially on the finish! Enjoy your system.

Craig

[JonMarsh]

You did a very nice job! :T It's not how fast you get there but how happy you are with the end results- these should bring you many years of pleasure!

[Silversmoky]

Beautiful! Good Work! :T

[jkrutke]

Very nice!

The last of a big bunch of XT25 test drivers will arrive on monday and with some testing I should be able to get some idea about what's going on with these tweeters. (if anything at all)

[DancesWithBeers]

Very nice job there! Perhaps it could have been done faster, but the results are outstanding. I like the contrast in wood grains.

Can you share more details on the sub stands?

The subs were actually speakers that were made in the 70's. They had Seas components from the same era and were in a 3 way setup with 1 woofer, 2 mids, and 1 tweeter each. I pulled these out, refinished everything, and made MDF boxes that slid into the existing enclosures. I then made a front baffle to cover the edges of the subs and finish the fronts. It was veneered with curly maple. There are two 10" Dayton Reference HF drivers per side, in parallel (2 ohms each side).

I just have the speakers sitting on some felt for now, but I plan on making dedicated stands of some sort.

Here are a few pictures of the hifi set renovation:

Original:





I'm going to put an HTPC in the spot the record player used to go:



Sanding and scraping all the old finish off (this took months):





Finished:

The curved cabinets are beutifull! How about some "in process" pictures?

The forms together for sanding:



Holes drilled out of braces:



Temporary braces screwed to forms during construction and vertical supports being glued up:



Gluing the umpteenth layer of 1/8" baltic birch around the form:



and why the vertical supports came in handy:



Trimming the excess (for the front and back, the blade didn't go high enough, so I had to tilt the speaker down and angle the saw blade at the same angle):



trimmed:





3/4", minus vertical supports of laminated wood. Very rigid:



After veneering:





Planing jig for curly maple fronts and backs (tear out issues experienced with knife planer):



Planed wood:



Backs of front maple baffles hollowed out, plywood to be inset (thought this might limit expansion issues of using hardwood):



Glue-up of baffles:



Front baffle almost complete (1.25"+). The idea was that the wood would all expand the same thickness wise, using BB ply, but expansion would still be limited length and width-wise. I guess I'll find out soon enough...

I had yet to do the rear chamfer or drill the holes.



Mostly finished, with a test fit. Roundover had been applied, in addition to hours of sanding. The rear baffle, using the same basic construction techniques, still had to be constructed:





-DWB

[Johnloudb]

Very Beautiful work, work, work, work, work ..... You must be very proud! :T :T

I'm going to put an HTPC in the spot the record player used to go:

Oooohhhh ... The Horror! :B

[syncroniq]

Hi,

I made a version with the R29, if your wanted to upgrade in the future.

http://www.speakerbuilder.dk/content/getPage.asp?id=37

How many liters are your enclosure for the 15W?

[john trials]

Those speakers are gorgeous. Thanks for posting the build photos (I guess it's the engineer in me...I love looking at build photos). That looks like a very labor intensive project. The results are NICE!!!!!!

[Dean100]

Absolutely stunning! :T

[topp]

Man those look nice. Great job.

[64NOMIS]

This is a remarkable project. The original cabinet turned out perfectly but the restoration work was obviously a bear. And the upper cabinets are stunning. Since my current project is similar I have been doing a mental comparison of the hours...daunting and impressive.

I started the opposite way, with speakers around which I built a new console; you had an existing console which has undergone a remarkable restoration plus the all new construction of a very nice bent-form box. Fantastic. I like the restored retro kinked line for the refurbished top and the figured maple baffles in particular (and a tricky veneer job at that...).

On the topic of your HTPC I have had to grappel with the same problem, which is the proximity of the HTPC to unshielded drivers.

The solution: solid state hard drive.

I am a week or two or so away from putting my HTPC in place, I'll post up those images as a result; in that cabinet you will have airflow issues, need a lot of CFM's for the PC. Any thoughts? Also, what kind of wood finishes did you use?

[bose301s]

Very nice!

The last of a big bunch of XT25 test drivers will arrive on monday and with some testing I should be able to get some idea about what's going on with these tweeters. (if anything at all)

Have the XT25s been having quality issues or something?

[DancesWithBeers]

Thanks everyone for their comments. They were a lot of work, but I wouldn't be doing this if I didn't enjoy the process. I'm already bored (when I'm not listenting to music) and thinking about what comes next.

The links in the second post were updated and all of the pictures should be showing up.

On the topic of your HTPC I have had to grappel with the same problem, which is the proximity of the HTPC to unshielded drivers.

The solution: solid state hard drive.

Don't worry about the unsheilded drivers. A solid state drive is nice, but you'd have to have a very strong magnet almost resting on the hard drive platter to do any damage. I've read some tests to this effect and magnets are not really a problem any longer with modern computers.

What I'm mostly worried about is that the computer will be giving off RF interference in an unsheilded wooden cabinet, so I might line it with metal. I'm not sure that this will affect anything nearby, but I guess it can't hurt.

I am a week or two or so away from putting my HTPC in place, I'll post up those images as a result; in that cabinet you will have airflow issues, need a lot of CFM's for the PC. Any thoughts? Also, what kind of wood finishes did you use?

I've been following your project and I think it looks really nice. You'll need to damp that hardwood somehow to get rid of ringing, but it'll look great.

The cabinet has air holes in the back, under the cutout for the old record player, which I removed. I'm thinking of either water cooling to control noise, or directing the air in and out of the hole.

The last part I will be adding will be one of those new 1.8" thick LCD TVs, on a lift, that will live behind the electronics cabinet when not in use. I'd also like some sort of flip out sound absorbers that will absorb the initial reflections from the ZD5s. The S.O. doesn't like it when I use the couch cushions...

For the finish on the HiFi set, I used strictly Waterlox Original Sealant and Finish. I started by sanding to 320 grit, then applied the waterlox, sanding and reappplying with finer and finer grits, until I was down to steel wool for the last few coats. I then put a layer of rennaisance wax over the top. There are some flaws in the original cabinets, as the doors have warping problems in areas, but I think I might build new ones in the future.

For the ZD5s, see the woodwhisperer.com link I put in the original post. Only the clear oil/varnish finish was used on the makore. I didn't build it up too much because I wanted a satin finish.

Thanks,

-DWB

[DancesWithBeers]

Have the XT25s been having quality issues or something?

We don't really know for sure yet. See this for more info:

http://zaphaudio.com/zd5.html

-DWB

[bose301s]

We don't really know for sure yet. See this for more info:

http://zaphaudio.com/zd5.html

-DWB

Good to know! I was considering using them in a project with the SB Acoustics 6" driver but decided to use the SB ring driver instead.

[DancesWithBeers]

How many liters are your enclosure for the 15W?

The raw enclosure was about .68 ft3 and was reduced to about .55 ft3 with bracing and driver displacement.

[Hugo82]

Wow, those look awesome.... very very nice!

[peter_m]

Wow, thank you for the in-process pictures. Inspiring.

[64NOMIS]

Thanks for the great reply.

The hollowed-out maple front baffle is nuts. A lesser enthusiast would have simply glued 1/2" or 3/4" ply inset to the back of a 3/4" maple face. ;x(

With speaker-integrated consoles vibration and magnetic fields are potential issues; solid state HDD resists both and you will see from my placement I am very close to the woofer's magnet and at high volumes vibration may be an issue...

While I prefer Waterlox I found Watco wipe-on-poly to behave well and has a light yellow rather than the moderate amber cast of Waterlox. Nice for white-cast lumbers. Wipe-on-poly also has the benefit of being very resistant to water spills and cat barf. I could never get wipe-on-poly over Danish oil finish to work, Danish oil finish would not apply evenly for me.

Two more easy questions if I may - where did you get the nice black screws and did you use acoustic dampening (I plan to use acousta stuf)?

[DancesWithBeers]

[QUOTE=64NOMIS]...and you will see from my placement I am very close to the woofer's magnet and at high volumes vibration may be an issue...

Probably a good idea. You will have less heat to remove also. if you were to water cool, you'd only need a water block on the CPU, GPU, and possibly the main motherboard chip. It could be a very quiet system. I've heard really good things about the G.Skill and OCZ SSDs (faster models at least).

Two more easy questions if I may - where did you get the nice black screws and did you use acoustic dampening (I plan to use acousta stuf)?

As far as the screws, I used the #8 black socket head screws from madisound. They just fit through the tweeter holes and worked for the midbass too:

http://www.madisound.com/catalog/product_info.php?products_id=8200

I used a 1/8" hole and if you use them for tweeters where there is a tight fit, I highly recommend carefully marking the holes and drilling with a brad-point bit for accuracy.

For the stuffing, long fiber wool was the same price as acousta stuff, so I went with the wool from the same place:

http://www.madisound.com/catalog/product_info.php?products_id=772

I'm not sure which one works better, but this seems to do the job.

Cheers,

-DWB

[64NOMIS]

[QUOTE=DancesWithBeers]

...and you will see from my placement I am very close to the woofer's magnet and at high volumes vibration may be an issue...

Probably a good idea. You will have less heat to remove also. if you were to water cool, you'd only need a water block on the CPU, GPU, and possibly the main motherboard chip. It could be a very quiet system. I've heard really good things about the G.Skill and OCZ SSDs (faster models at least).



As far as the screws, I used the #8 black socket head screws from madisound. They just fit through the tweeter holes and worked for the midbass too:

http://www.madisound.com/catalog/product_info.php?products_id=8200

I used a 1/8" hole and if you use them for tweeters where there is a tight fit, I highly recommend carefully marking the holes and drilling with a brad-point bit for accuracy.

For the stuffing, long fiber wool was the same price as acousta stuff, so I went with the wool from the same place:

http://www.madisound.com/catalog/product_info.php?products_id=772

I'm not sure which one works better, but this seems to do the job.

Cheers,

-DWB

Thanks again, great info and I appreciate the links - those are perfect screws.

Perhaps we should tag team on a thread on integrating a HTPCs into consoles? It would be interesting to get different implementations into one thread and see if any lurkers come out of the woodwork. I do some work on PC cooling, HTPC's etc. at work. We could bring in some of the unique challenges of PC integration into small enclosed spaces and the benefits of full integration.

[BigguyZ]

What is the veneer you used? Mottled Makor? Where did you get it? Also, did you use paper backed, or raw?

I'm looking into using raw veneer with a vacuum press, as if I'm spending $$$$$$ on building new speakers, I want them to be as perfect as possible. And the Waterfall Bubinga I really WANT to use is rather spendy, so that veneer may be a good compromise....

[DancesWithBeers]

Perhaps we should tag team on a thread on integrating a HTPCs into consoles? It would be interesting to get different implementations into one thread and see if any lurkers come out of the woodwork. I do some work on PC cooling, HTPC's etc. at work. We could bring in some of the unique challenges of PC integration into small enclosed spaces and the benefits of full integration.

I'd be interested in posting some of what I come up with, but I'm going to be backed up with projects until the middle of August, so feel free to start a thread and I can post when the time comes.

What is the veneer you used? Mottled Makor? Where did you get it? Also, did you use paper backed, or raw?

I'm looking into using raw veneer with a vacuum press, as if I'm spending $$$$$$ on building new speakers, I want them to be as perfect as possible. And the Waterfall Bubinga I really WANT to use is rather spendy, so that veneer may be a good compromise....

It is paper backed Mottled Makore from here (10 mil):

http://www.veneersupplies.com/product_info.php?cPath=51_75_54&products_id=2232

I used the titebond iron-on method. A vacuum press would definitely be nice. Waterfall bubinga is gorgeous if you have the money.

I can take a close-up of the seams if you want to see if it would bother you. If you know it will, then you can't beat raw veneer with a vacuum press.

-DWB