Jordos Statement build!!

[Jordo]

Well bored at work and starting this thread, I have some pics that I will post soon, boxes are 75% done, tested the crossovers and they work good, started to line one of the cabinets with sonic foam. Just a few questions though for anyone who passes by this thread, how did you cut out a flush mount for the speakers?? I have a Ryobi plunge router and cut all the holes with no problem. I was going to pick up a rabbiting type of router bit to do the flush mounting but cant seem to find one that will cut far enough in to mount the speakers properly, any tips are good thanks. And another question, how much do you actually have to cover in foam?? Pics will be up tommorow or soon so u can see how far I am with that.

[yousuredo2]

usually you do the countersink first, then the holes

[phisch]

I use a Katana adjustable rabbeting bit. It comes with interchangeable bearings of different sizes. You just pick the bearing that gives you the size recess you need for the driver hole so the speaker flange is flush with the baffle.

[Jordo]

I thought about doing the flange first AFTER I cut the holes....well this is my first build so u know, kind of a nub, yeah im just going to try to have to find a larger rabbit bit, or an adjustable one.

[impala454]

I use a Katana adjustable rabbeting bit. It comes with interchangeable bearings of different sizes. You just pick the bearing that gives you the size recess you need for the driver hole so the speaker flange is flush with the baffle.

I do the same thing, just make sure to subtract that from your hole diameter before you cut.

[ThomasW]

I'm lazy so I use the 1/4" solid carbide bit set at the exact driver OD to begin the cut for the rebase...Then cut the rebase using a 1/2"-3/4" flat bottom (aka dado) bit. Process is seen here...

http://home.comcast.net/~audio-worx/page88Tube-Zilla1.html

[stangbat]

I've done basically what Thomas does. I cut the recess with a 3/4" straight cutting bit so you get the entire thing cut with one pass. Then I punch through with a 1/4" cutting bit.

[rj45]

fixing a router mistake

I thought about doing the flange first AFTER I cut the holes....well this is my first build so u know, kind of a nub, yeah im just going to try to have to find a larger rabbit bit, or an adjustable one.

So.... You now have a hole for the driver, and a "plug" from the inside of that
hole. Glue or somehow attach the plug to a piece of scrap that is a bit long.
Get the plug + scrap inside your box and somehow clamp it to the baffle so the plug is centered in the driver hole. Now you have the missing center hole back in place and you can use your router to cut away the flange for flush mounting.
This will take a bit of tweaking, but saves you the cost of new specialized bits for cutting the flange after the fact.

-don

[FroDaddy]

So.... You now have a hole for the driver, and a "plug" from the inside of that
hole. Glue or somehow attach the plug to a piece of scrap that is a bit long.
Get the plug + scrap inside your box and somehow clamp it to the baffle so the plug is centered in the driver hole. Now you have the missing center hole back in place and you can use your router to cut away the flange for flush mounting.
This will take a bit of tweaking, but saves you the cost of new specialized bits for cutting the flange after the fact.

-don

I have used this method successfully with a RS225 recess. It sounds confusing, but it is easy to rig up. If you have a micrometer it makes the alignment very precise. After the recess was cut, the circle was perfect. You won't have to buy (and learn) a new bit if you do this properly.

Make sure to measure the RS225 OD yourself before cutting the recess. I'm not sure if it was manufacturing differences or perhaps a different model, but the posted cut sheet was slightly too small for my RS225's. From now on I measure the OD of the physical drivers before I make a cut.

HTH

[Jordo]

the crossovers



Me testing out the crossovers

Image not available

front baffle









the room they are soon to be in

[Jordo]

The crossovers mounted in the cabinet



Mounting the crossovers



I now have them all done except to put the front baffle on, test em again and if they work good...then put the bottom on.

One more question, I ran out of sonicfoam, where is a local place to get some acoustic foam? I live in a city of 60,000 so we have most stores.

[Jim Holtz]

Hi Jordo,

Excellent build! The pictures are great.

Just a suggestion, be sure to have the crossovers accessible with the base on. Sometimes things slip by un-noticed at first. :W

I'm looking forward to seeing the final speakers and hearing your thoughts when they're done.

EDIT: Check a hobby store or discount store like Walmart. Make sure you can blow through the foam to determine that it's open cell. The mid tunnels require 1" foam. The woofer compartments can be 1 1/2" to 2 1/2".

Jim

[Alaric]

Beautiful planning and construction. If I may , crimped connectors are trouble. Solder is the best/only way to go. It's a pain in the a$$ to solder every pin and connector , but worth it. I don't even build speakers , but I promise you , solder is the electronic joint of choice.

[impala454]

Looks awesome!

[Jordo]

thanks for the replies guys, i have used 1" foam everywhere so far, and cut the mids about 2" back as i think i read in another post. will definitely check walmart tommorow and maybe a few other local stores that i can think of. tommorow i should have the front baffles on and speakers in, i think i am going to screw the base on, but not glue, so if i need to access anything i can, i want to listen to these speakers so bad! so they are going to be unfinished for a little while, but when i do finish em i will make sure to solder everything good, and then glue all the bottom parts on.

[Jim Holtz]

thanks for the replies guys, i have used 1" foam everywhere so far, and cut the mids about 2" back as i think i read in another post. will definitely check walmart tommorow and maybe a few other local stores that i can think of. tommorow i should have the front baffles on and speakers in, i think i am going to screw the base on, but not glue, so if i need to access anything i can, i want to listen to these speakers so bad! so they are going to be unfinished for a little while, but when i do finish em i will make sure to solder everything good, and then glue all the bottom parts on.

Hi Jordo,

We've found beveling the foam near the drivers at 45 degrees with an electric knife helps the mids. Sometimes the little things make a difference. :T

Jim

[Jordo]

ok i will try that, so i looked all over town and nowhere carries acoustic foam, or open cell foam, so i ordered off foambymail, way cheaper than sonic foam too, so it will be at least a week or 2 before i can listen to em....sigh...

[Jordo]

It's going to be a few weeks before I get my foam so i finished up all the woodworking and routing, started to bondo the holes. probably put the speakers in tomorrow till I get my foam.

[FroDaddy]

How did you end up cutting the recesses? They look round, but maybe a little bit deep. It could be the lighting in the pictures, though.

[Jordo]

yeah those pics look deep, but they are actually just a bit shy of flush, i just used some scrap 1/2" MDF i had lying around, cut 2 pieces 11.5" wide, clamped them to the front, then remeasured the holes, then used the jasper jig and cut the flush part of the holes out, then i had another router bit that cuts in the recess just about 1/2", if you see em up close they just need a little touchup so im gonna bust out the dremel tomorrow and touch em up.

This is my first build, and my woodworking skills are average at best(dads shop) but i think they will turn out pretty good, after i got into it i thought maybe i should have started with something smaller, but hey, fuggit, i like big speakers.

[FroDaddy]

yeah those pics look deep, but they are actually just a bit shy of flush, i just used some scrap 1/2" MDF i had lying around, cut 2 pieces 11.5" wide, clamped them to the front, then remeasured the holes, then used the jasper jig and cut the flush part of the holes out, then i had another router bit that cuts in the recess just about 1/2", if you see em up close they just need a little touchup so im gonna bust out the dremel tomorrow and touch em up.

This is my first build, and my woodworking skills are average at best(dads shop) but i think they will turn out pretty good, after i got into it i thought maybe i should have started with something smaller, but hey, fuggit, i like big speakers.

LOL I know what you mean, these are kind of hard to build being so large. They look great and are further along than mine are :T

[impala454]

yeah those pics look deep, but they are actually just a bit shy of flush

yeah you want to leave a tiny bit of room for the gasket tape. looks good!

[Jordo]

ok so i finally finished assembling one of em today.




I hooked them up to my Onkyo 805 and it seems that the sound output tops out way before the volume control does, but they don't clip at all. I wired them in Bi-amp mode and it seems to put out more, but it still seems to top out. I think I need a bigger amp. Also the treble seems like it overpowers the mid and bass, maybe time to play with some EQ settings.

[FroDaddy]

...
i hooked them up to my Onkyo 805 and it seems that the sound output tops out way before the volume control does, but they dont clip at all, so i wired them in Bi-amp mode and it seems to put out more, but it still seems to top out, i think i need a bigger amp. also the treble seems like it overpowers the mid and bass, maybe time to play with some EQ settings.

Can you elaborate on what you mean about the "sound output tops out way before the volume control does"? Do you mean that your amp seems to be giving up before the speakers?

[Johnloudb]

Sounds like a wiring error in the crossover. Where you have the speaker placed the bass and midrange should be prominent, I'd think. How much power does your Onkyo have?

Also, if your music source doesn't have enough output to drive the amp to full output, that could cause the lack of speaker output. But I kind of doubt that's the problem, unless you're using an Ipod with volume turned way down. You're probably not.

[Jordo]

ah so i changed the music source (old sony dvd player) to my PS3 and the sound output has raised considerably
also the onkyo is 130Wx7, running biamped with the PS3 was the best setup, im probly gonna go for the Emo XPA-2.

[Jim Holtz]

I'd suggest you double check your crossover wiring. You should have no problem powering Statements with your receiver. The sound should be very balanced and smooth. Both comments point to a wiring error.

Jim

[yousuredo2]

Is the speaker on its base with room for the port to breath ?
In the pic above it looks like its sitting on the carpet without the base.

[---k---]

It sounds like you have figured out it is the source, but that seems odd. I would check the wiring, especially the wiring from the crossover to the drivers. It is very easy to get drivers out of phase.

[Jordo]

ok heres the weird thing, when i was at my parents house just testing it out, i had it hooked up to an old sony 5.1, 100wpc receiver, had it hooked up with 14ga wire from a single channel, without the base on just sitting on the carpet and the bass was shaking the ground and things on the walls, but it sounded good, then i bring it home and hook it up to the onkyo and it doesnt seem to have the punch the sony amp did, which is weird, i did have it sitting on the base before as well and it didnt seem to change much, one thing to mention is i did notice in the opening screen of rockband on the PS3, i would crank the volume and the sound seems to do the same thing(hits like a ceiling where it doesnt go any louder) is there something in the receiver that limits the volume output? or is it possible i just need a better source to play the music from?

i will draw up some wiring diagrams EXACTLY like i wired them just so u get an idea but i checked them over 5 times and am pretty sure i got them right, i will definitely be double checking for proper speaker wiring as well, maybe im just not used to great audio hehe

[Hdale85]

When your listening for "loud" are you listening for when it starts to hurt to listen so to speak? If so you may not get that until a much louder point with a very nice low distortion set of speakers as they don't have the listening fatigue of a cheaper speaker. I'm pretty sure this isn't whats going on but just thought I'd throw it out there.

[yousuredo2]

I don't know if this helps you.
~ My Old Sony 5.1 100wpc plays 4ohm/8ohm loads, switch on back(not sure of the statements ohm load)
~ It is also significantly different in its out put levels(DVD/TV/Ps3/Etc.)
Perhaps trying different inputs on your receiver will yield better results

I still haven't figured out to how to get the same volume level out of each input selected

[Johnloudb]

ok heres the weird thing, when i was at my parents house just testing it out, i had it hooked up to an old sony 5.1, 100wpc receiver, had it hooked up with 14ga wire from a single channel, without the base on just sitting on the carpet and the bass was shaking the ground and things on the walls, but it sounded good, then i bring it home and hook it up to the onkyo and it doesnt seem to have the punch the sony amp did, which is weird, i did have it sitting on the base before as well and it didnt seem to change much, one thing to mention is i did notice in the opening screen of rockband on the PS3, i would crank the volume and the sound seems to do the same thing(hits like a ceiling where it doesnt go any louder) is there something in the receiver that limits the volume output? or is it possible i just need a better source to play the music from?

i will draw up some wiring diagrams EXACTLY like i wired them just so u get an idea but i checked them over 5 times and am pretty sure i got them right, i will definitely be double checking for proper speaker wiring as well, maybe im just not used to great audio hehe

Assuming the wiring is correct, it could be that your receiver is having trouble driving the low impedance (I guessing it's 4ohm nominal at least in the bass).

Or the receiver just doesn't have enough voltage gain for the sources you're using it with, which seems weird. But, if it hits this "ceiling," and it doesn't play any louder before you have the volume control on the receiver turned up all the way, then it indicates a lack of power. Do you hear any distortion when you do this?

Well, Jim said it should drive the speakers and he would know. You did bi-amp it as well. So, unless the Onkyo is malfunctioning it should drive the speakers well, I'd think.

Kind of a strange problem. It's easy to miss wiring errors sometimes. I do it a lot.

[Johnloudb]

I got it! You wired the woofers and mid-range in series, instead of parallel. This would the mid and low frequencies 6 dB less sensitive and make the tweeter sound louder.

I'm a hero! :thanku: Unless I'm wrong.

[rj45]

check the wiring

ok heres the weird thing, when i was at my parents house just testing it out, i had it hooked up to an old sony 5.1, 100wpc receiver, had it hooked up with 14ga wire from a single channel, without the base on just sitting on the carpet and the bass was shaking the ground and things on the walls, but it sounded good, then i bring it home and hook it up to the onkyo and it doesnt seem to have the punch the sony amp did,

So, if I read this correctly, you hooked up 1 speaker to the Sony, and it had plenty of loudness, but 2 speakers on your Onkyo did not?

I'm guessing that your woofers are out of polarity left to right.
Easy way to check - place the speakers about 1 foot apart and facing each other. Play some bass heavy rock or rap. Step back a couple of feet and evaluate the amount of bass. Now reverse one of the speaker wires going into into one of the speakers. You should hear much more or much less bass. Whatever setting produces the most bass is correct.

Your Onkyo 805 should be able to drive the Statements to about 110 dB peaks before you run out of power. If you have a spare amp, use a separate amp to drive the woofers, and use the 805 to drive the mids and tweets. That you give you about 6-9 dB more clean output. :T

HTH,
-Don

[Jordo]

I am pretty sure I have both the mids and woofers wired in parallel because I have both the (+) and (-) wires running off each speaker separately to the crossover, then to the banana plug connectors exiting the speakers, also I only have 1 speaker together so yes I was only running 1 speaker so far off both the sony amp and my onkyo.

I will try to grab the crossovers tonight and give you an in detail wiring diagram exactly like I have it wired.

[impala454]

Did you check to be sure there's not some weird crossover setting entered into your AVR? I know with my Denon before I built my Monitors, I had these little crappy speakers and had the XO in the AVR set at like 140 Hz.

[cobblepots]

Not sure if you covered this already. I have the same receiver and you have to manually tell it that you have 4ohm speakers. There's an impedance setting in the speaker setup section.

[Jordo]

I noticed that there is a 4 and 6 ( 8 ) ohm setting, but I thought I read somewhere all that setting does is reduce the power consumption going to 4 ohms to reduce the heat load on the receiver? and I also thought I saw that that statements were mostly in the 6+ohm range so they were considered an 8 ohm speaker?

Also about that crossover setting, there are frequency settings for all the speakers in the 7.1 config, I have it set to full band right now, it can also be set from i think 40 or 50Hz to 200ish?

[cobblepots]

The chart is tough to interpret but I think the average impedence is around 6 ohm for the most part which would require you to select that setting on the 805.

Crossover should be set to 80 degrees or so. I'm pretty sure you can just imput whatever you want there. I have just set it up so I'm not very familiar with it yet. You could probably go lower too. If your subwoofer is playing higher frequencies due to the crossover and is out of phase with the statements the sound waves will cancel like said above.

[Jordo]

I understand what your saying, but I think the 4 and 6 ohm impedance selector just cuts some of the power when you select the 4 ohm setting due to heat issues with the amp, regardless of the setting the amp should play any speaker down to 4 ohms fine.

[---k---]

It is easy to try and see. When I was using a receiver with my speakers, I set it to the 6 ohm setting.

[cobblepots]

I actually contacted Onkyo about this asking the same question. They said it was for cooling purposes but the amp does have a higher rms rating at the 4 ohm level. The amp should be perfectly able to power those speakers at the same level or higher than the Sony all else equal. Did you check to see if the phase is correct between your subwoofer and speakers?

[Jordo]

Ah ok thats good to know about the onkyo, well the speakers were listened to without the subwoofer, so i dont think the phase between them was an issue when i listened to em, how do you check the phase on speakers anyways? i am at work right now so the earliest i can do any testing would be later tonight.

[---k---]

You did wire the mids out of phase (backwards), correct? Note where the + are marked on the diagram:




Maybe we're solving a problem that doesn't exist. :huh: