Noobster build thread

[Finleyville]

Anyway...

Here is a short thread of my noobster build. A great thanks to augerpro for the work involved in designing them. I ordered the parts from PE for the MTM with the tweets on back order until mid December. The total BOM with one sheet of MDF totaled to $300 for the pair.

I altered the enclosure dimensions a little to fit an existing bookshelf area. I elongated the box giving more room for a front mounted port while shortened the depth to keep the 1 liter volume. I kept the baffle width the same so I would not have to adjust the x-over at all. My new dimension are 9 x 26 x 11. These will be placed horizontal around knee height behind some speaker cloth for background music only.

Here are some pics of the build so far. I'll add more as I move along.



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[Finleyville]

Here is a pic of the crossovers...

[Finleyville]

Finally here is a pic of the final result. I'll give some listening impressions a little later after some break in.

[augerpro]

Looks good Michael! Are you going to do any sort of finish? You will have to play with placement, these were voiced with them pretty close to the front wall.

Is that baffle 9" wide?

[wkhanna]

Great work, Michael! :T

[Finleyville]

I am not keeping these. I built these for my Father-in-law to be placed inside an enclosed bookcase behind some old speaker cloth. So they will not be finished at all.

Yes, the baffle is 9" wide. I only played with the height and depth to fit the bookcase to achieve the modeled 1 cu.ft. enclosure. I wanted to keep the published x-over design the same.

You cannot tell but I smashed everything on the x-over to about 5 X 5.5 in. I think I spent about 3 hours figuring out the smallest footprint using only one side of hardboard.

[Finleyville]

Anyway...

After listening to these for a little while I have formed a positive opinion!

Now, the only thing I have to A/B the Noobsters against are my Zaph L18's. Not really a fair comparison since the L18's are a TM design and I built the MTM version. But here it goes anyway... [NOTE: All comments below are totally subjective and my opinions only]

I feel the integration between the tweet and the mids is great. The dual TB's have a good amount of lower authority. More than my single Seas L18. But it seems a little less controlled than the L18's. For small to medium rooms I did not feel the need for a sub for almost all music at normal to higher than normal playback levels. The tweeter preformed well too with decent detail. I really like the Seas 27TBFCG though and prefer it to the Vifa. (I guess I am a metalhead. :W ) I feel the Vifa just leaves some extra shimmer or glitter out of the music. These, though, are speakers that are musical and very non-fatiguing for hours.

What really surprised me, though, was when I transferred these 30 lbs each naked beauts to my Father-in-law's much larger room ~25' X 50'. They really seemed to open up and breathe much better than at my place. The slight darkness I heard before disappeared. We all know that the environment has almost as much impact on the final sound as the speaker does itself. But it seems that although the MTM Noobsters sounded good in a smaller setting, that they need a little more breathing room to shine. I am betting that the TM design would have sounded perhaps better in my smaller place.

These definitely do not sound like $300/pair [minus finishing] speakers. They are much, much better. For the non-audiophile listener this design will be all anyone needs. MY tastes, however, steer towards a more precise, analytical sound. So for me the L18 fits me better. I just wish my L18's had as much lower end oomph as the Noobsters.

[augerpro]

I'm very happy that you're satisfied! :T I really liked the way these MTM's can rock and do HT at good volumes, while still providing a clear and detailed sound-although probably a step down from the Zaph's all metal speaker. The TM's are in fact a bit...brighter I guess, while the MTM's had a typically smooth MTM sound. As you said, musical and non-fatiguing.

Is your FinL using these as a center channel? If so how does he feel they do with speech? I hadn't really intended these to be a center, but some people will use them that way.

[Finleyville]

These are used as a stereo pair only, 100% music. There is not a tele even in the same room.

I would probably use these for mostly music applications instead of a center channel. Maybe 70/30 music/tv?

It is my opinion that there is not enough higher octave resolution for lower level dialog tracks for movies. I think whispers "might" be hard to understand. I used them for a little TV watching and this was my first impression. I found myself turning the volume a little louder than what I usually do for dialog resolvements. (Yes, I just made up that word! :lol: )

I just would like to emphasis that for $300 you will not be able to touch anything that would come close to these in retail electronics stores. So if you are looking for an intro project that will sound great with music all day long these fit the bill nicely.