Statement Monitos Finished.

[ahaik]

Our last several month where kind of a roller coaster since we moved into our new house. It has been a three steps forward and then two steps backwards process, as things break and problems are discovered. So I needed something fun to work on (other then fixing termite damage, flood damage, etc, etc... :roll: ).
So I decided to build the monitors for future use in my future HT setup.
I wanted to try something new (for me), solid wood baffle.











Edit: Pictures taken at my brothers house, my house looks like a bomb exploaded in the middle of it.

I posted this on FroDaddy's build thread:
"All the drivers are brand new and where broken in for about 15 hours on a music CD. Then I listened to them, they sounded good, but I felt something was terribly off. I hooked up the Statements and I was amazed at the difference, they sound completly different. Much softer sound more detailed, to my ears a night and day difference, like they where a completely different design using different drivers. I then pushed on the W4's cones very gently and the new one where so much stiffer, to the point that it was very easily detected.
Then I changed the W4 in the monitors to the ones in the Statements and the 'MAGIC' happened and they sound great. I changed the ribbons after that which did not make a big difference if any. I always knew that speakers need to be broken in, but I did not think the difference it makes was so big. My question is (for Curt, I guess), when designing a crossover how do you take into account those changes? and how do you break in the drivers?"

Thanks again ,
Asi.

[john trials]

Feet: yuck!

Speakers: Gorgeous!

[Jim Holtz]

Hi Asi,

Superb craftsmanship! As usual, I might add. :T

Let us know how long it takes to get the W4's broken in. I normally figure on about 20 hours but it sounds like yours still haven't settled down.

Great job!

Jim

[penngray]

Incredible speakers!!

What is the baffle wood, did you veneer? I love that look and would like to copy it!

[BigguyZ]

Those are some beautiful speakers, and some ugly feet...

[savage25xtreme]

Are you guys reading woman's clothing catalogs and listen to Statements barefoot? Must be a NY thing !

[BigguyZ]

That's a Corona ad I don't expect to see in the near future...

[impala454]

Very nice job.

[BeerParty]

Nice speakers, and nice stands as well.

Any chance you could post a picture of the stands without the speakers on them? I would like to see how you designed it so the top of the stand and the bottom of the speaker align (so I can copy it, of course!).

I'll reserve comment on your feet until after you post pictures of the stands. :roll:

[savage25xtreme]

they were posted a while ago.. I drooled then too.... :drool:

https://www.htguide.com/forum/showpost.php?p=450384&postcount=13

[ahaik]

Thanks for the kind words.
Hey... I thought that needs to be a traditional pic with the feet :

Incredible speakers!!

What is the baffle wood, did you veneer? I love that look and would like to copy it!

The veneer is flat cut cherry from tapease (the cheaper 10 mil paper back one), the baffle is solid wood, curly maple I purchased on Ebay backed with 1/4" MDF recessed. It was hard to find a wide enough piece that would be long enough for both speakers (I didn't want to join boards).
And I got to use my new (from craigslist, new in box) Delta Planer :B .
I copied the idea from Andy over at the PE board, his new Microbes are simply beautifull !!!

Nice speakers, and nice stands as well.

Any chance you could post a picture of the stands without the speakers on them? I would like to see how you designed it so the top of the stand and the bottom of the speaker align (so I can copy it, of course!).

I'll reserve comment on your feet until after you post pictures of the stands.

I wasn't planning on making those stands, I needed some temporary stands and planned to make them out of 2x4's and some plywood and they turned into these 8O the veneer is some scraps I had from an older project (D III's for my parents). They are just stands for general use, not just for the monitors. If I would have made them for the Monitors I would have used solid cherry. And I wouldn't recommend veneering those curves, just use solid wood.
I don't have any pictures of them. I will take some and post them when I get a chance.

Are you guys reading woman's clothing catalogs and listen to Statements barefoot? Must be a NY thing !

Ha, so you never tried that before? well you should :W

Hi Asi,

Superb craftsmanship! As usual, I might add.

Let us know how long it takes to get the W4's broken in. I normally figure on about 20 hours but it sounds like yours still haven't settled down.

Great job!

Jim

Thank you Jim

We had a 'Long Island Audio Syndrume' meeting and I demo'd them to the guys, so I put in the W4's and the Neo3's from my original Statements (they sounded teribble in the room there). I kept them because hopefully they will make it to my brothers father in law to get his impressions and I am curious to see how they will compare to his Dynaudio C4's, he has a real nice system, hejust purchased a new Esoteric CD player ($14K :roll: ). I had a chance to listen to his system at Easter for the first time and its pretty amazing. We also compared his old CD player (an expensive Mark Levinson) and the Esoteric was noticably cleaner.
I appologize for dragging you so long about taking the Statements there ops: , but it never happened. After I dragged them to my new house I decided that for their sake and my bad back I better not
Actually at my brothers house they sounded better then anything I have ever heared (other then his father in law, very close though). I guess his room is very good.

As usual you guys do an amazing job ;x(
Thank you again,
Asi.

Edit: if I had to guess about the break in time for the W4 it would be much more then 20 hours, I wonder what the guys that do measurements think?.

[penngray]

The veneer is flat cut cherry from tapease (the cheaper 10 mil paper back one), the baffle is solid wood, curly maple I purchased on Ebay backed with 1/4" MDF recessed. It was hard to find a wide enough piece that would be long enough for both speakers (I didn't want to join boards).
And I got to use my new (from craigslist, new in box) Delta Planer .
I copied the idea from Andy over at the PE board, his new Microbes are simply beautifull !!!

Definitely beautiful, I have lots of Cherry veneer! Its the front baffle that really stands out. I will search for solid curly maple...might be hard to find but you did an incredible job.

I will also check out PE, I need all the help I can get when doing finishes.

[Face]

Looks great!

[kingpin]

Thanks for the kind words.
Hey... I thought that needs to be a traditional pic with the feet :

Feet with socks yes!
Feet naked. :E :E

LOL

good job

Mike

[FroDaddy]

Nice job on the finish! They look great!

[Jim Holtz]

I appologize for dragging you so long about taking the Statements there ops: , but it never happened. After I dragged them to my new house I decided that for their sake and my bad back I better not

Hi Asi,

No worries. Life has a way of getting in the way of such things. Much more importantly you are settled in your new house and enjoying your Statements. :T

Jim

[ahaik]

Thanks everyone again.

Definitely beautiful, I have lots of Cherry veneer! Its the front baffle that really stands out. I will search for solid curly maple...might be hard to find but you did an incredible job.

I will also check out PE, I need all the help I can get when doing finishes.

It was a near disaster, that curly maple is not easy to work with. I trimmed the two baffles within 1/8" or less using the table saw and then mounted them on the boxes for final trimming with a flush trim bit. Both chipped on the side :M .
I was able to find one of the chips right after but couldn't find the other. Luckily I found it the next day while cleanning the shop and was able to glue both chips on and after sanding you could hardly find them :dancenana:
Next time I will buy a high quality trim bit.

Hi Asi,

No worries. Life has a way of getting in the way of such things. Much more importantly you are settled in your new house and enjoying your Statements.

Jim

I hope to take the monitors there soon.

Asi.

[BeerParty]

I wasn't planning on making those stands, I needed some temporary stands and planned to make them out of 2x4's and some plywood and they turned into these 8O the veneer is some scraps I had from an older project (D III's for my parents). They are just stands for general use, not just for the monitors. If I would have made them for the Monitors I would have used solid cherry. And I wouldn't recommend veneering those curves, just use solid wood.

OK, now I am really jealous! :W

If I made temporary stands, I can assure you they would look it. Well done.

And thanks for the link savage25xtreme, the close ups were just what I needed.

[Curt C]

My question is (for Curt, I guess), when designing a crossover how do you take into account those changes? and how do you break in the drivers?"

Considering I did little to break in the drivers when we designed and voiced the monitors, I find your experience with your latest 1337 purchase disquieting, and I wonder if there may be some other explanation other than break in for these purportedly significant sonic differences. One would think that 15 hours should have been sufficient, although with only 3 mm of Xmax, little flexing of the spider will occur.

An impedance sweep of the offending drivers compared to a sample of your original drivers may be informative.

C

[ahaik]

Considering I did little to break in the drivers when we designed and voiced the monitors, I find your experience with your latest 1337 purchase disquieting, and I wonder if there may be some other explanation other than break in for these purportedly significant sonic differences. One would think that 15 hours should have been sufficient, although with only 3 mm of Xmax, little flexing of the spider will occur.

An impedance sweep of the offending drivers compared to a sample of your original drivers may be informative.

C

Curt,
I had them running for about 20 hours on a music CD, 12 hours at moderate volume and 8 at low (during the night).
I don't have a way to measure the impedance right now and planning to take them to a friend tommorow, but after that I will change back to the new drivers and try to break them in some more.
It would be interesting if you could measure the original W4's in Jim's Statements someday and compare the measurements to the original measurements.
I was under the impression (my be a wrong one :huh: ) that drivers needs hundreds of ours of break in.
Thank you for your reply,
Asi.

[Curt C]

Asi,
One can find opinions all over the map when it comes to driver break in. Anywhere from

‘They were broke in by the factory testing,’

‘They will break in in a few minutes of playing.,’

‘It will take hundreds of hours to fully break in.’

What we do ‘know’ is that with modern drivers the T/S parameters don’t generally don’t change much, and if they do, it doesn’t affect the choice of enclosure volume much if any. This suggests that whatever quality it is that changes in drivers with break in isn’t measured by T/S parameters. Of course, T/S doesn’t fully describe a driver’s behavior either, so certainly something could be changing, but what is is, is problematic at this juncture. I’ll admit I’ve heard what I thought were break in changes, but these were generally subtle, and I could just as easily be fooling myself as not… YMMV…

Your issue sounds too significant to be simple break in, but on the other hand, I can’t hear them from here either…

C

[DancesWithBeers]

Beautiful work, and this is what I get for taking months to build my cabinets - someone else implements nearly the same idea first.

I'm using curly maple for my baffles too, and it is indeed a pain to work with. I'm going to use a brand new bit for the round-overs, so hopefully I can avoid chipping.

-DWB

[ThomasW]

Feet: yuck!

Those are some beautiful speakers, and some ugly feet...

I'll reserve comment on your feet until after you post pictures of the stands. :roll:

N00bs to the forum should understand foot shots (usually with socks) are a long standing tradition here to signify kicking back and enjoying a project when it's finished...

[ahaik]

Nice speakers, and nice stands as well.

Any chance you could post a picture of the stands without the speakers on them? I would like to see how you designed it so the top of the stand and the bottom of the speaker align (so I can copy it, of course!).

I'll reserve comment on your feet until after you post pictures of the stands. :roll:

Not sure if still needed, I'm posting some close up pics I took last night and a pic of the template.
To align them simply start with a rectangle piece and curve the sides.

Asi.

[BeerParty]

Not sure if still needed, I'm posting some close up pics I took last night and a pic of the template.

Excellent - just what I was looking for. Thanks Asi!

[savage25xtreme]

N00bs to the forum should understand foot shots (usually with socks) are a long standing tradition here to signify kicking back and enjoying a project when it's finished...

There is the key....

[johnathanwinter]

N00bs to the forum should understand foot shots (usually with socks) are a long standing tradition here to signify kicking back and enjoying a project when it's finished...

I guess they dont make it to the beach much. :lol:

[ahaik]

Ok ok.... Is this better?

[Jim Holtz]

I like it! :rofl:

Jim

[jyqureshi]

Looks like you took your human layer off of your feet :roflmao:

[savage25xtreme]

that's awesome, much better :yeah:

[tomdro]

Asi,
Your speakers are truly beautiful. What did you use for the outstanding finish?

[ahaik]

Asi,
Your speakers are truly beautiful. What did you use for the outstanding finish?

I appreciate it, but the finish is merely avarage in quaity. I put 3 layers of Danish oil and didn't like to contrast between the maple and the cherry, it's just hard to see it on small test pieces, so I put one coat of Old Dad's 'New Mahogany" stain and finished with several layers of his wipe on poly.
I suggest you do some research on the finish since my way was more of an experiment, not sure if it's the right way.
HTH,
Asi.