My first project: The Girl from Ipanema

[sawdust]

Been out of touch for a few days. Build is still progressing- pictures coming soon. Have to go out of town for Christmas tomorrow morning so the brakes are thrown on the project for a few days. One box almost complete sans the veneer and baffle beautification (drivers and crossover not installed yet). Lots of pictures to post of the box build when I get the time.

I upgraded my Denon receiver with a Rotel 5 channel amp (RB-985) this week (on my Paradigm Reference Series 5.1 system)... Holy Smoke! What a well spent $350 on the amp. Going by to look at the new Emotiva Processor in Nashville on the way out of town tomorrow morning. Looking forward to moving this project to completion and starting the next speaker build. I AM HOOKED like a junkie already.

Woodworker Jon, please post your thoughts on the new Emotiva processor. I'm on the second waiting list.

[Woodworker_Jon]

Woodworker Jon, please post your thoughts on the new Emotiva processor. I'm on the second waiting list.

I will do! Good news for you and anyone else on the waiting list might be that they are getting a shipment of several hundred new units tomorrow. I almost could not talk them into letting me visit because almost the entire staff is going to be tied up unloading trucks. I'll snap some pics if they allow and post with my review.

[sawdust]

I will do! Good news for you and anyone else on the waiting list might be that they are getting a shipment of several hundred new units tomorrow. I almost could not talk them into letting me visit because almost the entire staff is going to be tied up unloading trucks. I'll snap some pics if they allow and post with my review.

Sounds great! Thank you! I'm pretty primed to crank up an action flick with the new processor and the 3 piece Statement build I just completed (added the center channel).

[Woodworker_Jon]

I got to sneak away from the wife and Christmas present wrapping tonight to post a few pics of the build process. I will put a step-by-step together after the project is complete but for now here is a teaser.

[ClosetSciFiGeek]

Those look nice, Kinda like the PE cabinets

I have never bent wood before. I have many questions:

What kind of wood and in what thickness are you bending there?

What is your process?

Do you have to steam or wet it?

Is there a danger of it cracking when you are initially bending it?

Are you just gluing it to the main MDF enclosure?

I was trying to think of a way to jazz up dlr's Chameleons(they sound amazing, but are kind of bland in their original box). I think I will follow your lead and use the original baffle with a body the same as yours. You are living up to your handle as "woodworker". Thanks for the inspiration.

[---k---]

Looking good. :T

[Woodworker_Jon]

Woodworker Jon, please post your thoughts on the new Emotiva processor. I'm on the second waiting list.

Sawdust, I just posted my review of the UMC-1 over on the Emotiva forum. Here's a link: http://emotivalounge.proboards.com/i...ad=8240&page=1.

[Woodworker_Jon]

I have been away for the forum for a little while but have been working on my speakers while not posting. The new year brought all sorts of things to keep me from working on my speakers. Work meetings, my boss transferred so my team at work is in a little bit of a state of limbo (sort of) and the temperature has stayed too low for me to get my shop up to an acceptable temperature for veneering work except on a couple of occasions. The build is still progressing but much much more slowly than I had hoped over the last month. I hope to get the veneer finished this coming week- if the temperature cooperates- and then the front baffle and finishing. Just wanted to let you guys know that I have not given up on the project. Lots of pictures on my camera to eventually document the build with.

[ClosetSciFiGeek]

Jon, Thanks for the update. Looks like you get up early just like me, even on the weekend I can't shake it.

On the veneering front I brought in the ZDT3.5's that I am finally finishing and veneered them in the dining room on top of the large air hockey table box(kids got lucky this christmas) since it was too cold in the garage. Don't recommend this though running the router to flush trim nearly pushed my wife over the edge.

Can't wait to see your finished speakers. Your woodworking motivated me to find a wood supplier(I am new to my area). I have done so and will be replacing my ZDT3.5 baffles with something exotic that strikes my fancy. Thanks for the inspiration.

[Woodworker_Jon]

Jon, Thanks for the update. Looks like you get up early just like me, even on the weekend I can't shake it.

On the veneering front I brought in the ZDT3.5's that I am finally finishing and veneered them in the dining room on top of the large air hockey table box(kids got lucky this christmas) since it was too cold in the garage. Don't recommend this though running the router to flush trim nearly pushed my wife over the edge.

Can't wait to see your finished speakers. Your woodworking motivated me to find a wood supplier(I am new to my area). I have done so and will be replacing my ZDT3.5 baffles with something exotic that strikes my fancy. Thanks for the inspiration.

You are too kind. And far braver than I to even ask the wife to do any woodworking in the dining room, LOL.

Well, just posting here kind of got me off my butt and caused me to stop my whining about the cold and go buy another heater. I was able to get my shop up to 65 degrees today with three heaters blasting away for a couple of hours. That combined with keeping my cold-press veneer glue in a cooler full of hot water allowed me to get some more veneer on the cabinets with one of them being now completely veneered (and rough sanded too). I ended up using curly maple instead of the Anigre that I started out with. I liked the tighter curl in this maple so I switched.

Here are a couple of teaser pics just to give you guys an idea of what they are looking like.

This is a shot of the cabinets as of about a month ago with no veneer and no baffles in place. Just for an idea of the shape and overall appearance of the finished construction.



Here is a shot of the cabinet that I finished veneering and rough sanding tonight. (The rabbet around the baffle will make sense when you see how the Bocote baffle false-front and sides go together.)



And, finally, a closer image of the curly maple curl.



I hope to get these things finished soon.

[ClosetSciFiGeek]

Beautiful Veneer

I love curly maple. Reminds me of a Paul Reed Smith guitar. Hopefully your "Girls" will sing and have the same sustain. Thanks for the update. Oh, and by the way doing woodwork in the dining room is not something you ask about. It has to be something she comes home to and you act surprised that it was wrong. My wife is a saint.

[evilskillit]

Just remember, when it comes to woodworking in the house it is easier to get forgivness than it is to get permission.

[Woodworker_Jon]

I love curly maple. Reminds me of a Paul Reed Smith guitar. Hopefully your "Girls" will sing and have the same sustain. Thanks for the update. Oh, and by the way doing woodwork in the dining room is not something you ask about. It has to be something she comes home to and you act surprised that it was wrong. My wife is a saint.

Just remember, when it comes to woodworking in the house it is easier to get forgivness than it is to get permission.

You guys are a riot I stay in the doghouse for similar activity as it is. All of my veneer for this project was cut and taped at the kitchen table. (Come to think of it my veneer tape is still laying on the corner of the table even now.) I used to do a little woodworking in the living area when my wife and I lived in an apartment- she was a huge fan of that, LOL.

On the PRS note, I have a Single Cut that is very close to the color that I am going for on with these speaker cabinets. I thought I'd throw another little teaser photo in: the second speaker clamped up in my vacuum veneer press.

[Steidl Guitars]

Looks great Jon, nice work.

[ClosetSciFiGeek]

Jon you really are a kindred spirit. Great looking guitar. What kind of stuff do you play?

[Woodworker_Jon]

Thanks, I like it too. I think that is my favorite guitar... or is it my Custom 24?... nope, it's the American Standard Tele... or the Strat, or LP, dang it, I love them all, even the '70s and '80s Peavy and Jackson that I still have.

I play a little bit of everything and a lot of David Gilmour. Mostly blues and bluesy rock I guess but I like getting out the Larivee acoustic and playing a little James Taylor and Paul Simon every now and then too. I go through phases where I will play nothing but AC/DC or ZZ Top :righton: for a couple of weeks and then I'll play nothing but fingerstyle for a month. I don't do country is my only rule- the Tele is reserved for Rolling Stones and Who music : .

Here lately I have not spent enough time with my babies. I think I'll play a little tonight while the veneer is setting up on the next speaker cabinet.

[Woodworker_Jon]

A quick update WAY too late at night

Well I stayed in the shop way too late tonight but I wanted to post these pics before I went to bed to get three hours sleep (gonna be a fun day tomorrow).

So I got the Bocote faces on one of the cabinets tonight. The driver holes are not cut yet and lots of sanding and blending to do still but here is the progress to this point.

This is the cabinet with the Bocote trim set into the rabbet around the baffle



Here is the "face" of the Bocote baffle trim in place and trimmed back flush to the sides. The color is slightly off in the photo but I think the yellow/amber finish on the curly maple is going to blend very well. I'll tone down the overall contrast of the Bocote and darken it slightly before the project is complete.

[numberoneoppa]

Looking good. These will look so amazing by the time you're done.

[JonMarsh]

A quick update WAY too late at night

Well I stayed in the shop way too late tonight but I wanted to post these pics before I went to bed to get three hours sleep (gonna be a fun day tomorrow).

So I got the Bocote faces on one of the cabinets tonight. The driver holes are not cut yet and lots of sanding and blending to do still but here is the progress to this point.

This is the cabinet with the Bocote trim set into the rabbet around the baffle



Here is the "face" of the Bocote baffle trim in place and trimmed back flush to the sides. The color is slightly off in the photo but I think the yellow/amber finish on the curly maple is going to blend very well. I'll tone down the overall contrast of the Bocote and darken it slightly before the project is complete.

Great work, and definitely a hard core "can do" attitude- makes me feel like a slacker, but I know I'd be nearly worthless on just 3 hours of sleep!

[ClosetSciFiGeek]

Thanks for the update. I echo John Marsh's guilt. I'm going to have to veneer my ZDT-C Center Channel tonight or I will not feel worthy to post after your all nighters. Edges look great. Can't wait for you to hear them. They look amazing. Haven't played guitar in a while, but I might pick it up again sometime. Also enjoy playing the blues.

[Woodworker_Jon]

Latest update- dry fit drivers into Girl Home

Thanks for the update. I echo John Marsh's guilt. I'm going to have to veneer my ZDT-C Center Channel tonight or I will not feel worthy to post after your all nighters. Edges look great. Can't wait for you to hear them. They look amazing. Haven't played guitar in a while, but I might pick it up again sometime. Also enjoy playing the blues.

Thanks. I played a little guitar myself earlier today while I was waiting for some glue to dry. My finding: building speakers = rusty at playing the guitar. I have too many hobbies.

Anyway, quick update on the Girls before I hit the sack for another short night of sleep. Thank goodness I can catch up this weekend.

WARNING: ugly temporary screws. I never thought about getting nice socket screws until tonight at about 11:00 pm. Oh well, there is tomorrow.

The drivers are in for the test fit. The baffle is rounded over and has had one quick sanding. No finish on yet but it won't be long. Could not hook it up because only one is in this state.







Okay, off to bed. More coming soon.

[ClosetSciFiGeek]

Looks great Jon. Had to look close to see how you placed the veneer with the real wood edge. Nice job. Not being as accomplished a woodworker as you I am picking up some good stuff!

[Woodworker_Jon]

Hello again fellow speaker nuts

It's been a little while since my last post- a lot of precipitation has slowed my progress a little but I finally have a set of assembled speakers that work! Unfortunately I discovered that I now have nothing to power them, more on that in a minute.

So, these cabinets are not completely finished. I still lack some sanding, coloring and polyurethane. I just was tired of waiting on the weather to cooperate and I could not stand waiting any longer to hear these assembled speakers. More photos will be posted when I finish them completely. I have gotten a couple of e mails and PMs asking me about how to "pop" the grain so I am going to go into a little detail here about how I do this. There are many opinions about what the "best" way to do this is- this is just the way I do it, not necessarily the best or the worst.



This first image is of one of the cabinets following my first coat of tinted (toned) sealer. I use shellac-based sanding sealer diluted 50/50 with denatured alcohol. The more dilute the more that will absorb into the wood but the less control you will have. It takes a little practice to get the dilution/ amount of colorant correct so I always play around with small amounts on scraps of my actual stock. My toner in this case was TransTint in the Vintage Amber Maple color. You can see runs on the wood, that's okay, this gets sanded down to almost bare wood again and the runs will be all but forgotten. As the process progresses however you have to start being increasingly more careful with the application to keep runs from occurring.



This second image is of the two cabinets from different angles (notice how different the curl/grain looks when viewed at different angles) after the second coat of dilute sealer. I now have my base color down (vintage amber) which is what is going to give me my contrast. The idea here is that the softer wood absorbs the color (and sealer) more readily than the harder parts. After two coats the maple is starting to become more consistently porous than before the process began. At the same time the softer parts are now colored a natural dark maple color. The second coat is now sanded BY HAND with 400 grit paper while I mist it with alcohol. The mist of alcohol can cause problems if you are not careful- it dissolves the top molecules of the finish but yields a very smooth surface if used carefully. This sounds like a labor intensive process- it is not. Just a stroke or two and you are done. The use of any power sander will almost instantly eat through the thin and soft sealer coat which would cause me to have to apply a third coat. From this point onward only very light sanding to smooth out the fuzz is required and I use 800 grit for further sandings.



This photo is a little dark but it is of my third coat of sealer with red toner (TransTint Bright Red + Honey Amber 2:1). (This coat and the remainder are full strength sealer.) This will yield a little orange tint to help blend with the Bocote front baffles. This gets dry sanded a couple of strokes and I move on to the next color- yellow...





and that's where I am now. This is the cabinet with two coats of yellow (TransTint Lemon Yellow) tinted full strength sealer sprayed on in very light coats. No sanding has been done to the last coat yet. Sanding will lighten the overall color slightly and I will finish with a yellow toned polyurethane, which will tend to lighten the overall tone further. I still need to tone the Bocote (which I do not like for a speaker baffle- too busy) and then apply poly to it too. I am not happy with the yellow/Bocote combo... it looked a lot batter in my tests than it looks on the cabinet. Maybe when I get some toner and poly on the Bocote it will all look better. Lesson learned.

I'll post more when they are done but that's it for the cabinet build for now.

Now, more on the lack of amplification for the Girls. So I finished the speakers up, took them up to my living room where my retired Yamaha HTR has been sitting for a year awaiting speakers. Hooked everything up, plugged the HTR in, powered it up and... nothing. Dead! So I had to demo these on an old stereo integrated amp that my wife uses in her office. The best quality source that she has in that room is the iPod dock. Terrible room acoustics and no way to place the speakers in an ideal location without completely rearranging the entire room. BUMMER! I guess that I am going to have to disassemble my main home theatre and hook them up there unless the shop can repair my Yamaha in the next few days. Anyway, I have no listening impression yet for the obvious reasons.

Will report in when I have more details on this.

[evilskillit]

Lookin good. I gotta admit the baffle is a bit rustic for my tastes but those are beautiful speakers by anyones measure. I'll be lucky if my cabinets come out looking half that nice.

[Woodworker_Jon]

Well, I could not stand it. After posting that long post I just had to go hook these up to my main HT system. I placed them on the Front LR channels and listened to them there crossed over at 80 (small). I listened to them first without the sub and then I rolled the sub in slowly.

I immediately noticed three things: they are highly accurate, they have very limited bass response and they are relatively bright compared to my normal system mains (Paradigm Monitor 7). When I brought the sub into the picture at 80 that really mellowed them out considerably. They were still a little bright compared to the tweets in my Paradigms but they seemed much more balanced than before I brought in the sub. It really did not take much sub contribution to fill in the missing low end. (Funny how different speakers crossed over at the same point sound so tremendously different in the low end but how the sub can be perceived to fill in real or imagined frequency holes.) The midrange definition is incredible- I guess reduced bass output might be the tradeoff for this. Unexpectedly, I found some of my Pink Floyd collection to sound really good on these speakers. Shine On You Crazy Diamond is a good example. David Gilmour's guitar technique in this song really shone through on these speakers. I found the background vocals that occur throughout the Dark Side of the Moon to be more pronounced than "normal". Tracy Chapman sounded fantastic on these speakers. They did not seem "bright" at all listening to her first CD, they seemed just right. Some other music that sounded good included: James Newton Howard and Friends entire CD (A Sheffield Labs Gold CD), Dave Grusin, The Gershwin Collection (the piano and the woodwinds sound very warm and particularly detailed on these speakers) CD and and Stevie Ray Vaughan's Lenny.

The worst experience that I had with this listening session was when I put the Surfacing CD from Sarah McLachlan into the player. Her voice sounded great but the music was almost unbearable. This is an example of the sad case of audio engineering in the studios nowadays not the fault of the speakers. The CD was so compressed that it sounded terrible- almost like the I was overdriving my input stage with the CD. (I even turned down the output from my CD player to see if I was overdriving the input.) These speakers allowed the bad mastering to shine through and overpowered everything good about the music. I don't often listen to this CD but I do not remember it sounding that terrible before. I don't suspect I'll pull that one out again.

Imaging quality was superb. I need to move some things around in my den and give them a better listening test tomorrow. They are sitting on top of the Paradigms right now and the tweeters are too high off the floor. Side dispersion of the left speaker is also partially blocked by the side of my TV at present but I am very pleased with what I have heard so far.

It would be tiring to listen to rock music on these speakers. Jazz, acoustic, female vocals all sounded at home on them. I have not yet tried them with home theater content but will soon evaluate them on that front as well. (I am already wondering what these would sound like with the 8" version of the Dayton RS driver.)

[ClosetSciFiGeek]

John, Glad you got them done. They look wonderful. You have been inspiring with your wonderful use of veneer and bent sided speakers. I think your thread has been my favorite in the last few months. I will not be building speakers for a while as my wife has decided I am not such a big dumb animal so I will be building kitchen cabinets. Thank you for sharing your thread with us all.

[Undefinition]

All right, seems as though they are having the desired effect! They look absolutely wonderful. If you don't mind, I'll definitely be using some of your photos on my web site.

The Ipanemas are definitely my most "revealing" design. That sort of voicing works great for well-recorded music; not so fun for over-compressed stuff. (Keep in mind also that they were voiced to be placed up near a wall)

Anyway, if you do get tired of the voicing, let me know. I can very easily re-voice the speaker for a "more forgiving," fun sound. Of course, you lose a bit of the realism of top-notch recordings; but on the other hand it makes the vast majority of the rest of the music out there much more pleasing on the ears (this "relaxed" voicing is how I've been doing my last few designs: Overnight Sensations, Amiga, Tubifex especially)

Yes, it is true, however, that the RS-150 sealed does not have much bass--it pretty much begs to be paired with a subwoofer.

[mgrabow]

nice job. How well did the veneer press work out? No crushing I see...

[Woodworker_Jon]

All right, seems as though they are having the desired effect! They look absolutely wonderful. If you don't mind, I'll definitely be using some of your photos on my web site.

The Ipanemas are definitely my most "revealing" design. That sort of voicing works great for well-recorded music; not so fun for over-compressed stuff. (Keep in mind also that they were voiced to be placed up near a wall)

Anyway, if you do get tired of the voicing, let me know. I can very easily re-voice the speaker for a "more forgiving," fun sound. Of course, you lose a bit of the realism of top-notch recordings; but on the other hand it makes the vast majority of the rest of the music out there much more pleasing on the ears (this "relaxed" voicing is how I've been doing my last few designs: Overnight Sensations, Amiga, Tubifex especially)

Yes, it is true, however, that the RS-150 sealed does not have much bass--it pretty much begs to be paired with a subwoofer.

Well I have had these hooked up and and have been listening to them for a few days now and the more I listen to them the better I like them. I am not sure if they are "breaking in" or if they are growing on me (or a little of both) but they are certainly sounding fantastic. I agree that they are very revealing. Moving them back towards the back wall did make a difference in the overall sound of the speakers although not dramatic (they were about 2' out from the wall before). They are a little behind my equipment now so I think that once they get into their permanent environment, where very close to the wall is where they need to be placed, this will prove to be a huge benefit. Although these speakers demands subwoofer support (who uses bookshelves without a sub anyway?) these sound every bit as good as or better than many very expensive commercial bookshelf speakers that I have listened to.

mgrabow, the veneer press worked out great. I could not have been happier with the veneer on these curved sides, although I had a little trouble with the low temperatures and glue. Overall I was very pleased with the veneer.

I am now hooked (I was hooked before I began the project but did not know it). I will be starting a new thread looking for experienced advice on what I need to gather together to get moving forward with this hobby as quickly as possible. I will also update this thread with photos once the poly is on these cabinets and they are finished. I am also in the process of designing custom stands for these speakers to anchor them to the floor.