Joining DIY crew - Natalie P build

[BeerParty]

Make sure you put some weather striping or a rubber gasket of some type around that opening (between the box and the panel) so you don't get any air leaks. You were probably planning to do that after the boxes are finished, but now seemed like a good time to mention it.

[bd1000]

Make sure you put some weather striping or a rubber gasket of some type around that opening (between the box and the panel) so you don't get any air leaks. You were probably planning to do that after the boxes are finished, but now seemed like a good time to mention it.

Yeah, I have some gasket tape I got from PE that I was going to use. I wanted to paint the boxes first and put it on at the end. Thanks for mentioning it though!

[bd1000]

Nice looking build, by the way- you're making faster progress than I am on my current project!!

thanks! I am at my parent's house in Houston for the holidays working on them, so I am trying to get them finished quickly. I live in an apartment in Austin and dont have space for half of my tools so it's hard to work on projects like this.

[bd1000]

Flush-trimmed the edges, did a round-over on the sides, and chamfered the back panel. The flush trim bit is pretty nice!
I need to do a little sanding and then its time to paint!

[fwrigley]

That box is looking very good bd1000.

[numberoneoppa]

Yeah, looks great!

[bd1000]

I put two coats of primer on last night and putting three coats of paint on today. I just finished the third and it's starting to look pretty good now.
Here is the paint, I am using a fine foam roller to put it on.

edit- I was going to put four coats of the black on but after seeing the third dry, I got lazy and I'm calling it done

[bd1000]

Done!

I hooked them up at my parent's house to test them out, didn't want to turn it up too loud though. This is in their "media" room for their grandchildren. Sounds pretty good so far, can't wait to bring them to my place and set them up with my new receiver.
I'll post some more thoughts etc later









Cheers!

[---k---]

Those look great! :T

[JonMarsh]

Looks like they've turned out very nice! :T

[sdl2112]

Nice job!....and all in about two weeks...I'm impressed.

[bd1000]

Got them back to my apt and all hooked up... They sound great!

I built them with a volume of ~59 liters and tuned the ports to 32 Hz; I am very impressed with the bass that comes out of them! I thought I'd want to build a subwoofer soon but I am going to hold off on that for now.

I don't have a trained ear to really critique these things but they sound very nice to me. I haven't noticed the harsh sounds some people describe with lower quality music/audio input.

I borrowed a center and surrounds to hook up to my receiver to test it out; eventually I will build those as well.

[bd1000]

Here is a pic of the current setup. I haven't tried moving them around yet, I will be moving to a new house in a few weeks actually and will be moving everything.

[kareface]

Nice, they turned out really good. Just curious what the rest of your setup is like?

[---k---]

In your new place, make sure you pull them a little further away from the wall.

[bd1000]

Nice, they turned out really good. Just curious what the rest of your setup is like?

If you are talking about audio, it's only what is in this thread... I bought the Onkyo 707 receiver and just borrowed my parent's Yamaha surrounds and center speaker to hook up for kicks. I bought my dad an inexpensive HT package a few years ago but he never uses it.

[bd1000]

In your new place, make sure you pull them a little further away from the wall.

How far should they be? I thought I read the front baffle face should be ~18" from a wall, is that correct? It is a little less than that now; I will bring them forward more at my new place.

[bd1000]

Also, I hooked my car's subwoofer up inside my apt just to see what it sounds like... I'm powering it with a spare battery. It is a sealed box with a JL 12W6v2 and a 500/1v2 amp. I just watched a movie and wow! It wasn't turned up all the way but it made some serious rumble in my apt. Definitely want to build a HT sub later.

[fbov]

Do I see a blocked port in the photo? Try out the ports before buying a battery charger.

Mine are roughly 65l with a low-30's tuning on a slot, bottom port. With a very low box tune, I trade off a bit of max power latitude (which I'll never use) for a downward-sloping but extended bass response. Combine that with the room gain and floor/back wall loading and my in-room measured response is quite flat until it takes dive at 30Hz.

Granted, HT justifies a sub that goes lower, but these things are quite impressive on their own.

Have fun,
Frank

[bd1000]

Do I see a blocked port in the photo? Try out the ports before buying a battery charger.

Mine are roughly 65l with a low-30's tuning on a slot, bottom port. With a very low box tune, I trade off a bit of max power latitude (which I'll never use) for a downward-sloping but extended bass response. Combine that with the room gain and floor/back wall loading and my in-room measured response is quite flat until it takes dive at 30Hz.

Granted, HT justifies a sub that goes lower, but these things are quite impressive on their own.

Have fun,
Frank

Blocked port in the towers? The ports are not blocked- I taped off the pvc tube so it was left white and painted the radius of the round over black. If you look up a few pictures you can see some blue painter's tape when I was doing that.

Mine aren't tuned as low as yours, but I do agree that the bass is already quite impressive!

[bd1000]

I got a PM about the dimensions I used. I do all of my planning on scratch paper and it is pretty cluttered but I redrew my basic layout. Hopefully this sketch combined with my pictures can offer some help to others.

All dimensions are in inches



Note that you use this same diagram for the driver cutout placement as in the Nat P thread.



Essentially you are building the same box as the sealed bookshelf one, but if you want to make it into a ported tower, you add length at the bottom to obtain your correct height (so the tweeter is about ear level), and add depth to obtain your desired internal volume. Then add a port tuned how you want.

For mine, I calculated my volume to be ~59L and tuned the port to 32Hz and I used a 7" port length (3" diameter).

[gregnash]

Thanks for the drawing bd1000, I for some reason thought yours were only 44" tall but looks like you made them 48" which is perfect for what I need. This would put the tweeter right about ear level when sitting at on my couch. Guess me finding a router for $20 at a garage sale this weekend was god's way of telling me that I need to get my butt movin'!

[numberoneoppa]

Good work, man, they look really nice. =)

[audioslave]

Where did you get the 18" figure from?

I think that number must be a minimum....if you get the front of the baffle too close to the wall the boundary effect and reflections will mess up the response of a speaker with an XO designed for free space. The transition of the woofers from 2pi to 4pi radiation is accounted for in the XO design....if you move the speaker too close to the wall you will change the resulting transition. Hence the reduced BSC xo options for some of the speakers. The reduced BSC is intended for speakers on or near walls.

If the xo is the "normal" not reduced BSC version (can't remember if there is a reduced BSC option) then your speakers baffles should be more like 2 to 3 feet from the wall. John posted some speaker positioning guidelines...similar what Avalon recommends. Additionally...you want to give those rear firing ports plenty of space to breathe.

You should really measure the in room bass response and adjust the positions of the speakers to get the most even result. You can just use a rat shack SPL meter and excel. There is a spreadsheet floating around with some compensation values in it.

[---k---]

Pull them out from the wall until they sound right to you. Closer to the wall will give more bass, but can cause congestion in the upper bass lower midrange for reasons ausioslave explained above.


JonMarsh designed them for about 3' from the wall. But, I'm sure a compromise can be found. And many people probably like the added bass of closer to the wall.

[bd1000]

I wasn't aware of that, thanks audioslave and -k-!