Wavecor Ardent Journal - the first Builds

[dar47]

Love the Honda, with my hour commute one way everyday I'm driving a SI and enjoying it. The new 2.4L ivtec is on at 5000 rpm now and feels more like a grownup car.

Now confessions of from an old wood worker. :E I trimmed a top to much so I had to glue up another BB to 1/2" MDF. When I was comparing the new to the old I discovered all the existing glued up material was 3/8" not 1/2". No wonder the dados seemed so big and we couldn't figure out why. Ben programed correctly but Dad glued the wrong material up. When I pickup the stuff they had 3/8" on an upper shelve and the shelve above it was marked 1/2". My old eyes didn't pick up that both selves were full of 3/8" and the guy helping me pull it down didn't say anything either. I'm learning the same lesson again always have a tape measure with you when buying material.ops: First time in a long time I didn't.

Anyways I got lucky the internal volume doesn't change and it allowed for a little flush trim on the backs and allowed me to trim a little from the glued up edges on the front baffles. Because the CNC can't do the 10 degree edge cuts we left the mid back and top longer to fit when assembling so this was not affected. I only had to add a 1/16" strip of BB to the top of sides to fix the dado that excepts the top. Funny I didn't catch it till our 4 cabs were all ready glued up.

So Jon I feel bad and hope you can live with the illusion of a prefect CNCed cab. I would like to dry fit your cabs and trim the same as ours or better yet I wouldn't mind saving you the assemble approach we took and just assemble yours? If you want to assemble we can message our procedure. The cabs are like rocks the difference in MDF doesn't effect the cab any and I'm putting 1/8" hard board on the side and top to cover joints so the external dimensions are only off by 1/8" from the model.

Today we got all the cleats attached, base plates drilled and the facet jig built. Just waiting on the saw guy to cut the facets so we have time to assemble yours if it saves you time.

[JonMarsh]

Hey, this is the story of our lives- stuff happens!

I think a good dry fit would be ok- I don't think I can cut the facet bevels on an assembled cabinet - I have the impression you guys are doing that after the main glue up? (Given what appears to be a picture above of a glued up cabinet.

OTOH, I don't have any compulsion about gluing these up myself- the extra volume of an assembled cabinet will increase shipping cost a bit, but that's not a concern to me- I'm good for it! :W

I certainly appreciate your offer to assemble and Take care of the little tricks given the dimensional issue!

Go ahead with the assembly if you have time- I appreciate it.

[dar47]

Sounds good we will glue them up, nice to have two pair of hands when doing towers anyways. Baffles were just trimmed close as possible to the glued up cabs their not attached yet. After the facets are cut we can prepare the cabs and mount the baffle and then there should just be some sanding to flush with the sides.

[benthe8track]

Well my wife just surprised me with this for my 30th birthday, I can't wait to hear this guy on the new speakers:

[JonMarsh]

Well my wife just surprised me with this for my 30th birthday, I can't wait to hear this guy on the new speakers:

Very cool! :T

And Happy Birthday!

arty:arty:arty:

[TEK]

What a wife! That's a keeper.
Congrats!

[wkhanna]

Rega RP6.....

Sweet!


What cart are you looking at?


Oh, & happy B-Day, too.......


Jeez.....i can hardly remember being 30!

[benthe8track]

Haha thanks. She got me an Exact as well, there seems to be some debate if that's the best cartridge for for the price but so far it sounds leaps and bounds better than the 90s Denon it replaced. I'm limited to MM because of my Cambridge phono stage but the shop said I could return/exchange it if I want something else.

[JonMarsh]

The only topic with more flavors and contestants than digital playback is vinyl playback, of course! The Exact is a recommended component at Stereophile, and from what I read should give you a lot of listening pleasure. My last cartridges have been Dynavectors and the classic Denon DL103. I wonder how they would stack up against the Rega Exact? The 10x5 is a high output moving coil. Likely a slightly different flavor, but how much is hard to say.

The thing that amazes me is the number of cartridges out there that cost as much as an upper end DAC... Yowsa!

[benthe8track]

Yeah there is no shortage of options or opinions on which cartridge to use. I'm having weird distortion issues so either I set it up wrong or I got a bum cartridge which from my reading seems possible. I'm taking it to the dealer tomorrow and they can set it up with their fancy rega torque wrench and protractor. Even the way it is working right now is amazing, really shows the weakness of my mains haha.

[JonMarsh]

With my 17" Macbook pro crashed (both figuratively and literally after tripping over a sprinkler head in the dark and smashing one corner of it up), it's time to up my game and productivity for dealing with Windows programs.... hence,



32 Bit WIN7 runs fine with 4 GB of RAM, which my 16GB system hardly misses- I'm still learning the ins and outs and little tricks of how Parallels 9 does things, but I have to say it's amazingly flexible and much improved over the version 5 I tried and discarded some years ago.

[meb46]

Wow... Jon, back-up... your converting back to good old Windows??? Eeeek!!! I am currently having a new love affair with the Microsoft Surface Pro 2... Best of both worlds and can run everything... My ThinkPad might be on the way out

[benthe8track]

Very cool! I can't believe there isn't a VMware type program to run MacOS on a windows box. I guess it's so much more hardware dependent.

So the last of the boxes are assembled and we are waiting on parts and our baffle cutting guy. I expect (hope) he'll be available this weekend because we are running out of stuff to do.
We still need to pick up some more wire to pre-wire my mids/tweeters and waiting for a mcmaster order to come in with our cap screws and hardened steel inserts to mount the bases.

So this evening I revised the grill conundrum. Part of me just wants to run no grills at all but I'm on the fence.

I came up with this:





This image shows a pocket for 1/4" felt to sit inside and there is a groove on the perimeter so screen door spline can be used to attach the fabric. My dad has used this method with success in the past.
The felt I'm considering using is this stuff it seems to be the best compromise in price, form and color. I just thought of it tonight but I'll find out tomorrow how well the felt can be laser cut. This would make it a bit easier than trying to hand cut it and fit in a somewhat tight space.



Still needs some tweaking to adjust the geometry and I can take some more meat out of it. I suppose the xover would have to be designed with the felt/grills on?

[JonMarsh]

Wow... Jon, back-up... your converting back to good old Windows??? Eeeek!!! I am currently having a new love affair with the Microsoft Surface Pro 2... Best of both worlds and can run everything... My ThinkPad might be on the way out

Nah- actually, moving a little further away- I usually have been running Windows in Bootcamp, where it boots up natively on a Mac, but because WIN7 doesn't have native USB3 support, it's nearly impossible to install on modern computers with just USB3 hardware. So, the screen shot above is running Windows 7 in Parallels 9, not native, which means no rebooting, and with a new Mac Pro with gazillion bytes of RAM, no real performance issues. I looked at Parallels earlier, but it didn't really meet all my needs and concerns- with the current version and modern hardware, things look pretty good- above shot was my test run having installed LspCAD and seeing if the USB software dongle was picked up and worked properly. SO far, so good...

[JonMarsh]

Very cool! I can't believe there isn't a VMware type program to run MacOS on a windows box. I guess it's so much more hardware dependent.

So the last of the boxes are assembled and we are waiting on parts and our baffle cutting guy. I expect (hope) he'll be available this weekend because we are running out of stuff to do.
We still need to pick up some more wire to pre-wire my mids/tweeters and waiting for a mcmaster order to come in with our cap screws and hardened steel inserts to mount the bases.

So this evening I revised the grill conundrum. Part of me just wants to run no grills at all but I'm on the fence.

I came up with this:





This image shows a pocket for 1/4" felt to sit inside and there is a groove on the perimeter so screen door spline can be used to attach the fabric. My dad has used this method with success in the past.
The felt I'm considering using is this stuff it seems to be the best compromise in price, form and color. I just thought of it tonight but I'll find out tomorrow how well the felt can be laser cut. This would make it a bit easier than trying to hand cut it and fit in a somewhat tight space.



Still needs some tweaking to adjust the geometry and I can take some more meat out of it. I suppose the xover would have to be designed with the felt/grills on?

Looks pretty dang good to me- if I ever want to start a speaker company, I know who I'm coming to for mechanical and production design!

Actually, what I'm doing is running Windows in a virtual machine (Parallels 9) on my new Mac Pro. This was a test run to see if things were OK picking up the software protection dongle on USB and starting up LspCAD, which seems to work just fine. I've just got 4GB of RAM allocated to windows, and 256GB of HD space. So far, so good...

For the more impecunious, I'll probably also do measurements of the SS 71000 I have in this cabinet, see if it's an acceptable lower cost alternative to the 6640 if other folks want to try this out. We've got weather in the mid 70's this week, some places expected to touch 80, and I hope to do some outdoor measurements on the Isiris this weekend.

[dar47]

For the more impecunious, I'll probably also do measurements of the SS 71000 I have in this cabinet, see if it's an acceptable lower cost alternative to the 6640 if other folks want to try this out. We've got weather in the mid 70's this week, some places expected to touch 80, and I hope to do some outdoor measurements on the Isiris this weekend.[/QUOTE]

Hum, Revelator any difference between the 6640 and the D2908/7140 other then the $100? It does look vary pretty!

[knowledgebass]

Very cool! I can't believe there isn't a VMware type program to run MacOS on a windows box.
...

VirtualBox allows you to run Apple OSX as a guest OS. My understanding is that there are potential license issues with OSX which may technically prevent this on the up-and-up. Windows licenses allow it for at least some versions (e.g. professional).

[knowledgebass]

VirtualBox allows you to run Apple OSX as a guest OS. My understanding is that there are potential license issues with OSX which may technically prevent this on the up-and-up. Windows licenses allow it for at least some versions (e.g. professional).

Edit: to add something on-topic, I like your baffle approach. Has me considering adding 1/4" backer to my MDF frame to hold my wool (I'm actually planning to use pieces of a sacrificial wool rug that's approximately 1/2" thick).

[kevinm]

Parallels is a fantastic piece of software. Great for us Mac users when we need a Windows only program

Very nice to be able to run both OSes simultaneously.

[JonMarsh]

Parallels is a fantastic piece of software. Great for us Mac users when we need a Windows only program

Very nice to be able to run both OSes simultaneously.

That's what I'm discovering, particularly with Parallels 9

[JonMarsh]

For the more impecunious, I'll probably also do measurements of the SS 71000 I have in this cabinet, see if it's an acceptable lower cost alternative to the 6640 if other folks want to try this out. We've got weather in the mid 70's this week, some places expected to touch 80, and I hope to do some outdoor measurements on the Isiris this weekend.

Hum, Revelator any difference between the 6640 and the D2908/7140 other then the $100? It does look vary pretty![/QUOTE]

Yes, from pictures I've seen, it's prettier, nice anodizing, bigger outer diameter (not really a positive feature in my mind) and it has the metal rear chamber cap, like the 7100, not like the 6640; but at that point, to me, the benefits seem to end!

6640



my own measurements, on Ardent baffle (if memory serves me correctly) (10 degree increments for off axis)





7140




7100



( I have a pair of 7100 on hand, because of the investigation for enhanced NatalieP, will measure them soon )


Unless they've done something that increases the power handling and lowers the distortion, the substantially more difficult to work with frequency response of the 7140 just does't make sense to me, as a trade off. Maybe one or more of their OEM's talked them into building it this way for cosmetics.

[dar47]

Thought so just another pretty face. :roll: When you make something really good it's hard to duplicate with the next effort.

Took the clamps off your second cab and mounted the cleats, best fit of the six. :T You tend to get better with your assembly the more you practice. We have an appointment to finally get the facets cut on Sat. morning. :hb I'm vary excited for this. Ben machined up 2 inter changeable tapering jigs to attach to the main jig that we can add or remove depending on what cut we need to do. We will have to take some picks when we cut them. I will rest easy when those cuts are done, shouldn't be to much more I can mess up after that.

We are painting our bases black so to facilitate not to much messing with the end grain on the bases we are going to rap the faces showing with some extra cherry veneer I have to limit the amount of primer needed. If your painting your bases, let me know we can rap yours too?

[JonMarsh]

Yeah, I'll be painting the bases, just like on the Isiris. Please do the same for mine as yours! MUCH appreciated! :T

I'll breathe easier, too, when that facets are cut-that's always been the part I stress out over the most! :W

[benthe8track]

That makes 3 of us.

So for felt on tweeters should it come right into the dome?

[JonMarsh]

That makes 3 of us.

So for felt on tweeters should it come right into the dome?

Generally, right to the edge go any dip in the tweeter front plate, as occurs with many Scanspeak tweeter.

BTW, Madisound carries a self adhesive felt ring, which I often use (even on the Isiris); I have a bunch; give me a mailing address and I'll send you guys some sets.

[benthe8track]

Well I found some 1/4" F1 felt (minimum 95% wool) at Acklands where a buddy of mine is a sales manager. He's going to get me a price early next week so I'm thinking we can laser cut and incorporate that into the grills. I'll do a mockup later today but I could use the 1.61" ID that the madisound felt is specified for. Or I could bring it in a little tighter to the dome?

[knowledgebass]

Felt is available in Canada from here:

www.thefeltstore.com

I have no association with them but they have a Canadian office and a nice website which was a plus when I was looking for a source. More options than Ackland Graingers but no idea how the price will compare. A comparison to pricing from McCormicks (who have similar products) might be more interesting. The "sheets" and the "by the foot" options (under Industrial applications) would likely be the most useful.

[JonMarsh]

Well I found some 1/4" F1 felt (minimum 95% wool) at Acklands where a buddy of mine is a sales manager. He's going to get me a price early next week so I'm thinking we can laser cut and incorporate that into the grills. I'll do a mockup later today but I could use the 1.61" ID that the madisound felt is specified for. Or I could bring it in a little tighter to the dome?

I've found the Madisound ID to work real nicely on a lot of tweeters- as I'm at a certain computer mfr. in Cupertino I can't easily go check right now... :W

[JonMarsh]

Cardas SE-11 cable did arrive from Parts Connexion in Canada yesterday, as I found out when I got home this morning from Cupertino.

Nice looking stuff, reminds me of why I used it in the first set of Ardents- being round like a coax cable, it's easy to make a pass through hole and air tight seal it. This is a concentric cable, using golden means spread of wire AWG, one conductor on the inside, the other on the outside, with a net wire gauge of 11.5 AWG. Nothing as heavy duty as Golden Reference but just fine for midrange and tweeters, in my experience.

[benthe8track]

Cardas SE-11 cable did arrive from Parts Connexion in Canada yesterday, as I found out when I got home this morning from Cupertino.

Nice looking stuff, reminds me of why I used it in the first set of Ardents- being round like a coax cable, it's easy to make a pass through hole and air tight seal it. This is a concentric cable, using golden means spread of wire AWG, one conductor on the inside, the other on the outside, with a net wire gauge of 11.5 AWG. Nothing as heavy duty as Golden Reference but just fine for midrange and tweeters, in my experience.

Wow is that stuff ever nice! 10 bucks a foot kind of scares me but I suppose you don't need THAT much?

We met up with a local cabinet maker and got the facets cut:



His 14" panel saw cut through the BB/Bamboo like it was butter:



Now it looks like things are really coming together and things should be a bit easier...until we start stressing out about finishing.



We got a lot done and the Jets beat the Oilers so all in all I would say it was a pretty good day at the Ardent Factory.

[JonMarsh]

HOLEY MOLEY! Is that ever a beautiful sight to my eyes! :W :T

Jet's fans, eh? :W

Great set of pictures, this makes my day - (though the Indian dinner I just had with GF was pretty nice too- we're working on the plans for a concrete pad and storage shed to put into her back yard. Its interesting having a former IBM systems engineer as a girl friend... some things just go so much more smoothly... ) :B

Well, this is the closest we'll ever come to mass production- it's impressive what you've done. :T

[dar47]

Ya Jon, it was fun watching this guy do his thing. We thought an hour to do the 32 cuts but it took 2, with a few tells along the way. He is a talented guy he just makes a few reference marks then hits them every time. We were so happy with the cuts as in you don't need anything on the facets but a light sanding before veneer, we both looked at each other and said lets double his vary reasonable fee for the extra time :P I even got my youngest to help out and cover for me as I bailed on an appointment for an estimate on the new double garage door because these cuts were a lot more fun.

When you see them altogether it sure makes sense to do group builds, more guys local to each other should try it.

I agree, it is fun when you enjoy doing projects with your significant other.

[JonMarsh]

The guy in the picture at the saw is wearing my favorite hardware store brand- I've been buying a lot of Carharrt work shirts and jeans, partly to spoof on my daughter who works for Nordstroms, and pointing out my chic hardware store clothes... :W

There's a slight gray short sleeve shirt with front pocket that is my standard uniform shirt wearing to my Cupertino work site. :B

[benthe8track]

After a frustrating day yesterday fighting with the CNC we got a new piece of material and cut the grills. I treated it with kid gloves and it played nice finally. I still need to track down some felt and may use the link knowledge base provided although the shipping from those guys was almost as much as the felt. I may bug my buddy again and order it from McMaster, that way hopefully I can piggyback on their shipping



Other than that I think we are ready to box up a set and send it south

[TEK]

What material are you using for the grills?
I would beleive that wood cut that thin might twist - but it does not seem to be a problem?

[JonMarsh]

After a frustrating day yesterday fighting with the CNC we got a new piece of material and cut the grills. I treated it with kid gloves and it played nice finally. I still need to track down some felt and may use the link knowledge base provided although the shipping from those guys was almost as much as the felt. I may bug my buddy again and order it from McMaster, that way hopefully I can piggyback on their shipping



Other than that I think we are ready to box up a set and send it south

Felt is getting a little harder to source these days- used to be our local Orchard Hardware stores carried it, but none on hand in my Livermore store two weeks ago- I'm going to check some others, just in case. I do have some on hand... hoarder mentality, you know... of late, that has worked out pretty well in few cases.

[Johnloudb]

Benthe8track,

Wow, all those Ardents look awesome!!! ;x( I'm trying to catch up here ... is Jon doing the crossover for this, to incorporate the Wavecor woofer? I think read something about you shipping a speaker to him? For crossover design I'm guessing? Or am I totally off here?

[JonMarsh]

Benthe8track,

Wow, all those Ardents look awesome!!! ;x( I'm trying to catch up here ... is Jon doing the crossover for this, to incorporate the Wavecor woofer? I think read something about you shipping a speaker to him? For crossover design I'm guessing? Or am I totally off here?

One set of cabinets is for me, and I'm doing a new crossover design for this system concept. It will use the old Duelund derived crossover as a check point, but this one is expected to be derived from the Isiris project in function and topology, i.e., it will be a 3 way cousin of the NatlieP.

[benthe8track]

^ I'm scared to see what that x-over is going to be worth haha.

What material are you using for the grills?
I would believe that wood cut that thin might twist - but it does not seem to be a problem?

Its 3/8" MDF, seems reasonably rigid so far but I wouldn't want to drop them or anything.

I just got an email that confirmed this is on the way for my set:



I started mapping it out and will optimize and cut it out with this:

Thanks Johnloudb!

[JonMarsh]

^ I'm scared to see what that x-over is going to be worth haha.



Its 3/8" MDF, seems reasonably rigid so far but I wouldn't want to drop them or anything.

I just got an email that confirmed this is on the way for my set:



I started mapping it out and will optimize and cut it out with this:

Thanks Johnloudb!

well, the crossover cost is somewhat open to negotiation- less expensive caps can be substituted, and I'll do my best to pick "just good enough" wire air core coils when appropriate. the thing to do might be to put together a "cost optimized" BOM and a "let's go for it!" optimized BOM. Realistically, the woofer coils will have to be what they will be- we can't afford excessive insertion loss in the LF crossover, so it's going to look VERY similar to the Isiris. I'll look at thing very carefully in LspCAD to see what we can do in cost optimization on the air cores. For the caps, a less expensive way would be to only use the really nice caps on the tweeter, where I think they're mandatory- got no business being Beo tweeters and not decent caps (being the Jantzen Superior- (for fun I'll price out the Clarity MR, too, as I do like them).

How big is the sheet you bought? Where did you get it, again?

Would I be correct to think that the nice CNC cutting knife is how you'll manage cutting out the veneer for the driver holes? Gosh, where's your sense of old world hand crafted tradition? yeah, I know, too expensive, and the quality may not really be there, either! :W

[benthe8track]

well, the crossover cost is somewhat open to negotiation- less expensive caps can be substituted, and I'll do my best to pick "just good enough" wire air core coils when appropriate. the thing to do might be to put together a "cost optimized" BOM and a "let's go for it!" optimized BOM. Realistically, the woofer coils will have to be what they will be- we can't afford excessive insertion loss in the LF crossover, so it's going to look VERY similar to the Isiris. I'll look at thing very carefully in LspCAD to see what we can do in cost optimization on the air cores. For the caps, a less expensive way would be to only use the really nice caps on the tweeter, where I think they're mandatory- got no business being Beo tweeters and not decent caps (being the Jantzen Superior- (for fun I'll price out the Clarity MR, too, as I do like them).

How big is the sheet you bought? Where did you get it, again?

Would I be correct to think that the nice CNC cutting knife is how you'll manage cutting out the veneer for the driver holes? Gosh, where's your sense of old world hand crafted tradition? yeah, I know, too expensive, and the quality may not really be there, either! :W

Well at this point I'm not too worried about a few extra bucks if you feel it's worth it. Armed with only a rudimentary knowledge of ohm's law I'll defer to your judgement on component selection.

It's a 4x8 sheet with the PSA option, I got it from http://www.veneersupplies.com/ which seems like the best place to get Walnut Burl from all the places I looked at. I also got a few bits of raw burl for the backs as the 4x8 sheet didn't have enough square footage. I'm only an engineer cobbling through this stuff so I'm trying to avoid stuff that involves an actual craftsmanship haha. I probably won't cut the holes with the CNC as I can see that being tricky to line up properly. Will still have to exacto it out and flush trim.

[dar47]

Jon, don't you worry a bought saving him on crossover parts. 8O I agree if builders are going for the BE tweet option there should be balance throughout the build. If others choose the 6600 then maybe ESA through out the mid and tweet section. I'm just hoping to follow your lead and hoping you have enough room to fit the boards in the cabs.

I think he is concerned with just cutting out the veneer parts with that fancy glorified CNC utility knife thing, Ha Ha. I have a nice grinded down flush trim bit for my laminate trimmer, it trims the veneer for driver holes perfect. I had to use my neighbor's grinding stone to bring the tip to less then an 1/8"

.

I think it's going to take some old world skill to keep nice straight lines on those facets when trimming the veneer :lol: Wait till you see his crazy over the top bolts and inserts, we should never have a problem with the bases falling off. :T

Should have the felt be Friday, then we can ship. We started some cosmetic work on Ben's cabs and got my first baffle epoxied on. We are thinking of putting your cabs on a small pallet that we can slide into the van to be dropped off. I'm thinking the cabs are better left on their sides with the baffles facing each other then standing them up. We will take some picks before shipping to give you an idea of whats coming. It's a little less hectic now, just need to take our time and prep for veneer.

[JonMarsh]

That's a familiar looking bit...

Somewhere on my many piles of hard drives I've got a video of Avalon manufacturing processes including veneer and trim... let's just say, there's definitely some old world craftsmanship and skill going down there, especially on the facets. I emulated that on my own Ardent build, perhaps not fully successfully, but hey, I've got another shot at it now! :W

I'll try to find that video this weekend and see if I can setup a drop box download link if you're curious...

I think your plan for putting them on their sides on a small pallet makes a lot of sense. Appreciate the notion of pics. I've been transferring my personal addresses to my GF's already, though with the way work is going, completing the physical move is a long way off- but we'll want these shipped to her place in Danville.

I wouldn't say she's giddy with excitement, but she's intrigued at the notion of a smaller set of cousins to Bonnie and Clyde. (what she calls the Isiris). So am I, for that matter- I do have a Metric Halo LIO-8 or NAD M51 or Berkeley Alpha DAC I can use with these... (I think it's going to be the LIO-8 because they will be in the music room for playing and recording music, AKA sewing room; formerly known as "living room". The LIO-8's 8 channel capabilities and virtual mixer in software on the Mac uniquely suit it to that.)








You know, I think after looking at Ben's walnut burl sheet picture I'm going to have to go take a long look at various Avalon's finish and decide which way to go... the originals were being done in Curly/flame maple, with a clear finish, and I may fall back on that, but I suppose I should consult with GF, too- (actually, I did once, if I remember correctly, but got a non-committal response). I really like the way lacquer finished curly maple changes it's appearance depending on the angle of light and viewing. And light colored speakers are a little less visually imposing. But Walnut burl is intriguing- though probably more challenging to make all the veneer look correctly patterned on a cabinet like this.


Here's curly maple for the Indra.




These are in Cherry, I believe- they look nice in the "flesh", in a more conventional way, like Chris's Nebbiola build.





These pictures don't capture what the cherry looks like "live" that I find appealing- this picture of CJD's veneering work comes much closer:



Decisions, decisions.

Note, I will mount a set of drivers in the raw cabinets and do all the crossover development work prior to starting veneering work- don't want to slow you guys down! With regards to crossovers, I'll offer some options on BOM- including scaled to say, the 6600 tweeter and keeping the cost and bulk down, as well as no holds, and something in between.

[TEK]

I'll try to find that video this weekend and see if I can setup a drop box download link if you're curious...

That would be great!

[dar47]

Only thing bugging me is I had for the first time water based varathane delamination on the center. I like brushed finishes that are rubbed out so I may try a brushable lacquer or an non-varathane varnish. If I don't get to finish till spring I may try to spray lacquer, haven't done that since my kitchen cabinet factory job just after high school. Boy was that some time ago, but it still seams like just last year. ops: