Statement II Center Build

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  • aw818
    Junior Member
    • Jan 2017
    • 5

    #1

    Statement II Center Build

    Hello everyone. Long time lurker, first time poster here.

    I get it, the forum is filled with plenty of Statement builds so another one may be a bit redundant but before I took the plunge to make this speaker I reviewed pretty much any build I could find which helped build excitement towards getting started on this project. So in hopes that this will help anyone else in their build here is my speaker I worked on over the past few months:
    I have plans to create the whole Statement II family but I didn’t want to start with the towers. One reason is they cost double the price of the center and the other reason is I wanted to work on my speaker building/finishing skills before I went all out on the towers. Also as these speakers will be 70/30 home theater/music I feel like I will get a lot of immediate use and benefit out of an upgraded center.

    I bought the components as a kit through Meniscus Audio and had them assemble the crossovers since I figured they would do a much better job than I would. Well I was right and their crossovers looked and worked great. Money well spent! Having the crossovers prebuilt also made the project a lot shorter to complete. I wanted to do a shout out to them as well, it was my first time working with Meniscus and they were super helpful.

    I finished the speakers with automotive paint and clear coat. The finishing process took just about as long as the rest of the build. I sanded the clear down with 1500, 2000, 3000, and 5000 grit wet sand paper and followed that up with a 3 stage polish system. The end result is incredibly smooth and glossy. I couldn’t be happier with how it turned out.

    As for the sound it’s as good as I hoped for, and I had some high expectations for the speaker. Admittedly, I currently have some pretty entry level components and I could tell right way that my receiver isn’t up to the task of powering this thing. I hooked it up to my brother’s giant amp and it brought the speaker to life. So needless to say I think a nice amp is going to be my next audio purchase in order to power this and the Statement II towers that will be built shortly.

    I wanted to that Jim and Curt for the work they have put forth in creating these speakers and in supporting them through these forums!
  • aw818
    Junior Member
    • Jan 2017
    • 5

    #2
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    Face plate next to front grill of old Polk center it replaced. Its quite the upgrade...

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    • aw818
      Junior Member
      • Jan 2017
      • 5

      #3
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      Testing all the wires

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      • aw818
        Junior Member
        • Jan 2017
        • 5

        #4
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        • Jim Holtz
          Ultra Senior Member
          • Mar 2005
          • 3224

          #5
          Excellent job! They are beautiful!

          We're really pleased that you're enjoying the center. It's the real work horse in a HT surround system. Add the towers and it'll come to life on music.

          Great job! :T

          Jim

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          • TH-1
            Member
            • Jun 2017
            • 41

            #6
            Wow, you did a great job on the finish!
            I’m jealous. That’ll look amazing on Statements.

            Comment

            • Steve Manning
              Moderator
              • Dec 2006
              • 2121

              #7
              Very nice job on the finish ..... what did you use?
              Hold on to your butts - It's about to get Musical!



              WEBSITE: http://www.smjaudio.com/

              Comment

              • aw818
                Junior Member
                • Jan 2017
                • 5

                #8
                Thanks! I'm dying to get started on the towers but i think that will be a several months out.

                As for the finish here, is the whole process I used: After the main box was built and ready to start paint prep I used Minwax sander sealer to seal up the MDF. I did two coats of that with sanding after each coat. After that I patched up any imperfections I could see with Bondo, and sanded flat. I then sprayed on UPOL High Build primer and sanded that down. With the primer on it was much easier to see any imperfections left on the box with it being a flat single color as opposed to the raw MDF and Bondo patches. I touched up the remaining imperfections with Bondo and sanded that down and hit it again with the primer. I had my local automotive paint supply mix up some automotive paint in some spray cans. They are not cheap as they are a little over $20 a can and only have about 6 ounces of paint per can. The whole speaker took about 2 and a half cans of paint. It is immediately noticeable how different this paint is compared to just standard rattle can paint, it is awesome to work with. After the paint had cured I sprayed it with UPOL clear coat and let that cure. I then started the wet sanding process which is a little unnerving to start sanding something that already looks pretty good. I started with 1500 and 2000 grit paper. Then went to 3000 and 5000 grit foam like pads. After that I used Meguiar's 3 stage car polish/wax. It is a weird feeling putting car wax on a speaker, it just doesn't seem right for some reason haha.

                To summarize: It was a long process that took longer to paint than build the rest of the speaker and cost around $150 for the whole finish. It involved literally hours worth of sanding between sanding the MDF, Bondo, primer and clear coat. Use high end primers, paints, and clear coat, it makes a huge difference. When I made the speaker (and with the upcoming towers) I wanted them to act and look more like a piece of furniture/art than hide them. My main goal was to have them not look "DIY".

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