Anthology II Adventure

[Chrissi]

This began as a upgrade project to a mostly home theater (HT) arrangement we have which is a hodgepodge of Yamaha receiver, 12" Mono Sub. Bose 6 and Bose center bar with Bose 101's as rear and rear center speakers. The Anthology II's will for some time to come be above the grade of the other components but it is a start. Hopefully in the future we'll find deals on an Emotiva processor and power amp.
We wanted to build Statements but parts are no longer available then Jim Holtz told us about the upcoming release of the Anthology II's (Thank you Jim!) and he patiently answered all my questions until we decided to make the jump.
Jump we did, ordered the parts the week before the Iowa MAC/DIY meeting which we were going to attend but the weather here was perfect for cutting MDFF outside so we set up on the patio and cut out all the wood for the build. We did our routing over the next two days, would not even think of doing this without the Jasper circle cutting jig.

We started with the PVC support doublers added to the front and rear baffles


Added all of the Tee Nuts




Closed them up and routed edges


Then routed front edges


Currently working on the crossovers. We 3D printed rafts that
will hold all of the components and support them.
They are anchored in place with a larger version of the snap fittings
like used to hold speaker grills in place.

[technodanvan]

Wow, quick progress! You might be the first to complete a set of these speakers given they were officially announced only a week ago, though I know others were awaiting the plans as well.

Any plans for the finish, or just tackling that when it comes time?

[Chrissi]

Danny, we ordered a 4x10 sheet of "reconstructed" paper backed walnut veneer and will be using heat set adhesive.
We chose that for the uniformity off grain, my personal choice would have been an ash blond burl or curtain rippled exotic but those are unobtainium prices.

[technodanvan]

That'll look really nice!

[Scareurpasenger]

Do you have any pictures of the 3d printed rafts?

[Chrissi]

Sorry not yet but we will post several. They really helped make it a high density board yet still maintain optimal spacing of the inductors.

[Chrissi]

We'd like to thank Jim Holtz and Curt Campbell for their efforts and generosity sharing their knowledge and time with this community.
We are able to build and enjoy something like this project that we otherwise could never afford quality of this level.

[Chrissi]

The 3D printed crossover raft project, I am limited to 10.5" diameter prints


Back side


Populated but nothing glued or zip-tied yet


Rear view

Resistors are up on standoffs for air circulation, everything has through hole slots for a zip tie at each end

[Scareurpasenger]

Very nice! How did you go about producing the file for those?

[Steve Manning]

Cool idea on the crossover boards.

[theSven]

This began as a upgrade project to a mostly home theater (HT) arrangement we have which is a hodgepodge of Yamaha receiver, 12" Mono Sub. Bose 6 and Bose center bar with Bose 101's as rear and rear center speakers. The Anthology II's will for some time to come be above the grade of the other components but it is a start. Hopefully in the future we'll find deals on an Emotiva processor and power amp.

As a fellow Emotiva owner I would suggest looking at Arcam or another option until Emotiva comes out with their next gen product for the processors. I have an RMC 1 and it is a love hate relationship. I opened a ticket last Friday because the unit would not boot. It's 2 years old and has been failing to boot more and more. The tech said to unplug all connections and try to power on. Luckily that got it to boot without having to send in. It's a massive pain though to unplug 6 xlr, 2 triggers, 3 hdmi cables. Power on and then plug all the cables in again... Not something I enjoy doing just to use the unit 😫. That's what led me getting a DAC to use instead of using the Emotiva.

Fantastic to have a build in progress on HTGuide for the new Anthology II's!!! Thanks for starting this thread and actively sharing your build journey. I was hoping to meet John and Curt this year, but work got in the way and wasn't able to make it. Next year I hope to make it to more meet ups! It has been great meeting more people in this community.

Looking forward to your finished build and seeing them in their new place to enjoy!

[Chrissi]

Scareurpasenger - To create a 3D printed object you start with a CAD generated solid file. That is saved as an .STL file. The STL file is then imported into a program called a slicer, in my case a freeware program called CURA. CURA has all the parameters of your 3D printer in it so then looks at the object and literally slices it into the layers the 3D printer would lay down. That file is saved as GCODE which most 3D printer could process but as a version specific to your model printer. Each has its learning curve but the most daunting for most is creating the original solid object in CAD if you have no prior experience.

[Chrissi]

Both crossovers finished and tested; hooked them up to the feed from my PC amp and plugged a speaker into each channel one at a time.
Cabinets done, sanded and two coats of black on back, bottoms and openings.
Waiting for delivery of 4x10 sheet of walnut veneer next week.
It's getting real.

[Jim Holtz]

Wow! Great work!

I'm looking forward to hearing your feedback on listening quality.

Please post your thoughts.

Jim

[theSven]

Wow! Great work!

I'm looking forward to hearing your feedback on listening quality.

Please post your thoughts.

Jim

I too am looking forward to this!

[theSven]

Scareurpasenger - To create a 3D printed object you start with a CAD generated solid file. That is saved as an .STL file. The STL file is then imported into a program called a slicer, in my case a freeware program called CURA. CURA has all the parameters of your 3D printer in it so then looks at the object and literally slices it into the layers the 3D printer would lay down. That file is saved as GCODE which most 3D printer could process but as a version specific to your model printer. Each has its learning curve but the most daunting for most is creating the original solid object in CAD if you have no prior experience.

I read this post and you make it sound so easy! I know what all these software components are 😁. I use Cura, but I'm very limited in my knowledge to use it. Yet when I print things some turn out and others do not. Someday when I get more time I hope to be more knowledgeable in the 3d printing world. Thanks for connecting all the dots and sharing this for the process to print the board.

[Scareurpasenger]

Ok, so this took some real time! Kudos to you for creating the 3d model from scratch. I was hoping there would have been a shortcut.

[Chrissi]

Ok, so this took some real time! Kudos to you for creating the 3d model from scratch. I was hoping there would have been a shortcut.

Thank you. I make it sound easy because it is, if you have been using some of these programs for some time. I have been using AutoCAD since it was 2.5 D monochrome on an amber monitor, circa 1984ish? V1.2? as a young designer. Today there are much better and more versatile CAD design programs and some of them offer home user registrations for free or a bargain, I'm old and just use what I know because it is second nature after nearly 40 years. It's my hammer, I could not draw a straight line without a CAD system =D

[Chrissi]

We're done with the fabrication portion of this adventure and are waiting for the walnut veneer to arrive from JSO Wood Products. It will be a 4x10 sheet so easily cover the fronts, sides and tops of the cabinets.
We have HeatLock glue and SuperSoft II.
Our plan is to cover the tops first then the front and sides. I'm planning on each piece of veneer being 1" oversize for positioning, roll on two coats of the glue to both surfaces. Use bits of tape to indicate centerlines, position then begin ironing from the center out.

Since there are those who have been down this road before, do you have any tips or tricks to add to the mix for these materials and techniques?

The finish we'd like to achieve is a glass like clear coating. Starting with several applications of Bullseye sealer to fill the grain, lightly sand with 220 grit silicone carbide. Minwax walnut gell stain. And finally 5 or 6 coats of a clear before wet sanding. I have read favorable things about KBS coatings diamond finish clearcoat applied with a small foam roller. I learned the hard way on finishing yacht teak that if you want buildup to sand smooth, you must put it all on before sanding, not several coats sanded between coats. The idea that under this thin layer of finish is a paper thin layer of veneer is daunting.

So near yet so far away, would just love to screw in the drivers and give it a whirl.

[JRoadie]

On veneering panels it’s recommended to follow the order of bottom, back, sides, front and top last to hide seams. Flush trim edges after glue sets up.

On heat lock glue make sure that it creates a perfectly flat surface as the glue only heats up to sticky and won’t melt/flatten any high spots you have. Any unevenness WILL telegraph through the veneer. Ask me how I know… 😁

[Chrissi]

On heat lock glue make sure that it creates a perfectly flat surface as the glue only heats up to sticky and won’t melt/flatten any high spots you have. Any unevenness WILL telegraph through the veneer. Ask me how I know… 😁

Good to know, thanks for the input.

[Steve Manning]

We're done with the fabrication portion of this adventure and are waiting for the walnut veneer to arrive from JSO Wood Products. It will be a 4x10 sheet so easily cover the fronts, sides and tops of the cabinets.
We have HeatLock glue and SuperSoft II.
Our plan is to cover the tops first then the front and sides. I'm planning on each piece of veneer being 1" oversize for positioning, roll on two coats of the glue to both surfaces. Use bits of tape to indicate centerlines, position then begin ironing from the center out.

Since there are those who have been down this road before, do you have any tips or tricks to add to the mix for these materials and techniques?

The finish we'd like to achieve is a glass like clear coating. Starting with several applications of Bullseye sealer to fill the grain, lightly sand with 220 grit silicone carbide. Minwax walnut gell stain. And finally 5 or 6 coats of a clear before wet sanding. I have read favorable things about KBS coatings diamond finish clearcoat applied with a small foam roller. I learned the hard way on finishing yacht teak that if you want buildup to sand smooth, you must put it all on before sanding, not several coats sanded between coats. The idea that under this thin layer of finish is a paper thin layer of veneer is daunting.

So near yet so far away, would just love to screw in the drivers and give it a whirl.

Hey Chrissi, seeing that you have HeatLock glue, if you haven't already, Joe has a bunch of tips and tricks on his website for application.

[Chrissi]

Hey Chrissi, seeing that you have HeatLock glue, if you haven't already, Joe has a bunch of tips and tricks on his website for application.

Thanks Steve, we tend to act fast and get things done quickly so we're already laminated (one days worth, everything hurts from leaning on the iron) and getting ready to route the laminate out of the speaker holes, dropped the first edge trimmer bit while grinding the end down, it shattered, Randi off to find a new one at Menards.
We should be on to applying the Zinsser Bulls Eye sealer coats today and maybe first coat(s) of Varathane clear semigloss today

[Chrissi]

A 4 ft x 10 ft sheet of paper backed English Walnut Composite veneer from JSO Wood Products nicely covers three sides and the tops of two Anthology II speakers.
We used Heat-Lock glue, rolled on in two coats on both surfaces. The veneer takes longer to dry so we started there. Per instructions we gave it two hours to dry and there was no tendency to drag or grab when the two surfaces touched. We put a bit of tape on each end of the veneer with a center mark and top and bottom of the cabinet with a center mark so alignment was easy.
Cranked up the iron to high, I don't know what measurement system they were using at Heat-Lock when they said 196F because cotton/high shows 350+ on our household iron. We used half of an old pillowcase as a cloth shield to prevent scorching of the veneer.
Starting in the middle we worked to the ends of the front face then back to the middle rolled down maybe 1/4 of the radius and again worked to the ends, and so on until we were to the flats of the sides. You really need to lean into it with both hands on the iron. Next day my arms let me know I was using muscles that I usually do not use at the keyboard.
Tap testing did not reveal any voids.

Next day they were thoroughly sanded with an air powered random orbital sander.
I laid out centerlines where the individual speaker hole center were located and used a drafting compass to draw a slightly undersized circle for each hole. Using a Fein tool we cut an undersized hole through to remove the bulk of the veneer in each hole prior to routing out the holes. For routing we used the suggested solid carbide 1/4" dia single edge piloted router. As suggested I tried to grind the "bearing" end down for clearance, got it most of the way there then dropped it on the floor where it shattered. After going through all five stages of grief and loss of my brand new Bosch router bit I asked Randi to go to Menards in search of a replacement. I put the new router bit in a 1/4" collet and collet holder where I could grasp the bit tightly all the way almost to where I hoped to grind it to thinking that maybe the heat and vibration was not helping the longevity of the bit and also protecting the cutting edge and giving me something more substantial to hang on to. This plan worked like a charm.
Next we applied four coats of Bulls-Eye sealer wax-free shellac. More sanding.


The final finish is Varathane Ultimate water based urethane semi-gloss. We love the way this stuff lays down and self levels. The key is to not fuss with it, just lay it on, it might even be ugly but don't be tempted to work it, just leave it alone and like a miracle it just lays down, fuss with it and it might stay ugly because it dries fast. Two coats without sanding between applied two hours apart. Only two coats per day and let it set for a day then sand. Repeat two more coats then wait a day before buffing with superfine to knock any dust nibs off. Buff on some paste wax.
We were going to apply Minwax walnut gell stain after the shellac but by the time we arrived at four coats of the shellac we were in love with the color and grain of the veneer as it was also knowing that the clear urethane was still going the deepen the tone slightly so we did not add the stain.


We could have gone with more coats and smoother but we have other projects and timelines to get back to.

Crossovers ready to go in. They are anchored with HD snaps, the rubber seals help stabilize them on the bottom of the enclosures.








Final stats:
About $1k per cabinet all said and done with glues, softener, veneer, sealer, urethane, hardware, grills, router bits etc.
5 weeks daily work by two people.
94.5 lbs each completed.

[Chrissi]

Most important "So how do they sound?"
Even with low time on them, hardwood floors, marginal placement etc...
Our go-to home theater gymnasium of sound is the first 10 minutes of Top Gun Maverick (gratuitous, we are both aviators) all I can say is I was crying it sounded so good!

Thank you Jim Holtz and Curt Campbell, you are truly alchemists of speaker design, your wizardry reduced me to tears of joy.

[Chrissi]

Next up, we really needed a matching center channel for the Anthology II's
Lacking an off the shelf solution, no available specific design to build I turned to Jim Holtz for suggestions. Jim came up with the "Bromo" speakers designed by SB Acoustics and offered by Madisound. It utilizes the same ceramic dome tweeter and a 6" ceramic woofer that is the next size up same family as the SB Acoustics midwoofers used in the Anthology II's. I asked Josh at Madisound if it were possible to get a single version of their offered package deal and he came though for us.
The nice thing about this build is it only takes a 2x4 sheet of MDF, and probably a 2x4 sheet of veneer.
Right from the start we planned to lay the speaker on it's side and do our best to make the little box appear part of the family with the Anthology II's, the 6" woofer is right to the edges of the box design so rather than change anything about the box design and volume we added an additional layer to each side so we would have material available to do the 3/4" roundover to match the Anthology II's. I'm sure we violated some rule of cabinet design but we are very happy with the outcome and we will have room to add a matching grill to the box for that family look between our three speakers.
Not complete yet but I'm confident in our small listening area this speaker will be more than adequate to do the job and certainly better than the Bose sound bar it is replacing.
The Anthology II's have already changed our life, we get a smile every time we watch a movie and notice new depth and details everywhere. Makes us want to rewatch almost every movie we have enjoyed in the past.
Thanks again Jim!

[Chrissi]

The completed center speaker based on SB Acoustics Bromo design with enhancements to make it appear to be in the Anthology II family...

[JonMarsh]

What this means, to me, is that with a little work on your room (if feasible for you) you have the opportunity to up the enjoyment level quite a bit!

You've done a fine job putting together a solution for YOUR system requirements; it would be interesting to see a photo with how the speakers setup in regards to your video deployment. Your center channel IS a bit taller than the average sound bar!

😉

[deewan]

Great looking build. I hope to build much of the same shortly but with a tweaked cabinet design. Can't wait to hear more listening impressions.

I wanted to comment because of two comments above. First you recommend about the Emotiva processor/amp and then someone else chiming in about their issues with Emotiva processors. I really wish I could tell you Emotiva is a company I would recommend, I love everything about them expect for their products and how they act behind the scenes. If you read the early posts about the XMC-1 and RMC-1, you will see my screen name and the issues I had. For 12 months I was even a beta tester for Emotiva because I wanted them to succeed and their products to work, because when their products work they are great. But finally enough was enough and I wrote off Emotiva and sold all Emotiva products I owned (which was a lot). The final blow for me was early on in the RMC-1 release I discovered an issue on a Friday morning that could cause speaker damage to anyone who had a 7.1.6 speaker setup like I did. The issue only impacted people with that specific setup. The issue would cause a very loud pink noise sound to play from all speakers. The issue was confirmed by a Emotiva tech rep. I was told to not post about it as I was part of the secret beta test thread. But with potential damage to peoples speakers, I posted on the general RMC-1 thread that people should avoid test tones with a 9.1.6 speaker setup until the next firmware release. I didn't say why or anything else. I got a private message from Lonnie who absolutely lit me up. It was very rude and mean spirited. After spending hours finding many, many bugs and now trying to prevent others from having speakers damage, Lonnie at Emotiva was more concerned about how the new processor may be viewed by a small subset owners instead of protecting personal property. And keep in mind the RMC-1 had already cause damage to one or two other owners speakers by this point. That was the end for me. I actually wrote a very long email with all the issues I had with them, but that was the straw the broke the camels back.

Sorry for the rant, but I would suggest if you are still looking for new gear, give other brands a look and stay away from Emotiva. On the surface they all seem nice, but behind the scenes they can be rotten. Although a few of them are very nice, but I feel they get taken advantage of by the company. I also had problems with one of their amps when paired with a JBL SDP-55. The issue only occurred when paired with the JBL, it was fine with a Marantz and Anthem processor, and the JBL was fine with all other amps I tried (Rotel and Anthem).

[Chrissi]

Thanks for the compliment.
With respect for the Emotiva components, I was excited to find such a company even existed and their mission to provide high end features in budget friendly gear. We seriously cannot afford the kind of names routinely thrown around in these forums but we have a tendency to drift towards and expect the best quality results on the shoestring budget our SS affords us. Building top quality gear like these Anthology II's was a stretch we made because the performance/$ plus our labor made it affordable and attractive. If you look in the margins of our pictures you may notice aircraft parts, same issue; we build our own aircraft because we have the "aeroplane disease" and the only way to afford the level of performance we require is build our own.
To achieve the best results we try our best to ask the very helpful experienced folks on this forum for their input.
At the moment, gear wise I believe we are set up the best we can for what we have available and it gets better and better with bits of tweaking. We'd love to have Jon or Jim pass through town and do a drive by evaluation and tell us what to do next but right now it is up to us to first do all we can with what we know should be done.
It's a smallish room with a bit of awkward geometry that could eventually be tweaked with some conditioning panels in the right places. The biggest issue that has an obvious solution that we don't want to go there is the hardwood floor. Clearly it needs a cushy rug to kill the reflection but we keep the floors bare to ease home maintenance because this old house is dusty, we do dusty work so some comes in with us, we have a huge parrot who throws food all over the place plus "bird dander" so with all that carpet and rugs are not useful.
Layout wise we are set up primarily for home theater; the Anthology's, a new "Bromo" center speaker that has proven more than adequate for the job and a great match, in the rear mounted to the ceiling are three Bose 101's left, center and right. They are mounted wide pointing towards the center rear floor between our recliners with the center speaker pointing straight down. A Monoprice 12" sub is hooked up to the Yamaha HTR-5640 AVR high output then passing through to the Anthology's, (the sub out was not passing much of anything to the sub line inputs) then from the sub a low level output to a Fosi Audio M03 "200W" sub amp driving two Dayton BST-1 bass shakers mounted to our recliners. The Yamaha AVR is probably holding us back, unfortunately it does not have pre-out capabilities so we are unable to expand incrementally from there.
We balanced the system with a DB meter ap on an iPhone.
A bit more adjusting is needed, speaker placement and orientation, especially to move the bass from novel to normal then begin considering audio baffles. The solution to no rug may be something like a smallish coffee table with an absorbent panel facing the speakers, I'm sure someone has dealt with this before? Thank you on the feedback on Emotiva. We'll have to do our best to identify alternatives and put bots on Marketplace, Craigslist and eBay, who knows maybe Jon will purge more of his demo gear ? =D

[theSven]

Great looking build. I hope to build much of the same shortly but with a tweaked cabinet design. Can't wait to hear more listening impressions.

I wanted to comment because of two comments above. First you recommend about the Emotiva processor/amp and then someone else chiming in about their issues with Emotiva processors. I really wish I could tell you Emotiva is a company I would recommend, I love everything about them expect for their products and how they act behind the scenes. If you read the early posts about the XMC-1 and RMC-1, you will see my screen name and the issues I had. For 12 months I was even a beta tester for Emotiva because I wanted them to succeed and their products to work, because when their products work they are great. But finally enough was enough and I wrote off Emotiva and sold all Emotiva products I owned (which was a lot). The final blow for me was early on in the RMC-1 release I discovered an issue on a Friday morning that could cause speaker damage to anyone who had a 7.1.6 speaker setup like I did. The issue only impacted people with that specific setup. The issue would cause a very loud pink noise sound to play from all speakers. The issue was confirmed by a Emotiva tech rep. I was told to not post about it as I was part of the secret beta test thread. But with potential damage to peoples speakers, I posted on the general RMC-1 thread that people should avoid test tones with a 9.1.6 speaker setup until the next firmware release. I didn't say why or anything else. I got a private message from Lonnie who absolutely lit me up. It was very rude and mean spirited. After spending hours finding many, many bugs and now trying to prevent others from having speakers damage, Lonnie at Emotiva was more concerned about how the new processor may be viewed by a small subset owners instead of protecting personal property. And keep in mind the RMC-1 had already cause damage to one or two other owners speakers by this point. That was the end for me. I actually wrote a very long email with all the issues I had with them, but that was the straw the broke the camels back.

Sorry for the rant, but I would suggest if you are still looking for new gear, give other brands a look and stay away from Emotiva. On the surface they all seem nice, but behind the scenes they can be rotten. Although a few of them are very nice, but I feel they get taken advantage of by the company. I also had problems with one of their amps when paired with a JBL SDP-55. The issue only occurred when paired with the JBL, it was fine with a Marantz and Anthem processor, and the JBL was fine with all other amps I tried (Rotel and Anthem).

WoW! I have not spent much time on the Emotiva forums.

I did end up mailing the unit it to get repaired and it worked great for 1 week. I've shipped it back to get repaired again. The support has been very helpful and I'm expecting the unit to not have any more problems. That said, they should have put a warning out to customers about the issue.

I'm still very interested in the Arcam too.