Show me your DIY Speakers !

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Postby parabellum » Fri Mar 14, 2008 2:54 pm

wiredbecker wrote:Just started modifying these $20 AR2s last night with my buddy Zilch.


Only one of the four crossfiring mids were functional.



ahh the famous Zilch :)


What exactly do you plan to do to those?
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Postby wiredbecker » Sun Mar 16, 2008 12:56 am

parabellum wrote:
wiredbecker wrote:Just started modifying these $20 AR2s last night with my buddy Zilch.


Only one of the four crossfiring mids were functional.



ahh the famous Zilch :)


What exactly do you plan to do to those?


The AR2s are Zilch's. I'm just assisting/learning. In Zilch's words he's "dumping the funk" by replacing all components within the AR2. The goal being to create the best possible speaker that the AR2 can be. They're ridiculously expensive but there are lower cost alternatives. Good news is that if you wanted to, you could get away with keeping the stock woofer. Everything else has to go though.

It is however worth it, these speakers are amazing. It takes so much work to get to this point though. We put in about 2 hours every night this last week and I'm sure he's toiling away on them gathering data while I'm at work.

I have a pair of AR4s that we're going to begin working on soon.. just waiting for the parts to come in. Does anyone have a spare pair of 8" JBL 116h woofers they'd be willing to part with?
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Postby EWBrown » Mon Mar 17, 2008 5:56 am

I'll have to dig through the "archives" I may still have a pair of removed original 60's or 70s vintage AR-4A 8 inch woofers. They're old, but have had rather light duty usage over the decades. (mostly my parents listening to classical or "elevator music" at low volumes. Maybe a few hours of me having "rocked out" on them when I could get away with it... :o :o

/ed B in NH
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Hi there, I'm new here........

Postby HoMeR » Mon Mar 17, 2008 12:19 pm

This is probably a good place to introduce myself. I like audio; and I like to build all parts myself...
And I like to build it as cheap as possible (the best sound for the lowest price).

I first did build myself a single ended 6V6 amplifier (later more on this, in another part of this forum.....) (also: see avatar) and a nice pair of speakers. I discovered the Fostex FE103, and I like it (FE107 is very similar).
I will post some pictures (not all superb quality........)
Here they are....

This design I found on a Norwegian website. (in millimeters)
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Building...
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More building....
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Endresult (I later added some spikes, no pictures yet....)
Damping is in the front part of the speaker.
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My music on "Rate Your Music"
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Postby EWBrown » Mon Mar 24, 2008 6:32 am

I picked up there speakers and crossovers over the weekend, a bargain from Angela Instruments:


http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vi ... :IT&ih=021

THey look very well made, and the crossovers have all of the necessary "correction factors" to reduce any peaks and valleys in the response.

Now I'll have to build up some suitable cabs, or modify some existing ones to house them.

/ed B in NH / NC
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Postby Shannon Parks » Mon Mar 24, 2008 6:44 am

EWBrown wrote:I picked up there speakers and crossovers over the weekend, a bargain from Angela Instruments:


Sweet deal, Ed! I better hurry up so I can add my FE208's to this list.
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Postby EWBrown » Mon Mar 24, 2008 6:48 am

These speakers were made in Taiwan, and Steve included some catalogs and test data sheets that he did a long time ago.

It appears that the manufacturer produced for other "brand names" rather than marketing their own line of speakers.

As usual, the mounting dimensions aren't compatible with "vintage" US dimensions, the outer diameter is 210 mm (around 8.4 inches) and the cut-out diameter is 187 mm or 7.362 inches. My various old "8 inch" cabs have the usual US standard 8 inch and 7.25 inch dimensions.

/ed B in NH
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Postby tentoes » Mon May 19, 2008 12:11 am

I built a pair of Avatar Bangs! about 9 years ago. Two MCM 6.5" woofers and a silk dome tweeter in a ported cabinet. The 3rd-order x-over components cost more than the drivers.

94dB efficient. Great for small tubes amps if they can handle the 4 ohm load.

Image[/img]
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Postby soundbrigade » Mon May 19, 2008 10:07 am

Here's my TangBand speakers. The drivers are the W5-704S and 28-847. All housed in a 9,5 litres BR-box. A very simple 12dB/filter working around 2-2,5kHz.
The boxes are made of 19mm MDF covered in real leather and an oiled walnut front. I consider the speakers to be fetischistic .... Yellow_Light_Colorz_PDT_09

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Postby wiredbecker » Sat May 24, 2008 4:12 pm

Sexy speakers Soundbrigade.

The Tang-band drivers are very affordable and sound great. I'd use 'em if I wasn't completely hooked on waveguides coupled to compression drivers.
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Postby soundbrigade » Tue May 27, 2008 2:40 pm

EWBrown: Hows the Carlson couplers? (That's what that kind of topology is called I think). I've have some drawings in a speaker book from Visaton, but I have no space for them.

wiredbecker: I am so surprised how powerful the 5" speaker really is and how clear and bright, without being shrilly, the tweeters are. And, all in all, I haven't spent more than 1500 SEK (Swedish money) = 250USD.
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Postby EWBrown » Wed May 28, 2008 7:41 am

The Karlsons are pretty nice, but they are large and heavy (I have to move them 1000 miles / 1600KM pretty soon).

The woodworking is fairly complex, they need very secure and tight joints, and the curved front baffles can be tricky to cut just right, but then just about anybody on this planet has far better woodworking skills than do I Yellow_Light_Colorz_PDT_04

Someone else did all the hard work, about 50 years ago. I just found them at the local town dump and lugged them home. With decent 12 inch drivers, and ALtec horns sitting on top, they sound great, and having the HF portion (crossed over at 800 Hz) outside eliminates the "shoutiness" and harshness that Karlsons can exhibit with full range or coaxial speakers.

/ed B
Last edited by EWBrown on Thu Jan 15, 2009 6:05 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Postby WA4SWJ » Thu May 29, 2008 7:31 pm

Hi Guys,

A picture of one of two speakers I built using Scan Speak Revelator drivers. They're fantastic! Grill was removed for the picture and is on the floor behind the speaker. They are similar to Zaph Audio's new ZRT design. John actually did this design for me for letting him use the tweeters for testing. John is an amazing speaker expert IMHO. I've built 3 of his designs so far - this is one of them. I'm happy with them all.

Image

Regards,
Ed Long
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Postby Vince » Thu May 29, 2008 7:56 pm

You do nice work!! Vince
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Postby soundbrigade » Mon Jun 02, 2008 10:57 am

That's what I call high gloss! Yellow_Light_Colorz_PDT_12
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