Custom speaker cabinet projects?

[BadMouth]

I saw darthpaul and Ond's custom enclosures in darthpauls home theater thread.
I'd like more info on the speakers used and whether crossovers were built or bought.

Anyone else into building your own?  Post pics and specs!

[Ond]

You mean these babies?



The cabinets and crossovers are designed by Russell Story of Stones Sound Studio here in Australia as the Artisan Series, they were also available retail, fully built at about $3K a pair from memory.  The Subby was priced similarly maybe a bit more, with the standard 200WRMS amp.


I bought the plans from Russell and built my own matched - 3 pairs plus a centre and Subby.  Crossovers were hand built using Russell's design from high quality caps and coils.

Drivers are 6.5" Peerless HDS series & Peerless fabric dome Tweeters

I went a bit nutz on the Subby and powered it with a hand built digital plate amp of 900WRMS ~4 ohms by Red Gum Audio.  Driver is a 12" Peerless XLS Woofer with matching passive radiator.

http://www.redgumaudio.com/au/rg_frame.html

I can't share the plans as they are copyrighted but I can share some images of the build, (including crossovers) and my 3D renders of the cabinet parts etc.  I'm away from home on business now but will post these up when I return.

I won't wax lyrical with pages of adjective laden ---That which is odiferous and causeth plants to grow--- about how this set-up sounds with the right monster amp behind them, suffice to say they impress most people that hear them. 


Read a review here.

http://stonessoundstudio.com.au/stone/speaker-kits.htm

[BadMouth]

You mean these babies?

Yup, them babies!

They are beautiful.
I've done a lot in car audio, but very little with home audio.
I did my first refoam on an old pair of speakers last weekend and have a feeling I'll be doing more as cheap/free speakers with bad surrounds pop up on craigslist.
What I'd really like to do though is design and build my own cabinets.

I have a decent set infinity speakers from the mid 90's (I am the original owner).
They sound pretty good with the grills removed and haven't aged a bit, but the bottom of the line Infinity subwoofer I have them paired with is atrocious.
It can make booming sounds, but nothing resembling music.
At the very least, I hope to build a better subwoofer enclosure very soon.

[Ond]

Building a great Subby involves heavy and dense materials, MDF is ideal.  See the internal hardwood bracing?  The joinery on these speaker enclosures was a bit more sophisticated than say the butt joints used on a lot of arcade cab designs.  It was mainly 45 degree cut edges and biscuit joinery (glued).  There was some screws (and glue) used for the internal bracing as well.




Here's a render of the speaker cabinet including internal bracing



There's YouTube tutorials and free and commercial enclosure design software aplenty. Bless the interwebs. 

[BadMouth]

I'm surprised more people on BYOAC aren't into speaker building....

What I really wanted was a sealed enclosure for a Dayton 15" HF model, but then I came across this post concerning the sub I already had:
http://techtalk.parts-express.com/showthread.php?226486-Infinity-CMMD-12-quot-subwoofer-build-quality-review-info-and-T-s

I figured I might as well give it a try.  The enclosure could be made short enough to fit in the stand my old rear projection TV rests on.
Also, everything I've been reading online points to multiple subwoofers being better, so I picked up a second used one for the back of the room.

The more I played around with these speakers in software though, the less enthusiastic I became.
I won't get into all the details, but they are made more for boom than for detail.
Also, the amplifier has a permanent notch filter and boost to compensate for the super small original enclosure, so it probably isn't going to be ideal to use either.

Figured I already had them, so might was well build some enclosures for them (as cheaply as possible using only one sheet of MDF total).
Honestly, I'm shocked that they came out this nice looking.  I spent half a day Monday and all day today working on them.

The sides are covered in this stuff:
http://www.amazon.com/DC-Fix-346-0034-Adhesive-Black/dp/B00755CBY6/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1414725133&sr=8-2&keywords=black+wood+grain+vinyl
It's textured and thicker than contact paper, but the surface still needs to be perfectly smooth and clean.  Any imperfections or large particles with show through.
I don't expect it to be all that durable, but it looks good now and the subs will match my other speakers.
The front is framed in with 3/4" round painted gloss black (the woodgrain vinyl is very glossy).


For reference, they are 32" tall.  The subs are listed as 12", but they're somewhat undersized for 12s.

(trim ring wanted from an infinity PS-12.....I only had one)

Normally I wouldn't have centered the sub, but one box will be centered under the TV and I wanted the speaker centered.
....and of course they had to match.






I've only had them hooked up on the work bench.  So far, I'm not all that impressed.
They can rattle the windows, but you can't tell what instrument is playing.
We'll see how they do upstairs this weekend.

The rectangles for the grills are cut out and drilled for the ball and socket clips, but I still need to cut out the speaker area and cover them with grill cloth.