Well done dkersten. 
Thanks for sharing.
Since you offered I wouldn't mind seeing some more details on the speaker build.
Sure thing! So the subs are just 4 cu ft sealed enclosures... MDF boxes with bracing and then a solid cherry baffle that goes on the front:
No, those aren't cupholders inside, lol.
I milled up some cherry I had sitting around for the past 6 years (was going to be some custom bookshelves but never got around to it). Then I glued up some panels.
I cut out the speaker hole (this is the outside of the speaker, the baffle is 1.5" thick in total) with a jig saw to get it close, then used a template to flush trim it to size. I made the template with a simple circle jig.
Glued it all together:
After trimming up the edges with a flush trim bit then rounding them over a little (1/8" roundover to soften the edge), I taped up the cherry and shot the body with primer and then black. I made the mistake of priming and painting ahead of time and the bearing ate the paint up a little, so I cleaned them up and finished them without sanding down and restarting. The edge didn't come out perfect but it is black in a dark room so I didn't care much. 2 feet back they look perfect, lol
Then I shot the whole thing with satin lacquer (catalyzed so this process takes about an hour for 3 coats)
After this I filled each with 4.5 lbs of poly fill and got the speakon connectors installed and wired the subs.. they are 4 ohm each (dual 2 ohm voice coils). At 4 ohms per channel, the iNuke nu6000dsp kicks out about 1300 watts per channel of actual RMS power with both channels being driven using a dedicated 20 amp outlet. This fits the subs beautifully. After break in, they sound pretty great although they lack that boominess that you get from subs that are ported and tuned to 35-45 hz. With the DSP and a calibrated mic I was able to get them pretty darn flat in my room, so while they don't have crazy 40db peaks at 42hz like my old sub, they extend down to 10 hz at ~110 db at reference volume without sweating. You can't hear that low, so it is just a feeling in your body at that frequency... makes for an immersive experience. Cost on the subs is around $260 each with the amp at around $350. With the speakon connectors and materials for the build, I was just over $1000 for the two subs and amp, if you don't count the cost of the end tables I built first, lol.
The speakers kits showed up as flat packs. You can't beat the prices at diysoundgroup.com and the flat packs are well made. I got crossover boards, the components for the crossovers, the mid bass speakers, compression drivers, and the waveguides for the CD's. I assembled all the crossovers, only had to build one from scratch:
However, the baffles for the speaker kits was just MDF, and I wanted cherry. So I pulled more cherry off the shelf and glued it up into wider boards.
Then I had to make a template for the recess for the waveguide. This was tricky. I started by making a template that fit the recess using 1/4" mdf.
I then used a 5/16" collar on my plunge router to make a negative of it:
I had to do some math here. The bit was 1/4", the collar was 5/16". That meant the new template was 5/32" plus 1/8" wider than the cutout (half the diameter of each), which is 9/32". The recess I needed to cut was an inside cut, so I needed to have 9/32" from the outside edge of the collar to the first edge of the router bit. That meant I needed a collar with a radius of 9/32" plus 1/8" for the bit, or in other words a collar with a total diameter of 13/16". I didn't have one. So I could have used an oversized bearing on a flush trim bit to shrink the template down, but I guess I wanted to be more complicated, so I dug around and found some washers that had a 5/16" inside diameter and fit snugly over the 5/16" collar. I popped them on and tried a cut.. the recess was just a little too small because the washers were just a hair too big (3/4" diameter, about 1/16" too big). So I put 3 washers over a 10mm bolt and bolted them tight, chucked it in my drill press and used a file to mill them down to 13/16". I then glued them to the collar:
Then I just double stick taped the template to the cherry face and lined it up and routed out the outside edge of the recess. I used a 1/2" rabbet bit to clean up the rest and now I had a recess that matched.
I then cut out the holes close with a jig saw for the ports and speaker holes, and then double stick taped them together and used a flush trim bit to make them exact matches. Here is the result:
I assembled the flat packs and glued the cherry baffles on.
Same process as before (only I waited to paint until after the cherry was flush sanded to the bodies). Tape off the cherry, paint the bodies with 2 coats of primer and 2 coats of flat black.
And then shot them with 3 coats of satin lacquer. Sanded with 0000 steel wool between coats to keep them smooth. I use a smoothing agent in the lacquer to keep it from orange peeling too badly. For somewhat of a rush job, the finish came out pretty nice:
The assembly was simple: I bought a 1" foam mattress pad from Target and cut up pieces to line the inside. Mounted the crossover with hot glue and wired it up. I used a self centering drill bit to drill the screw holes and installed the 5 way binding posts in back.
Finally, I built some stands. I started with 3" sch 40 pvc. I cut plugs with a 3 1/4" hole saw then bolted two plugs together with a 1/4" bolt and ran them in my drill over some sandpaper to get them to fit snug. I gorilla glued them into the end (2 for the base, so 1.5" thick), then filled the PVC tube with sand. I plugged the other end in the same way (only 1 plug) and attached a top and bottom plate made of MDF. I sanded and primed and painted them, then shot them with the satin lacquer. They each weigh around 30 lbs and are nice and solid. This pic is when the lacquer was still wet
The rear surrounds are called the "Volt 8" and is an 8" midbass driver with the waveguide built into the speaker. You screw the compression driver into the back and you have a 2 way speaker in one unit. These are incredibly sensitive and work great as surrounds, handling tons of power if need be and working in just about any system. Again, I ordered flat packs and made cherry fronts. These are angled so I can mount them higher and get them further from the listeners, which is great in my room where my couch is backed up to the wall.
Here is the back wall before the posters go up. As you can see, I still used the end tables, they just don't have subs in them any more, lol.
Once I have all the bass traps up and like the sound, I will strip the whole room down, paint the ceiling flat black, the walls a dark red or burgundy, and carpet it with charcoal black. I think I am going to add some Buttkickers to the couch to add to the low frequency feedback.. when the 18s were to the left and right of the couch the tactile sensation was awesome.. I miss that now that the subs are up front and want some back without the hassle of adding more subs and making my neighbors hate me even more.
Funny story, the other day I got the speakers in place and fired up Pandora to listen. Me and the girlfriend were listening close to reference level to some AC/DC Thunderstruck and my 17 year old daughter came in and said "Can you please turn it down! I can't hear my show upstairs!"... the irony of the kid telling the parents to turn it down... And I still had mountains of headroom left.
Home
Help
Search
Login
Register
Send this topic
Print
Topic: Favorite Movie Posters (Read 8253 times)
