240sx4u
Technically It's LexusGuy
In a prior discussion someone had expressed interest in hearing about my DIY speaker build. I built these years ago and never posted online about them. You might see an occasional photo but for the most part I never openly discussed these. I took my inspiration from a friend (Dnewma04 @ AK) and piggybacked on a build done by Bill Waslo on the DIY sound group forum. Drivers are AE speakers TD15M's, SEOS-15 fiberglass waveguides (plastic weren't available at that time) and B&C DE250 compression drivers. The reason for choosing these drivers is they spec out well and I am walking a path already forged by others.
I will start with a brief background and why I went "all in" on this project without ever hearing a set. I have had many different pairs of speakers over the years ranging from Martin Logan, Quad, Mordaunt-Short, AR, Infinity etc... My good friend had a pair of JBL pro audio speakers and told me they were surprisingly good sounding at his house. He brought them over just for fun and I was horrified to find that they damn near hit the nail on the head as to what I wanted to hear. I shoved my Quads in a closet immediately and lived with the JBL's for a few weeks. I then decided this large format horn based system was what I wanted but the JBL's weren't quite perfect. After looking around to see what was available commercially and realizing that I couldn't afford most/any of it I decided I was up for another build challenge. Dave Newman turned me onto the Bill Waslo project and I started buying components.
My initial build was an active design which was perfect for a guy who had no idea how to make a passive crossover work well. The issues that really cropped up were noise. My DSP was noisy and hissed. I could live with it but my wife couldn't (in our new house where they reside in the living room) so I built passives for them without any noticeable loss in SQ. It was nice to simplify the system a bit too, as I am on the tail end of this hobby and willing to give some things up for convenience.
Honestly I am not sure what to tell you beyond what I said above. These have a very flat response and really need to be ported as I'm losing a ton of bottom end. Imaging is stellar, dynamics are absolutely fantastic. Efficiency of this setup should be in the 96-97db range.
This project absolutely pushed my woodworking skills to the limit. They're built from Baltic Birch and the sides are epoxy laminated hardboard. Sides and back were done by using ratchet straps to pull the hardboard around the form. I bent a pair of 1000lb sawhorses doing this project. The last photo is more current and you can see they're turning red over time.
Questions? Bueller?
I will start with a brief background and why I went "all in" on this project without ever hearing a set. I have had many different pairs of speakers over the years ranging from Martin Logan, Quad, Mordaunt-Short, AR, Infinity etc... My good friend had a pair of JBL pro audio speakers and told me they were surprisingly good sounding at his house. He brought them over just for fun and I was horrified to find that they damn near hit the nail on the head as to what I wanted to hear. I shoved my Quads in a closet immediately and lived with the JBL's for a few weeks. I then decided this large format horn based system was what I wanted but the JBL's weren't quite perfect. After looking around to see what was available commercially and realizing that I couldn't afford most/any of it I decided I was up for another build challenge. Dave Newman turned me onto the Bill Waslo project and I started buying components.
My initial build was an active design which was perfect for a guy who had no idea how to make a passive crossover work well. The issues that really cropped up were noise. My DSP was noisy and hissed. I could live with it but my wife couldn't (in our new house where they reside in the living room) so I built passives for them without any noticeable loss in SQ. It was nice to simplify the system a bit too, as I am on the tail end of this hobby and willing to give some things up for convenience.
Honestly I am not sure what to tell you beyond what I said above. These have a very flat response and really need to be ported as I'm losing a ton of bottom end. Imaging is stellar, dynamics are absolutely fantastic. Efficiency of this setup should be in the 96-97db range.
This project absolutely pushed my woodworking skills to the limit. They're built from Baltic Birch and the sides are epoxy laminated hardboard. Sides and back were done by using ratchet straps to pull the hardboard around the form. I bent a pair of 1000lb sawhorses doing this project. The last photo is more current and you can see they're turning red over time.
Questions? Bueller?
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