3-W-Classic, built by Andrew M./US Copyright 2011 © Troels Gravesen
Troels, I finished the build on the SEAS 3W-Classic over the weekend. A bit of a challenge for me to get things just right. I did the build using maple ply. I was debating between maple and MDF and went with the maple after an e-mail or two with you on this question. I’m glad I spoke with you on this. I think the maple sounds nice. It is firm and has a nice bass punch to it. I was debating how to finish these speakers… They ended up looking so good I just went with a nice maple stain I wanted to make sure I got all the wood lined up just right. I wanted to get the midrange lined up right and flush. I got all the seams sealed with some silicone on the inside and sandwiched between the boards. The midrange compartment is to your design and sealed. The driver holes are chamfered and the damping heavy. In the end it all came together really nice. I purchased an ST-120 tube amp in kit form from Bob Latino (http://www.tubes4hifi.com/) and built it in December. This looks like a Dynaco ST-70 but it is all new parts with capacitor upgrades. I’m running the Jantzen capacitors (Silver Series) on the coupling caps. With the all Jantzen crossover parts in these speakers you could say my system is driven by Jantzen and the sound is amazing. This amp puts out 65W/channel I have been running my system with some older 2 way Infinity book shelf speakers till I did this 3W speaker build. The sound was good till now… Now the sound is amazing. These speakers were made for this amp and the two pair up perfectly! I spent a lot of time pondering what speakers to build and I feel great about the choice I made. These speakers do it all and well. Any music I run (country, Hard Rock, Speed Metal, Jazz, Classic, Trance/Techo, Rap.. you name it) sounds better than ever. I was looking for a nice pair of full sounding speakers to pair up to my tube amp. Something that could reach low on bass… High in treble… with some some solid mid range… Speaking of the midrange, the MCA12RC in the sealed compartment is amazing. It is like a little stand alone full range driver parked between the low of the woffer and the high of the tweeter. Attached is a photo of the speakers in my basement where I did some testing over the weekend. I still need to build the speaker stands (which I will!). PS – I am from Lino Lakes, MN if you wish to add this to the “3-way Classic Builders” It may be worth mentioning where I got my parts for others in the US who may build. I got the drivers from Madisound (http://www.madisound.com/) as they are the only US retailer of SEAS. The people at Madisound are great and nice to work with. I got the Jantzen crossover parts from PartsExpress (http://www.partsexpress.com/). The people at Parts express are also great to work with. Thanks for helping me and responding to my e-mails with questions. Thanks for taking the time to keep your site up and documenting your designs so well. Keep your designs coming!! Andy