ATS4, built by
Bertrand and Dominic, Canada
Copyright 2016 © Troels Gravesen
Hello Troels,
I hope you are doing well. I wanted to give you a quick story on my
friend’s and my brand new ATS-4s. As you know, I have made your Ellam
Flex 3W in the past. We bought the cross-over kit and speaker drivers
about 2 years ago but started construction only this summer. Making 2
pairs of speakers does not take twice as much time as, for the actual
construction, most of the work is to set up the cuts. Then, cutting is
just quick. We spent the summer working on the construction to be able
to finish them in early September to be able to send them for painting.
As these are your flagship speakers (and would be the best I would ever
own), we wanted these to be as close to perfect as possible. I used a
CAD program, Fusion360, to model some parts that would go on the
speakers. I liberally inspired myself on the Alexia speakers from
Wilson Audio for the parts. These were machined from aluminum by a
friend of ours and then anodized black to keep with the theme. My
friend was instrumental in putting together jigs to ensure repeatability
of some design elements which made things so much easier (learned a lot
from him). I had a particular vision of what I wanted the tweeter box
to look like and “enjoyed” myself putting that together. I think I was
pretty innovative in the way I made it all work. Once construction was
completed, we then put in the appropriate stuffing in place. That took
a while to ensure everything was done properly. A quick note here to
say that the kit could be a bit more generous with the stuffing as we
did not have enough. We then cut the fronts to size and shaped them and
glued them on. Final sanding and these were ready for paint. The paint
took way longer than anticipated due to issues on the painter’s side but
we finally received them back about 2 weeks ago. The final touches took
16 hours to do (putting wires in place, putting all the aluminum parts
and drivers in place, etc.). So overall, the construction from start to
finish, excluding paint, took about 300 hours. They are currently being
broken in with various types of music. The first album that played on
my pair to hear them was Count Basie’s 88 Basie Street album. Right
from the start, I heard that these were spectacular. I love my Ellams
but the ATS-4 is beyond those.
Thank you again for taking the time to answer my questions and
especially for your amazing designs. There are now an additional pair
of ATS-4 in Montreal, QC and in Scotch Pains, NJ. We both love them
very much.
Bertrand
If you and your readers want more construction pictures as well as other
pictures, please go here: http://www.quebecdiy.net/t855-troels-gravesen-ats-4.
It is in French but the pictures are multilingual…
Hi Troels,
Firstly I wanted to thank you very much for sharing the ATS-4 speaker
design with the DIY community! Bertrand and I had a blast building them
and I can honestly say they are the best I've owned and probably heard!
Some of my friends who listened to them were totally impressed by the
imaging, realism and details they produce. I'm currently driving them
with my friend's amplifier design USSA 5, a two stage Class A Current
Feedback Amplifier. The duo is quite exquisite!
Thanks again for everything!
Dominic
