DIY Loudspeakers: HOME  INDEX  UPDATES  RESPONSE  WHAT'S NEW 

Discovery-861, built by Leo
Copyright 2022 © Troels Gravesen

Troels, I have completed my first speaker kit.  I am thrilled with the results.  I really like the way you voiced the speakers, wonderful tonal balance, it really comes alive when the music calls for it.  Kudos on a fantastic design. 
 
I have been making my own tube equipment for over 20 years, so I have lots of experience working with electronics, trying many designs and different parts. My experience working with speakers is less, restricted to changing components in commercial speakers.  Not any more.
 
Some lessons learnt:
 
Measure twice cut once
The veneer on Baltic birch is surprisingly thin, really must minimize the need for sanding
A CNC machine makes life much easier, imprecise cuts are a nightmare
Building cabinets is a lot of work, I hired a woodworking friend to put the cabinets together
I listened to all the passive components before wiring up the crossover, I did have a preference on their orientation, coils sound better with the signal direction going into the winding on the inside and exciting on the outside, for the Alumen capacitors, the signal in on the stripped side, when oriented this way the component has better pace or timing, the opposite is a less involving sound, same goes for the wiring
The Alumen capacitors are really neutral/transparent, well worth the cost
Not a fan of the concentrically wound capacitors, find them to spotlight the high frequencies too much, I did leave the Superior capacitor in this design as it is a small value and in series with a large resistor, won't make much difference here (I upgraded the remaining capacitors to Alumen when ordering).  My assessment is consistent with the opinions on Humble Homemade HIFi.
I discovered the Janzen wirewound resistors well before this project, they are my favourite resistor for speakers (I have used Dueland, Path, MIlls, Caddock, Omite, North Creek, Dale, Mundorf), some of the others mentioned maybe more resolving but they all seem to draw attention to themselves, not in a good way; obvious resonances, tonal problems
I used a different layout for the crossover, I wanted to separate each leg of crossover out to minimize magnetic interaction, something I learnt from DNM audio; in essence the signal is the difference between the positive and ground return, anything between these leads will influence the sound, controlling the distance between them changes their characteristics too, I will send photos to show you how I laid them out.  I have used these ideas extensively in my tube equipment to good effect.
I made a few parts substitutions after listening to the components; found the silver plated wire emphasized the higher ranges too much for my taste, I used Neotech solid core copper with teflon instead, I used higher gauge for the tweeter to minimize the strain on the tweeter tabs.  Secondly, I did not use the Jantzen binding posts; in my listening tests I found them lacking, I used Cardas instead.
Thanks for everything you do Troels, will be in touch for my next project.
Leo