Illuminator-4, built by Gordon
Copyright 2018 © Troels Gravesen

Hello Troels, I have my Illuminator 4's up and running after 5 weeks in my workshop and a visit to an auto spray shop for the painting. These are the 5th speakers I have built this last year; the others were Wilmslow Audio (WA) Rondo (amazing sound from a small cabinet, aided by the excellent Scanspeak 18W8531), IPL SM2 (very underwhelming IMO), WA Eikona (full range aluminium drivers), WA Allegro with upgraded caps (lovely detail but just a little light on the base).
The workshop experience acquired from the earlier builds made building the Illuminators a pleasure rather than a chore, probably enhanced by my anticipation regarding the sound I would ultimately hear from them. I started building the simple version of the cabinets but once I had finished them I didn't really like the appearance of the tweeter cab sitting on top the mid cab so I added the 'surround'. I think the result looks much better.
My initial impressions were that the bass tones were a bit muddy and the high end was rather muted - all relative to what I was used to of course. I started with the input resistor on the tweeter circuit on the mid resistance but quickly switched to the lower value resistor to lift the treble. Recognising the need to run in the drivers I have run them all day, every day, for a week now and now there is a significant difference to the sound. The bass has tightened up notably and the mid tones seem a little more detailed. I should probably play with the tweeter input resistor again and see what I think of the sound at different values.
So how would I describe the sound? Difficult in words but here is my take on what I hear:
They make me smile! I think everything I listened to so far has been fantastic. The bass is tight but not boomy and the detail is wonderful, not surprising to hear all sorts of things not heard before. I note particularly that stringed instruments sound very real - Guiliani Guitar Concerto No 1 by Pepe Romero and the Academy of St Martins in the Field is fabulous. Piano trios are some of my favourite listens; Spacebound Apes by Neil Cowley, and v2 by Gogo Penguin (if I could only have one album this would be it) sound great with excellent piano notes. Another of my all time favourites, Guitars by Philip Catherine, sounds lovely though I think the recording isn't as good as some from the 70's (Steely Dan being good examples). Of course, poor recordings are shown up for what they are.......
Rather than attach a lot of images of the build to this mail I send you this link to my Flickr account:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/74614447@N02/albums/72157661968508368
Thanks for doing the design of these speakers and making them available to us DIYers, we get fantastic value for our hard earned cash by self building and it is much appreciated.
Regards
Gordon