The Loudspeaker, built by Gary
Copyright 2019 © Troels Gravesen
Troels,
Hope all is well and that life is treating you fairly!
I get bored easily, just moved again, beautiful condo with ocean and
mountain views. High on the list when searching was to accommodate “The
Loudspeaker” speakers. Some might say they are still too big for the
room, but I’ve seen bigger speakers in smaller rooms.
I’m lucky that I have access to a full custom cabinet shop along with
very good tooling, including panel saw’s, CNC, and paint booth. One of
my friends programmed the CNC to cut out the front baffle, I kept
tweaking, took 3 tries with standard MDF before I was finally happy to
cut out in Medex. As you can see in the pics the front baffle is almost
perfectly to your specs. Main exception is that the drivers are recessed
and I have a 38mm radius on the vertical sides.
The cabinet is built around a 22mm solid Maple frame that I milled from
rough planks with the shell consisting of a layer of 19mm Medex bonded
to a 19mm layer of Maple plywood via a polyurethane adhesive. All the
interior braces are 19mm Baltic Birch. All materials were sealed with
clear lacquer.
I followed your details of dampening materials as far as the lambs wool
and Acoustilux. For the felt I used denim insulation and I added bitumen
to all the surfaces that did not have the polyurethane layer.
No time or expense was spared to properly prime, sand, final paint the
exteriors with Cromax automotive paint.
The crossover components were used as designed by you and delivered by
Jantzen, with the exception of the resistors. I substituted with Path
Audio. I took the option of using an L-pad attenuator for the
compression driver and Hypex 500 watt plate amps for the 18”.
For the super tweeter I recessed mini banana
plugs into the top of the cabinet with the male end in the bottom of the
mini cabinet. So the mini cabinet stays located in the correct location
and easily removed for dusting.
Still need to order a set of chrome trim rings for the mid 10” and 18”.
My current audio setup is a Magna Mano steamer to a RAKK DAC extreme
that I built for the digital side and a Technics SP10 mkII/SME/Koetsu
Urushi Black, McIntosh C2300 for the analog side. Amplification through
a pair of Nelson Pass/Zen Mod designed Babelfish-J 100wpc monoblocks I
built. All power cords, interconnects and speaker cables are by
Transparent.
This is the 8th set of speakers I’ve built in less than that many years.
I believe these are the last last. At low volume you still receive more
information than what I’ve heard before and when you need real concert
level volume they deliver. I ran these up to 111 decibels for a couple
of bass heavy songs to test out the speakers but mainly the Hypex
modules. Was just bumping the red light warnings at this level. Ears
hurt for a week!
The main feature I love is the sweet spot is so wide. Great for showing
off. Don’t need to mark the floor for the “special” chair and take turns
listening!
Here are some pics. Edit and use what is beneficial, sorry if too long.
And thanks much again for all your effort and time in designing speakers
that we can successfully build and guidance along the way.
Thanks,
Gary
Might make a better presentation than the last one I sent.
I feel
like the music is cleaner/clearer? With these changes.
Still get shocked sometimes by the dynamics
and quickness these speakers effortlessly display.
