Building a new system, interesting priorities though [college house] (1 Viewer)

[Aaron Smithski]

Ahhh....the sweet smell of MDF dust is in the air...

Those drivers sure are beefy -- they are going to serve you well.

I would you black textured truck-bed liner on the cabinets; should give a nice industrial look.

Give a report back tomorrow after you have had a chance to give them a listen!

Looks like a fun project!

 

[Matt:Brunmeier]

[UPDATE #2 - FINISHED!]

OK, I got the foam in yesterday. A nice sharp utility knife made quick, straight work of it, so it came together pretty nicely. I used this 3M spray adhesive stuff and WOW - it sticks like crazy. I would spray the foam, then stick my arm in the box to spray the wall and my arm would come out feeling like all the hairs were stuck to my arm. Really weird sensation. Anyway here's the boxes with foam installed:



Once I got that finished up I had to put the tops on, lots and lots of finish nails and some really hardcore clamping later and voila, the top is on:

http://www.epalla.com/speakers/12.jpg
http://www.epalla.com/speakers/13.jpg

Next I had to get the terminals in nicely. I cut the holes to exactly the right size, so these things were really snug as it was, but I still felt the need to caulk around the inside edge and then screw it. They're in there really good, I don't think they'll be going anywhere any time soon.



Then I had to wait, which is probably the hardest part of the project. I did this mostly yesterday morning so I waited 24 hours for everything to dry up. This morning I put the drivers in:

http://www.epalla.com/speakers/15.jpg

They look pretty snazzy huh. The T-Nuts really pulled those things together nicely - they're not going anywhere either.

Then I tested! Here's my little test setup:



I tried them one at a time first just to make sure there wasn't anything obviously going wrong (bad driver or something) and then I hooked them up together and...


... WOW!

I'm REALLY pleased with how these turned out. The speakers sound excellent even before breaking in! There's a little bit of time necessary before the low end finds its own, but it won't be long, I could hear these things getting better even over the first half hour of listening to them!

The tuning of the box is right where it needs to be - they're capable of a lot of bass even at the 50hz tuning level of the standard box. I wouldn't be surprised if it was actually a bit lower than that.

The efficiency of the speakers is impressive too! That receiver only puts out about 85w per channel but they put out a lot of sound even at low volume.

I'm very happy with how these turned out. So far the only problem is that the boxes must weigh 40 lbs each, which wouldn't be bad if they weren't just too awkward to move around with one person. The size is just barely too big to move comfortably. Oh well, if that's the only problem then it's one I sort of expected and I'm perfectly happy with that!

 

[Adil M]

How's the high end?