Meet my new babies: The Sun Ones! (1 Viewer)

[Patrick Sun]

I just got done with my new DIY speakers tonight, and have been listening to CDs aplenty.
I'll be applying hammered metal spray paint on the front baffles, and the veneering the sides, the back will most likely be painted black
Here's a shot of them:

Whew, it was a lot of work, but I think time well spent.
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[RAF]

SweeeeeeeeeT!

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RAF
[Demented Video Dude since 1997]
[Computer Maven since 1956]
["PITA" since 1942]
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[Julian Data]

WOWSERS! Excellent job PMan!

Question: How do they sound?
JD
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[Kevin Liedtke]

Pat,
Those look great...do they sound as good as they look?
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-Kevin Liedtke

 

[kevin oswald]

Those look good even before painting and veneering..!!!
Great Job!!!

 

[David A. Frattaroli]

Great job, Pat. Any construction pix?

 

[Patrick Sun]

Thanks!
For my initial attempt at a crossover design for these particular driver components, I'm pretty pleased how they sound. Don't know how much more work I'll do on the crossover, I may have to lower the tweeters 1dB, and maybe lower crossover point on my 0.5 woofer (the bottom woofer) because I'm getting really nice bass out of them (box is tuned to 49Hz, F3 is near there). I don't really even need to run a subwoofer with these new speakers. They are pretty crisp, tight, and can thump. I'll do some frequency sweeps to see if I have any holes/peaks in the frequency response later this week. For now, I'm just going to enjoy the fruits of my labor. The painting/veneering will come later once I'm satisfied with the crossover.
Are there any construction pix? Surely you've forgotten who made these speakers! Yes, hopefully I can put up the webpage on the construction of the Sun Ones (is that a silly name to give my new speakers?) this week, time permitting, in the event I can extricate my butt from the music listening couch...
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[Brian Bunge]

P@,
Looks good for a novice!

Seriously though, they look great! Also, I'm really happy that you're friend was able to loan you the router! I tried to use a 3/4" roundover bit on my subs Saturday and the hole in my base isn't large enough! Looks like I'll have to buy an offset base with a hole >2" in diameter or (shudder) make my own!
Brian
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[Patrick Sun]

BB, well, I went to my friend's place because he built a router table (where you have the router upsidedown, with a wide base - probably 12"x8" piece of plastic) and we ran some test pieces to set the depth, and lined up the adjustable fence which the panels align itself as it is run through the roundover bit. Once I got the hang of it (I had to do the roundovering because my friend already had 3 beers before I showed up that evening, and it wouldn't have been a good thing for him to operate the router in that condition).
I totally consider myself a novice.
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[Brian Bunge]

Pat,
The real question is are you going to build a new center channel to match them? Shouldn't you have built a 3-way with the two 6.5's a 5.25" and tweeter so you could really build a matching center? I figure you don't have enough to do so I figured I'd give you some ideas!
Brian
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[JohanK]

Nice job Pat.
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[Patrick Sun]

Johan, thanks!
BB, not really, I think all I really need to do is replace my tweeter in my center channel with the Morel MDT30, and then adjust the padding on it. Otherwise, it's nearly a drop in replacement. That's my line of thinking at this point. I can still utilize the existing midrange, which is amazingly flat from 1000Hz to 2800Hz, and I'd cross the new tweeter over around 3200Hz and raise the l-pad to around -4dB.
Here's my preliminary graph of the frequency response . Bear in mind that this was my initial design, with a guess on how much l-padding I needed on the tweeter. It appears I guessed on the low side, so I'll bump it from -3dB to -4dB (or -4.5dB) for the l-pad on the tweeter. I have a nasty room induced hump around 100Hz that I can't do much about, and then a slight dip around 300Hz. So all in all, I'm pretty pleased for now. Anything measured after 10KHz is basically caca due to my RS SPL meter not doing a good job beyond that frequency.
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[Neil Joseph]

Man those look professional. How many DIY speakers do you have man?
orangeman
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(plus large selection of H.T.Links and movie images)

 

[Brian Bunge]

Pat,
Today I made an offset base with a 3" hole so the 3/4" roundover bit would fit through. I then rounded over the edges of the sub cabinets. I have never seen so much MDF dust in my life! My 1/2" bit didn't create anywhere near this much dust! Half way around the cabinet and my arms were covered with that crap! They sure are starting to look good!
Brian
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[Patrick Sun]

Neil, 5 DIY speakers, and 3 DIY subs.
Brian, sounds like you're having fun now! My buddy has the vacuum near his router table, so the dust was minimal when we the the 3/4" roundover on my front baffles. I get that armful of dust when I do the big circles for the drivers.
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[Dean Cooper]

kjsdfklj;ki... oops sorry, had to wipe the drool off my keyboard

Congrats Pat, man will they ever be intimidating once you get that paint on the fronts.
Sweet indeed!

Dean

 

[Dan M~]

Nice work Pat. Have you taken any "off-axis" measurements? I am curious as to how a 2.5 holds up in the horizonal and vertical measurements. Are they better or worse then MTM and TM's?
Keep up the good work...
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-Dan M~
My Small Collection

 

[Jeff Rosz]

hello patrick,
those look really good. you might have said this in another post somewhere, but is the baffle a double layer?
also, i thought it was a good idea to keep the woofers and tweeters as close as possible (hence the flat tops and bottoms of the woofers) in the vertical plane. or am i just confusing what you did with a MTM design? can you explain why you put the distance between the drivers? does it being a 2.5 have any bearing on the driver placement?

 

[Ron-P]

Damn Pat, those kick-ass

About how many hours do you put into a project like that, from start to finish?
Peace Out~

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[Patrick Sun]

Dean, hope you clean your keyboard up before you short-circuit it.
DanM, I listen to them toed-in just a bit off axis. Most off-axis measurements only affect the high end frequencies. Not sure if I'll do the measurements off-axis (just not enough time in the day!) For the Morel's, they are pretty flat if you listen to them 30 degrees off-axis.
Jeff, front baffle is single layer. The center-to-center (ctc) distance between tweeter/woofer is dependent on target crossover frequency. Since my target was 2000Hz, my ctc was around 6.75". CtC=13560/frequency. If I wanted to cross over at 3000Hz, I would need a CtC of 4.5", and that's just not possible with the tweeter/woofer pair I selected. The highest I should cross over is around 2600Hz (CtC=5.2"). Crossing lower is preferable, but it's dependent on the tweeter's Fs (resonant frequency), and you should shoot crossing over at 2 time Fs (or greater).
Ron, there's no telling how many hours, I tend to work slow, plus taking all those photos slows me down. Just a cursory guess, you could probably put it all together in 2-5 days depending on how long it takes you to put crossovers together as well as doing the measuring/cutting/routing, and having all the supplies accessible.
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