My Alpha LS Speakers are almost comlete!!!! (1 Viewer)

[Shawn Keeler]

Sorry for the typo "Complete"!! For those of you that have been following my GR Research Alpha LS speaker project, you probably realize that I have missed my target completion date of Christmas. Well that time has come and gone, but I wanted to take my time and not rush this project. I think the finished product will speak for it self, with the hours upon hours of sanding and prep work I put in on these speakers to get to this point. For those of you that are interested here is a Link to the Alpha LS project. Thanks for checking it out!!! Shawn

 

[Dave Poehlman]

Niiiiiiice!



Did I read that right? They're 1.5" MDF all the way around!?!? How much do those things weigh????

 

[Brian Bunge]

Shawn,

Those look great! Good job!

Dave,

We built 3 pair for a local guy's HT and each cabinet weighed 150 lbs. without any of the drivers installed!

 

[Shawn Keeler]

Brian, You are not kidding on the weight. These weigh all of that!!! That is why it has taken me this long to get to this point, sanding these and lifting them on and off the saw horses, no need for the gym those days!! To answer your question Dave. Yes, you read correctly, 1.5" of MDF all the way around. The are bullet proof.

 

[Dave Poehlman]

I'm curious... with 8 of the Neo 8's arranged in a row like that, how do you insure a good seal on the top and bottom edges of each driver?

 

[Hank Frankenberg]

Yes, HEAVY. I'll never forget building Danny's personal pair by myself - lots of groaning.

Regarding sealing the tweets: at those freqs, a perfect seal isn't as important as with mid/low freqs, as the backwave air volume is very small.

 

[Garret_O]

It seems to me that the tweeters are in their own sealed compartment. I'm guessing that the sealing around the tweeters in this situation would not be as important because of this compartment.

I'm just taking a guess here.

Edit: Sorry, need to refresh my browser after walking away.

 

[Dave Poehlman]

What!? He didn't want a 7th one laying sideways on his TV for a center channel!?

 

[Conor]

WOW. Those are crazy! Good work!

 

[JonWB]

Hey, those are looking great Shawn! Don't beat yourself up over missing your Christmas-time completion target. Mine stretched out to be almost a 2 year project (on-again / off-again).

They are VERY heavy! I built mine in the basement and then carried them upstairs (w/ my brother-in-law's help) sans drivers. Even empty, they had to weigh close to 200lbs. each. I soldered up and attached the drivers in my family room.

As you (and Hank (edit: formerly Frank Hankenberg :b )) may agree, in my opinion there are two main things that make these babies a big project. First, the shear number of holes for the drivers, ports, terminals, divider panels, etc...; it never seems to end, and you sweat bullets w/ every one of them. Second, as you assemble all the panels, the size/weight of the enclosures gets to be almost unwieldy. As I was flipping and flopping them around on the saw horses I was always worried that either one would fall off the horses, or that my saw horses would collapse!

I remember as I neared completion, there are a lot of details that take time to shore up. Forget target dates and just keep plugging away. You are going to be floored when you hear them!

Let me know if you have any questions at all...

PS: some pics of how mine turned out Here

 

[Hank Frankenberg]

Who's Frank?

Yes, these are a tremendous amount of work, especially for one man. Target dates?? BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

 

[Brian Bunge]

Hank,

You know that Frank is your alter ego. He's the one with the black cowboy hat.

Dave,

Danny designed a custom center for him using 2 of the tweeters and 4 of the woofers. And this man didn't have no TV. He had a huge NEC CRT-based projector hanging from the ceiling.

 

[Dave Poehlman]

I'd still like to see one teetering atop a 27" TV.

 

[JonWB]

yea, I'm loosin' it... Sorry about that!

I dug up some Alpha LS construction statistics. Keep in mind there is more than one method/order in which to construct these babies:

- Routered through holes: 66 (28 w/ recessed edges (including the scary tweeter slot))

- Drilled holes: 176

- Little relief notches for the damn Neo rivets: 130