Awe come on Steve! Your killin us, what are those drivers.  What brand, what specs, what use in the cabinets.  This teasing has got to stop, now I only want to see more pictures.  I wanta see the wood horns!  Please pics of the wood horns.

TG

They look like JBL's.

The woofers are essentially JBL clones made in China and distributed by a European company called Goldwood Sound.  

http://www.gold-wood.com/

I am very impressed so far.  I needed something that was half-way efficient and something that would at least hit 30 Hz.  They are super smooth, and roll off fast so there is no midrange.

This is so cool!

I was showing the pictures of the Decware Imperial Folded Horn to my wife last night and she said "that looks nice, I wouldn't mind that in my home."  Is that great or what?  The Imperials have high WAF!

I am a lucky man!

I am pretty lucky too! I have WAF appoval for anything i do in my basement, so that means most of my speakers will go up for sale when i build my imperials. She is NOT gonna let me lug my existing speakers upstairs to the bedroom...

http://home.attbi.com/~corpsdriver/wsb/html/view.cgi-home.html-.html

Jamie

I am thinking about building a pair of Imperials
since I have access to 3 different cabinet shops.
(use of the equipment + discounted prices on lumber)

3/4" Birch Ply seems to be very popular for speaker cabs.

Has anybody had experience with staining Birch Ply?
I know some Plywoods just do not look good stained.
Veneers look like they wood be very tough to do on a
Speaker like the Imperials. And Painting them would be
an injustice.

homey

You can stain birch ply the normal way, but it takes a LOT of fine sanding, and sanding, and sanding. When you get it very smooth, the results can be very good. I like the large contrast in the grain. However, if you have areas that are not quite as smooth as other areas, it will blotch.
Here's my boxes made of birch ply (scroll down to just over half way down).

http://home.fuse.net/randyr/AudioFest6.html

Dave

Bob,

Do you have pics of you Helunds on the net so that we can gaze in awe?  I thought I sanded real well, and I still got blotchy areas.  Pre-stained helped a lot, another thing I don't like is that most plywood looks like plywood stained, it has a different grain that regular wood.  I like using vineer, it is easy looks nice, and doesn't require a bunch of tools.  you can sand the edges off, that works as good as a router in my opinion, a orbital is better but I have hand sanded before.  Laminet is harder because it is thicker and harder than wood vineer.

Oops! we have hijacked Steves thread.  Sorry Steve.  We should start a thread on the speaker building forum, although this got started by how to finish the Imperial cabinets.  I think putting vineer on them would cost a mint, I wouldn't, and I would use a plywood like Steve used a lighter weight wood, as light as I could get.

TG