Donnie,

 Take a breath and then be aware that these components cannot harm you as long as you remain still. Don't do anything with them so that they cannot become a mistake.
Maybe just put them up on the mantle for wondering what could have been.

MMMM, you are not going to take this advice, are you.

Hey Donnie!  The Kairos certainly do live up to hopes!!!  

I had another chance to visit with Donnie on Friday and had a nice listening session.  We mainly critiqued three amplifiers on the Kairos.  I brought an amplifier I'd assembled a few years ago.  Essentially it is a GT-102 from a company called Akitaka.  Donnie supplied his -Dan the Redheadded Amp- and his -Infamous Red Torii-

I had listened to my amplifier for years and it was the best solid state amp I had but I do not have many.  When we switched in the ZKIT60 I was taken aback.  I had no idea how much better that amplifier was compared to mine.  There was no comparison.  Which is a good and bad thing.  Now I have to build a ZKIT60.  Kudos Dan Kuechle, you engineered a very nice amplifier.

Donnie and I had to give our final nods to the Torii, it was the superlative performer in all regards.  

I think the majority of Decware listeners use or prefer single driver or wide-range with a helper tweeter. The Kairos are not that type of speaker.  They have a (very nice) tweeter, a mid woofer, and a semi-complicated network but they are really decent performers.  In many ways I prefer them to OB Betsy's.  Also to my OB Fast 10's.  I just love the lower registers offered by a cabinet.  

But that is the problem right.  The cabinet.  It makes for a "boxed" sound.

I've never wanted to go with a 2 amplifier setup.  But I have wanted to get an open baffle setup with some support woofers.  When Donnie and I were nearing the end of the session Donnie threw in his open baffle speakers.  He's got a pair of 15" woofers on the same baffle as one of the later model TB 8" fullrangers.  All of the drivers being driven with his Torii.  The sound was quite incredible.  Instantly the boxed sound was gone.  AND there was bottom end presence.  They were great.  But again it was a good and bad thing....  Now I have to try to get an open baffle setup that will work of my Torii...  Oh the problems!!!!!!!

Happy Listening Everyone
And Thank You Donnie  :)

Yet another Saturday of small projects to do for a larger goal.

It was kinda hot and humid today so I didn't do anything huge of flashy, just some soldering and stuff like that on my crossovers.

Yes crossovers, Satin's spawn, evil incarnate. I will now forever forward call them 666 !


Starting with a basic layout.







And then soldered up and powering the drivers.






So much more to go on these, but you eat an elephant one bite at a time.

4krow said:  "It is too darn hot man. That seems to come right after, it is too darn cold."

Yes! Exactly. That is the weather where I live. At least it is now that I am out of my twenties and into my sixties.  I try to pretend age has nothing to do with it.  It is all the weather.

Brian

Hey Donnie! I read somewhere that it’s better to mount the inductors at angles instead of on the same plane to reduce interference from the electrical field. I’m not a scientist or an engineer but there seems to be some basic logic to that idea. Here's how I’m laying out a two way for a current project. A project that is delayed by the unbearable heat and humidity btw.

Even at $475 with shipping that Koa looks much better than $529 before shipping at veneersupplies.com…

Well another day and a little more work done.

Things went pretty well until I figured that I had cut the front baffle a bit too short. I have been using an metric tape measure and just flat misread it. Oh well, I'm sure that the MDF will be used for something.


Action shots:

The port is fabricated,



The holes for the tweeters are counterbored and cut to size.
Fancy math was used to figure where the cutouts for the wires go.
Sine, Cosine, Tangent, and pie was eaten.
Actually the pie looked suspiciously like a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.



Things are getting closer.



I'm currently looking for inspiration on some sort of outrigger feet for these things.
The speakers need to be lifted off of the floor 30 to 40 MM. Also they are only 220 MM wide, so my feelings wouldn't be hurt if the feet stuck out by 50 or so MM on each side to give a little more stability.

Anyone have any ideas for feet?
Yes I could make something elaborate from metal or buy something, but where is the sport in that?
I need something worthy of this build, remember, if these things sound good they will be covered in Koa, fancy ass wood.

Maybe a riff on this out of 3/4 birch painted satin black. I’m mulling over a similar footing for a pair of GR X-SLS that are 12x8.5 and 39” tall which seems like it may be an easy tip over.

Action photos!

Or how I spent 4, ten hours days in my garage and loved it.

This gives you an idea of how the bottom firing port looks.




This shows all of the felt lining the guts of them.
All I had to cut this stuff was a pair of small scissors, right handed ones, I'm a lefty. My right hand hurts now.




This shows the general mayhem that I have on my hands right now.
For whatever reason I'm disorganized when I'm building speakers, quite the opposite of how I work professionally.

I hang my head in shame!  

But you can see where I rest up and listen to my garage rockers.
For as much of a hack job the rockers are, they sound doggone good. Ask around, they rock.



Virtually every clamp that I own. There might one or two small ones in my toolbox but toolmakers clamps are real small.





Here they are 2 minutes after I finished putting them together.
They are sitting on top of 1-2-3 blocks and precision parallels because I'm still trying to figure some sort of feet out for them.
Also notice my ever present white McDonalds cup.
Today it was iced tea, it was a hot muther out there.




Here they are in my listening room, kicking butt and taking names.




Now to listen to them for a week or two while the glue dries up and let my veneer show up. It is being shipped by land from Hawaii so I figure that may take a bit of time.
In my head I see a mailman on a surfboard catching the perfect wave to California. Cowabunga dude!

First impressions are very positive, lots of bass and the tweeters are real nice. I'm a sucker for nice tweeters, hubba hubba.

Donnie, I look at how neat your shop is during assembly and my workspace looks like chaos…

 Donnie,

I was recently told >>> "When the annoyance outpaces the pay/reward/love of the work itself, you should reconsider." <<<

I did, and quit about 2 weeks ago at a museum where I was working part time. What a great job turned into something else after about 1 1/2 years. No need to explain, it all ends up in the same pile.

Below is supposed to be the very sheet of Koa veneer that I have on order.

UPS says that it will be here Wednesday. I'm getting itchy!

I'm hoping that I can do this stuff justice. My current thinking is vacillating between clear shellac and clear poly, no oils or stains.

What does the collective say?





Oh yeah, I made feet this morning, nothing fancy just 22.5 degree miters on 2 sides to stick out to the front/back and sides.

Now the internal debate on how to finish the feet rages in my head.
There will be red with the Koa, you know, just because of my reputation.

Also these things are sounding awesome, dare I say better than even my open baffles.
Now the job is to not screw them up.

I have an ongoing temptation to try Rubio Monocoat in its clear formulation. That Koa would be absolutely stunning that way so that’s my 2¢

I say let the wood speak for itself with a touch of help towards it's true color.
https://ibb.co/2Y6WRqF

So after some sanding, some bondo work, and even more sanding, it was time for some color. Or I guess correctly, lack of color.

It got it taped up to keep my enthusiasm with a roller at bay, cleaned it about 6 times and got ready for paint.

I used shellac to seal it, sanded with 600 and rolled on a coat of black on the back and the bottom.

Now I will wait a few days and decide if it needs to be sanded flat and maybe another coat added.

EdwardT,

Why in the world did you have to point that out to me??? Lol.

I won't be able to sleep for days now!

The thought hadn't even entered my mind. We will see if I can pull that off now. I don't even know if the "face" shows up on the veneer 6 times.....

Damn, now I have to go out to the garage and roll the sheet out.

Well I might end up in padded room by the time these speakers are done.

Maybe the face will only show up on the front face of the speakers???

I ordered up some Tried and True varnish oil today to use on my Koa.
https://www.triedandtruewoodfinish.com/products/varnish-oil/

Hopefully it gives me the effect that I'm looking for.

Would that pine resin be a fancy name for turpentine used as a drying agent?

Hey guys, I'm just spending $30 to try something different out. Lol

Yeah, when something is marketed as 100% natural my BS alarm goes off too.
But this stuff was highly recommended to me to bring out the Chatoyancy of the Koa.
That is a big fancy foreign word for sparkly wood, it makes it sound like I know stuff.
I learned it when I was getting my Masters at MIT*

In real life most of my sentences start with 4 letter words that start with F and S ! I work on the wrong side of the tracks.
Come to think of it no matter what side of the tracks I'm on is the wrong side.

I also ordered up some Bee's Wax. Wax on, wax off.
If I was a real man I would go full on Yogi Bear and dive headlong into a bee hive and get it from the source.
Come to think of it, I know a couple of guys that own hives....

Todays project was red paint on my new speakers.

So lots and lots of taping, priming and painting.
I'm using spray bomb rattle can stuff. I've only did this once before on a speaker project with moderate success.
Today's results were better than before, I might be able to sand myself out of anything that annoys me too badly.
My body work needs to be better.


So action pictures from today.
Anything that ain't red is going to be Koa:
The first pic is taped up.
I like to hit the speaker cutouts with a little color in case my machining is a little off.







The red is my usual safety red, the light and my phone camera conspired to make it look orangish. I've noticed before that my pics have a color pushing to the orange side.

Tape off:






Next up is sanding my overspray off and then the actual cutting , fitting and gluing up my veneer.
I'm a bit apprehensive about that, but what the hell, it is just for me.

As a side note, my open baffles might need a new home after I finish these.
These new speakers sound great and I have only so much room.
My open baffles aren't any slouches their selves. Really good sounding if you ask me or anyone who has heard them.
I've been known to give my stuff away....
That is known as a teaser trailer.









* Mississippi Institute of Truckin'
I got my Masters in coffee swillin' and rest stop lizard wranglin'.

Just a quick update on my Koa veneer.

I glued some on tonight and it is now doing it's drying thing.

I used a cutoff of the veneer to experiment my finishing on. Probably the most expensive piece of "scrap" wood I've ever messed with!

Well so far I'm pretty pleased with this Tried & True stuff. One coat has been put on and buffed up.
The veneer is definitely looking much better with it on

We shall see what it looks like after 5 or 6 more coats.

The Koa is remarkable, it just sparkles and shines, some quilting has shown up!

Action picture :

That looks wonderful, I’ll bet it reveals something new from every angle. Combined with the red sections it’s going to be stunning.

4krow wrote on 09/04/21 at 17:48:22:


I'm probably the wrong person to learn veneering from. I've only done it a few times.

I just rough cut it, glue it down, and "clamp" it till the glue sets up. Then I just get a razor knife and trim the edges.

The veneer is just a big piece of wood that you glue to your boxes.

I'm working on ways to screw it up right now!

I really like the match, Donnie!

Well my method of stumbling through builds was in full force today.

It was time to get serious about getting the Koa veneer on to the speaker cabinets.

After watching some YouTube videos last night and finding out a method of applying veneer with dry TiteBond and a hot clothes iron and experimenting on some scrap it was time to get serious.

First I cut up my veneer into the size I needed:



I commenced ironing them down into place:




Then trimmed them to size (Difficult and somewhat tedious work).
This is what the first one looked like:




I then sanded and then steel wooled the veneer and started the process of the Tried and True finish. One coat a day after hitting it with 0000 steel wool. I figure 6-8 coats. Lots of rubbing and buffing, right down my alley. I'm just stupid for sanding and buffing.

So anyway this is what they are looking like after the first coat:








I scratched the crap out of my red paint in a couple of spots, so back to the drawing board on that aspect. I guess more sanding and painting is in my future.

It will be nice to get these back together and listen to them again.

I'm still thinking that my open baffles might be available, maybe a lucky person can pick them up at DecFest?? Is free too much to charge?

I'm getting really close to bolting these together.

A quick respray today to cover all of the scratches I made cutting the veneer. Quick means 3 hours of taping and 10 minutes of spraying.

4 coats of Tried & True on the veneer looks about right to me.

Bee's wax next.

I'll let stuff dry and repaint the back and bottom black.

Hopefully they still play like they did before!












I have to take The War Department to lunch or I'm torpedoed.