Done!

These things sound phenomenal, look better than my average speakers.

Now to play the crap out of them and see how much better they sound with some serious hours on the drivers.




The wood sure is purdy!!

OK, after a few weeks of "loosening up" my new speakers I will say that I truly like them.

Right now my Torii is pushing them pretty hard and they really sound good in my room.

The bass is truly impressive, they hit low and they hit hard, but with great control.
Mids are very sweet and the tweeter is very revealing but not harsh.

My only problem so far is that I don't really have a name for them.

The red topped Koa sided speakers is a long and clunky name.

Anyone got a name for them?

Now I need to figure out what's next to build??

Hula Koa's would be a fine name Donnie.

HK

Lin, You nailed it!

OK, now for something completely different.

Well maybe, I guess. See how I'm hedging my bets there.

I was looking for some sort of different speaker design and I stumbled onto some very cryptic plans for "Negaoka Tetsuo Swan folded horns" when I was looking at some Fostex drivers at Madisound.

The website for them looks like it is from the late 90's if not earlier. It is in very poorly translated Japanese to English format that makes it kind of fun to read.

Anyway these speakers seem to be some sort of transmission line for a 4" Fostex driver and is somewhat modeled after a swan (yeah the bird).

Has anyone ever seen or heard any of these??

Am I stupid for even considering building something this, uh, interesting, yeah we will go with interesting.

The Web site for them:   http://spida.art.coocan.jp/eng-page7.htm

A truly bad photo:



Some sort of "Plans" that look like they were drawn on the back of a Kentucky Fried Chicken tub on the 4th day of some sort of hallucinogenic drug binge, perhaps Peyote or Psilocybin:





I kinda wish I drank or did drugs, that way this type of behavior could be explained. But I'm so pathetically straight laced a Diet Dr. Pepper keeps me awake for hours past my normal bedtime.

By the way, can anyone tell that I've been reading a lot of Hunter S. Thompson books lately?

Well my winter sabbatical is over. The weather has broken enough that I can work out in my garage, well at least after I cut the damn grass.

So today I knocked out a project that I had promised a good friend that it was the absolute next thing that I would build.

After a few hours of a hackin' and a wackin' I was able to produce 1ea. of a 12" Hsu diver infused powered subwoofer, complete with a Parts Express 100 watt plate amplifier.

Other than the MDF, the project was just "stuff" that I had laying around from other aborted projects.

All I can say at this point is that if you turn all of the knobs up all of the way it makes big uncontrolled  thudding-thumping noises, just like all of the $500 cars with $5000 stereos sound.

Job done, mission accomplished.

Action photos!





Even more excitment!






And the money shot of it actually working.





Next up:

A pair of 4" Mark Audio full rangers and 2 ea. of some 6"X1" X6' hickory boards.

Hard telling what I will come up with. I would like some stand mount monitors, so I have that going for me.

Dan,

The Swans are still on my radar. Maybe later on this year after I have a couple of projects back under my belt and my skills sharpened a bit.

This morning I knocked out a "Dice Tower".
A guy that works for me is a big board game player and they use these tower thingies to take out any skill that someone could have in throwing dice.

It will be red and Koa, I have my standards!

Something like this:

Donnie wrote on 04/28/22 at 20:45:51:


We like the pictures (of things you make).

I know how to, do we get bonus points or something?

The white is a nice crisp look playing off the koa. Really nice.

Thanks Edward and Geno,

I do agree that they came out looking pretty OK.

Next up are stands and possibly a sub, maybe..

Does anyone have a recommendation on a "kit" stand mount speaker.

I want to build something fairly nice and figure a kit build would be kinda fun.

I'd probably think about spending $1000-$1500 on a kit for the parts and then do something nice for the enclosures.

So do I look at Meniscus, Madisound, GR-Research, CSS?

I did the Troels Gravesen towers last year, now I need a stand mount.

I'm open for suggestions.

I built GR's X-LS kit, a really fine sounding stand mount speaker that lands right in that budget including the CNC mdf cabinet kit. It really plays well above its price point. Also, have a look at his quasi open baffle (tweeter only) NX-Studio design because it also fits into the higher end of your budget and you can get the waveguide baffle in a nice hardwood to add to your own cabinet build.

Those are beautiful, Donnie!


In my own space, I have moved away from everything black and gone full white.

I know paint is the cheapest thing we have with adjusting to rooms, but my room as it is, is a yellow and white sunroom.
New space and all, I went to the whites for my new paint, even on old black things that needed a nip and a tuck to make them a part of my new space.
White is almost like burden free it feels like in my room.



I might suggest a light tan to flow along with that beautiful hickory, but that was not in your list.
Choose a line of grain and match one?
But if you're planning on a shiny piano finish, it's hard to beat black.

Nice work on the baffles. For garage speakers I recommend flat black. Won't show all the nasty stuff that will be floating in the air and accumulating on the surface of the speaker.

A nice satin black would really compliment that gorgeous baffle.

Honestly, Donnie, I thought the garage reference was a joke mainly due to how damn awesome the hickory looks, but also your choice of drivers.

I would go with semi-gloss black for a garage system. It's easy to wipe down, vacuums clean, easy to touch up when something falls against it, goes with anything.

Hickory is for real men.  

I watched my grandfather, sitting on his back porch, replace, smooth, shape and fit a hickory handle onto his axe using his pocket knife. He started with a log and a hatchet. Took him all afternoon, but he was not in a hurry. He was between farm chores. Kept a stone handy for his knife. Finished it up with course steel wool and linseed oil.

Shoot! I never worked with hickory before. Now looking at some local stuff.

Wondering if slowing down the cutters and feed rate would ease the overheating of the cut?

Donnie,
Yesterday, I was looking at 1/2" straight router bit that was abused by me of course. I worked on cleaning and sharpening it just a touch before I wondered just how much time it would actually take to get it back in shape. Maybe it really is toast.
I resharpen my pocket/box razor knives because it takes no time to get them in good order. My grandfather was a barber, so maybe thats why I do it.

Well instead of toiling for "The Man" today I made something!

A lot of gluing and clamping got me this.





The Hick Rockers







The next steps are to round over the corners, then sand and put the various finishes on.

Well at least after the glue dries for a day or two.

They ain't too shabby sounding for a garage speaker. They might end up in my friend's living room after he listens to them.

DD,
They are tuned to 48 hz according to the calculator I use.

Just what it ended up being when I used stuff I had laying around.

Normally when I make these speakers with only one driver it is a 2" diameter X 3" for a tuning of 51 hz.

Yep I had blowout between the tweeter and a woofer. I cursed under my breath when that happened.

I will say that by that time my carbide cutter was showing signs of distress from cutting the hickory.

But yes, it sure is pretty, in a rustic sort of way.

I might get real motivated today and burn up a bunch of sandpaper sanding these smooth.

Under your breath? Come on now, we know. I would probably have kicked something that would hurt me more than it.
Nothing taken away from the beauty by a chip out. A glued in scrap, some light chisel work and all is well, as you know.

Hick Rockers RULE! I love your name for them.

I can understand why you swore under you breath Donnie. Sometimes those little errors add up! I known, been there many times. Wood has to be one of the hardest things to make accurate layout marks. Those annular rings really play hell on markings. A template helps with the problem but not realistic for one or twos.

I scored some hickory yesterday with Randy style open baffles in mind. There was one inch that was kiln dried available but really wanted 2". When I asked if he had any we walked to another stack outside and found 3 pieces cut this spring air drying on a stack of mulberry.

Glad you are finally feeling better and hope that continues. No relapses, no long stuff. We need that hammer strength on tap.

Those look very impressive. As I noted before, I like the look of that grain.