My sister wants me to make her something like this.
Anyone have any ideas?
I'm looking at a cheap little plate amp at Parts Express. It is a 2.1 amp, maybe a downward firing sub??
Drivers:there seem to be a lot to chose from. Kind of leaning to 6"ers. Maybe Silver Flutes?
I need advice.

Lin,
Yes, that would be the amplifier.
I don't think that it would need to go too loud, my sister lives in an apartment. So I will say it would be for background music that can grab your attention when needed.

I think I can do it for $250 . She really could care less how well it sounds, but I have principals .

Thanks Lin, I had been looking at the Tang Band's but hadn't noticed the Dayton.
I will check me Email for the inevitable Parts Express flier with 20% off.

Use 4 drivers.

Photo's!
Waterjetting the baffles


The sheet of aluminium.


The baffles after they have been cut out.

Wow, waterjet cut speaker box. That's pretty awesome!

Waterjet isn't a big deal. Ours are just XY coordinates with the Z only used for thickness adjustment. Some of the 5 axis are trick, but still limited.
Now the real trick stuff is 3D printing. If you can draw it, we can make it.
I was just given a demonstration of 3D printing cores and flasks for castings. It makes the patternmaker in me very scared. No need for draft, impossible shapes can now be cast. Real cool tech.
Cutting the speakers out of aluminum didn't really take too long, maybe 2 hours. The cost of the material is outrageous, somewhere between $1200-$1400 per sheet. But it was laying there from a project that had been killed.
The best thing about the whole project is that other sections of the building are complaining that our "Tower O' Power" is blasting louder than their PA systems!  The building is huge, a little over 1.5 million sqft!
We make our presence known!

Make corporate listen to them first

Well I settled on  12" Goldwood woofers and some Dayton 100 watt plate amps.
A quick trip to Menards tonight yielded a couple of 4' long 12" diameter Sonotubes. I then just taped them together and stuck a woofer inside.
Things got interesting after that. With no stuffing or even sealing the bass is very noticeable, even moreso outside.
There is still a lot of development work to do, a proper box built and then build the twin to this one.
Fun shit!

Oh wait, you did say this was a Transmission line of some sort? So it's wide open on the bottom (non-speaker) end?

Well, I "finished" my subs last weekend. Sorry that I took so long reporting back, I had a bad cold and some kind of heart thingy that required a bit of hospital time this week.
Anyway, I decided to go the whole on "Hillbilly" method on these subs.
All that it took was 4 ea. 12" store brand Sono tubes, a roll of red duct tape, some zip ties, 2 ea. Goldwood 12" woofers, and 2 ea. Dayton 100 watt sub amps.
All I did then was cut a 45 degree angle a couple of feet in on what would be the bottom tube, rotate it 180 degrees to get my 90 and start taping them back together. Simple, effective, cheap, and ugly. But so what, it is for my garage.
So far, with very limited listening time, I am very happy with what I have wrought. Some time needs to be spent working with stuffing it.
The whole garage stereo pulled 104 DB with the door closed, it should make the neighbors real happy.
By the way, if you have chest pain that knocks you down a couple times a day for 3 weeks, the Doctors get real mad at you for not coming to see them sooner!
Photos:




I'm real proud of this one

Well Core, you have just named my subs.  They will now be forever known as the Cheech & Chong memorial quarter wave subs.

So I spent the whole afternoon today cleaning and organizing my garage, and playing my "Cheech & Chong Memorial " quarter wave subs.
I'm pretty sure that everyone in earshot is hating me now.
It seems that the bass notes are a lot louder outside than inside the garage. I guess that it is like the cars that go thumpety thump as they drive down the mean streets of Decatur!
Anyway, it really does play loud and clear.
It is time for me to make something different now, I'm open to suggestions.
A photo of the end product.

Well, you know me. I'd vote you make some diffusers.

If you can cut some foam insulation, and maybe cut some 1/8" MDF - I can design it for you...you just need to make the mess of making big panels into little panels, then gluing them together into pretty patterns.

From several perspectives, that is just stunning!  Probably the coolest looking small room I've seen... possibly ever.   Great job.


Steve

I need someone to take my access to Parts Express away.
I just ordered up more speaker drivers, tweeters, binding posts and capacitors for yet another speaker project.
I'm going to do a strange variation of a Nelson Pass design for the insanely cheap GRS Bofu drivers. It is a transmission line floorstander that looks fun to build.
Here are the original plans: http://frugal-phile.com/boxlib/Pass-BOFU-TL-map-010910.pdf

I'm going to really mess with the design by using 2 of the 8" Bofu's and a Peerless tweeter per speaker. The weird idea that I have is pointing one of the 8"s upward and the other one "normal" Why? Why not?
I'll make the top replaceable so if it doesn't work I can go back to "stock".
Who knows, it might work.

www.imgur.com  
Free and just as easy to use as Photobucket

I started a experiment today. The new transmission line speakers seemed to have a bit of bass weight to them. So I moved them over a hair, slipped my OB's back into their place, brought my sub plate amps in from the garage and hooked them up to the box speakers.
So now the T-Lines are crossed over at around 80Hz and adding some bump to my open baffles.
They sound OK, but have planted a seed of inspiration for another project.

Things are getting stupid around here. I've stacked my garage rocker speakers on top of my transmission line speakers. I'm running some sub plate amps on the transmission lines to give me thump.
Great party speakers!

And now for something different.
My nephew just bought plans for a 12” Deathbox sub. Guess what I’m making today?
I’ll be annoying my neighbors while building something for my nephew to use to annoy his.
The circle of life goes round and round.

I'm looking for inspiration.
A fine pair of Dayton 8" PS220 point source drivers found their way to me this week (Thanks Dan) and I need to use them in something special.
I was originally thinking of using them in a transmission line speaker like the Pass designed one for some cheap GRS drivers. http://frugal-phile.com/boxlib/Pass-BOFU-TL-map-010910.pdf
Other ideas have been a "Bigger is Better" box. http://frugal-phile.com/boxlib/BOFU-BIB-plans-311007.pdf
or some "Singularities" http://speakerdesignworks.com/Singularity_1.html.
A other idea would be a upsized J-Low, https://www.passdiy.com/pdf/j-low.pdf
Does anyone have a suggestion?

I got a few hours of work in today on my BiB's
It is so much better building things with the right tool for the job.
Below is a test cut of my hole cutting jig for my router.


And another of when I was laying out the pieces. Nothing bolted together yet. I'm trying pocket screws on this build.

It has been a busy weekend. I built a Deathbox sub box.
It seems to hit really hard. I was running it off of a little Dayton 100 watt sub amp with my Bigger is Better garage speakers and things were vibrating off of the wall.

Alright Deuce,
Here are action shots from the build.
First, my disaster area garage.



testing without the top on



after it was fully assembled and with primer. It looks good in flat white.

They make noise.
After vacation they will get a lot more work on looks. I'm not too happy with the finish at this point. The paint is really soft right now.
They sound pretty good, hopefully it will get even better with more time on them.

I am very happy with the sound of my little vacation speakers. They sound more than adequate in my listening room. The little sub adds a lot to the sound.
Here they are piled up on top of my little horns in front of my open baffles running off of my Torii. I might have a couple pairs of speakers hanging out around here.

I just downloaded plans for a Wicked One Sub. This might get ugly.

Either the Garage or for my listening room.
My OB's can always use some reinforcement down low.
The plans are a little wanting for detail, but I know a guy that can flesh them out a bit. Lol!

It took me a while to figure out the print but I finally saw what I was missing.
I'm starting to make some headway. The angles are fun to figure out.



My garage is a mess. I really need to build a dedicated shop.

One of my guys is going to do a layout for me so that I will get all of the angles right.
It has been a fun build so far, just my stupid job gets in the way. If I only didn't need money, there would be so many more hours in the day to play!

I just wanted it to be known that I do build speakers that are not painted red. Gloss white is a new frontier for me.
We are calling them "Stormtroopers".

Well Al PI, my white paint luck is on a downward spiral.
I was sanding it flat and started seeing dark spots, I had sanded through, Damn!  
Another couple of coats were laid down and I'm waiting for it to dry out. We will see how it looks tomorrow.
Patience is a virtue.

Just a quiet Saturday morning being improved by music.
I'm listening to my Bigger is Better speakers. They are doing a lot of duty lately.
The Stormtroopers are off to their new home. The kid that got them is impressed as hell with them. Sometimes I get lucky.

So I've been hacking away at this project for a couple of months working on it when the weather would allow. Supposedly my next house will afford me the luxury of a heated shop.
What these are is some DM945ish clones with some different things done to them.
The stands are pretty neat, a young guy at work designed them, so I'll just give him the speakers and stands.
I have to keep paying back, life has treated me pretty good and some people gave me some amazing help when I was just a pup.
Anyway, meet the Grey Ghosts.

Well today was a very nice day here in the flatlands and I got real busy.

I built a pair of speakers for my old CAD Monkey. He had four HiVi 5" drivers and a couple of HiVi tweeters.

There wasn't anything that I saw using these drivers that looked interesting,
so we drew up something and started hacking away on the saw.

We never think of taking pictures while we are working.

Here is what came out, they are the speakers sitting on top of my garage rockers.



They don't sound too bad, not a huge amount of bass, but you make do with what you have.

Well I have been pretty busy building stuff over the last few weeks.
I've built 2 pairs of speakers and a subwoofer. My garage looks like a MDF dust bomb went off in it.

The first set was what we now call "The Barn Rockers"  that consist of 2 cubic foot boxes with my favorite El Cheepo $12 GRS 8" full rangers with a 1" soft dome tweeter in them.
What pushes them over the edge is the Deathbox with a 12" sub in it. My oh my oh my.

The cube mate that I built them for just got a place in the country far away from everyone. His barn needed sound reinforcement, and he knew just to ask for help.

Well it seems to have met all of the requirements that he had for the project.

Using just a cheap Dayton Bluetooth 2.1 chip amp it rattles everything in the barn. He says that he can hear it clearly in every corner of his 2 acre place. His wife has already complained about it being too loud. in the house, 25 yards away! Kaboom!!
A job well done.



The second project was also for a cube mate. I've pretty much built something for everyone I work with at this point.

These speakers called for more finesse from them, so I built another one of my transmission lines for him but with a big upgrade in the tweeter department.

This is either the 3rd or 4th set of the Nelson Pass designed TL for using with Bofu drivers. I use the stupidly cheap GRS's in these also, paired up with a HiVi ribbon tweeter this time.

Wow talk about imaging and soundstage. Really impressive, maybe better than my bucks up open baffles. Good enough to start thinking about what I can do to really hot rod a pair for myself.

Right now I'm just running them in, I will disassemble them next weekend and slick them up and prime for paint. He wants to paint them himself because of my reputation of going way crazy on finishing.
I've been known to paint something and then sand it down to start over, multiple times.

I might have a little OCD problem.

Everyone makes sure that all of the screws in your house point the same way, right.....?? Attention to detail is what I call it.



Project after project. Gotta keep moving forward like a big shark or die!
I'm too old to die young and too young to die now!

Dan,
I love these drivers. I bet that I've made over 6 pairs of speakers with them in them.
They are cheap and fun.

https://www.parts-express.com/full-range-8-speaker-pioneer-type-b20fu20-51fw--29...

Donnie,

 I used to have neighbors like yours back in the day. It actually came to the point that I vacated the house after I put it up for sale and rented for 3 months until the house sold. Damned HOA. The pres lived on one side of me and the treasurer on the other.

 The DNA2 speakers have gained weight so I get what you are saying about moving them back and forth. Got a router guide coming in today and that means another trip to the shop for the pair. Ouch.

And concerning home and yard upkeep, my neighborhood is a great example of why HOA is a must! We do not have one, and it has gone to shit. Cars parked up and down the street, bunch of houses for rent, yards unkept, fences falling down, etc.  I have no choice but to vacate the area. Coming next year. At least I don’t live in Minneapolis...  I went and got political. Oooops!

Donnie,

You are one of my favorite posters on this forum.  You rock!  Your prize is:



Steve

....I agree with Steve...Donnie I really do enjoy reading your post ...you bring enjoyment, laughter, and craftsmanship to the site...keep up the good work.

...I also like that you are a MIT* graduate

*Mississippi Institute of Trucking

Greg

I had a little extra time on my hands today at work. Some spikes for speakers were made.

I will use my BFH to drive them in!

So I have finished the "Rocker II's".

The white finish came out nice and shiny. My fingers will probably cramp up tonight from all of the wet sanding that I did today, but all in all worth it!
The palsy of working hands. If my hands weren't hurting I would think that something surely must be wrong.

Right now I'm playing the speakers in my listening room, they sound pretty good if I say so myself.
Both Solid State (Dan the Amp) and Tubes (Torii III) have been used, both with great results.

The Silver Flute drivers sound punchy with bass and the HiVi tweeters are just imaging monsters.

I will say that I've been listening to open baffle speakers for so long that box speakers sound "boxy", not that it is a bad thing, just different.

Well next week is still vacation time, who knows what I will piece together?
Probably another set of Barn Rockers for my boss' new barn. Giant Monkey Coffins that can fill a barn with sound.

A picture of the finished product.

There is a new driver in my arsenal, A FaitalPRO 4FE35 4".

A 4" 91dB full ranger, built like a tank.

My current project of the Swamp Rockers are using them for a forward facing, full range driver, in conjunction with the GRS 8" Full ranger's firing upward, radial stiye.

Yes, I steal Bob's and Steve's ideas freely.

These with the yellow Death Box are killing me in my garage right now, big sound is happening.

My Boss's barn will really rock when I finish 'em.

More to come.....

The swamp rockers are now resting in their barn.

They are way more than adequate for their intended purpose.

My Boss was giddy, giggling like a a teenage girl.
He was very happy!

The tin shed was ratting hard, even outside with the doors closed.
I'm sure that the deer were displaced from their hiding places. I swear that we saw a ground hog dancing like the gopher in Caddyshack!

The acoustics in the barn aren't what I would call great, well in fact they are terrible, but you work with what you are given.

I can say that they will probably cause my Boss's neighbors to complain, and they are a good quarter mile away, through woods and creek bottom.

So here they are, finished in my garage, sounding pretty good to my ears.



Some details.





And in their final location.



So if you have a need to annoy your neighbors, even if they are a half mile away, I'm your guy!

Love the way that you keep it moving, Donnie.

Thanks Deuce,

The color is just what I got when I mixed the cans of red and yellow. Nothing planned or anything like that. My wife even commented on how she liked the color.

So I spent the weekend half messing around in my garage building my super sized 15" Death Box.

It is about 75% done, enough to actually make noise from it.
Yep it is effective, 20 Hz right through 160 Hz.
It makes everything in the garage buzz and my gut feel funny when it is turned up!

Tomorrow I will start on the two speakers that will make this the Barn Destroyers that my co-worker requested.

Donnie

Let us know how the 15" deathbox turns out.  What speaker are you going to use?  If it turns out good, the Dayton 18" classic sub might be interesting as another step up.

Dan

Just a couple of photo updates of my Barn Destroyer project.

The sub is huge and it shakes stuff off of my workbenches.



And the speakers sound way better than they should. Very happy with them.



I'm now listening to them for a day to "let the glue dry", more like to catch my breath.

In a day or two they will come apart to be slicked up and finished.
We are finishing them in shellac over raw MDF, for kind of an agricultural look.

Thanks Lon, I appreciate that.
My workmanship is just OK in my opinion.
I really need to take the time to figure out joinery a bit more. All of these butt joints look amateurish, it is time to step up my game a bit.

I've been lucky in finding good combinations of drivers and tweeters. Truthfully. I just take other peoples ideas and expand upon them.
The math is always fun and the work keeps my mind occupied in a good way.

If I didn't have this hobby I would probably be in a shack way out in the middle of nowhere writing my Manifesto and building letter bombs!

Well the Barn Destroyers are being set up in their new home right now. Hopefully the building is robustly constructed.

The co-worker who I built them for took the day off so that he could play with them.

The one piece of the build that I haven't talked about is the tiny little Dayton 3 channel amp that powers it. A $90ish amp supposedly with 50 watts a channel and 100 watts to the sub. I figure more like 20 a side and maybe on a good day, 50 to the sub.

But with all of the drivers used in this project being 90 to 91 db efficient the volume is way more than enough. I saw over 103 db in my garage with the doors closed, more than adequate for it's usage. It is hard to describe the hit that the sub puts out, kinda like someone hitting you in chest with a tennis racquet.

A picture of the finished project as it was waiting to be picked up.

You might try some different finish techniques on the oak.  I have a cherry project coming up and I'm planning on a lye wash that turns it red.  I used to feel the same way about oak as you do but I like working with it.

The green poplar will eventually go brown and tan.  It's just such a plain grained wood.  I think I've used Special and Dark walnut Minwax stains on oak with nice results.  I'm a big fan of linseed oil.  I don't know if it will work with oak but lye can do interesting things to wood.  If you've ever poured concrete and stepped on a redwood deck you'll know what I mean.  

Just a quick update on my Continuum II build with the kit from Meniscus Audio.

The crossovers are done, the boxes are in final finishing, and next is assembly.

I'm hoping that they end up sounding good behind Dan the Redheaded Amp!

Here is what the "boxes" look like right now, let's see how I can mess them up!

Wow!

Dan the Amp will be proud to drive those guys!

Donnie, That looks absolutely fantastic.  Definitely Jealous of how nice your cabinets look.  I know I have been been listening to my Continuum II regularly since they have been built.  I must admit I've been so inspired by them that I've purchased Bagby's Kairos kit as well.  The cabinet construction is well beyond my abilities, so I have no idea when the project will happen.  But to say I am in anticipation is an understatement.  It is really a luxury to be able to hear crossoverless speaker systems driven with Decware tube amplification on one day, then on another day hear these mini monitors driven with fine solid state and compare and contrast.  At the end of the day I know my heart lies with my SE84UFO25, Torii MKIV, HDT, and Hegeman Model 2 gear!  But undeniable, incredible things are to be heard with the Continuum II setup.  At any rate, I am glad you took a chance on a Bagby speaker and look very forward to your opinion of how it sounds.  All the best!!!    

Also! I'm sure I forgot to give props for Dan the Amp.  I had the privilege to have several sessions with that amplifier at Dank's garage and it delivered every single time!  Dank ran it through the paces, behind at least a half dozen speakers, over a wide spectrum of music and it never broke a sweat!!!!!  It was always a pleasure to listen to.

So 4krow you are saying that speakers with crossovers are like vampires?

Holy cow, if I'de only known beforehand.
litefootdan has led me down the garden path to my destruction!

I finished up my take on the Continuum II's today and have been playing them a bit.

They are hooked up to my Torii and don't sound too shabby. I'll run them for a while before I give any kind of opinion, but so far they are fairly impressive.

The crossover seem to work in both of them, so my soldering skills must have been adequate.

The instructions from Meniscus Audio were pretty good once I looked at them, but being "old school" I didn't really look at them until I couldn't figure something out.

I didn't build them like the LS3/5a that they are modeled after, so time will tell if my boxes are worth anything.

Anyway they were a fun build, and working with "real wood" was pretty neat. The poplar and oak look pretty good together.
I might need to do something like this again.

Pictures of the finished product.

Donnie,

I just finished up yet another set of speakers.
Thank goodness that it is starting to get cold outside so I can stop this madness!

These are another pair of my "Rockers" done up in white.

A old friend has another pair like these and wanted a pair for his 20 year old son.
Maybe this can be the start of a new audiophile?!

These were constructed differently than I have been doing them, this time I used a biscuit joiner. I really like how they seem so much more solid feeling.

The bass seems enhanced with these, maybe the stiffer construction...?
But truthfully they only have  around an hour on them , who knows what they will sound like with some break in miles on them.

Now to wind down for the winter and take some time to listen to some of my builds.

There is a new build on the horizon that will really test my skills, but it will take some planning to figure it out.

Picture of this last build.

So I have been looking for some sort of  interesting speaker stand for my Continuum speakers, lo and behold they were right in front of my nose all along.

Around the turn of the century while I was still getting dirty for a living, I had the pleasure of working as a metal pattern maker. One of the most high end jobs in machining. Imagine taking a solid hunk of tool steel and finding the part that was hidden inside of it, 3D machining at it's highest form.

Anyway, the old master pattern maker that had started the business had retired and hung around the shop and made things from wood. You know simple things like clocks with wooden gears, violins, harps, nothing fancy, lol. Truly a talented artist of woodworking.

He had taken a shining to me because I could make just about anything he needed that were too time consuming to hand make, things like his wooden gears and metal parts for his harps.

So anyway, back to the speaker stands.
I needed stands for some NHT speakers that I had at the time and asked him to build some.
The only thing that I told him was that they needed to be 24" tall, (that they are, holding + or - .005" depending upon the humidity in the room at the time!) and to make them an interesting shape.

Well to say that they are an interesting shape is a complete disservice to his skills. They are made of solid Mahogany and curve in all 3 axis, so hard to describe beyond saying that they are stunning. It is even harder to photograph, but I shall try to convey how they look with some photos.

Anyway back to today and needing speaker stands. The stands that Lowell had made for me have been holding up the giant, thick piece of maple that my amplifiers sit upon. I needed them out front and center to be used for what they were intended to be, not be hidden under amplifiers!

So this morning I woke up thinking about the next pair of speakers that I am going to build, they have me racking my brain on how to build them, there are some tricky angles and some fancy joinery to them.

So I just thought that I would build something simple just to give me more time to ponder my next moves.

I figured that I could free up my speaker stands from their grunt work of holding my amplifiers up and build a proper table to set the maple slab and amplifiers on.

So I made a new table, using bits and pieces from different speaker baffles that I had became dissatisfied with for whatever reason, now repurposed into a useable amplifier stand.

The table just before it was installed under my amps.



And now my speakers have stands under them! I also cleaned up my mess and much to my wife's amazement, vacuumed!



It is difficult to show how cool that these stands really are.







The table with my Torii and Dan the Amp on it.



And yes, I drank 3 or 4 Diet Dr. Peppers today!

Just read this thread again. I missed out on some stuff since last time. Yes cameras don't often get the full effect of finishes. The stands got to make things a lot more versatile. I am curious, how much does each stand weigh? I might have missed that. And you know, I still find that each speaker design prefers a certain volume level to sound it's best. Larger cabinets can get away with lower volume, at least that is my experience.
 My shop is also telling me to go away for the season, but I might squeeze in one more project.

My new woodworking tools are starting to trickle in to me.
I got a bunch of clamps yesterday, because you can never have too many clamps.

I have a biscuit joiner coming and a real fancy miter gage for my table saw. I watched Steves videos on his Tiny Radials and noticed what he was using for his angle cuts, so I ordered the same one. There are also some accessories for my router that are in transit from England of all places. Amazon seems to get stuff from all over the place.

Hopefully these tools will help me step my build level up even more.

I've volunteered myself to build a fellow forum member speakers for him and I want to really do them up right. Right now I'm in my planning stages, hopefully sometime during my Christmas break from work chips will start to fly around here. Weather permitting.

I have too many ideas rattling around in my head. Hopefully I can pull this one off.

Donnie,
Screw clamps are a great addition in any wood shop. Very handy tool for a quick support that can conform to almost any shape. I just acquired a half of dozen or so of various sizes. Indispensable now!

John

Well Jim the main reason I haven't posted anything new is because it has been too friggin' cold out in my shop. It was -10 F a week or two ago on my drive to work.

But as I type this it is 51 F and I'm starting to get itchy again. The long range forecast looks good too, so maybe next weekend I can start into my next build.

The first project is going to be a pair of Jeff Bagby Kairos for a forum member.
I promised that I would build them late last fall and I have been just sitting on my ass for the last 3 or 4 months. It is time to get going on them.

No red or white this time, walnut and black is the color of choice. I am thinking about some of that black that is so black that it looks like nothing is there.

Just kidding Dan, a normal black is what I'm planning on.

Beyond that, I have a 12" sub driver laying here and my boss is building a cabin in his woods that will need some sort of audio reinforcement.

I'm sure that this year will have some good projects. Let's see what I can come up with.

Donnie!  I can't imagine how cold it was up there.  I know here in KS we had a couple days with a high of 0 and -1.  That's cold enough for me!!!!  Hope you're in good sorts and in good spirits