3 Way project

[DaberAudio 3]

(Crosspost from the Daber Audio forum)

Hey guys,

I thought I’d drop a quick line and show you a project I was working on. This is my interpretation of a project I had found online and had found interesting. This is a pretty basic build, nothing too special. All of these pictures are from inside of my house since I needed my amp to make final crossver adjustments if needed. I sold my Thiel CS 2.2's to fund this build. The drivers are: 8” Hi-Vi M8N magnesium/aluminum driver woofer, 3” Dayton dome mid, and Hi-Vi RT-1C planar tweeter.

http://www.daberaudio.com/projectimages/back%20of%20drivers.jpg

The crossovers are not yet soldered, but you can see the individual boards for the woofers, mids, and tweets. All parts are Jantzen, Dayton, and Mills.

The cabinets are pretty sweet, though I cannot take credit for them completely. These are actually pretty high quality prefabs. That's not to say that I don't have to make some minor modifications I have to port the rears still and install the binding posts. The front baffles are in need of another coat or paint. The router marred them and you can see the natural MDFs color around the sides of the mid (which is really only about 1/64th of an inch gap.)

Thought you guys might find this interesting - more to come

[DaberAudio 3]

put the binding posts in and soldered the connections. They don't look bad, but they don't look that great either. However, they are on the rear of the speaker and if anyone ever even sees it I will be surprised (except for on here I guess).

Here is the port. It's a basic flared port, nothing fancy. Sounds good though! No detectable turbulence without overdriving the woofer.

Oh look, a tweeter.

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Pictures of the completed speakers. They are dusty, I have not polished them yet.

I have stands for these but they are at a machine shop being shortened. They are 24 inch stands but are WAY too tall for these speakers. I'm having 11 inches taken off. I will take more pictures when I get the stands back tomorrow.

I will also dig out some Tympanist pictures, and a recent $1,000 restoration on a pair of Acoustic Research AR-3a speakers. Yes, you read the correctly.....a thousand dollar resto mod to a pair of AR-3s.

[thebiggmann12 14]

looks great.

[DaberAudio 3]

looks great.

Thank you! It wasn't that intensive of a build. The worst part was that I dropped one of the baffles, broke a bottom and chipped out a countersunk edge around one of the woofer cutourts. I had to reform it with DAP wood filler, sand down, and repaint both baffles so the would match.

I also had to do some crossover mods that varied a little from the ones pictured. I noticed a few things I didn't like when I voiced them.

Aside from that, they are just amazing to listen to. They sound better than the Thiel CS 2.2's the replaced, which is saying a lot. Nevermind the fact that they are still breaking in and that they are on my floor as the stands aren't back from the machine shop yet.

[Randal Johnson 544]

awesome work ... great "attention to detail" ... I'm hoping to get started on my home theater system soon ...

[DaberAudio 3]

awesome work ... great "attention to detail" ... I'm hoping to get started on my home theater system soon ...

I'm telling you man, those little things are amazing. I was about to buy some B&W 603 S3's but I am VERY glad that I made these instead. If you want crossover info let me know, it did change a bit from what is pictured. For normal music listening they really do not need a subwoofer. It's not a "cheap" build, I think it was in the low $500s, but damn was it worth every penny.

A lot of people say that dome midranges provide sloppy imaging and soundstage. I'm not getting that at all with these. I had these sitting on my floor last night listening to them while I worked on my laptop and it was imaging like crazy. The mids and tweets were revealing all kinds of subtle details that I had not heard in my reference cd's before, and what was most surprising about that was the fact that they were not even being powered by one of my better amps. I am running a junk Audiosource Amp 3 to them at the moment.

They also have no problem taking a lot of power. If you want a great mid sized monitor this might be for you.

[Mark LaFountain 1,054]

awesome work ... great "attention to detail" ... I'm hoping to get started on my home theater system soon ...

I'm telling you man, those little things are amazing. I was about to buy some B&W 603 S3's but I am VERY glad that I made these instead. If you want crossover info let me know, it did change a bit from what is pictured. For normal music listening they really do not need a subwoofer. It's not a "cheap" build, I think it was in the low $500s, but damn was it worth every penny.

A lot of people say that dome midranges provide sloppy imaging and soundstage. I'm not getting that at all with these. I had these sitting on my floor last night listening to them while I worked on my laptop and it was imaging like crazy. The mids and tweets were revealing all kinds of subtle details that I had not heard in my reference cd's before, and what was most surprising about that was the fact that they were not even being powered by one of my better amps. I am running a junk Audiosource Amp 3 to them at the moment.

They also have no problem taking a lot of power. If you want a great mid sized monitor this might be for you.

Man, now I want some of these, they sound like they sound great.

[DaberAudio 3]

I've done many projects and modifications over the years and I know (and can admit) when they don't turn out well. If I would have bought a pair from a manufacturer that sounded like this and spent serious money, I would still be happy.

If you want xover info and such, let me know, or if in the future you want a pair but don't want the hassle of building it, it would be easy to replicate and ship.

I'm going to be doing a monster build for a guy in Peoria next week hopefully. It will be a MTM tower using Usher drivers, custom crossovers, and a powered sub in each tower. Those will be interesting.

[Aaron Clinton 2,372]

They look great. You should post this on HomeAudioForum.net too.

[DaberAudio 3]

Alright , stands are cut, refitted, and lead filled. I have an estimated 20 hours of listening/break in time on them. I am shocked, awed, and absolutely blown away. They are not bass monsters, but for most listening needs I do not need my subwoofer. The imaging is breathtaking, precise is the only way to describe it. The sound stage is HUGE, both in height and width. Accuracy is top rate. Well recorded live instruments take on an eerie realism that gives me chills.

I torture my friends and family with speakers. Every time I build something, buy something, or repair something we test it out. This time has been great. I have a track I start off with that is all live jazz horns. It starts out the same with these every time. - their eyes narrow, then they begin to smirk, and then they get a shit eating grin on their head and usually look at me and say "oh my GOD". I then move on to things they are more familiar with. Oh well, enough rambling, I know you only came here for pics anyway