# Another speaker build (warning, pic heavy!)



## mattk8715 (Jan 22, 2010)

Started on these last May, just finished them up :smile:! They sound AMAZING!! I took them to a DIY speaker demo and this was one of the reviews (mine are the (MW)T(MW) speakers w/ a cherry finish)-

"_I was lucky enough to listen in on the demo of the WMTMW style tower (over 4' tall and appeared unfinished) and the (MW)T(MW) with a "cherry?" finish, both featuring the ribbon style tweeter. _

_For me beauty is in the eye and ear of the beholder and everyone will have a different opinion based on their personal perception. We are all built differently and essentially have different crossovers built into our brains. I have met people where the amplifier is the contour they are looking for, others the crossover, others the cabinet shape and material. These can all be important things, but the most important is the listeners personal perception. _

_I must say the staging and presentation of both were quite remarkable._

_I had a limited listen to the larger of the two, but what I did notice was clarity of detail, slightly sharp mids, but a solid low end. I am interested in seeing the finished product._

_The smaller of the two (MW)T(MW) which I will just call the Cherry did not have the low end I was expecting based on the cabinet size. However, the detail, clarity and balance was amazing. So much so that I haven't heard such smooth and tight detail since I heard a pair of B&W802s back in 2001. Things have changed and so have my reference points as good quality speakers and dealerships of such don't seem to exist in the Grand Rapids area anymore. This was a wonderfully refreshing listen. Tell him well done._

_I was impressed with the cabinet structures and quality of finishing. Your speakers do not just sound good, they look the part as well. Well done_!"

I built these for my pool table area. I've had the parts to build them for a year now! Just thought I'd share. If anyone's interested, this kit is available here- Meniscus Audio. There's a pdf file in the link to the cabinet construction.

Panels cut, dado'd, rabbeted and the cherry baffle glued in place-










Front baffle all cut out-










Crossovers mounted-










I made the veneer out of cherry using my resaw and planer (I need a wide belt sander). I got the idea for the strips from a cherry table I saw. Pic of a couple cherry strips and the rough sawn cherry-










My method of installation for the veneer strips was to brush Tightbond on the cabinets, lay the strips over it and clamp it. It was finicky because of crown, but w/ a lot of fidgiting I got it to work well. Pic of the veneer clamped under some HDPE plastic-










Bases I made for them-










After a million questions here about shellac and sprayers and blah blah blah (thanks for all the help btw!!), a finish that consists of Transtint, BLO, shellac, then Ceramithane (plus the satin black paint for the backs)-










And the finished product. The grills are held on w/ magnets. Kind of neat because I used magnet polarity so you can't put the left grill on the right speaker. They're both exactly the same, but why not :smile:-


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## Dave Paine (May 30, 2012)

These look terrific. Very well done. Glad to see the forum is helping you to improve.

I like the detail with the magnets and polarity to prevent switching. :thumbsup:


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## Dominick (May 2, 2011)

Those are beautiful. So how do they sound? 
Does the design and wood choice have anything to do with the sound quality? Just not sure if that's important or not. 
Thanks.


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## knotscott (Nov 8, 2007)

Nice looking pair of speakers. Looks like you did a great job too! :thumbsup:


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## GROOVY (Apr 27, 2008)

Looks great, now I have another project to add to the list.


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## Duck69 (Jan 27, 2011)

Very excellent build man!


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## lindsayswoodwork (Jan 7, 2010)

Very nice looking speakers! Are the crossovers DIY or something off the self?


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## mattk8715 (Jan 22, 2010)

Dominick said:


> Those are beautiful. So how do they sound?
> Does the design and wood choice have anything to do with the sound quality? Just not sure if that's important or not.
> Thanks.


They sound amazing. Every time I listen to them I stunned at their detail. I'm hearing songs I've heard thousands of times before in a whole new way. They have incredible imaging, I'm constantly hearing instruments that I didn't hear before in songs I'm super familiar w/. The soundstage from them is also incredible. When I first listened to Billy Joel's Piano Man through them and the mandolin breaks in it was almost eery, I was looking over my shoulder! They have great bass and the sound will almost bring you to tears!

I wish I could take credit for the original design, but I can't. Two different guys collaborated on it; Dennis Murphy designed the crossovers and Paul Kittinger designed the original cabinet. I say well done to them :thumbsup:! Dennis Murphy does a lot of crossover design for the guys at SalkSound, a really high end speaker outfit http://www.salksound.com/home.htm



lindsayswoodwork said:


> Very nice looking speakers! Are the crossovers DIY or something off the self?


I made the crossovers based on the recommendations in this write up (a long read) http://meniscusaudio.com/images/ER18 MTM Dome Ribbon.pdf

I used 1/4" MDF for the crossover board, and ziptied the crossover components to it. This is woofer crossover-










And this is the tweeter crossover-


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## gideon (May 26, 2010)

nice! what do you power them with? i have a pair of magnepan mg's with mccormack micro line drive amps bridged to monoblocks and a matching pre amp.


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## mattk8715 (Jan 22, 2010)

gideon said:


> nice! what do you power them with? i have a pair of magnepan mg's with mccormack micro line drive amps bridged to monoblocks and a matching pre amp.


Right now I have a vintage Pioneer SX-950 receiver. I was hoping to run these speakers w/ it because as far as power output it's great. These speakers have great sensitivity so they don't require a whole lot of power, but I'll get better bass w/ more. When I hooked the speakers up, I noticed one of the RCAs for the aux input broke on the Pioneer (the right channel was quiet and crackly) :thumbdown:. I could probably fix it, but I think I'm going to get a Harman Kardon HK3490 receiver instead and give the old Pioneer to my 13 year old son and let him learn all about soldering. At 4 ohms, the Harman Kardon's about 165w/ch, and it's just a stereo receiver (no theater). Trying to figure out how to convince the beautiful wife this is something we need .


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## aardvark (Sep 29, 2011)

Matt

Hey. Sorry I missed the speaker meet , over there in Grand Rapids, and hope the response was good. Thanks for the invite, but finances and things I have on my plate just didn't allow me to attend. 
It would have been fun.

I've never used Meniscus , but they look like an interesting source. I generally used Parts Express out of Ohio. They have a section on their site for spkr bldrs like us. I've never used their plans, but their parts choice is pretty good. I've also bought drivers from Pyle out of Indiana. Parts Express has an extensive section on builders like us, and writeups on their builds.
You won't go wrong with a HK amp. I run a surround sound system with a HK AVR210. It runs 80w a channel x 5. It's my second HK (first one got lightning zapped.). Prior I ram a Marantz 2270, for stereo and swore by it. HK and Marantz amps are underrated on power compared to Pioneer who overrates their equipment. Look on E-Bay. Used units come up on occasion. I paid $125.oo and it was like new.

Now, on your speakers.....W E L L ... D O N E !!!
Your ability to make a beautiful cabinet far exceeds my abilities. The design is nice and the color/cut/finish is excellent.
I give you credit for assembling your own crossovers, and that exceeds what I do as well. I generally shop for specific crossovers to fit the need, and find it a lot less expensive to do it that way, but you are able to fine tune where I design around the crossovers I buy, and work the cabinet to the speaker choices that the crossover demand. Sorta the opposite way that most do a design. It works but not optimum.
I get the point of turning on old tunes and hearing things not heard before. At one time I ran Altec Lansing speakers, and thought they were the best... How wrong I was. To think that at home we can make speakers for 1/4 the cost that outperforms what is out there and tune the cabinets to our liking.

If you want to direct contact me, you can do so in a roundabout way. Go to my site, and hit the "Contact Gnarlywood" section and send a e-mail on the bottom of the page.
I can send you a few shots of the speakers I assembled. You can also look over my projects.

http://gnarlywooddesigns.weebly.com/


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## lindsayswoodwork (Jan 7, 2010)

Matt, what drivers are you using?


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## mattk8715 (Jan 22, 2010)

lindsayswoodwork said:


> Matt, what drivers are you using?


They're Seas woofers- http://meniscusaudio.com/seas-er18rnx-p-981.html

And Fountek ribbon tweeters- http://meniscusaudio.com/fountek-neocd3-black-p-395.html

Thanks to everyone for the kind remarks!!!

If anyone's interested in building these, that link I posted in my first post is a link to the entire kit, including drivers and xover components. There's also a pdf link (in the link I posted) to a very thorough write up about the design intentions, goals, a bit about the designers; as well as thorough instructions for the cabinet dimensions, bracing, driver spacing, cabinet stuffing, port size, etc.

Aardvark, I wish you could've made it out! We had a lot of fun! The beauty of DIY speaker demos like that is that you can listen to all the different designs; which to me is the major barrier for someone that's a bit nervous to dive into it. I kind of 'fell into' DIY speakers when I went to the Audioholics forum w/ some questions about a new home theater receiver I picked up. Looking around on their home page I noticed they had a DIY speaker section so I wandered down there; now I'm addicted!!

There are sooooooo many incredible speaker designs out there ranging in price from around $100, all the way into the thousands. The first pair I built was a design called the Tritrix MTM TL and cost about $140 for everything. Figured I'd start cheap because I was super scheptical that it would sound good; obviously I was blown away and dove in head first after that!

Parts Express' Tech Talk speaker building forum is a great one, a lot of great people there. My favorite is the Audioholics DIY forum; just because it's a bit smaller, but seems like the guys there are extrememly knowledgable and don't have a chip on there shoulder (if anyone gets into speaker building, you'll find out what I mean!).

As far as Meniscus audio goes, I love the guys there. It's super good because they're only about 1/2 hr drive for me so I don't have to pay ridiculous shipping on cheap things; plus the guys there are incredibly accomodating and willing to help out any way they can. On top of truly loving the hobby, they're wizards at speaker building!

If anyone has an interest to do this, don't be afraid! W/ the tools we have today (forums and internet), there's so much info out there and so many people that genuinely love to help that it makes something that I'd have never attempted fairly simple. Just to ward off the scheptics (I only say that because I was one), the B&W 801 speakers the guy was referring to in the reveiw I posted are in the neighborhood of $15k! I have $700 into the components (plus Lord knows how much into the cabinets) for the ones I just finished. Its very rewarding to sit in front of something you created and let it sing magical music to you!! If anyone has any questions about it, feel free to ask. I would have never gotten into it if it weren't for decent people w/ a love for the hobby that were willing to help out; figure I can definitely give that back :thumbsup:


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## steamfab (Jun 22, 2012)

You have a gifted hand. Everything you touch becomes amazing!
What you have done is impressive.


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