# Speaker Cabinet Build



## jburchill (Feb 22, 2014)

I'm looking to build cabinets for my front speakers. The the speaker size is H: 39.25, W: 8.25, D: 13, I'm in the real beginning of this and will probably be a few months out before I get started. But I thought I should have a game plan.

Here is what I'd like to try to build:
http://www.theaterseatstore.com/large-column-speaker?sc=13&category=1130957

When building cabinets, what kind of wood to use? If i were going to use oak, do i use oak plywood or do they make solid wood boards?


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## madmantrapper (Feb 6, 2013)

So you are just building fronts, not cabinets? Cabinet cavities are what make or break the quality of the system. Are you building crossover networks? I built a set modeled after Rectilinear III's, they were sweet. This was about 40 years ago. There was a store in Glen Burnie, Maryland; might have been called Layette Radio or Electronics that sold most of what I needed as far as speakers and crossover components. They even had grill cloth. I built them out of oak plywood for the most part. I have a book around here somewhere on speaker building. If I can find it I will send it to you free of charge.

Paul



A quick search on the web just brought up plenty of info about speaker building. Here a link to a place that has most everything even crossovers. You won't have to do the calculations there already made.
http://www.parts-express.com/cat/hi-fi-woofers-subwoofers-midranges-tweeters/13


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## madmantrapper (Feb 6, 2013)

Man that website is awesome, it gives every detail about the speakers, cavity volume and all. Makes building them easy.


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## Maurice Hood (Jul 7, 2013)

Madman, the guys over on this site should prove to be very helpful also. Check them out at the link below.
http://www.avsforum.com/f/155/diy-speakers-and-subs


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## jburchill (Feb 22, 2014)

Sorry, maybe I didn't provide enough info. I want to build columns/cabinets that will hold my speakers for the left and right fronts. The column/cabinet will be about 7.5 feet tall. I would like to have the cabinet be in two pieces. The bottom piece will be where the speaker will sit on. The top piece will cover the speaker. The top piece will have a door or a grill with acoustical fabric so the sound can pass through. Then between the columns will be a projector screen. 
I already have the speakers. They are Infinity P363. I want to be able to put the whole speaker in the cabinet so you won't be able to see any speakers.


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## Maylar (Sep 3, 2013)

jburchill said:


> I'm looking to build cabinets for my front speakers. The the speaker size is H: 39.25, W: 8.25, D: 13, I'm in the real beginning of this and will probably be a few months out before I get started. But I thought I should have a game plan.
> 
> Here is what I'd like to try to build:
> http://www.theaterseatstore.com/large-column-speaker?sc=13&category=1130957
> ...


What you linked to is only trim pieces intended to hide the actual cabinets behind them. Web site says stained "hardwood", which is probably Poplar (tulip wood). Since it's only a pretty face in front of the speaker cabinet, you could use whatever you want.

The speaker enclosure itself has a huge effect on the sound. The speakers should be in a box with whatever volume the manufacturer recommends. Typically we use MDF for that instead of wood, since it's dense and not prone to adding resonances to the sound. 

"do they make solid wood boards?" .. um, yes. They come from trees.


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## Trav (May 30, 2011)

Wow! The guy is not building speakers. He is building a column that will have a door that will house his store bought speakers.


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## Maurice Hood (Jul 7, 2013)

I’m no speaker cabinet builder and certainly no sound engineer. With that being said I still suggest that you post and or read some threads over on the site I linked before. There are people over there that build their own speaker cabinets and mount them in-wall. I have read that the sound quality will suffer if the sound waves bounce around inside your cabinet after it leaves the front baffle of the speaker cabinet. If you make your opening the size of your speaker and let it set flush and use the speaker’s own grill the sound quality would probably be better. Do go and check out the HT rooms some of those guys are building over on that site I think it will help.


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## woodnthings (Jan 24, 2009)

*resonance ?*

I have a little experience building some ported bass reflex cabinets years ago using 3/4 particle board faced with HPL. But, I know nothing about resonance frequencies, except that the speaker has one and the cabinet has another, maybe not the same frequency?
I would be concerned that at a certain low frequency, a cabinet that is just placed inside another cabinet will resonate...... I donno? That would not be good. :thumbdown:

The choices seem to be either a rigid mount or a floating or suspended mounting system. Both may have an advantage.
Mass is a good thing, so a rigid mount may work better. Floating will isolate them from one another, possibly also a good thing.... more research may be needed?


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## JohnK007 (Nov 14, 2009)

Getting back to the OP's question, from what I saw on your link YES I think those are very doable. Not overly difficult IF you have some woodworking experience and access to the right tools. The carcass for the columns can be done in 3/4 plywood. The trim would be in hardwood. The bottom columns are nothing more than rectangular boxes. The top is a long, narrow cabinet with a face frame door. It's then all trimmed out to make it look purdy. It looks like you could utilize off the shelf molding for much of the trim work. I don't see why you can't build this. Especially if your intent is to place your existing Infinities into this column rather than remove the speakers from the factory carcasses. You mentioned Oak, is that the finish you're going for?


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## jburchill (Feb 22, 2014)

Maylar said:


> What you linked to is only trim pieces intended to hide the actual cabinets behind them. Web site says stained "hardwood", which is probably Poplar (tulip wood). Since it's only a pretty face in front of the speaker cabinet, you could use whatever you want.
> 
> The speaker enclosure itself has a huge effect on the sound. The speakers should be in a box with whatever volume the manufacturer recommends. Typically we use MDF for that instead of wood, since it's dense and not prone to adding resonances to the sound.
> 
> "do they make solid wood boards?" .. um, yes. They come from trees.



Thanks for the reply...

If the sound does resonate in the enclosure I'd try to add some acoustice material to dampen the sound. 

I should of added to what I meant to about wood boards. Do they make them 15 inches wide? Never seen them that wide. Sorry total newbie to building any cabinets.


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## jburchill (Feb 22, 2014)

JohnK007 said:


> Getting back to the OP's question, from what I saw on your link YES I think those are very doable. Not overly difficult IF you have some woodworking experience and access to the right tools. The carcass for the columns can be done in 3/4 plywood. The trim would be in hardwood. The bottom columns are nothing more than rectangular boxes. The top is a long, narrow cabinet with a face frame door. It's then all trimmed out to make it look purdy. It looks like you could utilize off the shelf molding for much of the trim work. I don't see why you can't build this. Especially if your intent is to place your existing Infinities into this column rather than remove the speakers from the factory carcasses. You mentioned Oak, is that the finish you're going for?


Either Oak or Cherry finish...
So to build these, its pretty much using 3/4 inch oak/cherry plywood for the main box? then find trim to make the details of it?


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## Trav (May 30, 2011)

If you are handy at all this project should not be that hard. Speaker cloth like what is shown in the link will work just fine for allowing sound through as well as allowing front firing port to "breath". I aspire to be an audiophile, the only thing keeping me from it is $$$$$. 2 kids in college and another one starting in 2 years. I do have many friends that are appropriately called audiophiles and a few of them have similar installs to the one you would like to do with no problems whatsoever. One of then even has a custom subwoofer that is mounted in the attic and hidden behind an hvac return air grill. It is built isobaric magnet to magnet I think inverse polarity canceling the vibration in the cabinet. I currently have a set of paradigm studio 20's in my entertainment center. 




I have been thinking of building a set of spendor A-9 clones. This thread may rekindle the fire. 

If you go for the build feel free to ask questions here. You will find many people including myself that will help.


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## Trav (May 30, 2011)

Ttharp said:


> If you are handy at all this project should not be that hard. Speaker cloth like what is shown in the link will work just fine for allowing sound through as well as allowing front firing port to "breath". I aspire to be an audiophile, the only thing keeping me from it is $$$$$. 2 kids in college and another one starting in 2 years. I do have many friends that are appropriately called audiophiles and a few of them have similar installs to the one you would like to do with no problems whatsoever. One of then even has a custom subwoofer that is mounted in the attic and hidden behind an hvac return air grill. It is built isobaric magnet to magnet I think inverse polarity canceling the vibration in the cabinet. I currently have a set of paradigm studio 20's in my entertainment center. I have been thinking of building a set of spendor A-9 clones. This thread may rekindle the fire. If you go for the build feel free to ask questions here. You will find many people including myself that will help.



Meant to post pictures


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## Trav (May 30, 2011)

jburchill said:


> Either Oak or Cherry finish... So to build these, its pretty much using 3/4 inch oak/cherry plywood for the main box? then find trim to make the details of it?


Exactly. 


I think I would possibly not build a door, but recess that section to take the frame and speaker cloth so that it would be flush with the face of the column and hold it on with rare earth magnets.


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## JohnK007 (Nov 14, 2009)

Ttharp said:


> Exactly.
> 
> 
> I think I would possibly not build a door, but recess that section to take the frame and speaker cloth so that it would be flush with the face of the column and hold it on with rare earth magnets.


There ya go, that's a good idea too! After all, how often are you going to open the front once the speakers are set in there.

Take a look at Tharps' entertainment center above paying attention to the top and bottom. See how the top flares out? That's done by using crown molding which can be bought at your local big box store. Now cutting it to fit is the fun part. A miter saw will be high on your list of tools to get if you don't already have one. To duplicate the look of the column in your link you would use this molding at the top and midway where the solid column transitions to the box holding the speaker. The bottom can be done with case molding, again readily available.

Decide what you want to do. Let us know what tools and skill set you bring to the table, and ask questions. Oh, and take pictures as you go along. That's the one thing I always seem to forget to do myself. It sure makes helping a lot easier.


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## EdS (Mar 21, 2013)

I am a long time audiophile and have some experience in the wood shop. I would suggest a couple of things. First and foremost, if you are going to invest the time and money to build the cabinet for your speakers, make sure that the speakers are going to be a long term use item and are of the quality you want. Amps, pre-amps etc and their specs are very important, but the sound ultimately emanates from the speaker and each speaker is different. Infinity is a solid brand of speaker, but I am not familiar with the specific speaker you own. Make sure your cabinet can house both the speaker you own now and the speaker you may upgrade to later. You also want to avoid making the fit too tight, speakers vibrate and you don't want have them wedged against the sides of the cabinet, this will produce distortion to the sound.


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## Trav (May 30, 2011)

EdS said:


> Make sure your cabinet can house both the speaker you own now and the speaker you may upgrade to later. You also want to avoid making the fit too tight, speakers vibrate and you don't want have them wedged against the sides of the cabinet, this will produce distortion to the sound.


This is great advice. I would oversize the cabinet and make the shelves adjustable so you can get the speakers positioned for your primary listening position. 

I built my shop tall enough to put a second story over the kitchen with hopes of one day building a room specifically for 2 channel audio listening. 

EdS make us drool. What is your current set up?


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## mako1 (Jan 25, 2014)

Just a little background.I owned a custom cabinet and furniture shop for 14 years and after that got into building custom guitar and audio amps including enclosures.For audio I would use a MDF enclosure.You want the rigidity and solid mass.There are tons of information on the net as far as porting and baffles so I won't get into that here.As far as woodworking and something appealing like the link showed,I would build out of the species of your choice but make room for a mdf enclosure to fit inside containing the speakers and crossovers.There is much info on the net for the golden rule as far as the size for what you intend to use.It is a true science and can get very extreme and opinionated.Grill cloth comes in many different style and colors and can be matched with any décor.The link above to Parts Express is a good one,You can also look at tubesandmore.com for other options on cloth.


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## Maylar (Sep 3, 2013)

jburchill said:


> Thanks for the reply...
> 
> If the sound does resonate in the enclosure I'd try to add some acoustice material to dampen the sound.
> 
> I should of added to what I meant to about wood boards. Do they make them 15 inches wide? Never seen them that wide. Sorry total newbie to building any cabinets.


Standard width for hardwoods is 6 inches, which is actually 5 1/2 or so after the edges are trimmed. After that you pay a premium for anything wider. You'll see terms like "8 and wider" referring to boards that are 8 + inches wide and "10 and wider" etc, but the price goes ~way~ up when you get to wide boards and they're really hard to find. Oak is one of the species that grows big trees, so wide boards are not impossible to get. But for the price of them, we generally take the standard 6" width stock and glue them together.

It would make sense to use plywood for large flat surfaces and trim with real wood where it matters. As has been said already, MDF is usually chosen for the speaker cabinet part because of it's mass. There is a move recently however to use cabinet grade birch plywood (the 13 ply stuff) for car audio sub enclosures, and people say they can't tell the difference to MDF. Not sure if that would apply to a full range system.

One other note - my friend has some Infinity home speakers that are in HDF (high density fiberboard) enclosures, with veneered exterior. It's all about eliminating the resonances.


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## EdS (Mar 21, 2013)

Ttharp said:


> This is great advice. I would oversize the cabinet and make the shelves adjustable so you can get the speakers positioned for your primary listening position.
> 
> I built my shop tall enough to put a second story over the kitchen with hopes of one day building a room specifically for 2 channel audio listening.
> 
> EdS make us drool. What is your current set up?


I am a long time McIntosh fan; I have owned their equipment for 35 years. I recently upgraded my system from the Mac equipment I bought back in 1978 (which still works perfectly by the way). I own the MC 207 amp, which carries 200 watts, into 7 channels, whether the speakers are 4 or 8 ohm. The AV control center (pre-amp) is a McIntosh MX 121. It has amazing flexibility for use as home theater or just quality two channel listening. Features I like are the ability to custom set the surround sound to the room and your favorite sitting position IN the room, the multiple HMDI inputs, numerous preset surround sound modes, ability to handle mulitiple digital as well as analog inputs, the thing is a beast. My speakers are all Bowers & Wilkins, (front, back, center and sub). They provide a very clean, flat frequency response and can handle the 200 watts per channel with no problem. This system litterally, has distortion levels that are below the abilty of the human ear to hear. After all my years woodworking, my ears are far from perfect, but this system is just perfect for me, and I am very picky about my sound.

One very cool add on feature I have (this will work with any audio system) is to buy the Apple Airport express. It is a $100 plug in device that acts as an extension of your computer router and streams music from your computer to your home sound system. Couple that with a free AP on your IPhone, and you can sit on your couch, access all the songs on your computer, punch one button and hear the song through your sound system. I love it. I buy a lot of music from ITunes, load it on my phone and computer and have access to all of it either just on the phone, in the car, on the computer or through my home system.


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## Trav (May 30, 2011)

EdS said:


> I am a long time McIntosh fan; I have owned their equipment for 35 years. I recently upgraded my system from the Mac equipment I bought back in 1978 (which still works perfectly by the way). I own the MC 207 amp, which carries 200 watts, into 7 channels, whether the speakers are 4 or 8 ohm. The AV control center (pre-amp) is a McIntosh MX 121. It has amazing flexibility for use as home theater or just quality two channel listening. Features I like are the ability to custom set the surround sound to the room and your favorite sitting position IN the room, the multiple HMDI inputs, numerous preset surround sound modes, ability to handle mulitiple digital as well as analog inputs, the thing is a beast. My speakers are all Bowers & Wilkins, (front, back, center and sub)


Nice. I am still in the solid state world. For my head unit I have an NAD driving my paradigm set up with a sunfire sub. 

I am a big fan of spendors. I love how full they sound at low pressure levels. 

When I grow up I hope to be like you.


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