[iskandam]

wow i am speechless 

[ebag4]

Carlos,
Your craftmanship and attention to detail is inspiring.  Beautiful project, thanks for sharing your works of art.

Best,
Ed

[stevecuss]

wow.  just wow.  thanks for sharing this whole journey with us - its been inspiring to follow along with all your work and thoughts.  Can't wait to hear a report on how they sound

steve

[R_burke]

Carlos, that some great / fantastic / absolutely wonderful cabinetry...  I have never heard of the OB-5, but for your sake, I hope they are the final speaker, what with all that work into the cabinets????

Tuan

Hey Tuan, I have a pair, not nearly as pretty, but someday when you are going to be in the Santa Cruz area, drop me a line and you can give them a listen.

Richard

[Xtatik]

Mr Voncarlos, now that you would surely have a few hours on these magnificent speakers you have built, how do they sound? 

[Voncarlos]

I thought I would show you a progressive set of Photoshop images on how I started with the initial inspiration to the final design. I would like to thank Rocket Ronny for his build of the OB5 and for granting me permission to show his photos. Rocket's original post can be viewed here : http://www.audiocircle.com/index.php?topic=31630.0 It was Rocket's OB5's that gave me the initial inspiration for the design.
I should say that I'm not a fan of the male-dominated-techy-look of all black and metal that is so prevalent in audio gear and I also don't like square box shapes. I guess the biggest WAF is myself.

1. Here is the photograph that started the journey.

2. I wanted to soften the look, so the obvious thing to do was round the straight-line contrast of Maple to Black. When I saw what this looked like I also saw that the baffle could be a separate piece. And this is indeed something that Rocket Ronny mentioned as well.

3. I like the Cherry on B&W speakers so I used the Difference-Layer option in Photoshop to get a red hue. The difference option in the layers menu allows you to keep the shadings and highlights of the selection you want to change, although it's pretty hard to get the exact color you want, it's just a matter of trial and error to get something close. I also added some shading to the baffle to simulate the look of an extended baffle.

4. I've always liked the look of painted flames on hot-rods made out of a Model A or T. Hot Rod and Car Craft magazines I read from cover to cover in Junior High School, so I thought I would try a flame lick on the top. Not very happy with it, so I put it aside and starting thinking about the box.

5. Once again, I wanted to get away from the square box shape so curving the sides and tapering the top was a natural.



6. Added a simple black base.

7. If one flame tip isn't going to do it, let's add another one on the bottom. Just didn't like it, no matter how much I tried not to see it, it always reminded me of a baby pacifier.

8. So I went back to the half-round and duplicated it on the top. Now it looks like a big tongue depressor!

9. I thought about creating different decorations that could be swapped back and forth on the top.

10. I didn't save the many different design ideas for the decoration, these are the only two I could find.

11. Since none of the designs were working for me I thought let's just go back to some simple classic lines. I tried the Norman Arch and really liked it.

12. Added the arch to the bottom and saw that if I added a line from top driver tangent to bottom driver tangent I could use Cherry wood veneer to carry up the color of the box onto the baffle. I'm really starting to like this look but feel that the box is now too plain and simple.



13. Originally I wanted to use solid Cherry on the corners of the box and thought, what if I added a 1/4 inch piece of Maple to each side of that. Still just a bit too plain, however I liked the stripe effect.

14. A few more lines of Maple.

15. Still playing with lines and thought about a wider Maple strip with a thin strip of Cherry.

16. Then it hit me, simple classic wide stripes similar to what you might see in a Gucci, Coco Chanel or Yves Saint Laurent fashion line. Now I really, really liked the look, it's become very classy and elegant.

17. I still wanted to play with the design and tried a Maple baffle.

18. & 19. The black colored base was too simple and had to go, it made them look cemented to the ground. I saw the feet that AudioCircle member Daygloworange had used on his build and liked them. It's a fairly common method to add support to something that is tall and narrow, my Magnaplannars do something similar with metal feet, but I just don't think that MDF will support that weight overtime if you use spikes at their tips. I wasn't completly happy with the base at this point but loved the look of the box and baffle and thought I could start the project and continue to work on the base idea. I played with different shades of Cherry also.

The rest of the base I've already covered, so, that's how I came to the final design.

To read a review on how these sound, go to my critique here http://www.audiocircle.com/index.php?topic=74254.0

[drab]

Your posts are always worth the wait! I love the evolution of design!

Sorry to hear there are sound issues. Hopefully you can correct them quickly.

Mike

[Rocket_Ronny]

Hey, what happened to my speakers !!!! 

Thanks for sharing the planning stage.

I did not like the boxiness of what I did either, but in order to beat Dayglow in the race to finish first I just went with it. It actually looks good anyway. At least in the flesh. I still enjoy just sitting and looking at them, as I am sure do as well. Even more so as your build was much more involved.

I ended up with the base cabinate flanking the front baffle due to wanting to lower the tweeter from around 42 inches to 36 inches. That meant I had to lower the base cab. height as well. The speaker was deep enough already so I had to go wider. That was a design compromise. Still looks good in the flesh though. Not as nice as I had wanted but does not bother me at all.

Look forward to hearing more about the sound of your build.


Rocket_I beat Dayglow_ I beat Dayglow_Ronny   

[osd1]

you are the reason i joined this forum

from one woodworker to another (eventhough your a craftsmen, def more skilled than a woodworker) id like to thank you. your jig work is top notch, the fact that your pushing around a 3+ hp router all build long, along with the end results is inspirational.

so...thank you.

[Danny Richie]

And welcome to AC.

[Bob in St. Louis]

Welcome OSD. 

The time, thought, precision, and craftsmanship Carlos put into this build is passionate and shouldn't be forgotten.
Thank you for "bumping" the thread after all these years. I might just have to start back at page one and re-live the experience all over again.

Good stuff.
Bob 

[Captainhemo]

A truely amazing build process.    Awesome  read   

[persisting1]

No disrespect to all the other projects, but this build should be a sticky. 

[Bill Baker]

There are certainly a lot of very talented wood workers here on AC. These threads are a pleaure and inspitation to follow. Front the first cut of wood to the first song played through them.

[Voncarlos]

Wow !

I check-in every now-n-then and was surprised to see my thread among the latest topics.
Thanks very much for the kind words. It was a fun challenge to build the OB5s
When the Super V came out, I wished I would have been able to build a set of those to my design.



Looking forward to see what Danny comes up with next!
I'm still interested in Hi-Fi but have moved on to filling my time with collecting and restoring classic racing bicycles from the '60s, '70s and '80s. Have a look here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/57148570@N02/
I'm also on the "BikeForums.net", as VonCarlos.
Thanks Again,
Carlos

[Captainhemo]

Well, it was an amazng build.  I'm sure it will  continue to  show up among the active  topics from time  to time and inspire us all  .   

-jay

[mojave]

Cool bicycle pics! My dad has a 1973 Motebecane.

[lacro]

Carlos,
 Beautiful speaker work and equally beautiful high end bike restoring. After looking at your bike handy work, you inspired me to get to work on a bike I picked up maybe 8 years ago. I stripped it down at that time and it's been settings in a basket in my basement ever since. I almost chucked it a couple of times.
 I saw it sitting at a yard sale and stopped to check it out. The Brooks saddle caught my eye. It is a '73 Raleigh Super Course fully original, and in pretty good condition. Not in the same league as your current interest, but IMO a pretty good find worth restoring none the less.
 Turns out the owner was just looking for someone to take it away at no charge! Guess what I'm doing today? Thanks for the inspiration!!

Larry