[350Industrial]

First attempt at the DIY speaker world.  Ordered the Oticas early November 2022 after a lot of research and a chat with Danny.  I'll try to document my build process here over a few posts.  Holler with questions, comments, or suggestions. 

Big thanks to the GR team for answering all of my questions throughout the build process that took about two months, with the big push happening between Christmas and New Year's while I had some time off work.  Also thanks to the many documented builds that came before mine- I learned a lot and took a bit from each of those.

Started with the crossover assembly as flat packs would be a few weeks out:





While I was painting the crossover boards, I traced them on a sheet of plywood and used that to layout all the components as well as used that as my work surface and soldering surface as to not mess up my finished mounting boards.

[350Industrial]

Once the high, mid, and low frequency circuits were assembled I positioned them on my painted mounting boards, marked my holes, drilled them all out on my drill press, and mounted some feet to the under sides.

[350Industrial]

Flat packs arrived just as I was finishing up the crossover assembly.  The job that Jay does with packaging is better than I've ever seen something protected for shipment.  He should be giving Amazon tips 

[350Industrial]

I wanted to completely finish the insides of the speakers before assembly and glue up- so started with 2-3 coats of primer, sanding between coats.  In total I used 5 quarts of Zinsser Cover Stain White primer.  Sprayed with a Wagner Flexio 590, which barely had enough power to push the primer, but it worked.  All glue joints were taped so I would have bare wood connections on the glue up.

[350Industrial]

Next was apply two finish coats, sanding with a 320 sponge between.  I used Beyer scuff resistant flat black from HD.  Sprayed very well without thinning using the Wagner gun.

[350Industrial]

Time for glue up.  I do some wood-working as a hobby so already had plenty of clamps.  Key was to use the Titebond long open time glue to make sure I had plenty of time to assemble.

[350Industrial]

I then sanded smooth and put a light wood filler on the joints before taping off the inside of the cabinets to prepare for primer and paint.

[350Industrial]

My dedicated listening room is in the basement with carpet/pad/concrete floors so spikes were in order.  I used GR's spikes to lay out the press-fit threaded spike bases on the bottoms of the speaker bases.  Used a 1/2" forstner bit to get a nice snug fit and a flat-bottom hole using my drill press.

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Two top coats complete- finally done painting, not my favorite part.

[350Industrial]

After tinning all of the speaker terminals it was time to wire the drivers up.  I did as much wiring on the bench as I could before placing the drivers into the front baffles- this was easier and made me feel better about having nice tight connections.  Some connections still had to be made with the drivers installed.

[350Industrial]

I did leave the leads from the cross overs a bit long so I could remove the crossovers from the rear of the speakers if I have to troubleshoot later, or even to show visitors all of my hard work 

Next was time to mount the bases:

[350Industrial]

And moving into my listening room, with a comparison to my old Ascend Acoustic Sierra Towers with RAAL ribbon tweeters that I've exclusively had in my system for 8 years.

[dpatters]

Nice post and fantastic room. Are the Rel subs S512s? How do they blend with the NX Oticas?

Don P

[350Industrial]

Nice post and fantastic room. Are the Rel subs S512s? How do they blend with the NX Oticas?

Don P

Thanks.  They're the S812's.  They blend very well.  I use a free freq spectrum analyzer on my phone with a quality mic just to verify there are no big peaks or dips and I have it pretty flat down to 30-35hz when playing a sweep track.  Key was to keep the REL's crossover setting pretty low.  Took me a few frustrating hours seeing a big dip until I remembered to check the phase of the subs, flipping those 180 degrees put everything in balance.

[abd1]

Wow, really well done. How do they sound vs the Ascends? I would love to build these one day but I have 0 woodworking skills. Always envious of those who are able to do this and come out with a great result. Enjoy!

[350Industrial]

Wow, really well done. How do they sound vs the Ascends? I would love to build these one day but I have 0 woodworking skills. Always envious of those who are able to do this and come out with a great result. Enjoy!

To be fair, I still need to tweak placement a bit, but overall they're certainly better than the Ascends.  Not in every category, but I think that really goes to how good those Ascends were.

Tweeter is better, vocals and highs are crisper (especially leading edges) more transparent.  Bass output is nice and tight, just like the Ascends, but lacks impact the Ascends had (which wasn't tremendous to begin with.)  The Rel subs add that way down low, but I am doing much of the break-in and setup work without the subs on. 

Instruments have more presence, body to them.  String instruments are sublime.  The Otics are worth it just for this reason IMO.

I have them positioned pretty well now, they do disappear on tracks that don't lock images to the speaker itself.  However, I was hoping for a more three dimensional sound stage.  Stage width is the same as my previous speakers, just slightly wider than the speakers are apart.  Depth is good, just like my old speakers.  Imaging of individual instruments between the speakers is precise, but they all seem to be in relatively the same depth of plane behind the speakers, with some sounds right in a plane between the speakers if that's what the track calls for.  I was hoping for a bit more in this area, but like I said I'm still tweaking placement.  These seem like they want to be closer to the listening position.  I'm currently exactly at an equilateral triangle of 8' distances.  My room is 14' x 24'.

I have about 100 hours on them now with a mix of music and pink noise.

[kickngas]

Excellent write-up on your build.  Thank you to those of us following behind you!

[Early B.]

Really, really diggin' the writeup!!! Great job!!!

You said bass output is nice and tight, but lacks impact. With that speaker and dual sub combo, you should not lack impact. The first thing you should do is crank up the subs' crossover point significantly, then slowly dial it back to the point where it isn't overwhelming. Don't worry about the speakers and subs playing the same frequencies. Also, you'll have to tweak the phase to get it dialed in properly. This process could take weeks or months, but when you get it right, you'll have more impact than you expected. 

BTW -- what are the room dimensions? And tell us a bit about the audio components you're using. Is that a tube amp in the background?

[350Industrial]

Really, really diggin' the writeup!!! Great job!!!

You said bass output is nice and tight, but lacks impact. With that speaker and dual sub combo, you should not lack impact. The first thing you should do is crank up the subs' crossover point significantly, then slowly dial it back to the point where it isn't overwhelming. Don't worry about the speakers and subs playing the same frequencies. Also, you'll have to tweak the phase to get it dialed in properly. This process could take weeks or months, but when you get it right, you'll have more impact than you expected. 

BTW -- what are the room dimensions? And tell us a bit about the audio components you're using. Is that a tube amp in the background?

I get impact with ethe subs on- I was only speaking to bass impact from the Oticas on their own.  I have been running them without the subs for break-in and to dial in placement.

My room is 14'x24'.  Front baffles are roughly 8' from the front wall, 3' in from each side wall.  This places the centers of the Oticas 8' apart.  Have them toed in to about shoulder position.  I'm sitting at about an 8'x8'x8' equilateral triangle.

Equipment:
Steamer- Aurender N150
DAC- Holo Audio May KTE
Integrated Amp- McIntosh MA352 (Tube pre-amp, solid state power amp 200 Watts/channel)
I do have a Dennis Hadd 300B SET tube amp I'm going to hook up and experiment with once I get everything dialed in.
Subs- REL S812 with Frank's high-level cables from Singal Hifi

[Hafgrim]

I have them positioned pretty well now, they do disappear on tracks that don't lock images to the speaker itself.  However, I was hoping for a more three dimensional sound stage.  Stage width is the same as my previous speakers, just slightly wider than the speakers are apart.  Depth is good, just like my old speakers.  Imaging of individual instruments between the speakers is precise, but they all seem to be in relatively the same depth of plane behind the speakers, with some sounds right in a plane between the speakers if that's what the track calls for.  I was hoping for a bit more in this area, but like I said I'm still tweaking placement.  These seem like they want to be closer to the listening position.  I'm currently exactly at an equilateral triangle of 8' distances.  My room is 14' x 24'.

If your really trying trying to improve the depth on these speaker i would replace the caps on the tweeter circuit with vcap odam and bypass with duelund silver. If money allows do the same with the mid circuit. I did the same with my nx-studio and got a deeper soundtage among other things.

Other than that you can put some real diffusers on the wall behind the speakers.