I have been interested in audio HIFI since the ‘60s when my Dad bought a system comprised of a Scott tuner/preamp and amplifier. These were connected to a set of AR2ax speakers. I think it the day this was a pretty awesome system. I know, in the small living room they were in, it was a plenty good for a teenager.
HIFI stores were just coming into being when I went off to college and there was one in the small college town I was in. I couldn’t afford much, but they had a small Sansui intigrated amp and a pair of 12” woofers with plans for a ported cabinet that I bought. My Dad bought me a small paperback book on speaker design, which included crossover design. Back then it was graphs and “cookbook”, which I have learned that Danny just “loves”
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I built those speakers out of 3/4” plywood and I wound my own air coils out of 18g motor winding wire. The design I came up with was a 3 way. Along with the 12” woofer, it has a 5” closed back mid range and has had a variety of tweeters that have come and gone over the years. The cabinets were finished in mahogany wood strips (not veneer) and grill cloth of the day (very ‘60s looking). They still reside in my living room to this day.
I have been following Danny’s videos and even emailed him a few times about a set of ESS speakers I have that I was originally thinking I would upgrade. I got them with blown woofers and passive radiators and “fixed” them with some inexpensive woofers, eliminating the radiators. That was a while ago. Time to upgrade.
My correspondence with Danny and his videos convinced me the ESS speakers were not worth upgrading. Building one of his designs made a lot of sense and having watched some speaker build videos of his designs (thanks Peter) have given me some good ideas of how an amateur builder of limited means, such as myself, can do a set of these.
I have thoughts of doing 3 designs for a home theater.
1st is a pair of X-MTM “Encore” - Yes, I have corresponded with Danny about doing these and he has provided me with the plans and given me a price for parts. I have actually started cutting wood as I want to see what I was getting into with working with MDF before ordering parts (spending real $$$).
2nd is a X-CS Encore (sealed design) for a center channel. Again Danny has given me the plans for those. That will be my next build.
3rd is a pair of X-SLS Encore floor standing speaker for the 2 back channels.
This will likely be a short post as I plan to do a build thread for each of these. Hopefully these will be of a benefit to other amateur builders who might be intimidated by the looks of building these, but shouldn’t be as I am finding out.
For a shop, I used this project as an excuse to first clean out some of the crap in my basement and to rebuild my workbench. I now have a reasonably flat and level 4’x8’ workbench to work on. I have collected a variety of tools over the years which I will be using to make this project happen. These include: a 12” Craftsman table saw, a couple of Craftsman routers and a small cast aluminum Craftsman router table for one of those routers, a vintage cast iron floor stand drill press and an Evolution 10” sliding miter saw (designed for cutting metal, but doing great at cutting MDF) and a variety of 20v Dewalt tools, including their smallish 20v router (which I am really liking, so far).
As I have finished cutting up 2/3s of a sheet of MDF, I thought I am far enough into this project to warrant joining this forum as I already have questions for the more experienced of those of you following these things.
I am looking forward to “meeting” some of you. And thank you for sharing your experiences.
