[hunky]

howdy from Alaska,

After a year from purchasing the kit I finally got my mdf delivered - cost me $172 for two sheets. The sheets cost me about $25 each but the shipping to Nome was a bit steep. That was holding me up, plus other projects. Finally just bit the bullet. (I bought 2 sheets to make sure I got at least one with undamaged edges and it seems to help on the per sheet cost..  There are no roads to here.

I'll have a few questions I'm sure, I can think of a few right now. But I was curious if anyone can share a link of photos of their project undergoing construction. Pics are worth a thousand words.. [I did find Thomaswoodcraft.com]

Also, I guess I have a ton of mahogany 3mm ply in stock, so I was thinking I might try that for the top and sides. Problem is I would have to cut a pretty decent 45 deg. angle where they meet. Then I figured I could find some solid mahogany for the fronts, to overlap the ply edges on the sides/top. Crazy or just buy some veneer? Shipping is such a b*tch here.

The room has very dark wood from the early 1900's, almost black but more of a purplish. I think someone may have been trying to make the fir look like a dark mahogany.. hence my choice on the mahogany. But I'm open.

I'm an audio-newb. Just spent a couple hours trying to find out how to hook my Jolida amp up to 4 terminal posts.. learned about this stuff called bi-wire. Sheesh, always a learning curve.  I don't really have audiophile type components yet.. just a basic CD player, a Thorens 165 turntable - so don't really want to spend a fortune on cabling right now.  I've been researching on audioasylum. One link led me to heartlandcables.com. Not really wanting to build my own cables yet, wondering if these may be a decent option.

enough for now.. thanks.. hunky

[rosconey]

howdy from syracuse

have fun i did diy myself(not ellis)
that has to be the most expensive wood since gilligans island-172$ for 64  sqft.
have you looked at madisound, they have a lot of speaker builders there with detailed web pages.might not find your speakers but will give a basic idea also parts express.
heartland cables look very good for the price
kepp us posted

[Bill Baker]

Hello from Binghamton NY,
    Sounds like you have the making of a decent system going there. I don't know which Jolida you have but I do have quite a few customers running the Jolida amps with Dave's 1801 speakers. I know Dave himself was running a Jolida 302. Don't know if he still has it.
  If you have any questions in regard to the Jolida amp, please feel free to ask them on my forum here, Response Audio.

  As far as ideas for building your speakers, I would recommend a search for Ellis Audio 1801 as there are quite a few personal webpages out there with step-by-step construction of these speakers. I don't know them off hand but have come acroos these pages in the past.

  Cold up there?? I'm sure rosconey will agree that it is bitter here at least as far as New York whether goes. Last night we dipped down to -17 below. That's enough for me this year. Bring on the summer!!

[Upstateaudio]

Other vendors for cabling that is low cost  include:

bettercables.com
signalcable.com
diycables.com

diy offers cables in kit form if you are so inclined.

We folks from cold climes should stick together.

Have fun.

 

[hunky]

Thanks for the suggestions on the cables. I'll take a look. DIY kits sound intriguing, but I've got so many projects already...  I'll look.

I've been doing a bit of googling on projects, but maybe Madisonsound will be the ticket. I remember looking there a year ago.

I've got the Jolida 302.. excited about firing it up. Which I haven't done since I got it nearly a year ago.. can you imagine? No speakers. I thought I would be digging into this project right away.. but got involved in renovating an old 1899 saloon turned house that my girlfriend owns. We're living in it and it has some serious drafts. Been listening to a boombox.

The room is difficult to decide how to set up the system. It is 31' long with a bay window at one end, where we have a table. It is 13' wide for half, and 11' wide the other half, where we have a couch against the end wall. 9'-6" ceilings. The bay window area is 4' x 7', so to snake a speaker cable from one sice to other is already 15', plus a few feet each side to get to the equipment.. so maybe 25' would work. Or the shorter run would be the couch end, which would have the speakers facing away... well... I'll figure this out. I assume that you want speaker cables to be the same length for each speaker.

Our temp right now is 17 above, but with 15-25 mph wind. Last week or so we had been down to -32 with 25 mph wind.. now that was brutal. Hard for people to keep plumbing working at that level of suffering. We have 6 hours 15 mins. of daylight now... gaining about 6 minutes a day.

Everything has to be flown by jet into here for freight, unless you have the patience to barge it up.. but then it gets about 3 weeks of salt air. And only in the summer, as the sea is quite frozen here now. Flying freight is about $.61 or more /lb. UPS is only second day rate here.. and it varies widely on what they charge so it requires shopping around with different vendors to find the best rate. Doesn't seem that location in the 48 states has anything to do with what gets charged us. That's the price you pay for paradise though, no?

The view from my office looks out over the Bering Sea - look at the City of Nome webcam here:
http://www.nomealaska.org/vc/cam-page.htm
if interested.

cheers!

[rosconey]

wow it almost sounds like upstate ny just not cold enough and about 6hrs a day more sunlight  but our plumbing works -actualy it sounds quite nice  

have you busted any doors with a axe and said here's johnny
  matuska gold

[David Ellis]

At least I am not the only guy moving slowly on speakers.  It seems like there is always something.  You have a draft, and have two small boys.  Fortunatly, my boys enjoy the workshop on occasion.

Do you still have my cabinet plans?  If not, I can email you another set of them.  The center frame picture should help greatly, but I could add more pictures to the plans.  I suppose this would help folks visually oriented.  The only bummer is that It'll be a couple months before starting my next set of cabinets.

When you finally get to listening, I will gladly give you some tips on the Jolida with regards to mods.  Replacing some of the cheap electronics under the hood is quite easy, and will net very positive results.  If you are afraid of soldering, Bill at Response audio is very on-track with his mods and does good work too.

Dave

[hunky]

Hey Dave,

I'm definitely visually oriented. I have your orignal package of instructions but if they have been added to in any way I would love to get them. Pictures are most welcome.

I would have started ripping MDF today but my girlfriend has my shop full of cedar siding that she is pre-painting - before we put it up. Not exactly painting weather outside. Plus we want to back prime it before it goes on. Needless, she doesn't want the shop full of dust.

I've bought a decent soldering iron (I hope) so will tackle any project now.. ignorance is bliss.

cheers, JD

[David Ellis]

I am confident that most folks can do just fine with a soldering iron, but please be careful.  Work slowly, and DON'T muscle anything loose.  This might result in a broken circuit board and real problems.  If you work cautiously and gently, you'll be fine.  Treat that circuit board like a baby girl.

I really don't have any other pictures that might help you.  The pictures in your plans are unchanged.  Sorry.

I will take more pictures of my next cabinet construction and include them in my plans.

Dave

[ultrachrome]

I plan to start building my crossovers this weekend.  If your interested I can document the building process as I go through it.

I'm documenting the basic construction of the cabinet here: http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=26950&highlight=

If I have time tomorrow, I hope to pick up some veneer so I can finish the cabinets.

[David Ellis]

I do apprecaite the gesture.  However, I wish to maintain a tigher hold on the crossover design.  Posting pictures gets very close to public domain.  I'd rather this didn't happen.

The cabinet progress is great though.  I really need to take more pictures of the 1801 cabinet during the construction process.  Your pictures are very helpful.

Dave

[hunky]

How about he sends me a pic or two..  rather than post them publicly. Since I bought your kit, it would be great to see how the crossover is put together. Or better yet, at least to make you comfortable, he could post them to you and you could farm them out to kit buyers?

I would appreciate some pics because I am not a guy who has done this kind of thing before and will probably only do it once.. so rather than buying books and spending countless hours seaching the web, a few photos help greatly. Naturally, I would agree not to publish them anywhere..

cheers, Jim

[David Ellis]

I can understand some paranoia about the issue of assembling crossovers.  This question is actually quite prevalent.  Thanks for the push Jim.

This is a picture of one of my very early crossovers for an older speaker.  It ain't pretty, but it works fine.  On the left is the woofer circuit.  On the right is the tweeter circuit.  The binding post connections are at the bottom and the driver connections exit at the top of the picture.



The connections are crimped with non-ferrous barrels, then solder is added.  It isn't difficult.  Any argument about connection fidelity normally holds this method as the best.  Lately my work looks much cleaner, but this adds nothing to the audio spectrum.

It's difficult to discern the schematic from this layout/picture.  Certainly a layout that LOOKS like a schematic is possible.  Such a layout just consumes more space, and uses more connections.  This is a very small issue IMO.

Following many questions about crossovoer assembly, I took many very good pictures that I send with the 1801 kit.  The crossover instructions are a larger document than the cabinet instructions.  This might seem strange, but folks asked for this.  

If you have more questions, I'll certaily answer any/all that don't reveal the 1801b crossover schematic.
[/code]

[hunky]

UPDATE: (with a question or two toward the end)

So months go by and I'm finally back in the project. Let's see.. what the heck was I doing all that time?

Anyway- just got back from my shop - cut the speaker recesses and circles out. I think the last thing to do besides finishing now is drilling for the speaker posts. (Before mounting the works..)

I've had some frustrations. I just realized that I put the veneer on the top of the speaker oriented from front to back instead of having the grain wrap around from the sides. Sheesh - that's going to bother me- but not enough at this point to want to redo it.

I decided to do walnut because this is kind of a dark house with very dark trim. The lumber for the fronts of the speakers is very rough. Got a 'good deal' that I probably should have passed on - but this is a hundred year old house so the wood can have some roughness. A few cracks and dings - some small soft spots. This is wood the old guy milled himself from some local trees where he lives and I just felt pressured somehow to give him my money. I figure that the flaws will give it character and if I want fine furniture, I can build me a shiny new humidor with perfect wood later. And I have no illusion of not giving the speakers many dings in the near future.

I'll maybe post some pics when I get a coat or two of finish on. I'm thinking that it has been so long since I got these kits that I'm not going to spend much time finishing. I'll rub in a few coats, but maybe just an oil finish of some sort - rather limited selection here since that stuff is mostly haz-mat shipping to where I live. I'm undecided if I should try to fill the cracks with wood dust/glue or just let em be. I'm thinking of putting a butterfly key in on one crack just to tickle my fancy.

I'm also thinking of not rounding over the front edges. Nothing in this old house has anything like that, except for maybe some crown type moulding here and there. Most is hard edges. Plus, for a full 3/4" round-over, it looks like it puts it right to the edge of the speaker, unless I measured something wrong. Don't think I would like it being so close.

Here's a question: That walnut veneer is darker than the wood backing (two ply veneer). So at my edges, I have a very thin line of lighter material than the walnut. I'm guessing I should have stained the back of the veneer to match roughly the walnut. Or do people worry about that, or somehow treat these edges? I wasn't planning on any stain otherwise. I was thinking of maybe rubbing a stain just on the edges, or even some pencil lead, to darken those lines. But then again I'm anxious to start hearing some music and you have to look close to see the lines.

The crossovers were fun to build. Never did anything like that before and none of my friends had seen the like either. I got a few raised eyebrows.. thinking I was building bombs. I let the misconception ride. Anxious to find out if they'll work. Kept checking things with an ohm meter to make sure I got connections.

Tomorrow I'll go give em a final prefinish sanding with some 220 or so- then buy whatever finish looks good on the shelf at the local hardware store. I think I saw a can of Daly's Tung oil, but there's also bound to be lots of Watco. So maybe I'll get a coat on.

But I may have to work on the house too. Getting towards winter here and I have lots to do.

cheers, hunky

[David Ellis]

I think your ideas for the substrate are all fine.  You could do any of them, but don't/didn't do any of this when I used walnut veneer.  I simply left the veneer substrate edge raw.  It really doesn't show very much.

If I really wanted to get the substrate edge darker, using some type of brown permanent marker (no kidding) would be my choice.  Getting a close color match will require a few pens an experimentation on scrap venner, but this isn't so difficult.  The bonus to using a magic marker is that you can hit ONLY the edge with the substrate.  This raw edge is very thin, and getting only the edge is difficult with a stain.  

I recommend just leaving the substrate edge raw.  

Congradulations on your choice of real lumber .  I like the stuff with a few knots.  Even a small crack is nice!  I find these things are REAL.  Lumber has trees/limbs & character.  Yeah, it doesn't look perfectly flat & artificial, but I'll leave this for other folks who like the look of Pergo floors .