Haoleb's Kappa Perfect 12vq MidQ Build Thread

[mike c]

two questions:
1) is there a law over there that requires everyone to have a wood workshop in every home?!

2) did you do this on top of your day-job? i find that i'm spent after work and time flies when at home while it crawls when at work.

 

[WmAx]

So far I have the cabinets completely built, All that is left is to put a finish on them. I had a bit of a setback today when the so called "stainable" wood filler I used turned out not to be so stainable after all leaving very obviously lighter marks where I put the filler. I was going to just stain the cabinets and put a clear coat on them after i saw how good they looked sanded, But am now going to have to paint them black because the wood is basically ruined as far as stain goes.

I have always used veneer. Just go with NBL type, not paper backed. Paper backed is P.I.A. to get the edges sanded down right because the paper layer usually frays and leaves little bits that take forever to remove, compared to the rest of the job. Also, the paper leaves distinct lines on the edges.

I usually use this site to buy veneer(usually great prices): http://www.tapeease.com/

I think painting is not a good idea if you require a flawless piano type finish. This type of finish usually requires many coats of sealers/primers/paints and sanding steps unless you have access to commercial epoxy coatings that can achieve this type of finish easily. But if you don't mind applying the effort, go for it. Or if you don't require flawless professional type finish and will save time by reducing quality of finish, that is another option. But it is easy to get professional quality veneer finishes.

-Chris

 

[Haoleb]

two questions:
1) is there a law over there that requires everyone to have a wood workshop in every home?!

2) did you do this on top of your day-job? i find that i'm spent after work and time flies when at home while it crawls when at work.

1. No, My dad is a builder, Been around wood working all my life. And everything I ever built turned out terrible until now.

2. Yes. And when you spend all day framing a house in the hot sun where you soak through 3 shirts a day, Its not easy to want to come home and not just lay on the couch.

 

[jinjuku]

1. No, My dad is a builder, Been around wood working all my life. And everything I ever built turned out terrible until now.

2. Yes. And when you spend all day framing a house in the hot sun where you soak through 3 shirts a day, Its not easy to want to come home and not just lay on the couch.

I have new found respect for you Haoleb. You should include this thread on any resumes that you send out

 

[Haoleb]

I have new found respect for you Haoleb. You should include this thread on any resumes that you send out

Thank you

I have always wanted to start my own business in the audio field, But for the time being until that could happen, Who wouldnt want to hire someone who lives and breaths this stuff?

 

[Matt34]

I'll take two when your finished with these.

 

[avaserfi]

I'll take two when your finished with these.

Hows that work out?! I spend hours designing the thing and built the original and he gets the orders!

Last time I post a design .

 

[Haoleb]

Hows that work out?! I spend hours designing the thing and built the original and he gets the orders!

Last time I post a design .

Dont worry, I can just add your percentage on top of my fees.

 

[Matt34]

Hows that work out?! I spend hours designing the thing and built the original and he gets the orders!

Last time I post a design .

Dont worry, I can just add your percentage on top of my fees.

Not my fault you didn't trademark this design.

My brother just bought all the materials for mine, should be starting on them soon. I'll be thrilled if they turn out as nice as Haoleb's did.

 

[jinjuku]

Hushboard

I am having a near impossible time finding rock wool or oc705 or oc703 board locally.

A local contract supply carries Georgia-Pacific Hushboard

This is a link to the PDF that on page 3 covers the acoustical test results. Is this a viable alternate to the other products mentioned? Thanks in advance for the trained eye looking at this.

 

[Haoleb]

It looks like that stuff is made more for higher frequency absorbtion while from what I can tell from what i have read, The 705 and mineral wool are more for low freq use.

 

[WmAx]

I am having a near impossible time finding rock wool or oc705 or oc703 board locally.

A local contract supply carries Georgia-Pacific Hushboard

This is a link to the PDF that on page 3 covers the acoustical test results. Is this a viable alternate to the other products mentioned? Thanks in advance for the trained eye looking at this.

If you are in the USA, I can ship you what you need. PM me.

-Chris

 

[Haoleb]

Ok well i know i said i wouldnt update until they were done but im still waiting on our post office to get "get the lead out" before I can install everything and test them so heres another update


Well last we left off I was laminating my second peice of plywood to the front baffle. So once those dried I had to cut out the port opening in the second baffle. In order to make them perfect I was using a flush trim bit and just tracing over what I had done earlier on the first baffle (where i traced the port itself) In order to make this cutout I drilled a hole in an area I would be cutting out, And then just put my router bit in and traced it along the edges. Theres no other way to possibly make it exactly perfect besides this method.

Once I had everything cut out I then took a round over bit and rounded over all the edges. I did not round over the port opening Like i had originally planned because I like the way it looks the way it is, Although I'll have to see if I can hear any port noise once I have them finished incase I have to round them over later on down the road. I also spent literally hours sanding each sub by hand to remove all the pencil marks and get them ready to stain which is what I had planned to do. Theres at least an entire day spent just sanding...

Cool angle shot of the exactly perfect port opening and driver holes

I masked off and sprayed the port because I had not planned on painting them black (except of course the ports)

They looked pretty sweet like this. In most light you coudlnt really even tell there was a hole in the cabinet, it just looked like a black square. Once I tried the stain on one of the subs I realized that it just wasnt going to work, Basically the wood was completly ruined. Plus they just didnt look like i had imagined... So i sprayed them with primer. Which REALLY brought out the imperfections i had missed previously. So i got out the trusty bondo and spent about an hour each sub going over everything and applying bondo to even the smallest things. Then i spent another 2 hours each sub sanding the bondo back off again. In the process going through about every peice of sandpaper in a 10 mile radius.

I like to use stick on sandpaper made for orbital sanders because you can fold it in half and its solid you can hang onto it easily. or you can stick it to your hand if you like

This morning I put on another coat of primer because I wanted the paint to adhere very well to the bondo and the corners that had been sanded down to bare wood again...

 

[Haoleb]

After the primer dried i sanded them lightly and then sprayed my first coat of semi gloss black. Once that dried I went over it with some fine steel wool and applied the second and final coat of semi gloss black... And now we have...

I think they came out OK. Not as good as I wanted. You can tell its a DIY job upon close inspection as you can see ripples in the plywood and places that needed more bondo and to be smoother flatter, But in my room its quite hard to see the imperfections since only the front and top really show and theres much less light.

Speaking of that, Once i hauled them up here I thought "WHAT was i thinking?" These things are MASSIVE! I cant wait to get the finished and hear them. Errr.... FEEL them

This is where I am going to be putting them for the time being. There is really nowhere else in the room that will work. I wont be living here forever and will ave a dedicated room at one point that will allow for better placement in the future but for now I think this will have to do.

Comparing drivers. The small peice of crap is the 12 in my very first set of speakers. KLH 4312's which I am giving to my friend to give to his parents.

Then the Polk 12 "MOMO" that i have in my truck for some added low end

And finally the beast.

 

[Sheep]

Those things are huge! I want them.

SheepStar

 

[mike c]

those are massive boxes. and i mean massive.

especially for 12"er's.

 

[Haoleb]

Its actually pretty funny how big they are. I mean... You seriously have to have some kind of disorder to think you need these in your house... Or two

 

[WmAx]

Its actually pretty funny how big they are. I mean... You seriously have to have some kind of disorder to think you need these in your house... Or two

Assuming you built the ports correctly(cross section and length); once you install/seal those drivers in and crank it up - you will have far excess SPL than you can ever use in any real application. Just be sure to set a high-pass filter at 20Hz on the DCX2496, using a Butterworth type filter at 4th order slope rate. This will insure maximum power handling through out the cabinet's ideal frequency range and prevent the driver from having excessive movement below the port tuning frequency. You do not need this filter; it simply optimizes performance and allows ultimately higher output and lower distortion.

-Chris

 

[Adam]

Its actually pretty funny how big they are. I mean... You seriously have to have some kind of disorder to think you need these in your house... Or two

(A) Yes, you have a disorder.

(B) I'm waiting to see Mike put up pictures of his twin towers, three subs per tower.

Haoleb, those enclosures look GREAT! I'm very impressed. I can't wait to get your impressions of how they sound once you get them all set up.

 

[Djizasse]

Uau

Those beasts would look even more amazing with another 2 coats of glossy back and 2 or 3 coats of varnish.

At this point you haven't put any wool inside the subs. I take it that the wool is going to be applied through the driver opening. Right?