On to the construction;
I had some mdf in the garage so I designed a cabinet using ER18's as a reference point. For the build I dado'ed all joints. If you would like to butt joint you will have to do a little math
. These are the exact measurements for the finished pieces (in reality I made many of them a bit large and routered the excess off with a flush cut bit after assembly)
Pieces;
Sides - 10.75" * 9"
Top & Bottom - 19" * 10.75
Back & Outer Front Baffle - 19.5" * 9.5"
Inner Front Baffle - 18" * 8"
Braces - 8.5" * 10.25"
Port Pieces - 5.6875 ([SUP]11/16[/SUP]) * 4.0625 ([SUP]1/16[/SUP])
2 - 2" * 4.0625 ([SUP]1/16[/SUP])
** note: In my design the two 2" pieces are dadoed. Dadoing pieces that small I would deem unwise, therefore dado a larger piece that you can then cut the small pieces off of. Remember; 38000 people in America visit the emergency room due to table saws every year.
Dadoing the pieces is somewhat more complicated, I feel that though it is possible with a router a table saw is far easier.
The braces are directly behind the woofers, centered 3.9375" ([SUP]15/16[/SUP]) from the outside of the cabinet. The cutouts in the braces are 5.75" (the same as the woofer outside diameter), one centered behind the woofer 0.5" in from the front and the other EXACTLY where I thought it looked good
.
I could go through the minutia of how to dado each piece but
pictures are so much better.
Dry fit everything before you glue anything!! Sounds obvious but DO IT!
The inner front baffle is glued and screwed to the outer front baffle. I did it before I did the driver cut outs. Doing the cut out for this tweeter is a pain, carefully cutting out a pattern out of scrap that you can then just copy would be the best. Especially if you ever need to cut out for another speaker.
After all the pieces are cut out I used a 1/4" rounding bit over all the square corners on the inside of the cabinet. After all this effort why stop short of this.
I assembled the crossover on a piece of peg board and installed it prior to attaching the front baffle. The crossover is installed on stands so that the dacron used for batting doesn't get crushed.
One inch dacron covers the interior of the cabinet on all sides except the front.
Finishing the cabinet is a personal preference so I won't bother detailing mine.
Listening Impressions; wow... The ER18's that I built are the best sounding speakers that I have heard. This center channel matches in beautifully. I would say that it doesn't have the same low end that the towers have but that is expected. Now when I say that it doesn't have the same low end I DO NOT mean that it lacks bass at all. I don't have any testing equipment but I would guess conservatively that the speaker might begin to roll off around 45Hz.
The bad thing about this speaker is that it makes me want to build more and use them for my surrounds
But for now I still consider that overkill and have bigger fish to fry.
Apparently this speaker is gaining traction, there is now a kit put together available from
Meniscus Audio (it is where I got the pieces for my build).
I highly recommend this speaker to anyone who wants a DIY center channel.
