Salk sound speakers DIY

[TankTop5]

I almost feel like an a—hole asking but are there plans available to DIY Salk speakers since they are no longer available? I would hope that since Jim Salk is no longer making speakers that his love for music he would want the legacy to live on. Anyone know if there are open source plans for any of his speakers available?

 

[TLS Guy]

I almost feel like an a—hole asking but are there plans available to DIY Salk speakers since they are no longer available? I would hope that since Jim Salk is no longer making speakers that his love for music he would want the legacy to live on. Anyone know if there are open source plans for any of his speakers available?

Salk was planning to release the plans on his website. However the website is now closed without explanation.

What you can do is build the Thor kit from the SEAS website. The Thor is a true aperiodic transmission line and not a mass loaded effort of the Salk era. This line was designed by Joe D'Appolito at the request of SEAS. They designed their Excel drivers to be optimal for Transmission line loading and wanted a deign to highlight this.

I built a pair of these while on a visit to the UK for my late father. They are absolutely superb speakers. You can build those with confidence.

That is why my front three speakers use SEAS drivers, as apart from being really good drivers, they are optimized for use in aperiodic transmission lines.

 

[MrBoat]

There are (were?) other people with hands in some of those designs posting on the internet with their own designs posting on forums like Parts Express's Techtalk forum. The woodworking for the cabinets is something that is common with higher-end cabinet/furniture manufacturing, but not uncommon.

They use solid wood edges under (or precisely next to) veneer to give a more solid wood appearance, even though the construction is composite. You have to know a bit about the stability and directional forces and grain of the wood species you use to pull such a thing off. I have a vacuum operation that stabilizes wood with a special resin to make it to where it is pretty much water/moisture proof so I can do this type of build with a bit of confidence.

Rounded over hardwood edges mixed with veneer. I have had these materials for years so everything was pretty much equally acclimated, at least.




On other builds, I have sealed things with thinned (with alcohol) epoxy, or even set the veneer and other parts with un-thinned so basically it's a marine grade construction, at the least. Constructed and sealed with epoxy, thoroughly leveled/sanded, and then coated with high-gloss instrument lacquer or automotive (LPU) urethane