Where to begin??

[mattsk8]

The last thing I'll say to you is:

Do not expect these speakers to be magical. They may not have the instant appeal you may subjectively associate with a "good speaker" Live with them for some time and try to rediscover your music and even movies. What you may initially think as lifeless you may eventually find to be truly organic. Expect these speakers to be different from what you may be currently used to. Try instead to find the nuances that aren't hidden rather than the types of things which are often thrown at you with reckless abandon but here seem tamed and under control. What you will likely initially perceive as the speaker doing uncomfortably differently will more than likely just be as close to real as the drivers' capabilities as is realistic.

And then you can move them to the rear as surrounds when you build something uber awesome for the high SPL levels!!!

This will be a learning curve all the way around! I remember when I first got involved w/ installing car stereos at about 16 years old. I thought putting a gain on an amp was just silly! They got turned almost all the way up anyhow! Now I set them w/ a volt meter based on the speakers and they end up about 1/3ish. Took a lot of "are you sure that's how you're supposed to do it" before I finally kicked that habit and realized that they sound a million times better doing it right!

I like my car stereos flat w/ no bass boost or anything, I still cant get away from adding a bit of treble w/ the home stereo though. I also like punchy bass. I know these are basically the cheapest kit you can get, so I'm not expecting them to rock the house off it's foundation. More for the learning experience than anything. The only thing I'm pretty sure I won't be happy w/ is the bass output from them. I don't see how a 5 1/4" can produce a sufficient amount of bass but like I said, I have no idea! I used to think the Cerwin Vegas w/ the 15's were the only home stereo speakers to have, then I picked up some Polk Audio towers w/ 6 1/2's and it changed my ears forever!!

Thanks again for all the help. It's good to here from someone who definitely knows what they're doing! God knows I don't! Hopefully in time I'll figure it out..!

 

[leesonic]

New to this site, and since I was about 5 years old I've been completely fascinated w/ stereos.

When I was a similar age, I actually made a speaker, not the box, but the driver. I used a foil pot pie container for the basket, a folded paper cone with a paper voice coil taped to it (no surround or spider), and an old round speaker magnet. It sounded terrible, but I was glad to get any kind of sound out of it.

I played w/ home stereos and got pretty big into car audio. Built a lot of (really good) sub boxes

Me too. A lot of the boxes available at places like Best Buy are way too big for the drivers they sell. I built a box with a sloping back for a single Sony 12" woofer that was so thin, I had to notch the back panel slightly to clear the speaker magnet.

Then I got to reading that guys here are making their own crossovers! Don't know anything about this so I guess my first question is: where's a good place to go to begin to educate myself on this process? I know how much of a difference a crossover will make just based on my car audio experience and I would really rather do it right the first time! I do love quality sound and don't want to loose out because I skimped on the crossovers!

You could use some kind of crossover design program, something like X-Over pro from Harris Tech. I'm still using version 5.1 of Bass Box for my stuff. You could also try some universal crossovers (shock! horror!) and changing the component values to suit you tastes. Remember, you have to listen to them, so get them to sound how YOU want. There are some commercial speakers out there with poorly designed crossovers, take the JBL L100s I'm restoring.

Next question is drivers. I love JL Audio's car audio and I actually get it wholesale.

Is there a smiley icon for eyes popping out of your head? Can you hook us up?

While I know I can get an 8 ohm sub, I don't think I'd be able to come up w/ 8 ohm mids or tweets from them. How in the world do you even begin to match drivers for home audio?

Pair them up to make an 8 ohm load. Failing that, put a 4 ohm resistor in series with them.

Like, what would work w/ JL subs and are JL subs even a good choice for home audio?

If they're anything like Infinity subs, then yes. I have a 12" Infinity 1220w in a box around 1.5 cubic feet, with a Parts Express plate amplifier driving it. It POUNDS! I won't use the old "dinosaur footsteps from Jurassic Park" cliche... dammit, I just did.

So w/ a 3 way speaker set up (not saying I have to go this way, possibly 2 way, just looking for something w/ some good punch), if I run 3 8 ohm speakers wouldn't the receiver see a 2.6 ohm load, which would fry my receiver? How do you get around that?

If you run 3 of the same woofers together, then yes the load would be 2.6 ohms. But, if you have an 8 ohm woofer, 8 ohm mid, 8 ohm tweeter, then the load will probably be around 8 ohms. I say probably, because a speaker system is a complex device, with all kinds of inductive and capacitive loads, with a resistance that changes with frequency. Only you BassBox and/or crossover program will tell you where the impedance drops to the lowest.

Oh, just thought I should include that these will be strictly for music. I have a bar/pool table room in my basement that I'd like to build these for.

Since you have a background in car audio, why not make a rack and use some car amps to power the speakers? I just bought a beautiful pair of Crunch amps (a V-600 and V-6004) with cool blue VU meters on the front and chrome cases. You could either power them with a huge 12v supply, or crack you amps open, measure the voltage at the amp supply rails, and build a power supply to suit (remembering to isolate the original internal power supply).

Lee.

 

[mattsk8]

Getting excited, can't wait to start building these. About another week of holiday craziness then I can begin the build!

Going over exterior design ideas in my head, I think I've curbed the barnwood idea just because it would be too difficult. I have quite a bit of cherry left over from the last custom kitchen I did so I think I'll use that. My pool table and the furniture around it's cherry anyhow so it'll still match. I'll still go w/ the vintage grill cloth though just because I think it fits the room, but I'll keep it simple and use black.

Question about the feet- It's a tile floor these are going on. What would you use? I was thinking the small rubber feet but didn't know if there was a better suggestion or not?

Can't wait to build...!