Gluing up speaker cabinet - 1/16” inch gap to fix - need help please.

[sebr023]

We could speak of speaker design for a long while! There’s so many variables. Even with the filling in the speaker: egg crate foam, rock wool, jeans wool, etc. Each has their properties.

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[sebr023]

Yes, MDF and Birch ply are both used. Designer usually specs the cabinet material.
Material used will change the sound characteristics, but who is to say what sounds best?

This fellow is a DIY speaker building icon of sorts and generally builds everything with BB plyhttp://www.troelsgravesen.dk/Diy_Loudspeaker_Projects.htm

Even if you are just a wood nerd and not an audio nerd his site has tons of beautiful build threads and is worth a look.  He does a lot of cool variations on building what in essence are boxes.
(fair warning, if you fall in love with something on his site and want to build, a kit will set you back minimum $1k and more likely $2-4k)

LOL - Speaker building was my gateway drug to buying Festool....

If you have time look up the criton kit, didn’t hear them yet as their being build, but from the reviews I saw, their pretty good.

It already set me back 1.5k cad. And I don’t even have the 5 bed layer speaker. And I’m aware that nothing in the world of speaker/speaker building.

I will take a look at your link!

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[Vtshopdog]

And then there's the EV Voice of the Theatre speakers. They were huge but constructed from all plywood. An interesting note is that I never liked the VOT sound because I thought its treble was too strident. Did the all-plywood construction generate some of the stridency?  [popcorn]

Cheese, tweeters are usually not real dependent on the cabinet, most all of them are little self sealed enclosures and the driver cone (or ribbon) generally does not interact with the speaker box very much.  Tweeter on most designs has a resistor somewhere in the crossover to attenuate the raw signal, a higher value resistor might have produced sound more to your liking.

For ply vs MDF my understanding is BB does have a higher frequency natural resonance than MDF but probably will manifest more in the upper bass and mid ranges than treble.  Think of the clatter a dropped piece of ply makes vs thunk of dropped MDF.  Realistically the crossover and cabinet designs plus construction will dominate the sound characteristics and material will be secondary as long as box is rigid and well braced.

Disclaimer:
All my above spew should be taken with a grain of salt as this is one of those topics where the more you learn the less you know.

EDIT:
Were the VOT's horn type speakers in the vein of Klipsch?  If that's the case then material might be very primary in sound.

 

[sebr023]

EDIT:
Were the VOT's horn type speakers in the vein of Klipsch?  If that's the case then material might be very primary in sound.
[/quote]

I don’t know about the VOT, but the klipsch are often called having a “cold” sound because of their tweeter or very toward sounding in the upper frequency range!

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[Cheese]

Were the VOT's horn type speakers in the vein of Klipsch?  If that's the case then material might be very primary in sound.

Yes, a large 2-way horn & woofer system.

I said the treble was strident but probably more correctly it was the upper mid-range frequencies that bothered me.

A typical 60's/70's VOT speaker.

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[Bohdan]

Altec Lansing A7 "Voice of the Theatre" a good choice to get the music volume above the noise of a wood working shop.

 

[Cheese]

Altec Lansing A7 "Voice of the Theatre" a good choice to get the music volume above the noise of a wood working shop.

Lol Lol Lol...now that's funny.  [big grin]

And with all the machine tools operating at the same time. [smile]

So [member=78111]sebr023[/member] did you solve your problem and do you have any additional photo's to share?

 

[Vtshopdog]

LOL - the VOT's achieve a trifecta:
Take a ton of space
Sound bad (per Cheese)
Really ugly (I.M.O.)

Did a quick internet read and they have reputation of harsh treble but conversely are also a cult favorite.  Apparently they do not match well with high powered solid state amps that took over the market in 70's and 80's.  Best used with low wattage single end triode type tube amps circa late 50's.

 

[sebr023]

@Cheese (did it work? How do I tag someone?)

Thanks for asking.
Yup. It pretty much did it!
I was left with a bump on the longer panel, but I don’t think I would be able to fix that anyway.

The opening was on the left side of that picture.

I’m happy with the result

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[Cheese]

LOL - the VOT's achieve a trifecta:
Take a ton of space
Sound bad (per Cheese)
Really ugly (I.M.O.)

Did a quick internet read and they have reputation of harsh treble but conversely are also a cult favorite.  Apparently they do not match well with high powered solid state amps that took over the market in 70's and 80's.  Best used with low wattage single end triode type tube amps circa late 50's.

Ya, these were originally designed to be used as...wait for it...sound reinforcement speakers, as in auditoriums, outdoor music events and theaters. But somehow people decided in the 70's that they'd be great music speakers, so they became extremely popular because back then bigger was better and these things were relatively cheap considering their size and the quality of the components inside. [big grin] Just the horn driver alone, minus the horn, weighed 10-15#

Back to your tube amp statement, my friend drove these things bi-amped with a pair of Audio Research D51 and D79 tube amps to clean up the sound a bit.

 

[Cheese]

[member=44099]Cheese[/member] (did it work? How do I tag someone?)

Thanks for asking.
Yup. It pretty much did it!
I was left with a bump on the longer panel, but I don’t think I would be able to fix that anyway.

The opening was on the left side of that picture.

I’m happy with the result

Glad everything came out ok...the big bump is now part of the past, it looks good.

[member=78111]sebr023[/member]
No your tag did not work, you need to make sure the name is exactly like it appears on the forum. In my case the "C" should be upper case. Try changing just that and I'll bet it works. I usually start typing in the name and then a drop down list appears.

 

[Packard]

[…]but who is to say what sounds best? […]

True.  I have a pair of reference grade (read “expensive”) earbuds.  They came with a print out showing how closely they reproduced the sound.

But most headphones, earbuds and music players are significantly boosted in the bass. 

By comparison the “reference grade” earbuds sound lacking in base.  I much prefer listening to music with my excellent “1More” earbuds. 

But for spoken word, the reference grade earbuds offer a level of clarity that is unmatched by any other headphones/earbuds that I have listened to. The fact that is it noise isolating (not “noise cancelling”) may play into this also.

I do think most people prefer the over-boosted bass that is now the fashion.  Science strives for accuracy, but our ears do not necessarily agree.

 

[Vtshopdog]

[member=78111]sebr023[/member] they're looking good, nice rescue of the bulging glue up.

Have you cut the driver openings in your baffles yet?  Depending on frame shape and recess depth mid and bass driver openings can benefit from chamfering the backside of the opening to open up air flow around perimeter of the cone.  Just takes a couple minutes and can't hurt anything.

Below pic is an example, in this case I had to cut the chamfers before gluing, veneering and making final opening cuts on the front of box once it was assembled.  I sometimes do not extend chamfer behind mounting screws, especially in MDF, depends on driver frame and screw placement dimensions.  These are the 6 unrecessed areas around radius marked in Sharpie pen you see in this photo.

Also, here's a link to an article about this:http://www.troelsgravesen.dk/chamfer.htm

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[sebr023]

[…]but who is to say what sounds best? […]

True.  I have a pair of reference grade (read “expensive”) earbuds.  They came with a print out showing how closely they reproduced the sound.

But most headphones, earbuds and music players are significantly boosted in the bass. 

By comparison the “reference grade” earbuds sound lacking in base.  I much prefer listening to music with my excellent “1More” earbuds. 

But for spoken word, the reference grade earbuds offer a level of clarity that is unmatched by any other headphones/earbuds that I have listened to. The fact that is it noise isolating (not “noise cancelling”) may play into this also.

I do think most people prefer the over-boosted bass that is now the fashion.  Science strives for accuracy, but our ears do not necessarily agree.

Didn’t hear them, but I’ve seen a video of Linus tech tip trying out abyss headphone, and they seem to be very good, if ever it may interest you.

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[sebr023]

[member=78111]sebr023[/member] they're looking good, nice rescue of the bulging glue up.

Have you cut the driver openings in your baffles yet?  Depending on frame shape and recess depth mid and bass driver openings can benefit from chamfering the backside of the opening to open up air flow around perimeter of the cone.  Just takes a couple minutes and can't hurt anything.

Below pic is an example, in this case I had to cut the chamfers before gluing, veneering and making final opening cuts on the front of box once it was assembled.  I sometimes do not extend chamfer behind mounting screws, especially in MDF, depends on driver frame and screw placement dimensions.  These are the 6 unrecessed areas around radius marked in Sharpie pen you see in this photo.

Also, here's a link to an article about this:http://www.troelsgravesen.dk/chamfer.htm

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I did actually, both opening and I rounded  over all the interior edge.
The CSS audio kit and instruction are very nice.
It’s my first speaker cabinet, can’t wait to hear them. I did a car subwoofer like 15 years ago. But that’s it.

Center channel baffle interior face. Round over is 3/8 on 3/4 ply :

This is where the twitter will be installed:

Center channel brace:

Left and right speaker brace:

Left and right baffle interior side:

Bonus pictures:
1/2 corian and 3/4 birch plywood baffle. Laminated together with silicone.

Extra bonus picture:
Look that m going for

Bonus points if you noticed that the left and right speaker are chamfered edge and the Center channel are rabbet/dado [emoji23]

Miter joint didn’t go very well when I first did the left and right

[mention]Vtshopdog [/mention] i see your using domino’s for your build. What do you think of it?
My guess is that it should make your life easier! I wish I had one!

Edit: I should stop using Tapatalk app, attaching picture is a pain and picture are low resolution. (

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[Crazyraceguy]

You can't tell from the pics, if they are or not, but as a bit of advice... don't thread into the Corian. Drill the holes oversized and screw into the plywood behind it.

 

[sebr023]

You can't tell from the pics, if they are or not, but as a bit of advice... don't thread into the Corian. Drill the holes oversized and screw into the plywood behind it.

Yes! Already thought of that. Thank you.
Corian doesnt hold screw very well. That why I laminated it with silicone. I pre drill them to have hole locations, but didn’t plan on screwing into the corian!

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[Crazyraceguy]

Good, glad to hear it. Yes, Corian does not do well with fasteners. It is a bad combination of dense and crumbly. I have seen people try it, but it never works well. You have to drill the hole so oversize to get the screw to actually go in, that it will strip immediately. If you force it into a hole that is too small, it will bind/lock -up and the worst part is that the base material will split or crack/crumble away.
Over-sized holes and screwing through it is the only way. Corian is thermally reactive. It grows/shrinks with temperature changes and, just like wood, it will split or buckle if it is constrained buy something stronger. I have literally seen it broken around handrails and light fixtures where someone pushed their luck.

 

[sebr023]

Oh! Didn’t know THAT much! That’s good to know. Honestly, at first I figured that since the screws would go in the ply, I’d be good. But in the light of all the information and knowledge you just gave me, I’ll make sure to follow that!

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[sebr023]

Also, while I’m here.

When my box are done, before finishing, what you be the best way the give those cabinet the little less chamfer on the edge to remove sharp corner?!

Like maybe a 1/32 chamfer ?

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