Monday, July 16, 2007

Desktop speakers

I built these small speakers for my nephew to use in his dorm room. I based them on Darren K.'s design for the Podzuma on the Parts Express website. Darren's design is more of a boombox design and I didn't want to limit my nephew to one big box. So I split the drivers and ported out the back to keep the size a little smaller. I did purchase a T-Amp to go with them. The T-Amp is supposed to put out about 15 watts per channel. These will really crank out some SPL with the T-Amp. They are not capable of deep bass but the bass they produce is very tight. My nephew is quite happy with them in his dorm room.

Dayton tower speakers


I made these for my buddy for his birthday. They use the Dayton classic 8" woofer and the Dayton Silkie tweeter. I have them front ported. He plans on running these as mains and will be putting them back into the wall. He is moving his entertainment center back into the wall in his living room. Knowing he was doing this I did not include any baffle step compensation into the crossover. He does not have them in wall right now and they are lacking a bit in bass due to the current configuration. Overall they sound quite nice though.



Thought I would include at least one construction picture. Just to make sure that it was obvious that I was building these myself.

Thursday, July 12, 2007

First set of speakers I built



This was the first set of speakers I built. It is a Dayton model in the MTM configuration using Dayton 6 1/2" mid-woofers, and Dayton silkie tweeters.

These speakers have a lot of bass. They seem to sound best set away from the wall. I am using them as mains in my 5.1 setup. I replaced the Klipsch that I was using before. They have a larger sound than the Klipsch if that makes sense.

I painted the baffles brown to match the leather furniture in my family room. The rest of the speaker is a gloss black. Nowhere near a flawless finish, but it was my first set.

I did recess the drivers which gives the speaker a much better look and sound.

Shielded Daytons



I built these Daytons using the shielded versions of the drivers. The cabinets are made using 3/4" MDF.

The MTM configuration uses the Dayton 6 1/2" shielded mid-bass drivers and the Dayton Silkie shielded tweeter.

This is the second set of Daytons I have made. I like the bass and they can actually fill my family room with some pretty good sound. Not bad considering the room is 20'x30' with a 9' ceiling.

I covered the speakers with Parts Express black ash vinyl. I'm not sure I like the look so I will probably strip these down and redo them. I think I would like a gloss black better. Of course I might try a real wood veneer.