chris turner
pfm Member
I've been looking at a diy speaker project for a year or two but not pulled the plug previously when I was considering a CSS kit, Falcon ls3/5a alternative and then a Jeff Bagby design (spirit wind). I'm not a craftsman, nor do I have any experience of electronics so I've found the prospect a little daunting until now but have finally bitten the bullet and started my first diy audio project
I recently got into valves, for the first time in almost 40 years of hifi, with a Leben amplifier and audio note kit DAC (professionally built, not by me......) and was seriously considering a pair of Devore obaby speakers however, at a little over £6k plus almost another £1000 for stands they'll be out of reach for a few years. I think my existing Linn Kan, whilst lovely, aren't letting the electronics do their thing so the idea of a diy build came up again
Searching the obvious terms on google threw up a SEAS A26 kit but I don't like the looks of these so this led to the discovery of a couple of audio diy sites/blogs and got me thinking a little more about the prospect of building something resembling another, slightly more serious Devore speaker, the O/96 orangoutang. Before I go any further, I'm not kidding myself that I can make something as good as these guys, either aesthetically or sonically but if I can get anywhere close on a budget I'll be more than happy
I've now figured that the SEAS A26RE4 H1411-08 woofer is an off the shelf variant of the custom made version used in the Devore and that the Morel CAT378 is a good basis for the tweeter, so these are ordered and on their way
Dimensionally I've mirrored the Devore so the finished speakers will be 725mm tall (plus stands) 460mm wide and 310mm deep, I'm making the cabinets from 18mm birch ply rather than MDF as I believe this is nearer the original specs and I don't fancy machining MDF without any means to control the amount of dust that this would generate, this was cut to size at my local diy store to save me the impossible task of 1) getting the dims spot on and 2) managing to cut a straight line.......
.....though in the future I'm going to be learning how to dowel and then rout what will hopefully be perfectly round holes in the baffle for these drivers. I'll also figure out how to apply veneers as I'm currently thinking black ash for the back and sides with something a little more striking on the front baffle, though this isn't finalised at the moment
The other thing that this choice of drivers allows me to have is an incredibly simple crossover, this should be helpful for 2 reasons. The first is that I've never soldered before and until I started to research these things further I had no idea about crossover design. The second advantage this simple design gives me is that because I only have to buy 1 capacitor and 2 resistors for each crossover the specifications of these can be a little more upmarket for the given budget. Once the cabinets are built I'll be coming back to this
I was planning on keeping a running total of the cost of the project for my own interest, but would be happy to share with anyone who may be interested in this, as well as sharing pictures of my efforts with the proviso I can't promise they're going to be pretty, for constructive criticism from anyone with more experience pf this kind of thing that may prove helpful in my efforts
I'm just starting this, so here's the first stage, panels all cut for the cabinets and building starting this morning......
I recently got into valves, for the first time in almost 40 years of hifi, with a Leben amplifier and audio note kit DAC (professionally built, not by me......) and was seriously considering a pair of Devore obaby speakers however, at a little over £6k plus almost another £1000 for stands they'll be out of reach for a few years. I think my existing Linn Kan, whilst lovely, aren't letting the electronics do their thing so the idea of a diy build came up again
Searching the obvious terms on google threw up a SEAS A26 kit but I don't like the looks of these so this led to the discovery of a couple of audio diy sites/blogs and got me thinking a little more about the prospect of building something resembling another, slightly more serious Devore speaker, the O/96 orangoutang. Before I go any further, I'm not kidding myself that I can make something as good as these guys, either aesthetically or sonically but if I can get anywhere close on a budget I'll be more than happy
I've now figured that the SEAS A26RE4 H1411-08 woofer is an off the shelf variant of the custom made version used in the Devore and that the Morel CAT378 is a good basis for the tweeter, so these are ordered and on their way
Dimensionally I've mirrored the Devore so the finished speakers will be 725mm tall (plus stands) 460mm wide and 310mm deep, I'm making the cabinets from 18mm birch ply rather than MDF as I believe this is nearer the original specs and I don't fancy machining MDF without any means to control the amount of dust that this would generate, this was cut to size at my local diy store to save me the impossible task of 1) getting the dims spot on and 2) managing to cut a straight line.......
.....though in the future I'm going to be learning how to dowel and then rout what will hopefully be perfectly round holes in the baffle for these drivers. I'll also figure out how to apply veneers as I'm currently thinking black ash for the back and sides with something a little more striking on the front baffle, though this isn't finalised at the moment
The other thing that this choice of drivers allows me to have is an incredibly simple crossover, this should be helpful for 2 reasons. The first is that I've never soldered before and until I started to research these things further I had no idea about crossover design. The second advantage this simple design gives me is that because I only have to buy 1 capacitor and 2 resistors for each crossover the specifications of these can be a little more upmarket for the given budget. Once the cabinets are built I'll be coming back to this
I was planning on keeping a running total of the cost of the project for my own interest, but would be happy to share with anyone who may be interested in this, as well as sharing pictures of my efforts with the proviso I can't promise they're going to be pretty, for constructive criticism from anyone with more experience pf this kind of thing that may prove helpful in my efforts
I'm just starting this, so here's the first stage, panels all cut for the cabinets and building starting this morning......