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Building a pair of Ergo IX micro-monitor speakers

Hey Carl,

I'm intrigued by the capacitor malarkey, and I wondered if you could do me a favour. I would like to try a pair of Jantzen 2.7uF caps from Parts Express, but shipping was going to cost me more than $45!. The caps themselves are only $16.68 each and I'm happy for them to be posted in a padded envelope via USPS, and not UPS. You might like to try them against the Mundorf (identically sized) too. If you could find out how much they cost to ship to you in AZ, could you perhaps buy me a pair and send them to me? I'll Paypal you for the all-up cost.

Cheers,
James
 
James said:
That's $57 each !!! :eek:

I would have settled for the M-Cap Supremes at a touch under $25 each. Have you seen this Capacitor Review? The Mundorf are considerably bigger than the Solen. I'm tempted to try some myself. I think I'll wait for your report before I sink another $50 or $114 into the design.
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Ah, what I didn't tell you was that I saved over $40 on the cost of the midwoofers by getting them from SpeakerCity @ $181 each, rather than the $202 from Madisound. I also went and bought wood to make stands yesterday, and the shop dudes quoted me around $85 for the wood, surfacing and cutting (I needed 8/4 timber surfaced and cut into 30" x 1.5" lengths). I bumped into one of my friends in the lumber yard and it turns out that he's the sales rep for their leading line of power tools. He talked them into milling for free and selling the wood at employee discount prices, making my grand total $23! I saved $100 yesterday, which means my Mundorfs only cost me an extra $20-ish once everything was factored in... not bad :D

James said:
I'm intrigued by the capacitor malarkey, and I wondered if you could do me a favour. I would like to try a pair of Jantzen 2.7uF caps from Parts Express, but shipping was going to cost me more than $45!. The caps themselves are only $16.68 each and I'm happy for them to be posted in a padded envelope via USPS, and not UPS. You might like to try them against the Mundorf (identically sized) too. If you could find out how much they cost to ship to you in AZ, could you perhaps buy me a pair and send them to me? I'll Paypal you for the all-up cost.
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Sure thing. I've cleared my PMs now, or you can email me: carllivitt at yahoo dot com is my address.

Carl
 
Carl,

I'm at work now, but perhaps you could go ahead and order a pair of those Jantzens for shipping to your home address. I can't imagine it will cost more than a few bucks to send them to New Zealand at the Post Office. Parts Express insists on shipping via UPS internationally. I can understand why, but I ain't paying more for postage than the parts themselves. I'll email you my home addy later tonight.

Have the nuts and bolts turned up yet?

James
 
James,

That's the caps ordered. I don't want anything for them, it's the least I can do! You've shared your designs, time, advice, nuts, bolts etc etc. Just email me your address and I'll post them to you when they arrive.

I forgot to say, the nuts and bolts arrived the other day - many thanks :)

Carl
 
A box of components arrived yesterday, but I'm still waiting for my resistors, ****y caps and drivers. I've not yet got any wadding, either. Can anyone suggest a good Home Depot/Lowes/Radioshack/etc product that would do the job?

I've been working stupid hours recently, but I managed to wangle in a little bit of progress with the speakers, getting the wire hooked up to the Speakon connectors and fitting them to the cabs. Man, Mogami 3104 is huge! It's like a baby snake...

Anyway, the wires were stripped and crimped into Neutrik locking plugs:
DSCF2407.jpg


Then a little solder was added, just to keep things snug. A 40W iron made sure the solder flowed nicely and didn't blob:
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A bit of heatshrink to keep it tidy:
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And all the wires fitted to the Speakon. They're a tight fit and they've got little latches on them that make sure they stay firmly in place. These suckers aren't coming off in a hurry!
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It fits nicely in the back:
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It's a little messier inside ;) That Gorilla glue is goopy stuff once it starts to foam up!
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Carl, what's the Neutrik part number for that speakon connector? Am I right in assuming it's a combo jack/speakon socket?
 
Carl,

Any reason why you didn't solder the wires directly onto the chassis sockets?

James
 
Not really... but you've got me thinking. By soldering directly to the socket tabs, I trade two mechanical joints for one solder joint. Hmmm...
 
One of the cool things about working night shift is that when you wake up you can annoy your neighbours with power tools in the evening. To that end, I've been feverishly putting in a few hours every day.

I created a jig for doing circular cuts, just like James suggested. The front baffles were first rebated, then cut through:

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The t-nuts were added to the rear of the baffles, the edges of the woofer hole were chamfered and I got it ready for leathering:

DSCF2426.jpg

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It fits!

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I did a test-run with the drivers:

DSCF2433-1.jpg


I needed stands... so I made some :) The bases are made from left over Sapele with chamfered edges and drilled/countersunk holes for screwing in the legs:

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I put tapped holes in each corner to accepts spikes (no pictures of those yet):

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I made a drilling template and bored holes in the legs to mate with the bases:

DSCF2437.jpg


I put it all together with some cross-braces at the top of the stands to keep them rigid (they're really strong and solid!) and couldn't resist sticking one of my Ergos on top for a photo shoot:

DSCF2443.jpg


The drivers aren't screwed in properly and there are no XOs yet, but they're taking shape. We're off to Mexico this weekend so I won't get a chance to work on them, but next week I'll try and finish them off :D
 
Nice one Carl. They'll do sterling work I'm sure combined with that sub watching nemo ;-)

Seriously though, look really good. Been tempted for a long time to try these but don't have the woodworking skills sadly.
 
James Evans said:
Nice one Carl. They'll do sterling work I'm sure combined with that sub watching nemo ;-)

Seriously though, look really good. Been tempted for a long time to try these but don't have the woodworking skills sadly.
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Me too - this is my first woodworking project and it had a rather steep learning curve. It was great fun though, I've really enjoyed it so far.
 
Thanks for all the encouragement guys :) Still a bit of work to be done yet, but there's no rush... I'm only going to do it once, so I may as well do it right.

James, I've not tried the stands the other way around but will see what Mrs Hacker and I prefer. I'll post pics, see what you think.
 
hacker said:
Thanks for all the encouragement guys :) Still a bit of work to be done yet, but there's no rush... I'm only going to do it once, so I may as well do it right.
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It is oh so tempting to just wire up the drivers...

Good on you Carl. Time spent now will reward you for years to come.
 
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