pmars
07-31-06, 04:33 PM
This forum has been extremely helpful to me as I find myself looking in here atleast a couple times a week... here's my Onkyo HTiB DIY story.
I purchased my Onkyo HTiB about a year and a half ago and the sound it produced has bothered me from the beginning. Don't get me wrong, for $479 it was unbeatable, and I felt the receiver was excellent. Also, the boxes looked really good in my listening area. I still have this system, but have made some major changes to the internal circuitry of each speaker box.
The sound from the fronts and rears and the center channel speakers is now truly amazing. I had the responses from all the drivers graphed and many short-comings were revealed... no surprise there. What did surprise me was how little it cost to tune these up to very high standards. Nearly flat response was achieved throughout the majority of the sonic range. aside from a small bump or 2 here and there, I couldn't be happier. The total cost to fabricate internal cross-overs was about $20 per speaker.
After dealing with the main speakers, I next decided to look at the sub-woofer.
It mounts on the bottom and is removable, so out it came. It was marked 80W, 4 ohms... not horrible, but it was extremely stiff and I thought for sure I could do better. I looked up a replacement on partsexpress and found a DAYTON QT255-4 10" QUATRO SERIES SUBWOOFER rated for 200Watts at 4 OHMs and the numbers seemed to be a good fit with a small sized sub box. It cost $60.00 so I ordered it.
Of course I needed to lengthen the port tube to get the correct tuning for this new driver in this size box. I used inexpensive black ABS for this. I then added some fiberglass insulation to help things out, and took it for a spin. I can now hear notes so deep that I never knew were on some my CDs.
This all may seem like a lot of work to many of you, but I love a challenge and my secret weapon here was my brother Bob. He has always been a little over the top when it comes to speaker systems, but his years of experience and knowledge has finally paid off. Atleast for me on this one. I finally understand and appreciate his fanatic obsession with speaker building and testing...
I hope this story inspires others who like to save money and do things themselves.
I now absolutely love my Onkyo HT-R520 system. I would say that my original speakers now sound like they cost atleast $200 apiece (more for the Sub) and I only spent around $185 for the entire makeover!
I have posted a few photos of the before, during and after process if anyone is interested. Also a couple of response curves.
Thanks for all the help and inspiration in the last year and a half.
Pete
I purchased my Onkyo HTiB about a year and a half ago and the sound it produced has bothered me from the beginning. Don't get me wrong, for $479 it was unbeatable, and I felt the receiver was excellent. Also, the boxes looked really good in my listening area. I still have this system, but have made some major changes to the internal circuitry of each speaker box.
The sound from the fronts and rears and the center channel speakers is now truly amazing. I had the responses from all the drivers graphed and many short-comings were revealed... no surprise there. What did surprise me was how little it cost to tune these up to very high standards. Nearly flat response was achieved throughout the majority of the sonic range. aside from a small bump or 2 here and there, I couldn't be happier. The total cost to fabricate internal cross-overs was about $20 per speaker.
After dealing with the main speakers, I next decided to look at the sub-woofer.
It mounts on the bottom and is removable, so out it came. It was marked 80W, 4 ohms... not horrible, but it was extremely stiff and I thought for sure I could do better. I looked up a replacement on partsexpress and found a DAYTON QT255-4 10" QUATRO SERIES SUBWOOFER rated for 200Watts at 4 OHMs and the numbers seemed to be a good fit with a small sized sub box. It cost $60.00 so I ordered it.
Of course I needed to lengthen the port tube to get the correct tuning for this new driver in this size box. I used inexpensive black ABS for this. I then added some fiberglass insulation to help things out, and took it for a spin. I can now hear notes so deep that I never knew were on some my CDs.
This all may seem like a lot of work to many of you, but I love a challenge and my secret weapon here was my brother Bob. He has always been a little over the top when it comes to speaker systems, but his years of experience and knowledge has finally paid off. Atleast for me on this one. I finally understand and appreciate his fanatic obsession with speaker building and testing...
I hope this story inspires others who like to save money and do things themselves.
I now absolutely love my Onkyo HT-R520 system. I would say that my original speakers now sound like they cost atleast $200 apiece (more for the Sub) and I only spent around $185 for the entire makeover!
I have posted a few photos of the before, during and after process if anyone is interested. Also a couple of response curves.
Thanks for all the help and inspiration in the last year and a half.
Pete