Clearwave 4TSE and 4CCSE Build

I have begun a build of three fronts for my dedicated home theater. It is 98% movies system.

I have a Danley DTS-10 Sub and Definitive UIW RSS II rear and surround speakers. The UIW RSS II are unique, I highly recommend them if you are going to do in ceiling surrounds.

http://www.definitivetech.com/produc...UIW%20RSS%20II

I chose the Clearwave Dynamic 4TSE and 4CCSE.
Working with Jed has been good he is very responsive and patient.

4TSE
http://www.clearwaveloudspeaker.com/Dynamic/4T.html

4CCSE
http://www.clearwaveloudspeaker.com/Dynamic/4CC.html

I chose these because of Jed's reputation and it is a good form factor for my room.

Here is the room


Clearwaves business model is very interesting. Jed will sell you the plans and parts at parts express list price with an assembled crossover. He makes money on his discount from parts express. I think that is a great deal.

I own a professional cabinet shop so I have advantages over most of the DIY crowd. I give you guys a lot of credit for doing the great work you do with the tools you have. I am going to share some photos and videos of the equipment I have because I think you guys would find it interesting.

I cut the MDF on a Altendorf Sliding table saw. It is accurate to .015" over 8 feet. The blade tilt, and rise is CNC controlled. The rip fence is also digitally controlled. You can return to the same setting very accurately.

http://www.altendorf.de/en/products/...-elmo-iii.html

The carriage of the saw holds the piece and slides like a drawer. Very easy to cut full sheets.
Here is a phone video of pushing a sheet through with one hand. We have a pressure beam which holds the wood.
Video of saw.

http://bill-stan.smugmug.com/Other/F...167_gNUrR-A-LB


I then used a router to cut the internal braces. This machine is easy because it cuts simple x y coordinates and can be programed standing at the machine quickly.
This speeds things up a lot.

Video of router
http://bill-stan.smugmug.com/Other/F...361_4SshK-A-LB

I also used an automated cut off saw. This cuts repeatably to a few decimal places, very easy to be accurate with this.

Cutoff saw fence
http://bill-stan.smugmug.com/Other/F...006_TZDst-A-LB

Finally dry fit the box.


Here is one of the towers in clamps. I used pocket holes to hold the center of the braces where you can't easily get a clamp. I also used a few pin nails to hold positioning. Overall not to difficult to assemble but certainly not easy. I made the sides 1/6" oversize so I can flush trim after.



I was able to cut all the parts, rout them and do the layout in 3 hours. I don't work in the shop anymore so I am not particularly fast. My guys could do it faster.

Most builds I have seen use heat lock glue on the veneer. I am going to use a vacuum press. More reliable for sure.
I'll try some video of that when the time comes.

Thanks

Here are some photos I am happy how they came out

I have had my Clearwave 4T and 4CC for over a month now. I am driving them with a Denon 4310CI and three Outlaw Audio M2200 Monoblocks .

I am not going to go into great detail about what I listened to but I will make some general observations. Over the last month I listened to Rock, Jazz, Classical, Pop, TV and lots of movies from chick flicks to hardcore LFE movies. The Clearwave’s sounded excellent in all cases. What these speakers do with the highs is very special, especially women’s vocals. The imaging is very good even in my narrow room. Dialog in moves was excellent, very clear and intelligible. Having a true full range center speaker certainly adds to movies. As we all know a major percent of the soundtrack is played through the center speaker.

An interesting experiment I did was to set the sub to “no” on the Denon while the speakers were set to large. The effect is to send the LFE signal to the front three speakers. I was shocked at the low frequencies the mains were able to put out.
While listening to Flight of the Phoenix, the sandstorm / crash scene I hit 109 db peaks in my seat. It was surprisingly tactile. The first time I did it I had to double check if I turned the sub off. With the sub on at my current setting the peaks are around the same.
I also noticed music in movies and even TV shows jumped out at me.

Before I built these speakers I considered my system a 95% home theater, 5% music system. I am sure I will be listening to more music with this system because it sounds so good. I am very happy with my decision to buy and build these speakers. In my opinion it is an incredible value, I am sure you would have to spend several times what the kit cost to get sound anywhere near as good as these speakers.

The main listening position is 12 feet. Kids sit in the front row. I wish the room was bigger bit it is not.

Glued up the center at lunch.



If I am lucky I will get veneer on it by the weekend.
Further luck will have it making noise by next weekend.

I glued the top on this morning.
A few things of note.
1.) I temporarily screwed down cleats to hold the box off the bench so the clamp heads slid under it easily. Not rocket science but important.
2.) I used cleats under the clamps to distribute pressure onto the braces, under the cleat in the middle is a shim to arch the cleat and apply pressure to the middle before the ends are tight.


All the boxes should be sealed today and I will begin veneer Friday.

All three boxes are done. I put two in the vacuum press this morning. A vacuum press is a thick bag with a platen in it.
The platen is simply a piece of melamine particle board with saw kerf cuts in it to allow air to move under the piece you are veneering. The whole speaker is put in the bag with the veneer in place using yellow glue. Turn on a vacuum pump and it applies a great deal of pressure evenly over the entire surface. Let sit in the bad for 3 hours, pull out and repeat on another side.

I am going to use a combination of phenolic backed veneer and paper backed veneer. I am using the phenolic backed anywhere there is "end grain" of MDF showing. If you do not do this (or miter the corners) the end of the MDF will telegraph through eventually. The phenolic stops this from happening. I will then use the paper backed veneer on the other faces because it has a better edge seam. No dark line. On this project the only phenolic edge showing will be on the back of the speaker. I am going to stain it dark so I don't think you would see it in any case. I got all my veneer from Oakwood Veneer here in Michigan. It was all hand selected for grain and color.
I got 4 sheets which is more then I need but we use it every day as a part of normal business. All the veneer was cut from the same tree and it was a sequence matched flitch. I selected standard flat cut cherry. I was considering ropey cherry which has a very interesting figure but I decided to go with something more mild.

Here is a photo of the back of the phenolic veneer. Its a thin plastic.


Here is the speaker in the bag.


Here is a video of me pulling on the bag. I am not sure if it conveys what is going on but I'll throw it out there.
http://bill-stan.smugmug.com/Other/F...228_UddbY-A-LB

I will get one more pass through the bag today. All next week I will do multiple passes a day to get the veneer completed.

No doubt! 2", whew.

I have been trying to find a good solution for a speaker stand for the 4CC which is 43" long and heavy. I need to hold the speaker fairly high in the air. Roughly 30". Any 30" sand or stands I come up with will look spindly. I saw a thread this morning which had an old school CRT stand holding up the center.

This is one I ran across.
http://www.sanus.com/assets/VMTVb_VMTV_cut_sheet.pdf



Any thoughts on this?

I am a cabinet maker not a TV hanger?

That link did not work for me here is another.

http://www.sanus.com/us/en/products/...crt-mount/VMTV

I see if you look at the first photo of the post you can see that the speaker will need to be up high. I have a clean look to the theater that I would like to keep. A stand large enough to keep the speaker stable will look horrible.

I saw this photo on a thread this morning.


That looks like a TV mount. I think it would look good and hopefully hold up my 100+ pound center speaker.

That was my first thought. Here is a quick line drawing to show the scale.



I think the proportion of that stand is off. I think no matter what I did it would be fugly.

I fabricated these struts and feet for the speakers.
I think they will look pretty good. I am going to polish the brass and lacquer them so they keep their luster.

It is 1/4" cold rolled steel, Dayton spikes and studded knobs from McMaster Carr.

Can I, yes. Do I want to no. No glory in it.

Here is my idea for a steel wall mounted stand. It would be band steel maybe 3/16 or 1/4". Black. It should hardly be noticed.

That would work but I need to hold it well off the wall. 15" or more.