my TLAH build

Got the parts ordered before Christmas, and now getting to work on the cabinets - here's a few pictures:









The top is the open end (will be), I plan on covering the top opening with a little grill, round over the sides of the baffle, veneer the sides, and paint the baffle black. I'll probably also add a bit wider base to keep them from being tippy.

After stalling for a couple months, getting slowed down by trying to figure out how to finish them, and other activities, back to making progress and getting close. I have both crossovers built, all the finishing is done, one is wired up and tested, just need to wire the other one up, test, and do the fill.

Here's a few pics the lighting / camera seems to make the front more pink than in reality:







here's one of the crossovers, used 1/8" masonite for the board:



My initial test setup - iPhone running Pandora to $20 Lepai amp, in a garage - only have one channel wired so far, but I like what I hear initially, even with the improvised test setup, looking forward to hearing both running on a proper AVR with EQ and a sub, and in a better room.

Thanks Dusty - my finishing skills are definitely not up to your level, but from a distance I think they look pretty nice!

Application and finishing of veneer is a lot harder than you make it look, that's for sure. But I'm sure I'll get better at it with more practice.

No, I used a hole saw for the tweeters, and a plunge router with a Jasper jig for the mid woofers. The hole saw was a pain - the router was pretty easy - if I did it again, I'd probably use the router for both (bought a new router and Jasper jig after I did the tweeter holes).

Sanding them was more of a pain - didn't do a real super clean job of it there, but from a couple feet away, looks good.

Got the second one wired and tested - amazing, the king of cold solder joints got all those drivers and crossovers working the first time (as far as I can tell).

Now just need to wrap the top grills with speaker cloth and drop them in, and get some pillow stuffing and stuff the cabinets.

Peerless India closeouts: http://www.parts-express.com/pe/show...number=299-065 and Goldwood 302s: http://www.parts-express.com/pe/show...number=270-170

Covered the little "hat" grills I made with speaker cloth; stuffed the cabinets with poly fill, and screwed the backs on. Then sat in the driveway listening to them for a while. Hmm, I guess I'm done.

Tomorrow I'll bring them inside and wire to the AVR in the living room, and see if I can find the calibration mic for the AVR that I must have tossed in one of my many boxes of electronic doo dads. (&(*(@!#

Change of plans - these will be going in my home office, not the living room. Anyone want to hazard a guess why?

Some measurements with REW - take them with a grain of salt, as they were measured standing in my garage next to the open garage door, with only ballpark mic placement, speakers were a couple feet away from shelving on one side and a table on the other, yada yada. I just wanted to see approximately where I stand as far as effectiveness of the crossover and how the speaker components and build were behaving.

Test setup: Behringer ECM8000, AudioBuddy preamp/phantom power, UCA202 USB sound "card", laptop, Lepai TA2020 amp.

mic'd from 3' away, with mic vertically aligned with middle midwoofer:



mic'd from 6' away, with mic vertically aligned with middle midwoofer:



mic'd from 6' away, with mic vertically aligned with midwoofer 2nd from top (53"):



comparison of L speaker on axis, and ~30 degrees off axis on either side:



So dips around 1800 and 5500, but nothing horrendous I think - will remeasure when they're actually in place in the room, near wall boundaries, and then deal with EQ. I was actually pleasantly surprised that the midwoofers measure as well as they do on the low end, was expecting to have to cross them over to sub fairly high, but maybe I don't need to.

Crossover is 3rd order Butterworth @ 4000, fwiw.

Any thoughts?

Thanks guys - the repitition definitely required some patience - cutting holes, sanding, mounting the drivers, wiring, veneering - but it was still enjoyable and a good learning experience.

WAF has spoken - I thought we had agreed on them landing in the living room, but when I dragged them inside, she had seconds thoughts.


I've done some preliminary measurements in room, but need to rerun them. I've been trying to get measurements with EQ applied, but its a little tricky to do when the EQ is also software based. Think I have that figured out now though, so I can measure my starting point, do some EQ, and then remeasure with EQ applied and see where I end up.

I'll get back to you on the c2c distances.

midwoofers are 5 5/8" center to center; tweeters are 2 1/4" center to center.

(comb filtering is inevitable - haven't yet focused on how markedly that shows up on measurements - not noticeable to my ears - yet)

Got REW working with the ability to measure results of software EQ.

Here's the before:



Here's after EQ (w/ house curve):



I didn't bother trying to boost the L below 80, will likely eventually add a sub and crossover there - difference probably caused by some room and LP/mic assymetry.