PhotographyYelloweye 2.1 speaker system: yellow eyes
I couldn't think of a simpler name for a speaker cabinet with yellow Kevlar cones. Looking for an idea to replace the not-so-good sounding Logo speakers, I tossed up the idea of building two bookshelf cabinets and a separate subwoofer, often referred to as a sub+sat or 2.1 system. The excellent, but huge, and moreover retired, Yellowstones would have been way too bulky for our living room.
After tearing apart the Yellowstone project, I was left with an excellent set of drivers. I fired up the good ol' cab sim (WinISD) and decided upon closed 4 liter enclosures for the sats, each equipped with a Monacor Monarch SPH-135KEP and a DT-101AG. The subwoofer system will house the two SPH-300KE monsters, but at this moment I haven't decided yet whether it'll be a single compact subwoofer with an isobaric setup or two separate ones with 1 driver each.
One of the main aspects, and to me the most boring and time-consuming part, of building hifi loudspeakers is the finish. I made a small list of requirements for finishing these cabinets:
- No visible joints or nail heads
- Looks like wood
- Durable and scratch resistant
- Doesn't take too much time
- No filler, no sanding, no polishing
- cheap
Adding it all up this suggests the use of mitre sawn pre-laminated board. In other words: laminate flooring. I have plenty of it left from my last flooring adventure, so if I cut up a board or two, there's no harm done. It's quite obvious one can't construct a proper enclosure out of this stuff alone, because it's only 7 mm thick. It'll have to be heavily backed by inside bracing and/or damping material. And if visible joints are not allowed, the outer shell will have to be glued only.
Luckily I happen to own a very handy power tool called a plunge router. And a nice one at that. With a 45° V-shaped bit it can do all mitre work, and cutting the holes for the drivers is nothing more than setting it up meticulously and letting it roar for 20 seconds along a compass. The brace panels can be nicely fitted into slots along the insides.
Here's a simple draft I made.
... to be continued ...
© Joris van den Heuvel, Fuzzcraft.com