High- End Audiophile Bookshelf Speakers

by mengel

19K21010

Intro: High- End Audiophile Bookshelf Speakers

I like speaker building and this is one of my projects - very good sounding and looking 2- way bookshelf speakers.

Some measured parameters:

Impedadance: 8 Ohm

Sensistivity: 88 dB / 1W / 1m

Cut out frquency: 2 200 Hz

Frequency range: 32 - 28 000 Hz

Used speakers: mid- bass / Peerless HDS- P830883, tweeter / Fountek Neo CD 3.0, passive speaker / Seas SP 18

STEP 1: Materials and Building

I decided to use 40 mm thick MDF for building. At the first I have thinking about the shape of the speakers. Then I just drawed the shape in CAD software to have the files for CNC machine. Make it by hands is possible, but not very funny.

Making a columns from the tiles. As you can see on the pic I have needed 16 pieces to make two cabinets. It is simply layed and glued together. After adhesive curing I have sanded every sides of the cabinets to smooth surface.

Now we have two cabinets to making loudspeaker boxes.

The most funniest step in this project was veneering for me.

STEP 2: Veneering

Just pick some sheet of venneer and glue it to the surface... : )

I decided to make veneer from ONE sheet of piece. Glue the strips of veneer is very simple to me. No, I must make some original! So, I toke the veneer sheets to my friend who is owner of laser shop and we have made some cuts to my sheets. Aplying with contact glue was not very easy but we tricky makers can do it in 4 try. After this procedure you must go to your lovest pub and make a little reset ... But you are king of the world.

Then (in two days) you are ready to make next steps. Front panel is laserable Aluma Mark glued between weneer on the front. It makes very nice contrast and very nice it sits with aluminium basket of Peerles mid-bass speaker.

And we can roting the mounting holes for drivers.

STEP 3: Holes and Surface Finishing

Great tool for making the holes you need is my circle jig for router. Instructable to build one. You can make me happy by voting. It is easy way to make really perfect circles for speakers.

Now we can lacquer the surface of the cabinets. I choosed the nitrocellulose lacquers to finishing. The base coat in 3 layers and 2 layers of half shine lacquer was applied. At the end I have polished the surface with Autoglym Paint Pro system.

STEP 4: Assembling and Completing

To complete the project we need to make a crossover. Schematics is classical 2 - way crossover with of Linkwitz with cut of frequency 2 200 Hz. Important thing in the crossover is L-pad for the tweeter to reduce his sensitivity about to 10 dB. I have use the foil coils and MKP capacitors with no inductance resistors cause it is High - End project.

For the SP 18 passive radiator I have place a weight 34 g according to Seas documentation.

When the work was done, hearing time is coming. The next week I have big fun by tuning the sound with the right ammount of damping material finding (lamb wool).

STEP 5: The Sound

I try to be objective.

The sound is really perfect. Deep and accurate basses, mids are very nice painted and the words can be very good recognized, tweeter sounds silvery clear.

I am very satisfied with this project.

9 Comments

SteveB418 5 months ago

I feel I am missing the steps to build this project.
For example how did you cut out the inner chamber?
Driver spacing?
Is the bottom still 2 panels thick?
Im afraid no 40mm MDF anywhere around that I know of, but I can stack more layers of 18mm I suppose?

mengel 5 months ago

hello,
try to look better on this picture https://content.instructables.com/F8F/40J7/I6J7VWF...
By my opinion it is visible how rhe inner chamber is done. It is better may be to say that chmber will arise by building. from cuted elements.

Driver spacing - as you can see on the pics again, a tryed to make minimal space between mid-bass speaker and rweeter. for passive speaker is the only possibility to place it - very simple : )

bottom is from 2 ôayers, yes - ir is good to have some weight down for stability and we need to place paddive membrane little bit higher from surface of placing to not get back kicks from it.

18 - of course no problem. you can use plywood also (recommend birch plywood multisomerhing - i forgot : )

vest wishes for you

djurivoje 4 years ago

Beautiful speakers. So, what are your impressions after few years? I am planing to build them, but would like to se some crossover schematic. It would be very helpful. Many thanks

mengel 4 years ago

Hey djurivoje,
thank you for your words. After some months they are playing better and better. I heard some changes by listening. Now I am thinking of building new columns. I tried many crossovers in them. Last two years i am listening them with 2nd order butterworth for tweeter and 1st order L-R for midbass. I played also a lot with weight for passive speaker. It was amazing to listen changes of bass line. Of course the same fun you can have by trying to find optimal dumping material and how to place it inside...

redrooster 9 years ago

You've done a very good job there mate.Ive listened to some bookshelf speakers that look nearly the same with the same driver and ribbon tweeter except for the passive speaker and they sounded great. Excellent finish as well.Youve got my vote.

mengel 9 years ago

Thank you, redrooster. Passive speaker makes from common bookshelf speakers the full spectrall speakers. It was realy good to insert it to the construction. Basses are deep and dynamic. Thank you for vote.

tomatoskins 9 years ago

Simply beautiful! I love how they turned out and I'm sure that they sound amazing! Where did the stand come from?