Ken's Family Build

[mpm32]

Nice job, don't forget to add the diffuser to the tweeter array.

[Ken Lustgarten]

Nice job, don't forget to add the diffuser to the tweeter array.

I have been thinking about the diffuser. I want to find ABS pipe. Locally it is only available in larger sizes. It would be nice to not have to paint the diffuser. The ABS is black and I am sure the bond to the tweeters would be better. With a painted diffuser the bond will only be as strong as the paint. The pair of 250's will be handled by college students all summer long with an average of 7 to 8 performances a week. They do not treat equipment the way that I do so I am worried about a diffuser coming off from all the rough handling. On my 6 DR200's It is of no concern. If I have to go painted I think I will use a dowel. Paint scratched off of white PVC looks sad.

[DJPhatman]

CraigsAudio, carefully drill a hole in the top and bottom plates of the DR250s, and glue a dowel all the way through. Once you paint a little DuraTex on the dowel, there should be no problems.

[Ken Lustgarten]

CraigsAudio, carefully drill a hole in the top and bottom plates of the DR250s, and glue a dowel all the way through. Once you paint a little DuraTex on the dowel, there should be no problems.

You just gave me an idea. Cut 2 triangles out of 1/4" ply, drill holes in them to hold the dowel. Slide the triangles and dowel into position and fasten each triangle in place with a couple of screws. This will also allow easy removal of the array should it be necessary in the future.

[SeisTres]

Since I did have my diffuser detach a couple of time on my jacks, I ended up using dabs of hotglue. After dabbing some on the ends and all along the array, this was never a problem ever again.

[Ken Lustgarten]

Since I did have my diffuser detach a couple of time on my jacks, I ended up using dabs of hotglue. After dabbing some on the ends and all along the array, this was never a problem ever again.

I am going to test out a method of attaching the diffuser on my DR200's when they are done. When I am satisfied that they will stay put then I will put them on the 250's. I did not make the 250's for profit, I gave them to our music department. They will reimburse me for the cost of materials but the labor was a gift to improve their ministry. Even still if a diffuser falls off its my reputation that will be questioned.

Today was D day. I presented the speakers to the head of the music department. He absolutely loved them and could not get over the improvement it was from the old speakers. The dispersion really took him by surprise. Even when moving to the sides the sound was still full. The old speakers beamed very bad. They were 20+ year old TOA speakers. They have horrible divers. About a year ago I took them apart to add Speakon jacks and found that the quality of the components was just as bad as the sound and that there heavy weight was from a particle board enclosure! I have been pushing for this for quite some time and i am glad they finally listened.

[Ken Lustgarten]

I worked on the DR200's for about an 1 1/2 hours tonight. I got the sides on 4 of them and started on the horn braces on the other 2 that are lagging behind. Tomorrow I should (have a lot of other stuff to do, honeydew list) be able to get the backs on and routed. It will not be long until the first 4 can be tested.

Here are a couple pics of where the 200's are at.

https://picasaweb.google.com/klustgarte ... OzF99_h-QE#

[djtrumptight]

I used adjustable hats in my DR's,i just cut out a section of the access panel leaving about 3/8 of an inch of wood near the end of the panel which works out good because it allowed me to also put a bolt from the hat into the cabinet bottom itself.It works out good.Pics are in the build threads under "more DR 250 questions".

[Ken Lustgarten]

I have not had much time to work in the past few days but I did make some progress on the DR200's. 4 of them are up to date but the other 2 are lagging behind a bit. I need to work on catching them up. I am quite anxious to hear what 2 stacks of 3 sound like. 4 of them have the sides and backs on, corners rounded over. Just a little PL cleanup and sanding are left before paint. I would like to at least get a couple coats of flat black latex on 4 of them tonight and then catch the other 2 up.

I put a few more finishing touches on the DR250's yesterday. The most important was the addition of spring loaded handles. I also set them up in our auditorium which seats 700 for further testing. It is truly amazing how these 2 little speakers fill a large room with clean sound. They sound better in a large space then they did when I tested them in my house which is not surprising. In one of the photos you can see the house speakers. There are 5 speakers and 1 monitor in a central cluster. While they do a decent job for spoken word and acoustical stuff they do not come close to matching the DR's in sound or in their ability to fill the room. The DR's also have better bass response (4" porting) then the house system which is very boomy and needs to practically have all bass eliminated or the sound is horrible. I would love to build them a pair of T39 slims to go with the 250's but I doubt that would work as it would be more then the non technical group could handle. Maybe in the future with a lot of training I have never been a fan of central clusters. Almost every installation I have seen using a central cluster would be better served by a different setup. I think the reason that they are so popular in churches and in bible colleges like ours is aesthetics. We have a central cluster at our church also, TOA's. They are hung as a horizontal array which causes comb filtering and lots of echo/feedback problems not to mention they contain junk components, I have taken a few apart in the past that needed repair. Junk wrapped in a pretty package! I am very tempted to build a pair of TLAH Pros for the church.

Here are the current pics of my DR200 builds and DR250 testing testing.
https://picasaweb.google.com/klustgarte ... 4-mltbo3AE#

[SeisTres]

They sound better in a large space then they did when I tested them in my house which is not surprising.

This is something I had forgotten about. I remember when I built my first pair of jacks that it always bothered me that when I was testing (read very close range in the living room) they never seemed "right" as the dispersion and the way the tweets/woofer combined were just different than from I was used to.

However, once they started being used in real situations dealing with greater distances, they were just fine. Also, if you haven't installed the diffusers, they even out the response of the melded array so no worries there.

[Ken Lustgarten]

I learned something about PL while working on these builds. After gluing up a panel wait about 2 hours and then scrape off the excess with a sharp chisel. It comes off very easily and leaves a nice clean surface behind. If you let the PL cure all the way you will have to chisel for a while to get a clean joint. Instead do it while the PL is still kind of rubbery and the cleanup is quick and easy.

I only had about an hour to work today but I got the sheet metal butt cheeks installed and put the sides on the remaining 2 DR200's that were lagging behind. I will put the back on tomorrow and maybe start painting.

SeisTres: I still have to install the diffusers but I am going to test a mounting method out on my DR200's first before I install one on the 250's. It needs to be road worthy.

[Dantreige]

I learned something about PL while working on these builds. After gluing up a panel wait about 2 hours and then scrape off the excess with a sharp chisel. It comes off very easily and leaves a nice clean surface behind. If you let the PL cure all the way you will have to chisel for a while to get a clean joint. Instead do it while the PL is still kind of rubbery and the cleanup is quick and easy.

I did this when I built my Jack 12's. Hellava lot easier to clean up. I used a putty knife and an Olfa blade (utility knife).

[Ken Lustgarten]

I have not been able to do any more work on the DR’s for almost a week. I have just been too busy. Last night I got to spend a few hours on them and got quite a bit done. One pair is ready and a second pair will be finished tonight after I install the components.

I decided on installing the adjustable tophats in the access cover. In Dave Carters thread he stated that when tilted down and a second DR on the stack that the balance was good. The second pair with flat arrays will get a standard tophat with the cover routed at a 3 degree angle. With the third pair I am going to do something a little different. Since they are not painted yet I am going to PL the bottom access covers back on. I have found that I do not need them and this will allow me to easily place adjustable tophats at the balancing point of the speaker. I will have a very flexible setup with the different tophat options.

4 of the 6 DR200’s will be finished tonight. The question is will it be early enough to not wake up the kids and make the wife mad?

Here are the current pictures. https://picasaweb.google.com/klustgarte ... j9GOzKeCPw#

I will most likely start on T39’s before finishing the third pair of DR’s. I need bass more than the additional tops right now!

I got a card from the ministry team that I made the DR250’s for. It answers the question, Is it worth the time to build DR’s?
https://picasaweb.google.com/klustgarte ... 0e6woeaKAg#

[jswingchun]

I like the clamps you made for your EZ. I have an idea for something similar I am going to work on. Your cabs look really good too, nice job! Looking forward to seeing your sub build on the EZ. I am probably going to build some T39s on my EZ-One this summer.

[Ken Lustgarten]

Here are some pictures of the almost finished cabs. Sorry about the low quality cell phone pics but I left my camera at work last night. As you can see I still have a few finishing touches to do. Corner protectors, clean up the flat array with acetone, clean the dust off (you can see lots of dust in the pics), route a 3 degree circle and install tophats in the flat arrays (for now they have flat covers and no tophats), and add diffusers. I finished to late last night so tonight will be the blasting session


Next up will be 4 T39's. I have a pair of Lab12's and a pair of BP102's. I am thinking of making 24" cabs for the Labs and 13" cabs for the BP's. As I add more cabs in the future they will be done in pairs of Lab12's. I have a need for 1 slim pair and that is the reason for the BP's.

The third pair of DR200's are ready for the finishing stages but I still have to make melded arrays for them. I will hold off on these until the T39's are done. They can all be Duratexed at the same time. I also have to evaluate the B&C 8PS21 woofers that I used in the DR200's to determine if I should get 2 more for the last pair of DR's or if I will need the DeltaPros's. To evaluate I will compare them with Beta8's. I have 4 of them for wedgehorns.