Curved SLA and dual TLAH- 1st time with veneer!

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jjlangdon
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Joined: Tue Jul 16, 2019 10:52 am

Curved SLA and dual TLAH- 1st time with veneer!

#1 Post by jjlangdon »

Hey all! I posted my 30" THT build a few weeks ago- and am finally getting around to posting the pictures from my L/C/R channel build! If you have any questions- please just ask!
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Forstner bit used for the tweeter holes, and a 1/4" up-cut spiral bit in a router with a circle jig for the woofer holes. The front baffle is 15/16" curly maple milled down to 3/4". I made the 3 baffles all at once - trying to carefully measure to avoid another run to the hardwood supplier! Once all the holes were cut I used a 1" round-over bit to make them "pretty".
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Once all the holes were drilled, I cut and glued up the baffle for the Curved SLA
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Boxes were 1/2" MDF(only because I was going to try my hand at veneering for the first time! I also got to use my homemade "taper jig". I found the plans for it somewhere on the internet, and for the 20 minutes it took to make, it has been exceedingly useful to me for repeating(safely) the same angle cuts repeatedly.
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jjlangdon
Posts: 22
Joined: Tue Jul 16, 2019 10:52 am

Re: Curved SLA and dual TLAH- 1st time with veneer!

#2 Post by jjlangdon »

As the boxes on the THLAs were drying, I went to work on the box for the Curved SLA.
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Once the glue was dry on the TLAHs - I took the plunge and applied the veneer! A little nerve wracking, but it all worked out ok.
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I purposefully made the front baffle of the TLAHs about 1/8" wider than the boxes - hoping that the veneer would take up the rest of the room. Usually my plans fail miserably, but in this case I didn't even have to use a flush trim bit!! It's the little victories!
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I used a mechanical center punch to mark the driver mounting holes....all 232 of them. Then used some blue tape as a "depth-stop" on a drill bit to pre-drill all the mounting holes.....super fun!
Then came the driver mounting. Here's a small sample of the mess I created!
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jjlangdon
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Joined: Tue Jul 16, 2019 10:52 am

Re: Curved SLA and dual TLAH- 1st time with veneer!

#3 Post by jjlangdon »

All the drivers were mounted(with speaker gasket tape from P.E. between the driver and the baffle) so that the miles of wiring could commence!
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....and commence it did!
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My first attempt at a crossover. All soldering was done on the back of the board, and it was mounted with #6 wood screws and small washers(between the box and the crossover board) as "stand-offs". Hope it's up to muster!
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I actually made the crossover boards for the SLA first, and mounted the LP and HP to separate boards(for some reason), as you can see in the above pic. To save space in the TLAHs, I used 1 board and liked the look of that much better.
Attachments
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jjlangdon
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Joined: Tue Jul 16, 2019 10:52 am

Re: Curved SLA and dual TLAH- 1st time with veneer!

#4 Post by jjlangdon »

All said- the build took a little longer than I thought it would, but I was really taking my time to get everything perfect. I was going to do black duratex or something similar, and my lady-friend said that if they are gonna be seen...."Shouldn't they be beautiful?".....so she picked out Curly Maple for the baffles and some gorgeous(yet expensive!) Ebony veneer for the boxes. I think they look great!
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The party is all up front on these babes..... only satin-nickel finished binding posts from P.E. reside on the back
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I didn't take any pictures of the process, but each cabinet is filled with poly-fil, per the instructions.
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And finally - They are in their forever home!
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I hope you all liked them! I'm amazed at all the beautiful projects posted here! DIY Fever for me!

jjlangdon
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Joined: Tue Jul 16, 2019 10:52 am

Re: Curved SLA and dual TLAH- 1st time with veneer!

#5 Post by jjlangdon »

OK...ok. So I hooked them up last night(finally) and played around with the settings in my pre-amp to get them all ready to fire up. I am powering them with an Outlaw Audio 770 home theater amp. Signal is from an Outlaw Audio 990 pre/pro. It's an older preamp, but gets me through until I decide what I want next! I played a bunch of songs from the "Bill Fitz Hit List" in the forums, as well as some of my personal favs. My kids(drawn out by the sheer volume coming from the living room!) decided they wanted to re-watch Avengers Endgame. These 3 in the build are the L/C/R. I also have 3 Bose 501 as surrounds(Rear L/C/R) for now. Sub is a 30" wide THT with the 15" Dayton HO woofer. The......clarity of the front soundstage is AMAZING. Speakers are nowhere near broken in, and I'm already madly in love. Glad I decided to take this project on! I had a TON of pictures that I took of the build, but didn't want to bore anyone. If, for some reason, you have a question about the build- please ask! :-)

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Bill Fitzmaurice
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Re: Curved SLA and dual TLAH- 1st time with veneer!

#6 Post by Bill Fitzmaurice »

Beautiful job. The price you'd pay for commercial equivalents would probably require taking out a second mortgage.

With regard to putting the high and low pass filters on different boards, there are two reasons for that. One is to lessen the possibility of a wiring mistake. The other is to insure that there's no cross talk between the inductors of the respective filters. If you do put both on the same board they should be separated as far as possible and mounted on different planes.

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J_Dunavin
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Re: Curved SLA and dual TLAH- 1st time with veneer!

#7 Post by J_Dunavin »

Wow! Nice work man!
2 - OTop8
2 - T39
8 - DR200
2 - DR250
9 - T24
6 - T45
1 - Auto Tuba

Ben
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Joined: Tue Mar 17, 2009 6:45 pm
Location: Lakeside, CA

Re: Curved SLA and dual TLAH- 1st time with veneer!

#8 Post by Ben »

Great Job!
Built:
Jack 12 (2)
Wedgehorn 6 (4)

ketoet
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Re: Curved SLA and dual TLAH- 1st time with veneer!

#9 Post by ketoet »

Very nice job. Not normally my taste for speaker looks but those are very nice.
Hope you enjoy them as much as i do mine
building BFM speakers isn't a hobby , it's an addiction

1 x THT
1 x autotuba
2 x dr250 melded

2 x wedgehorn 10
2 x tlah

jjlangdon
Posts: 22
Joined: Tue Jul 16, 2019 10:52 am

Re: Curved SLA and dual TLAH- 1st time with veneer!

#10 Post by jjlangdon »

Bill Fitzmaurice wrote: Tue Oct 01, 2019 10:35 am Beautiful job. The price you'd pay for commercial equivalents would probably require taking out a second mortgage.

With regard to putting the high and low pass filters on different boards, there are two reasons for that. One is to lessen the possibility of a wiring mistake. The other is to insure that there's no cross talk between the inductors of the respective filters. If you do put both on the same board they should be separated as far as possible and mounted on different planes.
Ahhhh. That makes sense. With this new knowledge- I will be making adjustments to the boards(separating them). Thanks Bill! I love the look of all of them together, and the efficiency is crazy! Definitely a great match to the THT! It's official that I now have the "diy bug" and will be getting ready to plan/build the 2 surrounds and 2 atmos speakers that I want.....and maybe another THT!

jjlangdon
Posts: 22
Joined: Tue Jul 16, 2019 10:52 am

Re: Curved SLA and dual TLAH- 1st time with veneer!

#11 Post by jjlangdon »

Also a big thanks to the others who commented! It was a labor of love! I've had them in the house for 1.5 days and I'm in LOVE with them! :-)

jimbo7
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Location: St. Louis

Re: Curved SLA and dual TLAH- 1st time with veneer!

#12 Post by jimbo7 »

I envy your builds, but not all that wiring.

What's the boss think?
BFM builds:
XF212
T24 BP102 24"
2x SLA's 6-5" mids, 9- gt-302's
2x AT 14" MCM 55-2421
TrT 5" MCM 55-2421
AT 18" JBL GTO804
2x OT12 flat array
2x SLA Pro 2-Alpha 6's 2-Goldwoods
2x T39 24" 3012lf
Simplex 10 BP102

jjlangdon
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Re: Curved SLA and dual TLAH- 1st time with veneer!

#13 Post by jjlangdon »

jimbo7 wrote: Tue Oct 01, 2019 9:02 pm I envy your builds, but not all that wiring.

What's the boss think?
Compared to some of the builds on here- there is nothing to envy, but I'll take it! The wiring, while all soldered, was actually not too bad. My dad was an electrician(until retirement at a young 78) and I worked with him when he needed a helper all through high school. This was way easier than wiring up some giant 3-phase motor starter start/stop panel! :hyper:

She's the one who told me to "go for it"! I allowed her to pick the lumber and veneer. She loves them more than I do, I think- she's a keeper! I will say that she made a face when I needed to take the front door off and used an appliance dolly to get the THT sub in the living room.....that look of concern quickly went away as soon as I fired it up! :lol: :lol:

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Tom Smit
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Re: Curved SLA and dual TLAH- 1st time with veneer!

#14 Post by Tom Smit »

:shock: :clap:
TomS

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LelandCrooks
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Re: Curved SLA and dual TLAH- 1st time with veneer!

#15 Post by LelandCrooks »

Nice work!
If it's too loud, you're even older than me! Like me.
http://www.speakerhardware.com

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