Speakers – JackenHack

Lenn-Art Tang Band W8-740C subwoofers

September 16, 2009 by Jack Zimmermann 2 Comments

Lenn-Art Subwoofer

Last time I ordered some speaker elements from Germany I ordered some extra Tang Band W8-740C subwoofer elements for a later build. I’ve been oogling this design to go with my home-built?ProAc 2.5 clones. Micke, a friend will make the boxes for me, provided I sent him the drawings. What an exellent excuse to try to learn Solidworks. Amazing program. I have designed my own version of the venerable GainClone amplifier with a beefed up power supply and will use two subwoofers in stereo. Nice to not have to build the boxes. Last time when I built the clones the apartment was filled with MDF dust for months.

ProAc Response 2.5 clones plays real music

May 29, 2007 by Jack Zimmermann 6 Comments

So finally my new ProAc Response 2.5 clone playing music. And how they play! I got myself a new Class-A amplifier to have something nice to drive them with. At first they sounded a bit short on the bass side, but now after about 20 hours of listening, the bass starts to improve. I’ve never believed in the “burn-in” of speakers, but I have to say I’ve been mistaken.

I invited some friends over for a music listening party. A lot of records and an even larger amount of beer made for a beautiful evening.

At the same time I ordered my new amplifier, I also ordered a new DVD player with DVD-Audio and SACD playing capability. So I rush out to get my hands on a SACD record, but the only one I could find was the slightly overplayed Dark side of the moon by Pink Floyd. But it was a good test record because I have two different mastering versions on cd, so comparing was easy. And to my surprise the CD (actually Flac played through my Squeezebox) sounded better than the SACD one! So I had to check that the player didn’t play the normal cd layer, but no, it played the SACD layer. The singing voices on the SACD sounded muffled compared to the Japanese pressing of the CD. Also the pinpointing of instrument placements in the stereo image was not as good an coherent from the SACD. The player a Pioneer 696 is a low budget player so it could be it. But I’ll crank up the manual and check so I haven’t done something stupid with the settings.

More testing tomorrow…

Proac clones finished! Almost…

May 14, 2007 by Jack Zimmermann Leave a Comment

So I finished putting my new diy speakers together. I still need to put veneer on them (probably going to use cherry) But they sound great! Yes, really great. I’m going to add the notch filter, just to try it out.

Proac Response 2.5 clones

April 23, 2007 by Jack Zimmermann 5 Comments

So I finally decided to go with the Proac Response 2.5 clone speakers. The original speaker costs $4400, but a very good copy or the original is possible to build for around $1000. It uses high quality Scan Speak speaker elements, and I bought them today. My friend Micke is also building a pair at the same time. So now I have four speakers standing in my livingroom. Everything is covered in MDF dust. Thankfully I have a very understanding wife.

So far we have put together the side and top walls. Today we glued the Bituben dampening material to all the walls (except the front baffle) I still feel faint and feel a stinging sensation in my fingers. Next time, gas masks. Anyway, we are moving along in a good pace. Hopefully we will have a pair of working speakers finished this weekend. The plan is to first finish the speakers, but not glue the back end so we can make adjustments to the stuffing and filtering. I also want to try different lengths of the bass reflex tube. Coming along nicely. But I’m still worried about doing the veneering.

Cyburg Needles Speakers

April 13, 2007 by Jack Zimmermann Leave a Comment

Here’s a quick picture of my finished Cyburg Needles speakers. First time I ever done any wood crafting, and they sound great! They are really easy to build. You can find the plans for them here (PDF warning).. Next up, a pair of Jordan Transmission Line speakers.

Update: I built a couple of ProAc Response 2.5 clones instead. They are incredible and sounds absolutely amazing!