have you had good results sealing with shelac ? I've thought of using shelac to seal wood things I make to try and avoid the grain swelling that seems to happen with every other method I've tried
Wow, that is great craftsmanship!
Yes. It covers well and sands easily and perfectly (even by a first timer). But working time is very short, so use roller instead of brush. Also avoid going too thick as it tends to remain soft if thick and then clog in sanding.
Thank you!
Thank you. I cannot say it was easy. This is my first attempt, so a lot of lessons learned. Also, this is all (except wood cutting and routing) done in a small flat. I call it ‘hand made in London. On a dining table’.
They look amazing!
You did a very good job.
I understood this project (I followed from the beginning) as self educating lecture, to start based on a commercial available speaker and 'do it all right' in refurbishing. The results until now are very promising (we have seen lots of other outcomes (or better: start an implode, here), my respect!
Respectfully disagree. The way VituixCAD works is that you have to measure the actual drivers in the actual enclosures first. They are very extensive full polar measurements taken outside on a turntable. You also take measurements of the actual impedance of your drivers in your enclosures. This information is then input into the program and then you start on the crossovers. Compared to trial and error it is very powerful with much better results.
The biggest problem for DIY speaker building is getting accurate measurements. Measurements taken inside are inherently inaccurate due to reflections from the walls even with gating and all the other tricks. That is why speaker companies use either anechoic chambers or a Kipple machine. For DIY the best we can do is take measurements outside as far away from any reflective surfaces as possible. The turntable I referred to is for the speakers (not your LP's) because you need to take measurements every 10 degrees off access for each driver so there is a lot of "turning" of the speaker (leaving the MIC stationary). The impedance measurement is used to confirm the resonant frequency of the drivers but as you say for active crossovers is less important than for passive. What is extremely powerful is than once you get these measurements into the CAD program you can experiment with different crossover slopes and crossover points and crossover styles and instantly get results not just "on axis" but also "off access" and "directivity" and much much more. It is simply not practical to take these advanced outdoor measurements on a trial and error basis. After you get one or several crossover designs you like in the program then you can go back outside and test them and optimise some more or use them. If you want to read more of what ViruixCAD can do and how to use it you can read through the documentation that I linked to.
I am at this stage now. I have done the initial far field sweeps (indoors) and with some help managed to import the driver response into vcad. I find vcad challenging.
2m mic distance, at respective driver height, other drivers muted. Same REW level for all drivers. Woofers both playing. The room is 4m x 5.5m approx, so very small.
