New Speakers

I finally finished the new speakers I've been building for the past couple of months. The whole process took way longer than I'd anticipated, and naturally cost far more than I'd anticipated also.

They started out as sheets of MDF that I picked up locally at Suwanee Lumber, and slices of veneer that I ordered online at veneersupplies.com. If you're interested at all in veneer work, and don't have a local supplier, I strongly recommend checking them out.

These are the veneer slices I ordered from them:

I ordered a lot of 7 or 9 sheets (I forget) of these to use as the fronts and backs of the speakers. They measured about 48"x9" each. The wood is imbuya, and you can see it has an interesting burl pattern. I'd never heard of imbuya before, but it smells funny when you mill it, so be forewarned if you ever buy a board. The veneers weren't so bad, since you're never really creating any substantial sawdust.



I chose a complimentary imbuya burl veneer for the sides and tops. These sheets were about 100"x12", and I was expecting to get only 3 of them. They threw in a bonus sheet that had a pretty nasty split/tear about 16 inches long near one side (for free.) Since I didn't need the entire length for the center speaker, I just used the "bonus" sheet, so that worked out perfectly, and it left me with an extra sheet that I can save for another rainy-day project.



Rounding out the wood, I picked up about 20 board feet of 5/4 cherry, and about 6 board feet of 8/4 cherry, to be used as trim and for a base.

(I don't have any pictures of the cherry prior to it being milled. Sorry.)

I also purchased several miscellaneous speaker components, such as "grill guides", which you use to attach the speaker covers, terminal cups, binding posts, grill cloth, etc. I ordered the bulk of these from PartsExpress and MCM Electronics


A few dozen biscuits, more than a few quarts of glue, and about 2 months later...


I'm finally done. Mostly. They sound pretty decent - the bottom end on the towers is a bit "boomy" - i need to tweak that a little bit. Other than that I couldn't be more pleased.

Note for any "speaker builders" out there - you won't find any specs on drivers, crossovers, etc, from me. This was, at its heart, a woodworking project, wherein I happened to be building speaker cabinets.


Here are some pictures.


A full view of the speakers, sitting next to each other. Note the bookmatching (mirroring) of the front veneers - the rears are done similarly.



This is an angle view of one of the speakers. You can see where I burned the cherry with the flush-trim bit on the router. (the dark horizontal lines on the vertical piece of cherry.) Master woodworkers would say that's a "flaw" or "mistake". I say it's "character" and a "spontaneous design element".




Here are a couple pictures of the front speaker, which is made from the same wood, but which is smaller and horizontal, such that it will sit on top of the TV. In the picture on the right, you can see Judi's collection of small animal skulls (and a Bender toy. And a home-made Betty Boop "fisher price little people" figure.) These are purely decorative, and are not components of the speakers. But they do add a nice touch of class to an otherwise pedestrian livig room.





Here's a picture of the back, top, and sides. Not much to say about this one, other than that you can really see the figure of the wood in this particular photograph. So look at it.




Finally, here are a couple photographs of the speakers with the grill cloths on them. I made these myself, based on ideas in these instructions, using 2 layers of 1/4" MDF, with an extra 1/4" layer on the top and bottom where the pins fit in, which gave enough clearance to fit over the speakers. I wouldn't have had this problem if I'd taken the time to recess the speakers flush with the surface, but that seemed like far too much work. I also didn't make a cover for the center speaker, for a couple of reasons. First, it would cover the entire surface, and you wouldn't be able to see the figure on the wood. Second, since it sits on top of the TV, it's less likely to get run into by a wayward vaccuum cleaner handle, or attacked by a random animal or small child in a fit of rage.