CurtPalme.com Home Theater Forum

tri_joel · Joined: 03 Jul 2007 Posts: 646 Location: Northern Virginia

My HT and my library will be one and the same. I have a BG1208 ceiling mounted and an electric Draper screen. THE screen rolls down in front of what will be a wall of book cases. I would like to build the left and right speakers into the stiles between the book cases, in other words the book cases will be the the speaker boxes. I have never built a speaker. I was going to buy some of those tall floor standing speakers and build them into the cases, but I just can't get the look I'm after.

I checked out AVS and they talk in a language I don't understand. Anyone have any suggestions? Is there a speaker kit ai can buy with the speakers, crossovers, and whatever I need to put inside the boxes? I am smart enough to know there is more to the box than flat sides, but not smart enough to figure out how to divide the box up. I don't want to end up with crappy sound. Any instruction, guidance, comments, are welcome, useful or not. Laughing

I have the book case carcasses together, I'll get some pics tonight.

Peace,
Joel

Nashou66 · Joined: 12 Jan 2007 Posts: 16171 Location: West Seneca NY

There are some very nice in wall speakers you could just pop in there like the phase technology CI series, nice sounding speaker with the flat piston technology.

Phase tech basically is a manufacture for many of the popular speaker companies and inventor of the soft dome tweeter. i ahve these for my everyday system and they sound great.
http://www.phasetech.com/products.html?product_id=CI-SURR
if you want a bit more performance and have more to spend these are a very nice sounding speaker for the front three , I might buy the boxed series fro my theater and sell my PC3's
http://www.phasetech.com/products.html?product_id=CI-110II

Athanasios

tri_joel · Joined: 03 Jul 2007 Posts: 646 Location: Northern Virginia

Those look like an easier and probably better way to go. There's also a dealer five miles from my house.

Thanks, I'll check them out.

Nashou66 · Joined: 12 Jan 2007 Posts: 16171 Location: West Seneca NY

Great sounding speaker, not many people know of them since they are sold only by dealers.

Athanasios

GEBrown · Joined: 08 Mar 2006 Posts: 729 Location: Denver

Here's a DIY option from PartsExpress

http://www.parts-express.com/projectshowcase/indexn.cfm?project=phantom

tri_joel · Joined: 03 Jul 2007 Posts: 646 Location: Northern Virginia

Thanks. I was browsing through parts express yesterday. Has enyone heard Dayton speakers before? Just wondering how well they perform.

Peace,
Joel

JustGreg · Joined: 07 Mar 2006 Posts: 3098 Location: Kenosha, WI

tri_joel · Joined: 03 Jul 2007 Posts: 646 Location: Northern Virginia

I'm going to check out the in-wall speakers Nashou recommended. I think I will be able to build them into the stiles of the cases for the L/R fronts. I haven't decided what to do about the center channel. I have eight foot ceiling and six foot screen. I was thinking about building the center channel into the crown moulding hiding the screen case. I can't mount the the screen in the ceiling because the floor joists run the wrong direction.

Peace,
Joel

paw · Joined: 08 Mar 2006 Posts: 1176 Location: Arvada, CO

You might what to look at using in wall speakers and building the bookcase to hold them. Here's one suggestion

http://www.atlantictechnology.com/default.asp?IsDev=False&NodeId=23

Take a look at the IWCB series. They are an enclosed in wall. So, no need to calculate what size "box" is needed behind them. Look closely at how they mount into the frame. The frame mounts into the wall and the speaker into the frame. The speaker attaches to the frame by screwing into tabs. You could build these tabs into your bookcase and eliminate the frame. These tabs will have to be recessed from the front of the cabinet to make the speaker box flush or even slightly recessed from the front of the cabinet. Then make a speaker grill out of thin hardboard and attach it do the bookcase with magnets. Parts Express sell those magnets. Actually them sell kits to make the entire grill.

Beware these are pricey speakers. $550 EACH and up. I don't believe these are available retail. Only though dealers. Amazon has some Atantic Tech speakers but not these. A search of the net will probably find someone to sell these to you. Even a local dealer will likely sell you a pair. If you ask nicely.

Atlantic Tech in walls also have "Boundary control to compensate for the upper bass/lower midrange buildup that occurs when a speaker is mounted near a ceiling or wall boundary, and there’s a three-position HF level control to adjust tweeter level for varying room acoustics." The boundary control can be quite useful to reduce the boominess that can result from putting speakers in something.

I'd also recommend you get the face of the speaker as close to the same plane as the front of the bookcase. In other words, don't mount it deep into the bookcase and leave a lip around the speaker. This can lead to defaction of the sound. It make the sound muddy and hard to understand voices, etc. Cup your hands around your mounth to hear the effect.

Another super company it Triad Speakers

http://www.triadspeakers.com/

They can be made to custom specs. These can be REALLY pricey. Many custom installers like these speakers.

Nashou66 · Joined: 12 Jan 2007 Posts: 16171 Location: West Seneca NY

Spanky Ham · Joined: 22 Mar 2006 Posts: 5643 Location: Comedy Central

Parts Express is legitimate. A lot of their speakers products are of good quality. Check out www.zaphaudio.com for some test on speaker drivers. If you are going to put speakers in a case, then you may want to check out htguide. I believe there is a DIY inwall speaker that might work for you.

tri_joel · Joined: 03 Jul 2007 Posts: 646 Location: Northern Virginia

Phase Technology CI-110 II = $699 each.

Wow. Looking at maybe building in somthing like the Polk RTi8. Anyone have these speakers? Comments?

**Curt Palme** · Posted: Tue Sep 23, 2008 5:02 pm Post subject:

My very nontechnical comment is that it's very hard to 'duplicate' the exact sound of a consumer speaker. Changes in cabinet dimensions, structure and material used will affect what you end up hearing. So will putting the identical speaker into a different room with different furniture, carpeting and dimensions.

Having said that though, assuming you have decent woodworking skills, no question that you can make something that far outperforms the average poorly constructed consumer speaker. Having seen blown speakers from JBL and Energy that were made within the last 5 years, gawd, it's rude what these companies get away with now and call it 'hi fi'. Complete crap. Tiny magnets. Plastic cabinets. Pure garbage.

tri_joel · Joined: 03 Jul 2007 Posts: 646 Location: Northern Virginia

Thanks Curt!

I have several years of woodworking experience building everything from custom furniture to framing houses.

You and Spanky Ham have encouraged me to try the parts express route. I'm not very confident about my crossover building skills so I found a plan on zaphaudio that I think will work well in my theater. I'll update in a few months when I get it together.

Thanks,
Joel

tri_joel · Joined: 03 Jul 2007 Posts: 646 Location: Northern Virginia

I received the speaker parts from parts express yesterday. I have to say that after initial inspection that they have a quality look and feel to them. I may be some dumb, but I ain't plumb dumb - so I will hold out on a real review until after after I have them put together and sound coming out of them.

My Bride, however, does not like the idea of putting them into the stiles. We have come up with a more better placement that will allow better placement. I will continue to update as I progress.

Anyone ever built their own speakers? I'm nervous about putting the crossovers together. It looks pretty straight forward. Hope I don't mess it up too much.

esl_57 · Joined: 18 Jul 2008 Posts: 28

I just noticed your thread.
I used the HiVi TN25 tweeter - $8.28 and the B4N woofer - $15.21, in an MTM (midrange - tweeter - midrange) configuration.
All 5 speakers use the same baffle, simplifiing the construction and ensuring that there is no tonal difference from front, to centre, to rear. I fussed with a few crossover designs but found that the parts wouldn't fit into the 0.2 cubic foot sealed enclosure.
Woofers wired in series for 16 ohms (trust me, your AV receiver will love it!) and a 4 micro farad capacitor in series with the tweeter.
Thats it! The tone is pleasant enough for this tube loving, electrostatic speaker, type guy and the lack of low pass filter on the woofer (a coil for 6db / octave slope) gets you back the 3db loss in efficiency that using one costs you.
Now the 2 woofer's, in close proximity to one another, add up in efficiency and the result is close to that of the tweeter so it is not nessisary to pad the tweeter down.
So... being 3 db more efficient means that you only need half the power for the same output but because you're providing a 16 ohm load to an amplifier that is usually rated into 8 ohms, you theoretically only have half the power potental.
You should be able to produce the same SPL but without stressing the AV receiver's supply!
You would of course be needing a sub woofer (i use 2 :-)

The baffles were cut from oak veneered plywood (i hate oak but you can get any trim imaginable in it).

You don't have to spend large to get good sound!
I'll post some pictures if your interested.

tri_joel · Joined: 03 Jul 2007 Posts: 646 Location: Northern Virginia

Thanks esl 57! I would love to see pics.

I separated all of the parts for the crossovers, and found that they shipped (4) 20 uF polys instead of one 80uF for the woofers (I'm doing a WTMW for the l/r fronts). I'm guessing these need to be in parallel vice series, or does it matter?

garyfritz · Joined: 08 Apr 2006 Posts: 12088 Location: Fort Collins, CO

Yes. Capacitors add when they're in parallel. Resistors add when they're in series.

It definitely matters! 4 20uF's in series would be 5uF, not 80!

tri_joel · Joined: 03 Jul 2007 Posts: 646 Location: Northern Virginia

Cool, thanks. I'm heading out to the shop now to start building the enclosures.

esl_57 · Joined: 18 Jul 2008 Posts: 28

80uf on the woofer??
It probably goes across the woofer so it's likely at leased a 12db / octave filter. How many components are in the low pass section (attached to the woofer)?

WTMW... is this a 3 way system with 2 woofers?

I'll size some shots and post them in a couple days.