Mike Dubay

In the back ground one of my KG4's in my work shop. What else to listen to when you are applying urethane. These were a donated pair of speakers, need some cross over repairs and recapping, but now sounding very nice. Thanks to Kevin from Flint!

Top cabs with squaker and tweets.

A close up of the backers that retain the t-nuts for securing the woofer.

Moved the top bass cabs to the basement for finishing. The part of wood working I dislike the most, applying finish. Went with a water based polyurethane. It has a very low odor, kind like a faint cigarette odor. What is nice is that it can be used indoors, in the basement, away from the shop dust in a controlled temperature. Here is the bass bin, with the painted sound board, and af ew coats of water based urethane. (a push pull 8714 project is in the back ground)

Top view of base.

Later the same week the small bases. They have t-nuts to accept adjustable legs for leveling.

So painting and veneering weekend. Spent one day blacking out the interiors, fronts, backs, and bottoms. Used laytex flat. Second day was a long thrash, started at 7 am on a Sunday morning, and completed the veneering by 8:30 pm. You can see the two bass bin in the back ground with out their sound boards.

And the rear "dog house" that house the DX-250 protruding from the back panel.

Back view of top cabs.

More dimensions and a cut list will be forth coming. The build went well over a 4 day period. Again the MDF was screwed together with counter sunk screws and urethane glue for an adhesive. Here are the top cabs with squakers installed.

So here is an image of the dimension for my top cab. The novel thing is the "dog house", which allows for the rear of the cab to be inclosed, but the DX-250 driver is covered. IMG.pdf

Thanks for the cool frequency response graphs. Jumping ahead, I made made my cross over points based on some comments by Mr. Crites. I ended up choosing 500 Hz and 4000 Hz, which fits well with your graphs. Working on some of my line drawings tonight.

I also very interested in a head to head comparasion between K-55 and the DX-250's. I will have to have a modified cross over to account for the differences between the 8 ohm DX-250's and the 16 ohm K-55's.

A third option I did not consider long is the low cost finish, felt on MDF. I though it would look too industrial. In the end function ended up playing a major role in my decision. I have done several project in both Birch veneer plywood, and MDF. I have formed an opinion that MDF tends to be a much more solid material to build speakers out of. The MDF is a deader material less prone to vibration. Others might have better luck with plywood that I. Just my opinion. Thus, oak veneer on MDF. The fronts of the speakers will be blacked out, so only the top of the top cabs and the cabs side will be veneered. So I went with two sheets of flat cut red oak from veneersupplies.com, and a 250 foot rool of iron on red oak edge banding . At this point a week long family vacation came up. I used this time to do detail line drawings of the cabs to flush out the design. Drawings to come.

The second option is MDF. The pluses of MDF is the density, I believe it is 3x as dense as plywoods. MDF can be assembled more easily than plywood. MDF is 'screwed and glued", counter sinked screws act as clamps join two boards that have been glued together. So no clamps. The counter sunk screws are then filled in and sanded flush. Veneering MDF opens up many choices in the many type of hard wood laminte. I believe this looks much nicer than birch veneer plywood. The negavtive is MDF is the mass, it is very heavy. This is going to be a large project, and using MDF will greatly increase the weight. Below is project consisting of MDF with an Oak veneer.

Next decision was materials of construction, came down to two choices: Birch Veneered Plywood or Medium Density Fiberboard (MDF) This was a tougher decision than I though. On the plus side for Birch veneer plywood: Much of the heritage Klipsch is make of Birch Plywood,WWKD. Some of the other positives with Birch Ply is that you can use the Birch as is for the final treatment, just stain and finish. Birch Ply is also much lighter than MDF. The down side of Birch Ply is that the looks of Birch is not that exciting. And it is difficult to complete a birch project with out damaging the birch veneer on the plywood. If you finish birch plywood as is, you also get the end laminations showing. Done right this can look nice. The only way I would see Birch veneer plywood being cheaper is to pait the project. I want a wood finish, so the lower cost of MDF is off set by having to veneer the project. So costs are a wash.

A final over all drawing. Two equal cabinets, plus a small stand on the bottom. The stand and the cabs will be separated by a blacked out 3/4 inch band. It will give the illusion of the cabs floating on each other in low light conditions.

I was just fine and very sane, but Kevin from Flint had me listen to his K-horns with Mac amplification. AAAARRRRGGGGHHHH!! At least I now have a very high bar to attain and some thing to become complusive about. Just wait 'till you come back to Flint and hear the newly renovated Khorns! I can't keep myself out of the basement!--Kevin I take it that the wood horn lens turned out well?

Tony, Veneering is not as difficult as it sounds. Go a head and do a small project before you tackle project as large as this. IMHO Go with paper backed veneer. I use contact cement for large surfaces. Purchase matching edge banding with the heat actived backing. Go with premium veneer for a project such as this, and pay more for consecutive sheets from the same tree.

I was just fine and very sane, but Kevin from Flint had me listen to his K-horns with Mac amplification. AAAARRRRGGGGHHHH!! At least I now have a very high bar to attain and some thing to become complusive about.

"I know you're enjoying building them.." Yes, I enjoy working in my wood working shop. Coupling that with my enjoyment of audio it was a fun project. This project has been nearly 5 months of on again and off again fabrication. Mostly weekends. The was also countless hours spent researching and designing prior to this. There was also time spent waiting for periodic infusions of cash. In the end it dragged a bit which is common for me in a large project. Either I take a break for a week or two, or push hard to finish. The listening expectations where high, so had to push hard and see them to completion.

"The dimensions you gave for your bins ... is that external dimensions ... based on 3/4 ply ... or is that internal dimensions." These are external dimensions, based on 3/4 inch ply wood. But there is also and extra 3/4 inch in depth for the recessed grills "What is the latest figure for internal volume of a Cornscala Bass Bin?? I was just about to start sifting through all the threads ... figure I will start my research here by asking you." I came up with 6.35 cubic feet, but you have to subtract internal bracing, the woofer volume, and the port from this number. I followed the link below pretty closely for my bass bin, with some slight adjustments to cab size. I just did not do the attached top bin. http://forums.klipsch.com/forums/storage/4/1071530/cs4.pdf Cool top hat, it took a surprise infusion of cash to drive this project to the eventual end.

I gave some thougt to what would be the final dimensions of the top cab should be. The bass cab was determined to be 25.25 in wide and 24 inches high, 23.5 deep. I do scale drawings to get a good general impression of what a wood working item is going to look like. I did scale drawings of bass cabs with horn cabs: 1) 14.4 inchs in height (the golden ratio to the bass bin), 2) what would just fit my squaker and tweeter, 20.5 inches in height. 3) cabs of equal heights (24 inches) 4) A golden ratio with a stand alone tweeter cab measuring 7.5 by 7.5 inches. My squaker horn would have just fit insdie he golden ratio cab. The "just fits" drawing looked wrong to me, the upper cab just slightly shorter than the bottom. Although the cabs with the separate tweeter looked interesting, I tend to go to more of a less cluttered look to my furniture. So I ended up going with the cabs of equal heights, drawing 3.

Thanks Pete. My problem is not the sustained effort, but the time to put the effort forth. Work seems to take up so much more of the day than what I remember in the past. But the end is such a reward when you are done and you know you did the project, that is what drives me.

. Sure thing Kevin, That is one sweet looking turn table in your avitar. Who makes it?Mike, that's my JVC TT installed in a plinth I made this summer. I bought another JVC TT that I'm going to build a similar plinth for out of oak to match the Khorns.-kevin After you do the onesin oak, you should go wild and paint flames on the red one, would go with your vette[]