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35$ MWM base bin from discarded plywood


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Hello All

 

Been a while since I have posted but I thought I should thank some of the folks that offered their help with the MWM bass bin. Thanks goes out to Michael, JC, Dtel, Claude and all of the others that gave me the info to help with the build of this MWM-s. The wood is left over pieces from a house a friend of mine built last year, the material is Advantec sheet plywood and a bit of 5/8 plywood that was used for the motorboard, hatch, and hatch cover. There is one piece of cdx used for the bottom as I didn't have enough of the other to complete the bin. the woofer is a K33 that is of 1990 vintage that I had laying around, the 35$ is just for the hardware, PL adhesive, screws and other small parts. My plan was to build this for outdoor use come spring but I got an early start on the first day of winter. Most was done outside and I think I just beat the cold deadline. I managed to paint it last Saturday with a temperature of 32 degrees using Rustolium flat black and about 20% acetone. I have been using a Belle Klipsch on one channel and the MWM with an AA network on the other and using the balance to adjust. It seems to work quite nice and if I ever sell a pair of Klipschorns I may spend some money to buy some plywood and build another pair or two.

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Looks good, how do you like the sound, compared to the others you have ?

 

To me I just love the bass the MWM makes, it sounds correct and effortless (imo), although it does take a lot of space. I use a pair of singles for outside and it really sounds great, everything else I tried outside had a real problem making decent bass, not these, there perfect for giant spaces and without a lot of power. To give you an idea I could easily aggravate the neighbors if not careful where there pointed and this is 6 acres with the closest neighbors being 500' away. With a little crown D-75 with about 30 or so WPC it is easy to hear well over that distance, and sounds good.

 

From what I have been told there is not a lot of difference from 1 bin to 2 singles for each side. Eventually build another and try a single on each side first, I built 4 for 2 channels (for inside) partly because I liked the way it looked and to get the height to set the top horn on but it may have not been needed, there is no shortage of bass. 

 

Nice looking speakers in the pic, I would think it's not hard for people to realize your hobby when they come over. :D

Edited by dtel
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Hi Dtel

 

   With the Belle sitting on top, there is no comparison, not surprisingly it just goes deeper. I had tried pulling the Belle woofer off of the of the Belle's AA crossover and substituting the MWM-s and I didn't miss the Belles bass bin but I had another AA to put on the MWM-s so the Belle's bass bin has been reconnected to it's AA network  I am just using the balance on the Pioneer A80 to adjust the amount of bass I want, Its in the center of the Klipschorns and when I drive them all its hard to distinguish which is doing what. For the most part, I am just playing the Belle and MWM-s in mono as the "radio" during the day. When I had just the initial flair in the 2nd reply I set it up on the back porch as a straight horn with a pair of sides and covered the top with some plywood (no screws or glue) and used the HK 30 watt receiver. I walked out 600 feet and the sound was still good, I was able to get out 900 feet and still had acceptable fidelity. when I got back to the house I got in the truck and drove over to the beach about a quarter mile away and I was able to just hear it over the noise of a Saturday afternoon. It will be just the thing to drown out the volume of the street noise of the busy street I live on. :)

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From what I have been told there is not a lot of difference from 1 bin to 2 singles for each side.

 

My experience has been that they sound "nice" outside as a single.  When plugged together as a double it adds a bit more weight to the bottom end.  It doesn't double it or anything dramatic however, it is EASILY noticable and is definately better (with twin drivers over single driver)

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Hello All

 

Been a while since I have posted but I thought I should thank some of the folks that offered their help with the MWM bass bin. Thanks goes out to Michael, JC, Dtel, Claude and all of the others that gave me the info to help with the build of this MWM-s. The wood is left over pieces from a house a friend of mine built last year, the material is Advantec sheet plywood and a bit of 5/8 plywood that was used for the motorboard, hatch, and hatch cover. There is one piece of cdx used for the bottom as I didn't have enough of the other to complete the bin. the woofer is a K33 that is of 1990 vintage that I had laying around, the 35$ is just for the hardware, PL adhesive, screws and other small parts. My plan was to build this for outdoor use come spring but I got an early start on the first day of winter. Most was done outside and I think I just beat the cold deadline. I managed to paint it last Saturday with a temperature of 32 degrees using Rustolium flat black and about 20% acetone. I have been using a Belle Klipsch on one channel and the MWM with an AA network on the other and using the balance to adjust. It seems to work quite nice and if I ever sell a pair of Klipschorns I may spend some money to buy some plywood and build another pair or two.

Thanks, I use pictures like this to show my wife how reasonable my speakers are.

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garyeanderson, on 08 Jan 2015 - 12:13 PM, said:

Hi Dtel

 

   With the Belle sitting on top, there is no comparison, not surprisingly it just goes deeper. I had tried pulling the Belle woofer off of the of the Belle's AA crossover and substituting the MWM-s and I didn't miss the Belles bass bin but I had another AA to put on the MWM-s so the Belle's bass bin has been reconnected to it's AA network  I am just using the balance on the Pioneer A80 to adjust the amount of bass I want, Its in the center of the Klipschorns and when I drive them all its hard to distinguish which is doing what. For the most part, I am just playing the Belle and MWM-s in mono as the "radio" during the day. When I had just the initial flair in the 2nd reply I set it up on the back porch as a straight horn with a pair of sides and covered the top with some plywood (no screws or glue) and used the HK 30 watt receiver. I walked out 600 feet and the sound was still good, I was able to get out 900 feet and still had acceptable fidelity. when I got back to the house I got in the truck and drove over to the beach about a quarter mile away and I was able to just hear it over the noise of a Saturday afternoon. It will be just the thing to drown out the volume of the street noise of the busy street I live on. :)

A couple of times I turned it up to see what it would do but apparently not as much as you did. :o  :lol:   For the most part I put them out in the yard if I will be out there working all day and it's not going to rain the next couple days, or for a party. 

 

I use them similar to you, it's diy cabinets like a split LaScala tops, same exact drivers and AA crossovers, just using the MWM bin instead of the Lascala bottom. Which is a huge difference in bass especially outdoors where it takes a lot to make decent bass. I rarely separate them, it's one stack sitting on a frame with casters, I pick the frame up with everything on top using the tractor with forks on the front and just set it where ever I need them.

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I culled some of the photos and put together a few of the build. It was not a particularly hard bin to cut and assemble but I still made some dumb mistakes in the process. I had fun building it even with the couple of oops in the process and I don't think the sound waves know  what I messed up so all is good with me.

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Anarchy Boy

The car on the back porch is a 1969 Lotus Elan. 

 

Mungkiman

I am still around but no longer have internet at home so my involvement on this site (and others) is limited.

 

Fuzzy Dog

No wife and my old Yellow Lab does not complain about much except not getting to go with me when I go for a drive so most times he comes along.

 

Turbox

Just scratch it and it will be all better

 

Mdeneen

no one else noticed that I had the volume up a bit, no one around most of the winter. when I walked to the edge of the street in the front yard it was not loud at all

 

Coytee

twins sounds like fun!

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It was not a particularly hard bin to cut and assemble but I still made some dumb mistakes in the process.

 

It's not really that hard, it's just the size, turning things over or moving it around as you put it together helps to have help. It's really a simple design that works very well, I would love to see the same design with a 6" driver and everything to that scale, that would be cool. 

 

I really like the sound and the 4 singles we use inside, they barely get warmed up and can shake the house if needed. Think about this, it's rated for 250 WPC and I rarely get to a full watt or a few on crazy occasions !  I once connected a T-amp (original $30 design) to the yard speakers and easily got 100 Db at 100', efficiency is where it's at. :lol:

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  • 6 months later...

   I have not been doing a lot as of late with this audio hobby but thought I would get back to it. I got some more free plywood this summer and thought I would get another MWM bin started. A friend gave me a couple of birch cut off pieces, I also pulled some of this project out of a dumpster and cut the hatch opening, motor board, and initial flair from that. Spent $25 more on screws, glue, T nuts and bolts. Now I need to get two sheets for the top and bottom. Not shown are the sides and back. I can get a couple of sheets of Advantec for about $50 or buy birch for more. Next week I'll go shopping and decide. :)

 

                                                     Gary

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Glad to see your back on it.

 

One tip you said T nuts, one thing to remember is where the T nuts are is not assessable once you finish building. If any of the T nuts fall out when trying to bolt in the driver there is no way to get to it.

Klipsch used kind of a t nut with two ears with screws so it could not be pushed back out. I couldn't find anything like that so I just added a piece of wood with holes for the bolts to go through. This way I couldn't push out a T nut by accident, the wood was glued and screwed over the back of the t nuts.................see pic

 

Personally I don't think it matters what kind of wood you use, it's not like they will be used to run test on them  :lol: as long as it doesn't vibrate your good, especially for blasting the neighbors on that hill across the area behind your house. :o  :D   

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  • 3 weeks later...

dtel

 

   Glad you offered up the info in the captive T nuts. I took some pictures of part of the assembly of the motor board.  I used a K33 to locate where I wanted the holes and marked those and drilled a 1/16 pilot hole, then I used a 3/4 inch forstner bit to counter bore for the T nuts. With a 5/16 brad point I finished the holes and drove in the T nuts which were now flush with the face of the plywood. When I nibbed off the corners of the motor board, I used those pieces to captivate the T nuts and secured with glue an 1 1/4 inch brads. the final steps were to drill through the captive plates so the bolt won't push off the T nut covers.

    I made the decision last week and bought 2 sheets of birch plywood, It was more money than I wanted to spend but I justified that by the fact that I would also get a pair of Klipschorn tops. Most of the parts are cut and I hope to start assembling them shortly.

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  • 3 weeks later...

I had some time this morning and got back to working on the second MWM bass bin. I wanted to get some finish on the areas that are difficult to get at before gluing and screwing it together. I used about a quart of brushable  lacquer to apply 3 coats to 8 of the 12 parts that make up the bass bin, I taped off any surface that would be glued and sprayed them. When the parts were dry, I started to glue and screw. It was starting to get warm so I called it a day and hope to thing further along tomorrow.

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Had some time this morning and set things up outside. I have a bit more than $35 in this build, probably closer to $200 for the MWM bass bin in birch with the lacquer finish. I hope to get this swapped inside with the $35 version soon. The last photo shows the back of the shed with the high frequency cab just visible, Crazy Train by Ozzy came on so I turned it up a bit and walked out to listen. My Goodness, my neighbors may not be happy with me :)

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