Project to be named later...

[johnnyrichards]

A small, 2-way buyout based desktop speaker. This is being built as a birthday present for my wife. It uses a 4.5" Vifa woofer (PE part number 299-492, NLA) and the Atlantic Technology 1" neo tweeter (PE part number 279-234) with a crossover point rather high at 4500 Hz. This is a vented design, with extension into the low 80's, and utilizes a 4th order LR crossover centered at 4500 Hz. The small diameter of the woofer and small flange of the tweeter mitigates most of the high crossover point issues though, due to the close C-T-C spacing.

It will be powered with a 2.1 channel micro amp I bought off eBay. Some point in the future, I will add a small subwoofer when I figure one out.

http://techtalk.parts-express.com/picture.php?albumid=294&pictureid=2536

[jerryanderson]

John! Is there a cabinet amongst all them bar clamps!!!!!!:D Went to the Home Depot in Sioux City today and picked up a couple of 1/4 sheets of MDF today. Gonna start work on a 2-way project next week. MDF sure likes to jump in price every time you turn around....ssshhheeees!

[johnnyrichards]

John! Is there a cabinet amongst all them bar clamps!!!!!!:D Went to the Home Depot in Sioux City today and picked up a couple of 1/4 sheets of MDF today. Gonna start work on a 2-way project next week. MDF sure likes to jump in price every time you turn around....ssshhheeees!

I am tentatively calling this little project "Clampzilla". Naming will ultimately be the wife's responsibility - they are hers, after all :)

MDF is always going up! Aggravating.:mad:

[arlis_1957@yahoo.com]

coca-cola and titebond! why did'nt i think of that:D

[robwest]

3/4", 4x8, MDF is still about $28 here at our Lowe's. Still way cheaper than hard-wood!

[johnnyrichards]

My poor little tablesaw lacks the stability to rip 4x8 sheets, so I pay for the 1/4 sheets. They are ~$9 per, right now. I bought eight sheets a few months ago when I saw they were on sale at Menards for $5 or so.

[arlis_1957@yahoo.com]

the home depot off of 12th st. will rip a full sheet to order at no extra cost.

[robwest]

That's a good sale price.;)

[johnnyrichards]

Thats why I bought eight of them :D

I gotta start watching the sales agin, I am running low on materials - nice problem to have!

[jerryanderson]

1/4 sheet MDF at Sioux City "Home Depot" is $10.38 a quarter sheet. They were soooo badly curved, I had a heck of a time finding a couple of nice straight ones:mad: Did get a nice price on a Weber cover for my Weber grill for six bucks!! Got a new saw blade at Menards also, the ol Freud was on it's last leg. Going to try a Irwin marathon for a change

[johnnyrichards]

All primered up... Yeah, my router and I are still getting to know each other :)
http://techtalk.parts-express.com/picture.php?albumid=294&pictureid=2558

Wife wants a gloss finish, so believe it or not there are two cans of black primer, one can of sealer primer and most of a can of red primer on those right now. LOTS of sanding. Lots and lots of sanding. I have sanded since I took this picture.

Also, I moved the X-over point down to ~3500 Hz. Things are happier now.

[robwest]

Hot pink! That ought to contrast well with the silvery W. Have you thought about painting the T face-plate to match?

[arlis_1957@yahoo.com]

she will love them. they will be adorable.

[johnnyrichards]

Hot pink! That ought to contrast well with the silvery W. Have you thought about painting the T face-plate to match?

I am a very lucky man in that my wife is not a "color me pink" kind of girl.

She wants Kelly green.

The amp will be painted to match, of course :)

[johnnyrichards]

she will love them. they will be adorable.

Women crack me up. She looks at them and says: "They're huge!". These are the smallest speakers I have ever built, and they use the smallest woofer I have ever used. They are a funny breed.

[st_one]

Finally, a design using the vifa buy-out! Looking forward to your listening impressisons. Might have to dust off the NIB pair in the closet and make something out of them.

[johnnyrichards]

1/4 sheet MDF at Sioux City "Home Depot" is $10.38 a quarter sheet. They were soooo badly curved, I had a heck of a time finding a couple of nice straight ones:mad: Did get a nice price on a Weber cover for my Weber grill for six bucks!! Got a new saw blade at Menards also, the ol Freud was on it's last leg. Going to try a Irwin marathon for a change

$10.38 a 1/4 sheet? Whew.

[johnnyrichards]

Crossover waiting for solder (in other words, I am lazy)
http://techtalk.parts-express.com/picture.php?albumid=294&pictureid=2559

Gloss "Meadow Green" from Rustoleum. The picture doesn't show how GREEN they really are. They match the cap, that is how green they are. Like, crayola green. Testors model paint green. Green, so green. I hope my wife has a cool name picked out for these, because I am now naming them: "&^$&^#*@(*&%^ gloss finish? Are you *&*)(Y crazy?"
http://techtalk.parts-express.com/picture.php?albumid=294&pictureid=2560

Start final assembly on Sunday, or Monday after work. I want that glossy paint to have plenty of time cure before I screw it up :)

[johnnyrichards]

Finally, a design using the vifa buy-out! Looking forward to your listening impressisons. Might have to dust off the NIB pair in the closet and make something out of them.

Don't expect much lol. This is a bare-bones design with a fairly minimalist crossover. Six components, and one of those is probably unnecessary. The 1 ohm padding resistor on the tweeter is the one component you could probably dispose of if you wanted to save another $2.50.

In full range listening, free-air the Vifa/Infinity sounds... ok. I didn't notice the little hump at 1.6k but then again my ears are not super well-trained. I prefer to keep them that way, too. I want to listen to the music, not the speakers.

The FR is similar to something I know I like from a few other projects, so it is pretty much down to distortion performance of the little woofer.

That Atlantic Technology tweeter is a steal, incidentally. I should just buy about ten of them.

[johnnyrichards]

http://techtalk.parts-express.com/picture.php?albumid=294&pictureid=2566

Crossover details in my album. Dimensions are 6"w x 10"h x 9-1/2"d with 3/4" front, rear and top and bottom. Sides are 1/2" MDF. A single brace runs from side to side. Ported using the 1.5" flared port trimmed to 3-1/4" A handful of stuffing in the bottom of the cabinet.

This design doesn't handle high volume very well, this is inherent to the design. I traded power handling for better extension since this is in an office environment. It is doubtful if I a will be allowed to add a subwoofer down the road. If you don't mind crossing over a subwoofer insanely high (~200Hz), you could build these even smaller and go sealed. They will probably play very much louder then :)

[robwest]

Very nice! Painted the amp too, huh? Cool!

[czag]

Like the color.

BTW, Home Depot will do 2 cuts for free, so buy 4x8 and they will cut down to 2x4 for free.

Chris

[johnnyrichards]

Thanks Rob. My wife loves em lol.

Chris, I may have to start doing that. This hobby can be very cheap but once you get into the cheap state of mind it is hard to get out of it lol.

[Pete00t]

What are your opinions for that little amp you used? Good enough for Pc and near field every day listening?

[johnnyrichards]

What are your opinions for that little amp you used? Good enough for Pc and near field every day listening?

Have only powered it up so far, I don't have a dedicated power supply for it yet.

[MrkCrwly]

Those really turned out nice. Painting the amp to match looks very classy. Well done.

[johnnyrichards]

Those really turned out nice. Painting the amp to match looks very classy. Well done.

thank you, sir!

[joshua]

Nice looking project. How about: Green, w/Envy ?

[johnnyrichards]

I named them "Genius Choice", a reference to the movie "Meet the Parents".

The little amp is a POS, but with some patience with the bass and treble knobs, and using the WMP equalizer we got them to sound similar to the way they sounded running off of my Audiosource Amp100. She is happy.

[ikymagoo]

nice!!! how do you like those little amps found on ebay?

[johnnyrichards]

nice!!! how do you like those little amps found on ebay?

The Tripath based amp is tolerable, but the non-tripath Lepai amps are pretty terrible. With some patience on the EQ and tuning it in and some realistic expectations they are worth every penny though.

For the low level listening wifey does at work, it is just fine.