Aviatrix build - Bamboo baffles

[LoveDoctor]

Greetings,

After a week of finding time to squeeze in some build time, my Aviatrix l/c/r's are finally done. MDF painted satin black, and bamboo ply 3/4" baffles. Sorry, no interior pics, since there isn't anything interesting and the crossovers are really sloppily soldered. To make these fit a sheet of MDF I already had, they are 19x11.5x6.5", slightly off from Wayne's build. These are sealed with the near/on-wall crossover resistors.

So far, I'm very impressed with the midbass coming out of these things. Very clean without being overpowering. As a bass player, I'm always critical of the lower range, and these are far superior to my previous ported TriTrix's (though for the price they couldn't be faulted).

I'm still tuning placement and receiver settings, and I don't trust the Yamaha YPAO auto-eq, so I will hold off on final judgement of the vocals and midrange. However, with "pure direct" (all eq and surround settings bypassed) they sound darn good so far.

Thanks again for Curt and Wayne's great service to the DIY community!

[arlis_1957@yahoo.com]

very nice. glad yoou like them.

[MrkCrwly]

Nicely done. I like the look of the bamboo baffle.
Congrats.

[mattk]

Very nice. How easy is the bamboo to work with?

[LoveDoctor]

Very nice. How easy is the bamboo to work with?

Not bad at all. This is my first foray into hardwood, and I just made slow passes with the router when flush trimming, rabbetting, and roundovering. Very little edge splitting/splintering, and almost no small particulate dust, so my lungs were much happier versus good ol' MDF. The baffles were cut from some leftover pieces of a bamboo plywood sheet from a local place here in Portland, OR that specializes in all types of bamboo applications (www.bamboorevolution.com).

No interior pics, but I did put some chamfered sections on the back side of the woofer cutouts to give some space around the basket vents so the backwave would have somewhere to go. It seemed a bit tight with 3/4" stock back there. Otherwise, a pretty straightforward build. The baffles are (semi)removable, but I used 8x32 hurricane nuts, and even with both wood glue and cyanoacrylate and pulling them through slowly with a bolt (rather than bashing with a hammer), I had a few back out on me. Not a big fan of these lil' things. So unless there is an emergency, the baffle ain't coming off.

I did some non-critical HT listening (Rome season II) last night and the imaging was fantastic. The center channel sounded much broader across the 3 main seating positions versus the old TriTrix (which wasn't bad). Since they go a bit deeper than my previous set, male vocals sounded deeper but more intelligible, since the sub is now crossed lower (60hz) and it doesn't need to muddily reproduce those frequencies. S's sounded a bit harsh, but I'm almost certain this is a receiver issue, since my TriTrixes sounded the same before I put my own tweaks into the EQ settings. I'm sure some break-in time will also help.

[robwest]

Nice! I've been eying that bamboo flooring for some cabinet use. Haven't seen it in ply sheets here.

[mizedog]

Greetings,

So far, I'm very impressed with the midbass coming out of these things. Very clean without being overpowering. As a bass player, I'm always critical of the lower range, and these are far superior to my previous ported TriTrix's (though for the price they couldn't be faulted).

Thanks again for Curt and Wayne's great service to the DIY community!

I second this remark! I've been playing guitar since the mid 70's, and bass since the mid 90's and I used to LOVE watching my pant legs flap on stage while diggin in hard. I loved the mid bass slapping out Brick House, or the growl of Carry On Wayward Son. So, hearing that these can produce some mid-bass is good. I just can't take the sound of treble w/ no fundimental (can you say Bose?). I've considered hooking my Eden 4x10 cabinet up just to see you it sounds since the Klipsch 12" sub is underwhelming.

[LoveDoctor]

I second this remark! I've been playing guitar since the mid 70's, and bass since the mid 90's and I used to LOVE watching my pant legs flap on stage while diggin in hard. I loved the mid bass slapping out Brick House, or the growl of Carry On Wayward Son. So, hearing that these can produce some mid-bass is good. I just can't take the sound of treble w/ no fundimental (can you say Bose?). I've considered hooking my Eden 4x10 cabinet up just to see you it sounds since the Klipsch 12" sub is underwhelming.

Just to set reasonable expectations, a pair of 5 inch mids ain't going to flap any pants. Clean midbass (which for bass guitar really means upper harmonics well above subwoofer range, even on the E string) is where these things shine. The impressive part of the AviaTrix is the way this part of the spectrum is produced by a relatively small enclosure.

My ol' dad has a set of Blose, and I'll agree on your take. No way to rock out to the Police when listening on those wee cubes. But Dad is happy, so I'll leave them be.