Faceted gloss black Hitmakers, speaker stands and subwoofer

[a4eaudio]

I finally completed these speakers for my son who is a junior in college. Thanks to Paul Carmody for the design, these sound EXCELLENT! The pictures don't really do them justice, I took the pictures the day my son was picking them up and found out when I went to post them that I have some focus issues with my camera so I was limited to those that actually turned out okay. (Also, some pretty obvious finger prints and smudges that weren't cleaned off.)

The goal was to try piano gloss black but I ran into so many problems that I will just call them gloss black. At one point I was so frustrated with trying the piano gloss black that I almost just gave up and went flat black. With some good advice from Wolf I used some VHT Nite-shades lens tint (basically black tinted lacquer) and they came out nice.







The speakers with primer only really show off the facets.

[a4eaudio]

To make things harder on myself, in addition to the facets and rear mounting the woofer, I also added a 45 degree chamfer on the back side. The port is built into a brace and has a 1/2" roundover on both ends. Since the woofer is mounted to the inside of the baffle I needed a removable back so I went with some fancy curves to emphasize the port and the Speakon connectors. I made some custom cables using techflex, cable pants, Sewell Pro Maestro banana plugs and painted the Speakon connector to match. Lined with a knock-off Dynamat damping material and cheap mattress topper. I tried to make the crossover boards nice too, gloss black with the same 45 degree chamfer even though no one will ever see them.






Speaker stands are the same gloss black with 45 degree chamfers, made of scrap wood and MDF along with some 2" dowels, attached with some hefty lag bolts (can't remember how long). Top has a 1/8" neoprene rubber adhered with 3M adhesive to prevent slipping and scratching. Filled with kitty litter they weigh 23 lbs each.

[a4eaudio]

I did not intend on making a subwoofer but I had picked up an new Infinity 1260W on eBay for $60 with free shipping (I don't think the seller really knew what they had, the shipping had to be $30) and it was sitting in my basement. I painted the dust cap with flat black primer to match the DA175s and did a similar, but not identical, facet on the front and 45 degree chamfers on the back. At this point I was sick of the piano gloss nightmare and just went with satin black and told my son to keep the subwoofer out of sight. I used a slot port with a 1/2" roundover. I created some threads about trying to power it with a 1x500 watt Sure amplifier board but gave up and bought an open box Bash 300 + $10 discount code. It turns out my son is going to be living in an apartment with a few roommates (I thought they were sharing a house) so I told him NOT to use it and instead store it in my basement so as not to be evicted or arrested. He is not using them for movies, so the speakers will do fine without a sub anyways.






Overall, a great learning experience with the facets and gloss black and I look forward to trying piano gloss again in the future.

[Wolf]

I'm glad that worked out for you! I really like the VHT Nite-Shades stuff for a black finish top-coat. It just does what I want it to do.
Later,
Wolf

[KEtheredge87]

Dang man. Those look excellent. Definitely be proud of your efforts.

[ceiol]

beautiful 2.1 set

I like how you put the plate amp on the removable panel. that way if it fails in the future, it's easy enough to switch to a different plate amp

[Drummer]

The cute little Pommie is looking at the relatively gargantuan sized noise box, and thinking evil thoughts! Those look fantastic, and I bet they sound great with the sub to fill the bottom. You made them look far better than quite a number of high end mix monitors that I've been in studios with. Great gift for your son. Glenn.

[Jake]

Really nice work. Beautiful keepsake from dad ;)

[djg]

As my old art teacher would say, you have defied the medium. Which is to say, you made MDF look like molded plastic. Nice.

[bungelow_ed]

I really am inspired and impressed by the details you incorporated. Very impressive! Not sure I would go to that much effort for either of my sons, but I can see how it's easy to get carried away in the moment. Looking back on speakers I've built for my sons, maybe I'd do the same.

[wogg]

Fantastic work! They look really good, gloss black is tough to pull off.

...Not sure I would go to that much effort for either of my sons, but I can see how it's easy to get carried away in the moment...

LOL, me neither, not yet anyway. They'd end up destroyed or pawned Eventually he'll stabilize a bit more and he'll get some good speakers.

[a4eaudio]

Thanks everyone for the nice comments!

I like how you put the plate amp on the removable panel. that way if it fails in the future, it's easy enough to switch to a different plate amp

I originally had a nice clean panel with an IEC plug and power switch combo + RCA-in Neutrik connector and the Sure amp and Mean Well power supply inside. Somehow I fried the Sure amp. BUT...I had checked the measurements of the Yung 300w, BASH 300w and Dayton 250w plate amps and made the panel large enough for the biggest one. About the only thing where my planning worked out LOL.

As my old art teacher would say, you have defied the medium. Which is to say, you made MDF look like molded plastic. Nice.

I had some pics of the in-progress build but the forum gave me errors and I didn't try to re-size them to fix whatever the error was. But they are 3/4" birch plywood. Which of course made it even harder for seams not to show on the facets. Lots of bondo and primer. I guess bondo is pretty much like plastic so I'm not sure if I made ply-wood look like molded plastic or plastic look like molded plastic

[craigk]

Very nice.looking speakers. Need to bring them to dayton. I would really like to hear them.