My Swope Tower HT Build

[FourForty]

Re: My Swope Tower HT Build

Congratulations jdusterjansen , your speakers came out beautiful , I was planning to build these speakers but I did not find to many builds, but now I think going to commit after seen some builds surfacing to the forum. Let me ask you, how do they sound? I know Mr. Carmody is a talented designer ( I built Sprite and Voxel ) but then I was surfing AC forum , founded the Pioneer sp-BS22 saw all the accolades then commit, did the modification by Mr, Murphy and it is an outstanding speaker, now don't know what to do. Swopes or Pioneer?

[jdusterjansen]

Re: My Swope Tower HT Build

I have not moved them where they are going to live yet so I don't know how they will interact with the space. They are set up in the unfinished basement in the wifes workout area for now. Still finishing up the last TM's (Sides) and the sub. Just about finished though. So far I am very happy with them. I too have built a bunch of Pauls designs. The speedsters and the Overnight Sensation and I agree wonderful voicing. I have been blown away with what I ended up with on every occasion.

I can only compare them to what I have now. Most of my store bought stuff is Klipsch Reference series. RF82 and a set of RF52's as well as a bunch of bookshelfs (Bought them before I got into this hobby)
I find that the Swopes are much less "Shouty" when you crank them up. They sound much more balanced or comfortable to listen too. I am sorry I lack the vocabulary to explain what I think.
In a nut shell they destroy the Klipsch in my opinon. The Klipsch get fatiguing to the ear after a while where as I can sit and listen to these towers for hours pretty loud and I don't get tired of it.
One thing I really noticed is I can handle a couple of songs loud with the Klipsch then its like "that's enough need a rest." The Swopes on the other hand i keep searching for the next song and don"t want to turn it down.

Again i am not 100% finished yet so I can't give you a "home theater" opinon. I will though when I get them done.

[jdusterjansen]

Re: My Swope Tower HT Build

Build Update:

I have been horribly busy lately with work and family stuff. I was at the summer place first week in February and managed to get all the hardwood done. Also managed to finish all the trim and baseboards. Now the painting next time I head out.

Since then though I have been trying to get these speaker done and made good progress. My Swope Tower HT is complete sans sub.

I took Paul's Advice and cut the port off 1" and it fixed my bass issue. Now it is just right I think. Listening to the two towers A/B I can hear a touch more bass in the shorter port one.

So in total I have all 7 speakers complete. 2 Towers, 1 Center, 4TM's (rears/sides). I have measured all of them to the best of my ability at this point and compared them to Paul's original responses and from what I can tell in my less than ideal measuring room (wifes workout area ) they are pretty close to what he designed. I did manage to find a polarity issue in the the one tower speaker that is now fixed. I have listened to them all a bit here in there and they all sound pretty good but my favorite so far is the towers. They have a very nice evenness too them. I can only compare them to my Klipsch Reference series I have now (RF 82's) and they sound more pleasant to me. Let me tell yo there is nothing more satisfying than building something with your own two hands, with a great design by Paul, that sound better in my opinion than store bought speakers that retail at twice the price. Very happy to say the least.

I have been listening to them on and off since the beginning of this build but I have been using the very poor internal sound card in my 10 year old laptop. I used a Music Streamer II External DAC for measuring them however it resides in my office most of the time so if I wasn't measuring I was just using the headphone out Jack for listening while I was working. Today I made a point of going down to the basement and listening with the DAC and was once again pleasantly surprised. Too bad the kids were in bed otherwise i would of had it a lot louder. I will give some further listening impressions of the set once I get them moved to their permanent location.

Anyway have a look at this Wall of speakers.



Some of you may be thinking, "That is weird, why do the two TM's have thier wire terminals on the side?" The reason is that they will be laying on their backs behind the couch pointed up. This was the best I could do for rear channels as the railing is directly behind the couch.

So now I am working on the sub. As I said in an earlier post I screwed up. Built the 2cuft ported box for an Ultimax 10" sub. I somehow ordered a 12". Ooops. Anyway a 4cuft vented box was out of the question. Simply too big for where it was going. I pounded out the slot port that I made in the box as well as all the bracing to start fresh with a 2cuft box. I added a bunch of bracing again for the sealed unit however I did not want to build a new baffle for it so I opted to put a back on the port so it still looks similar to the towers however the port will not actually function. The 500W Dayton amp will not reside inside the box. I made a false back on the back of the enclosure to house the amp portion of the box. Anyway the box sits with its first coat of primer on it ready for some sanding.



I will update again once I get the sub complete and have a listen.

Jeremy.

[MattB101]

Re: My Swope Tower HT Build

Jeremy, Been following since the beginning. Outstanding job. This is exactly what I plan on building once I get the wood shop set back up after our move to Florida. Keep up the great work. Do you think you could post a final drawing once your all the way done so those of us that are hoping to copy your design can incorporate the changes made into our builds? Thanks,
Matt

[jdusterjansen]

Re: My Swope Tower HT Build

Jeremy, Been following since the beginning. Outstanding job. This is exactly what I plan on building once I get the wood shop set back up after our move to Florida. Keep up the great work. Do you think you could post a final drawing once your all the way done so those of us that are hoping to copy your design can incorporate the changes made into our builds? Thanks,
Matt

You bet Matt. I will get some final in place photos done up as well as clean up my renderings for you. The don't stray much from Pauls initial drawing just minor adjustments to dimensions to make the design work with Pauls design. Paul was bang on with the port length of the slot port. 1" shorter for the slot and these things came to life. This 7.1 set up rocks. I just love it. I would recommend it to anyone that wants a tower type surround system.

Thanks again Paul for the design.

[jdusterjansen]

Re: My Swope Tower HT Build

Well I am happy to say that this entire project has come to an end. It was a long week of painting and finishing details. The best part was installing the speakers. Last thing left to do is stain and poly the handrail down the stairs.

Got it all up and running, ran Audessey on my old Denon amp and this Swope home theater rocks. We watched Tron, The Avengers, Frozen and Iron Man as well as the season finale of Walking Dead. Sounded great. The 12" sealed Ultimax is just right for this space and blends nicely with the Swope's. Originally I was going to put the TV ontop of the center channel but I came across a TV stand that was the perfect size so I went that route instead. The rear speakers are behind the couch pointed up.

Thanks everyone for their comments and help along the way and again a special thanks to Paul for the great design.

[Paul Carmody]

Re: My Swope Tower HT Build

Great job! Here's to many years of enjoyment. (And pity the people trying to have a conversation at the table below)

[KEtheredge87]

Re: My Swope Tower HT Build

Great work man! These look outstanding. Would you mind sharing what TV stand you bought? I'm going through similar decisions right now.

[jdusterjansen]

Re: My Swope Tower HT Build

Great work man! These look outstanding. Would you mind sharing what TV stand you bought? I'm going through similar decisions right now.

It is made by Aspen Home, the Canyon Creek collection, 55" console.