1S Minitower Build

[MJ]

Hi.

First up can I add my compliments (to that of everyone else's) to Jed for his customer service. Jed has developed for me a custom cabinet design to suit my proposed HT. I wanted to use the 1S for surrounds but wanted the cabinet 'flat' so it could sit against, or in, the wall. Jed has done a crossover to suit on-wall placement, which is now mentioned on his website.

So Jed redesigned the 1S for me. You can get an idea of its dimensions from the pictures. (It's about 42" tall). I don't want to post the plan drawing because it's really Jed's intellectual property. (He can post it here if he wants). The cabinet is not glued together yet so nothing is porperly aligned yet. (And yes, there is another one!)

My design differs a little from Jed's proposal by using a front mounted bent port. Jed suggested a downfiring port with a open cavity below but I wanted to keep the port near the drivers so I could put a grille over it later.

At this stage I have cut all the cabinet parts and made the bent 2" ports. I'm a bit proud of the flared ends - I followed instructions on this website:
http://www.subwoofer-builder.com/porting/index.htm

The 'doughnut' inside is as small as I could make it (it's about the third edition!) to try to improve clearance between the port exit and the sides of the box. Unfortunately there's only about 1" clearance around the port exit (recommendations I have read say 1xport diameter to each surface).

The cabinet worked out OK but the rebates for the cross braces were difficult and I won't do it like that again. Think I will make my next set exactly the same way Jed does on this forum for the 4T and 4CC.

Jed, if you read this you'll notice an extra brace inside. When I read your plan it called for 3/4" MDF. Here in Australia things are done in mm and I thought 3/4" was 16mm MDF. It's actually 18mm (which is harder to get). I realised this after I'd cut nearly all the pieces, so decided on an extra brace to restore rigidity lost to the lost 2mm. It's probably not required and is probably more trouble than it is worth... but it's done now!

I was worried about the extra brace taking up internal cabinet space - but I think it's OK. My design matches Jed's plans for external dimensions, meaning the internal dimensions are 2mm bigger on each wall. Think it'll be OK.

Pictures are below. Just waiting now to collect the drivers, crossovers, etc which Jed shipped promptly for me. Unfortunately shipping to Oz is way expensive so I will pick them up on an upcoming business trip to the US.

Jed, how big are the crossover boards? Just wondering where I will put them... it's pretty crowded with the big port and I don't want to put it behind the woofer either.... something for me to deal with later.

Thanks again Jed for all your help - more pictures here when I get to the next stage.

Edit - sorry, pictures to follow.

[Clearwave]

Hey Mat,

Thanks for the build thread post and if you need help getting the photos up on webshots.com or similar let me know. Looking forward to seeing your build progress. The crossover boards are 5.5"X9". This is narrow enough to fit through the woofer hole. Don't worry about having the board behind the woofer. You can put fill in front of it to absorb standing waves etc.

Jed

[MJ]

Jed,
5.5" x 9" crossover boards...... bugger, that's big. Dumb question - is there just one x-over board per speaker or (gulp) one board per driver? The only chamber that's tall enough for 9" is the top one - tweeter/mid chamber. If it doesn't work in this chamber I might have to get creative, maybe divide the board in two... I'll just wait till I get the board then figure it out.

(The woofer chamber is only 8". Crap! I *knew* I shouold've checked with you before adding an extra cross-brace..!)

Glad I held off assembling the cabinet - there's still an option to make changes. (although deleting/moving one of the Braces would be hard due to my *awesome* joinery)

Here's the photos:
DIY Circle jig that I made after realising my Jasper jig didn't go small enough for the 2" port:


The cut parts:


From behind, with the back removed:


From the front (I know the panels don't fit properly, nothing is glued yet)


Close up of port exit. I like this bit:


Inside looking up:

[Clearwave]

Jed,
5.5" x 9" crossover boards...... bugger, that's big. Dumb question - is there just one x-over board per speaker or (gulp) one board per driver? The only chamber that's tall enough for 9" is the top one - tweeter/mid chamber.

It's one board per speaker (not per driver). Mounting it in the midrange chamber shouldn't be a problem. Also, if you are using webshots, they give an option where you can size the pictures a bit bigger.

Your build is looking great!

Jed

[MJ]

Whew, that's a relief. Crossovers in the midrange chamber it is.

Re: webshots - I'll have a play with that thanks... in the meantime if anyone wants to see bigger versions, click on the thumbnails in the post and it takes you to full size pics in webshots itself.

Thanks Jed!

(Still no idea of when I can go get the drivers etc unfortunately. *Sigh*.)

[Clearwave]

Hopefully your flight to US48 will be scheduled soon so you can pick them up. Otherwise I'd be happy to quote you on sending another set of drivers to Australia. You're going 7.1 right? Whatever works for you, I'm here to help.

Jed

[Clearwave]

One thing I just thought about is that you might want an access panel behind the crossover just in case you want to get to it later on.

Jed

[MJ]

The access panel is a good idea. What I might look at it making the top cap removable. That would give me access to the midrange chamber. Hmmm....

[Clearwave]

The access panel is a good idea. What I might look at it making the top cap removable. That would give me access to the midrange chamber. Hmmm....

Perfect.

Jed

[MJ]

Hey Jed – I’m excited to say I have my first 1S together and working perfectly! I am ecstatic with how it sounds straight away. Unfortunately I have only the one speaker at the moment, should finish the second today.

My first impressions are that this is a fullrange front speaker, not a surround! Awesome!

I wasn’t exactly sure how densely to stuff the chambers – this is the only variable really in my DIY build. How will amount of stuffing affect the driver performance? With only about 6 hours ‘burn in’ time on the first speaker I would comment that the tweeter is perhaps a little bright for the midrange. I don’t want to get into crossover changes but can I bring the midrange forward with more or less stuffing in the midrange chamber? I know you voiced these for off-axis on-wall response so I don’t want to make too many changes until they are in that application. I have to pull the drivers out in a day or two though to finish sanding/painting the cabinet so have a chance to vary the stuffing.

Just want to say again that I love it so far. DIYers are tweakers though I guess and I want to get the best possible result…

My only reference is against my $3000/pair massive floorstanders. The 1S has better detail and clarity out of the box. Bass is great too for such a small cabinet and significantly affected by wall boundary interaction. When I first connected it I thought the bass was a little thin. Pushing it back against the wall - where it is designed to be - made a massive difference. Room effects have so much influence.

I'm so happy! Photos of the rest of the build to come.

For anyone reading this, again I recommend Jed to you. His service is simply amazing. Offline he has worked with me over about 80 emails to get everything right. You wouldn't get that ANYWHERE else. Wonderful.

Hopefully second cabinet together today...

[Clearwave]

Hey Jed – I’m excited to say I have my first 1S together and working perfectly! I am ecstatic with how it sounds straight away. Unfortunately I have only the one speaker at the moment, should finish the second today.

My first impressions are that this is a fullrange front speaker, not a surround! Awesome!

I wasn’t exactly sure how densely to stuff the chambers – this is the only variable really in my DIY build. How will amount of stuffing affect the driver performance? With only about 6 hours ‘burn in’ time on the first speaker I would comment that the tweeter is perhaps a little bright for the midrange. I don’t want to get into crossover changes but can I bring the midrange forward with more or less stuffing in the midrange chamber? I know you voiced these for off-axis on-wall response so I don’t want to make too many changes until they are in that application. I have to pull the drivers out in a day or two though to finish sanding/painting the cabinet so have a chance to vary the stuffing.

Just want to say again that I love it so far. DIYers are tweakers though I guess and I want to get the best possible result…

My only reference is against my $3000/pair massive floorstanders. The 1S has better detail and clarity out of the box. Bass is great too for such a small cabinet and significantly affected by wall boundary interaction. When I first connected it I thought the bass was a little thin. Pushing it back against the wall - where it is designed to be - made a massive difference. Room effects have so much influence.

I'm so happy! Photos of the rest of the build to come.

For anyone reading this, again I recommend Jed to you. His service is simply amazing. Offline he has worked with me over about 80 emails to get everything right. You wouldn't get that ANYWHERE else. Wonderful.

Hopefully second cabinet together today...

Hi MJ,

Glad you are loving them so far and thank you for the compliments about my service. As for the tweeter level, we can pad it down a bit more to match your room with no problem. I can send out some resistors for you to tweak it a bit if you like. But honestly I'd wait until you listen to the speakers as a stereo set to judge the final tonal balance. Also, more than likely the surrounds will be placed such that your listening position is off axis, so the tweeter level should be judged with them at the intended surround location. You found the bass thin when pulled away from the wall because I gave you the onwall version of the crossovers where the bass frequencies are boosted at the location. As for how much to stuff the mid chamber, I'd fill it loosely. Don't pack it in, but there should be enough to fill the entire chamber leaving some breathing room around the driver's magnet structures. The W4s take a very long time to break in I've found. You'll find them opening up more with time and it should be a perfect match for the tweeter after break in. Some say break in is not important, but I always find drivers fresh out the box to sound a bit thin for awhile, and then I cut the tweeter to compensate, but then after more listening time I always bring the tweeter back up to where it measures the flattest. So I guess what I'm saying is you might want to cut it a half db now, but after the mid and tweeter break in a bit more you may find them perfect as is.

Jed

[MJ]

Thanks for your comments Jed. The onwall crossover is perfect - it's obvious that's how it was designed.

Noted your comments about W4 break in. I was going to run them for a couple of weeks and see how they sound then. Your comments sound exactly like what I am hearing.

Again, thanks for your service and a great product.

[Clearwave]

You're very welcome and just let me know if there is anything else you need. The next 1S kit you ordered should be on the way this weekend!

Jed

[MJ]

Got my second 1S built. First listen to the pair...

Forget ANY reservations I had before. They sound FANTASTIC. Compared to my trusty old VAF DC-X (well regarded in their own right, check our vaf.com.au), the 1S are more detailed, open and clearer. There's much more 'separation' in the sound than the other speakers. My wife's comment: "They're so clear!"

Wonderful. I was a bit scared about this semi-DIY route but I couldn't be happier. Can't wait to see what a 4T sounds like! To anyone considering it, these speakers would do just fine as a main front pair. They have a big, natural, detailed sound that easily fills a normal sized room. I'm grinning like a fool thinking about 4 of these as surrounds, with 4Ts as fronts!

[Clearwave]

Glad you are loving them. Expect the 4cc and 4T to have the same characteristics but with much more headroom because of the dual mids and quad of woofers.

Jed