IPL Acoustic M1tl Speaker Kit, PMC 24 killer?

[iQ Speakers]

I triggerd the spam filter just as i was going out last night so here is a couple of pics and a screen shot of the post have to press on.

Plinth on the right finished just to spray now and fix to bottom and add the stainless steel spikes i bought just to add some bling!

 

[matt49]

You've made a very fine job of that veneer, sir. Nice work.

 

[iQ Speakers]

Cheers Matt but dont look to close!! Ye a few **** ups but over all they look great, busy sanding before the wax! Hugly rewarding and i have a new set of skills. More later.

 

[iQ Speakers]

Well after a heavy fun night last night fially finished veneering and wax polishing. I thought better of mounting the drivers and wiring them up as I'm really tired. So will take the plinths to work tomorrow and get them sprayed. As much as i want to hear them finally assembeld if this project has taught me anything and it has taught me a great deal is take it slowly and methodically somthing im not very good at, measure twice cut once! enjoy.

 

[steve_1979]

That veneer looks really nice.

 

[iQ Speakers]

Cheers Steve its European Walnut, i bought it beacuse it was wide enough and had those paler bands down each side. THe one in the photo will be the left hand speaker the right speaker will mirror image it and has the pale corner on the left hand side. Unfortunatly i have a few bubbles in the veneer, but is fixable by injecting glue and clamping! What a learning curve!

 

[steve_1979]

Are the veneers symmetrical on both speakers? Like these:

 

[iQ Speakers]

No they mirror each other a picture paints a ....... here you go. Sorry yes they do! Where do you host your pics its a real ball ache!

 

[iQ Speakers]

So today had to go to work but enabled me to get the plinths sprayed. Bought a router bit to do the flush driver rebate and some wax sticks to repair minor cracks and flaws in the venner. As i know the drivers work and sound pretty good i can wait till tomorrow to do the final assembly. I have to weigh 8g of long haired wool most of which, my two new kittens have deposited around the house! How i laughed. Used for fine tuneing, along with the option to change a resistor value or even unwind a turn of wire on the inductor, on the crossovers. For now here are some pics of the sprayed plinths.

 

[iQ Speakers]

So almost finished! its been emotional, fun, interesting, frustrating (only today) but over all enjoyable would I recomend you try? Only if you are brave and have some degree of DIY skills and enjoy that sort of thing. People who say its a doddle are either hugly skilled, not bothered by the apperance or are bull....ers. Are they better than my brilliant tiny PMC DB1i's? PMC 24 Killer? Well im not sure I've heard the PMC 24, unless at Bristol show and most sounded rubbish there! So as per the title of the thread completly pointless!

I say almost finished, i had a bit of a tough day worked out last night that if i used the rebate router i would have a gap around the tweeter and to a lesser extent the bass driver, it was either that or pack inside the aperture for the roller bearing to run on and produce a smaller rebate and possibly wobbly, or not bother at all! So i went for the full size and fill it afterwards. I also had a hell of a job lineing up the stud nut that pulls itself into the inside of the cabinet. You can not get to the bolt to put a normal nut on through the crossover panel at the back with ease. and the kit came with these. So in handling the speakers certain dmage occured to the edges etc, nothing supglue and wax repair sticks cannot sort! But I promised Mrs boggit a tidy clean dinning room last Friday and more pressing on her return from bowling with the kids BFF's! and the impending Christams Eve when i must go present shopping. If you have got this far well done sorry to bore you its kind of cathartic for me.

 

[matt49]

Looking forward to seeing the finished product and hearing your view on their performance!

 

[iQ Speakers]

Well Matt nothing will come close to your description of your'e panels playing opera, that really struck a chord with me and enjoyed the description emmensley. Sorry for bad grammer and spelling mistakes not my forte, especially when I cracked open the beer at 4.00 to relive the stress! Im looking forward to taking them down to Mac's, he won't notice the **** up's just the sound! Sorry Mac love you, now i really have had to many beers! As for pics well i will post some but not to close as I have a few tweaks repairs improvment to do ! Over all they do lovely! I think, and I can hear a violin sounding rich and deep with huge personality, they sound wonderful even before fully running in and fine tuning more of that in a minute.

 

[Macspur]

Well Matt nothing will come close to your description of your'e panels playing opera, that really struck a chord with me and enjoyed the description emmensley. Sorry for bad grammer and spelling mistakes not my forte, especially when I cracked open the beer at 4.00 to relive the stress! Im looking forward to taking them down to Mac's, he won't notice the **** up's just the sound! Sorry Mac love you, now i really have had to many beers! As for pics well i will post some but not to close as I have a few tweaks repairs improvment to do ! Over all they do lovely! I think, and I can hear a violin sounding rich and deep with huge personality, they sound wonderful even before fully running in and fine tuning more of that in a minute.

Lol!!!

I look forward to hearing them.

Mac

www.macsmusic.blogbubble.net

 

[CnoEvil]

Remember that they may need a few hours on the clock to loosen up.

 

[iQ Speakers]

Well here is an "almost" finished product have to tidy them up, stick lose edges that i kept catching as I fitted drivers, fill in slight cracks in the veneer, eliminate bubbles in the veneer and sort the area around the drivers, either add veneer, wax, black silicon or combination. They sound simular to the PMC's but with more richness, depth, precision, projection, bass ( poss to much), depth and enjoyment. I like them! Pics of almast finished speaker, long haied wool for tuning and instrutions and repair kit!

 

[steve_1979]

I'm impressed.

Are they going to remain grilless?

 

[his dudeness]

i no you have some bits to fix up but they look great,well done.*drinks*

 

[iQ Speakers]

Cheers guys I feel absolutely knackered now! Yes they shall remain grill less.

 

[ifor]

Very impressed.

i'm currently putting together a pair of Frugel Horn Mk 3s with my son so have been watching with interest. I won't post pictures of the FH3 build because this site is so user unfriendly, but if anyone is interested they'll be posted on the Graham Slee forum.

 

[iQ Speakers]

Hi Ifor cheers for the interest just lost my reply with pics of the Frugal Horn for you, using the iPhone nightmare! I'll try again tomorrow on the PC using chrome as this s*** software doesn't like IE or the iphone. Here yo go pn the PC with Chrome!! I like the feet on this one.

 

[plastic penguin]

They look the beans, Mr. B. Can't wait to read your first review. If I hadn't known, I wouldn't say they were hand built. Well done.

 

[unsleepable]

Ey Boggit, those speakers really look gorgeous. Looking forward to you telling us how they sound!

 

[matt49]

Congrats, Boggit! An amazing piece of work, and thanks for documenting your labours on the forum. I think when I retire this will be one of my projects, though I have a long road to travel to reach your levels of skill.

 

[ifor]

We are building with the Mark Audio Alpair 7.3 drivers as in the closer of the two speakers in the picture. I too like those speaker spike outriggers so have had some made of polished aluminium by classic components.co.uk. Stupidly I ordered a pair in stead of a pair of pairs! We probably won't veneer though they would look stunning if done well. My son is talking of finishing them with decoupage.

if anyone is interested, we got the kits from customcans.co.uk in Cheltenham. They are 18mm ply.

 

[iQ Speakers]

Again thank you all for your interest, I have eluded to there sound earlier they are certainly simular to the DB1i's but better much larger scale, but i will let them run in brfore commenting more. I read on the Trols Gravison site when they developed a certain speaker they left running for 3 months they measured a large change in frequency response. Well i never relised we had a a place in cheltenham they do a kit Frugal Horns for around £200