Blues TM first ever build!

[pleppink]

Also finally (hopefully one of the last questions I will ask) I'm sure I am just missing something obvious but how do I tell which node is positive and which is negative on the speaker drivers?

[meniscus]

The terminals are color coded. The red dot on the tweeter is + and the blue dot on the woofer is +. They will match up with the wire from the crossover - red wire to + tweeter and blue wire to + woofer. The black wires are all ground / common.

Mark

[mattsk8]

Also would it be a good idea to reinforce the front baffle joints with screws in the corners? It looks like the finished product picture you sent me has some screws.

Those only have screws because they're removable front baffles. If you used woodglue and your joints are all tight you should definitely be fine without any additional fasteners. Also, screws in MDF endgrain never really work, they just split the MDF. If I ever use anything other than glue, it's generally just a few brad nails. But if your glue is already dry, you should be good with just the glue.

Also finally (hopefully one of the last questions I will ask) I'm sure I am just missing something obvious but how do I tell which node is positive and which is negative on the speaker drivers?

What Meniscus already said, plus don't forget the tweeter is reverse polarity; the positive coming from your tweeter's xover goes to the neg terminal on the tweeter, and the negative coming from your crossover goes to the positive on the tweeter. The woofer gets wired normal, plus from xover to plus on woofer, and neg from xover to neg on woofer.

[pleppink]

Thanks so much for all of the help!

Hopefully I will be able to listen to them Friday night! I'll post a picture of the finished product and tell you how they sound!

[pleppink]

Also do either of you have any recommendations for textbooks that get into the more technical side of speaker design? I would like to learn more about what goes into designing the crossovers and cabinets so maybe someday I could do some of my own custom speakers.

I am currently taking courses with the intention of starting an electrical engineering degree so I am fairly comfortable with technical material.

How did you guys learn about speaker and crossover design?

[meniscus]

I like this book for beginners. http://meniscusaudio.com/speaker-building-p-236.html

There is technical discussion and he shows how it is integrated with actual designs.

[mattsk8]

Also do either of you have any recommendations for textbooks that get into the more technical side of speaker design? I would like to learn more about what goes into designing the crossovers and cabinets so maybe someday I could do some of my own custom speakers.

I am currently taking courses with the intention of starting an electrical engineering degree so I am fairly comfortable with technical material.

How did you guys learn about speaker and crossover design?

The fact that you're taking courses for electrical engineering is a huge plus. I learned from a life of playing with stereos, which started for me as a kid with boom boxes, then home stereos, then car audio, now I'm back into home audio. Everything I've learned has been from watching, hearing, and doing. My biggest advancements in knowledge have been from building kits, learning about the hows and whys of the kits, and asking questions on the forums, and this has all been over the past 5 years or so. I also have that speaker building book, but having zero experience in electrical made that fairly hard for me to read. Basically the book starts making sense to me after I have a good grip on how it works (if that makes any sense).

The 2 biggest pieces of advice regarding DIY speakers I can give you...

Regarding the build you're on now... I'm not sure where you've come from and what you've had in the past with regards to decent home audio, but one of the best pieces of advice I was given when I first started building home audio speakers was this (it might sound I'm asking you to join a cult, and maybe I am , but it was great advice none the less)... Forget about what you perceive as a good sounding speaker, and try to reprogram your ears back to zero. Be ready for an organic type sound, nothing exaggerated, just natural and right. Set the bass and treble on your stereo to zero (flat), and don't use any DSP settings. Listen this way for a while, and try to get used to that while listening to various different tracks. Eventually you'll understand why . Also, the HiVi L6-4R drivers take a long time to break in, the longest I've personally ever seen from a driver. I thought they were fairly lifeless for maybe the first 3 days of listening, but after that they really started to loosen up and the detail began coming through.

And second, there are a lot of mystical voodoo type artifacts in home audio land. Just remember that it isn't magic, it's physics, all you're doing is turning electricity into vibrations, and vibrations into music. If someone is saying something that doesn't make sense or doesn't really add up (especially to someone with an understanding of electricity), it's probably snake oil.

[pleppink]

Here they are! I need to touch up the paint around the speakers but they sound great!!

The one mistake I made was not cutting the "ears" for the tweeters large enough so I had to do some improvising to make them fit, But I am really happy with how they turned out.

Any suggestions for a good next project?

Could I make a subwoofer for this system?

[mattsk8]

Nice job. So... do you like them? How do they sound to you?

You can definitely build a sub for these, the sky is kind of the limit for that.

[pleppink]

They sound really good! And I can definitely tell that the woofers are breaking in.

[mattsk8]

They sound really good! And I can definitely tell that the woofers are breaking in.

That's good to hear!! I'm a little nervous whenever someone builds something I either recommend or design, because if there's one constant in speakers... it's that sound quality is subjective .

Don't be afraid to hammer on those if you so desire, that's my favorite thing about them. And while they're breaking in, the more you hammer them the faster they break in. Obviously don't play them to the point of popping and distorting, but those take a lot of abuse so IMO you can push them pretty hard before you get that.

Not sure if it was addressed yet, but what's your main go-to for music? Rock, country, hip-hop, rap, classical...? That would probably help you find a sub. I think Meniscus has a cost effective sub kit that sounds good, might be worth a call to them.

[pleppink]

Cool, I mainly listen to Rock and hip-hop so I think a sub would definitely be a good addition. The receiver doesn't have an input for a sub but I was reading that you don't necessarily need one. Would adding a sub mean I need to alter the crossovers my finished speakers?

[mattsk8]

No crossover work will be needed on the Blues. Just make sure whatever sub you go with has a passive output, so you can cross the sub at (for example) 80 Hz, then cut the Blues off at 80 hz. I'd call Meniscus, I know they had a reasonably priced 8" or 10" subwoofer kit but I don't Remer what it was exactly.

[pleppink]

Cool, so that would mean I would plug the subwoofer into the receiver and then the speakers into the subwoofer? I'll call up meniscus and talk to them about what might be a good kit for me to build.

[Wolf]

Not usually. The Plate amps to not have an active highpass, nor do that have channels to power the stereo speakers. You'll have to hook up the speakers to the receiver's left and right channels, with their setting to small if you want to meet the sub as Matt stated. The sub will be connected to the subwoofer pre-out from the receiver.
Later,
Wolf