Remember those speakers that I was going to have ready for Boxing Day? Yeah, they're getting close now. LOL.

Binding posts have still not arrived and I'm well past the estimated outside ship date. Time to have the seller ship another set. In the meantime, I decided to go ahead and get as close as I could to "finished", so all I have to do is drill for the posts, attach the leads, and close everything up.

I went ahead with one speaker that I plan to test as the centre channel in my existing setup over the weekend, because I'm dying to hear something from these. I basically drilled 1/8" holes in the locations for the binding posts and squeezed the bare leads out. When the posts arrive, I can drill out the proper size and go ahead.

I started by making a quick cardboard template for drilling the holes for the binding posts. I measured out roughly where I wanted them based on the location of the crossover and length of the leads I left for the input. Each speaker now has a pilot hole ready to finish in the correct diameter for posts. Then I lined up the woofer, marked the holes, pulled the woofer, and drilled the locations for screws. While I was at it, I took a plain old Sharpie to the silver edge of the woofer basket, which worked like a charm. I just did long smooth strokes instead of colouring like my kids do, and it went on fine. I did run around the lip twice, just to get a good coat.

I had my big helper get involved so he can tell his friends one day "I built those speakers". Also he loved the tiny wrench we used to mount the CD to the waveguide. I wasn't sure how tight to attach this, so I went about a 1/2 turn past "snug" without having to really reef on the wrench. I also thought I'd add an extra detail at this point. I read about people using other waveguides and using things like plumber's putty, fiberglass, and modeling clay on the back to to damp it. I don't think it's really necessary for the SEOS, since it is made of much thicker material than I saw others using, but I had some Dynamat lying around and I thought "why not?". So I attached a strip about an inch or so wide on each side of the waveguide. NOTE: Please let me know if this was a bad idea and may cause negative effects - I can't think of why it might, but I don't know how waveguides operate really.

And finally, I connected the woofer and waveguide, and mounted them in the enclosure. I didn't have time to do the ports last night, so I attacked them with an angle grinder and a cutoff disc this morning in between dropping the kids at daycare and running for my train. I'll get them in tonight. I did a quick music test... and it works. I listened for about 1 minute and at low - moderate volume, but they sound nice (even without the port) and even moving around the room the sound was still quite full.

After this weekend I'll have finished this one and hopefully have a few movies worth of listening impressions. And then whenever my posts arrive I'll get the other two stitched up and test the trio together. There WILL be a conclusion to this build eventually! :waiting:

 

Good one Owen!..:T The SEOS Waveguides have a very good reputation and shouldn't need any further deadening..I doubt it would make any noticeable difference though even with additional dampening..
Anxiously waiting to hear the final result..

 

Thanks Prof, i think you're right... the SEOS waveguides are THICK material. I've seen other waveguides made out of thin plastic or fiberglass, which I'm sure would be more prone to resonate. These really are quite dense and solid. I kind of figured while I have them open, and I have the material, I might as well slap some on. Just to be on the safe side.

As of last night, one speaker is good to go. I can't call it "finished" because I still need binding posts, but it is up and running, and will be tested this weekend. Listening impressions of the single one in centre channel duty to follow.

 

Looking good! Can't wait to hear how you like them.

 

OK, the slowest build in the world continues!

I spent some time with this single HTM-12 set up as the centre this weekend, and we were able to go through a couple of movies, Star Trek Beyond and Jason Bourne. Now I should say first that I did not rerun Audyssey. I did a quick test with it on and off, and when I turned it off I realized what a difference it is making. So I left it on, as an unscientific first attempt and went ahead.

The existing centre channel (Paradigm CC-370) which is a match to the Monitor 7 towers is set at 0, while the front L/R towers are -3. The "dialogue" setting is turned up to +6. When I swapped in the HTM-12, I had to set the centre level to -1 and bring the L/R up to +1, and bring "dialogue" back to 0 to get a reasonably close match. So the efficiency was immediately evident.

Even with the totally inappropriate Audyssey settings for a vastly different speaker in place, the HTM-12 sounded great. Voices and dialogue were clear and crisp, and we never felt strained when listening to quieter speech. The sound was so clean that I found myself turning things up a few times... not because we couldn't hear it, but because it sounded so good and I wanted more of it! This was just a quick and dirty "make sure it's working" test, but I'd call it a success. I'll probably set up with all 3 when I get the binding posts* and run a new Audyssey setup for them just to get a better idea how they sound, but until the basement gets finished (ahem - started) they'll be hanging out in storage. Here's a quick pic of the test setup. Ignore all the kid junk, there's just not enough places to hide it all until we get the basement done. I'll finish this up with a more detailed review when I get them all running at once, but for now, that's about it. Thanks for your patience while I worked away at a snail's pace here.

Next frustratingly slow moving project... twin UXL-18s. Stay tuned.

*Since the binding posts hadn't arrived almost a month after their estimated arrival date, I contacted the seller on eBay and was refunded the full amount. I'll leave them as-is for now, and decide what to do about them later, since they won't be put into regular service for a while.

 

It "sounds" (pun intended) very encouraging Owen..

 

Great work Owen! You could actually skip the binding posts all together & wire directly to the speaker wire. Somebody remind me of the thread where the sponsor sold a kit to do just that. It's on the tip of my tongue...he used to give speaker's (black speakers in a very fancy black fabric bag) and kit deals all the time??? It had a special, red wire from the crossover to a specialty connector (very thin, hollow tube--male/female) that plugged into the half that the speaker wire was connected. He swore it made a huge difference. If I remember it was like $75.00. More expensive that binding posts for sure! All you did was drill 2 small holes just like you did & hook em up!

 

Thanks guys.

I guess I could always just seal around the exposed wires (which is what I'll be doing for my in wall and in ceiling speakers) but for these I think I want to stick with something a bit nicer. We'll see what I come up with over the next 6 months.

Sent from my LG-H812 using Tapatalk

 

OK, I realize I am past overdue with some proper listening impressions. Binding posts were installed and all is good to go. These have been resting in the basement since completion, which is going to be their future home whenever we get around to building the theatre. In the meantime, while I have still not given them some dedicated space and full setup for listening, I have hooked them up in a temporary location in the basement which will allow me to put some hours on them and get a better feel for how they sound. I can have them on for background music when I'm ironing shirts or when we actually take some time to work on de-cluttering the basement - the first step before construction.

I put in a little bit of listening time over the last week, both in the background at low and high volumes, and sitting on the floor so my head is level with the tweeters, and listening more critically. Initially, I had an old (hard drive style!) iPod hooked up to my retired receiver and was experiencing some odd distortion and artifacts. I think that was due to a) using really old low bitrate mp3s, and b) the iPod not having much output voltage. Once I swapped my phone playing some high quality streaming music the quality improved drastically.

With the better source input, these speakers became clear, articulate, punchy, clean, and dynamic. There's a big change in the sound moving into and out of the waveguide's sweet spot, especially when listening at closer distances. The vertical dispersion seems to be more limited, as you would guess from the shape of the WG, and I am guessing this will make for the more critical aspect of final placement. Having said that, once I moved farther back into the room, even way off axis they still sounded smooth and clear.

The midbass impact was hard for me to really get a good handle on, but I think that is almost all due to placement and room issues. There were places I found listening off axis that had great full midbass, but when I moved back into the sweet spot I lost a lot of it. They are currently on the floor, so I'll make an effort to do some listening with them elevated in the future. Based on what I can piece together from my walking around though, I believe these will have a great "full" midbass sound, and I can feel some of the "punch" that I was hoping for. They will definitely need subs, but listening to some electronic/EDM/house type music without them still sounded really good. Vocals on more subdued material sounded very clean and clear, without sounding too "clinical". In comparison to the Paradigm Monitor 7s that I'm used to, I think they sound a little more "open" and detailed. It's hard to pin down exactly what I'm hearing, but it is an improvement.

I haven't run across any music that didn't agree with these speakers yet, and I doubt that I'm going to. Their primary function will be movies eventually, and I have not had a chance to set up all 3 for a movie test yet. I'm looking forward to that, especially if they can bring the same qualities to the table that they do with music. I'm very happy with the way these turned out, and DIYSG and Matt and Erich have put together a really great L/C/R speaker in my opinion.