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MCM + Vifa? all aluminum MTM
Seeing Johnny's latest thread about his new Summer project inspired me to roll out the old table saw and make some dust of my own.
Johnny sent me a quad of those NLA MCM 55-3669 black coned 5.25" woofers. I already had another pair of the Peerless/Vifa/Tymphany/whatever DA25BG08-06 aluminum dome tweeters.
All the enclosure pieces are cut. Need to machine the baffles. Pics and some more details to follow.
Comments
Look out guys- Craig's at it again! How many can he build THIS year?
InDIYana Event Website
Yeppers you know it
I think Craig has enough new speakers to host his own DIY get together. Party at Craig's house.
I've thought the same thing!
Just wondering, but both versions of the MCM 55-x669 are gone forever, correct?
Looks like it.
I designed a small 2 way with the 55-2669 and silkie tweeters and gifted them to one of our bass players on the worship team at church. He still tells me from time to time "thank you" and how great they sound. His wife has even thanked me saying they fill their house with wonderful music around Christmas time. That makes this hobby well worth it to me.
This MTM project is going to be a gift to another musician friend who plays many different instruments and has a wonderful singing voice. I loaned him my Zobelitoes and he confirmed my opinion of the TCP115-4 midrange quality. Pretty meh overall.
Just wanted to also add my opinion that while these $13 MCM drivers don't dig quite as deep in 5 liters as those very inconsistant TCP115 drivers (PE customer service had to sent me 8 to get 4 that were acceptable) they have way better response and lower distortion. Too bad they are now NLA
In all honesty, MCM really underpriced those drivers. They also failed at marketing to the DIY community. When they merged with Newark, any hope for the MCM line to really make inroads went to shit. Newark obviously does not know how to market DIY Audio stuff, nor do I think they actually give two shits about it. The MCM line will remain stagnant - many of the great drivers MCM released in the couple years prior to the merger are now gone, and who knows how much longer the remainder will stick around?
The TCP driver probably costs PE less than $1 at large quantities. The drivers in the Dayton branded speakers in general are pretty low quality. The 6.5" woofer in the 652? That is also likely less than a buck at pallet pricing. The tweeter is probably $0.10. We should not really expect much nor be disappointed. Even the GRS stuff, for the most part, does not represent the bottom tier stuff.
Also, this should be a pretty nice design. I did a lot of work with the X669 over the last six-seven years, never disappointed.
The Barbie Girls(?) if I'm remembering correctly, were pretty incredible and deserved more acclaim. Craig has the potential here for something pretty special in the
/$ category.
Yeah, they had a proper name (Amach Anseo) but even I no longer refer to them as such
It more or less translates as "to the future" or "out here".
They really were a neat design.
It is beautiful here today (mostly sunny, very light breeze, and 65 F on my driveway). I got up early and finished all my weekend chores so I could work on this priject today. I just finished machining all the driver rebates and cutouts. Johnny was kind enough to send me his rebate template for the weird shaped frames of the MCM drivers. Now I just need to put the enclosures together (1/2" baltic birch ply), then attach the baffles so that I can flush trim them and give the vertical edges a nice 3/4" roundover.
Some progress:
Nice rebates.
Poplar? What are you going to finish it in?
Yes poplar. It's a surprisingly heavy and hard piece compared to some other poplar boards I've used. I'll probably use a 1:1:1 mix of BLO, poly, and mineral spirits. I have enough of the board left to do some different test panels. Might try adding in a little black cherry stain to see if I like the color better.
I do like that poplar can be masked so well.
Great looking baffles, I'm looking forward to seeing the rest of the build come together.
Also, if these make it to Iowa, I will be personally insulted if you do not crank Barbie Girl.
Those rebates are beautiful, please tell us how did you did them!
Cheers
Geoff
Magic.
Barbie Girl will be a given!
This is just one of those projects where everything seems to fall right into place. I've had other projects that went the complete opposite direction
I also have templates available for this woofer if anyone else needs them.
Nothing too exciting to see, but the basic enclosures are built. Cheap 1/2" baltic birch.
Your yard looks better than the 4-6" of snow we got last night....
Mostly melted away...
Snowing right now and will freeze again tonight.
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Don't you live in Florida? We didn't get snow in Canada last night!
Craig's in Illinois, and I'm in Indiana.
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