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Driver grills for that "White van special" nostalgia
I built some speakers for some friends of ours. I cloned JR's (mostly) GRS-based little monkey coffin (Le Petit Sarcophage (R2?)). But I massaged the dimensions into towers. The friends seemed to like the geometric nature of the driver circles instead of a large single grill. Though they have a kid so I didn't want to leave the drivers out "swingin in the breeze" or I'd be over there every month replacing drivers. I had to come up with something that was close enough to the midrange mounting ring and grill.
I posted the build out on PETT, but some folks inquired about the grills/trim rings and I couldn't post em there due to the rules. Also I've seen some inquiries here on MAC regarding grills so I figured this could be somewhere to post grills you found too.
These are what I used:
(8" grills with trim rings)
https://amazon.com/dp/B0773Q91CB?ref=ppx_yo2ov_dt_b_product_details&th=1
(3" grills with trim rings)
https://amazon.com/dp/B0B2P92BSV?psc=1&ref=ppx_yo2ov_dt_b_product_details
The trim rings are similar style, but for some reason the grills have a slightly different punched pattern compared to each other. It is simple enough to find various sizes on Amazon. Many sellers put dimension measurements in the photos which is helpful. But beware: These grills are not super high quality, both the plastic ring and steel mesh are rather flimsy feeling. So it is more for the look, and likely sacrificial protection if it took a real hit. Also these specific rings come glossy black. I sprayed a matte clearcoat on them.
The ID of the 3" trim ring was exactly the same size as the tweeter OD (DSN25F). So the grill wouldn't fit anyway. I glued the tweeter in, negating the need for protruding mounting screws, and used the trim ring to stretch and lock down grill cloth. Hopefully less enticing for fingers.
Feel free to post up any interesting grills you find
Comments
Wow your build looks way better than mine. They look great!
Thanks! I used this project to test out using countertop laminate on speakers. I wanted something robust that could handle drinks being inevitably set unattended or spilled on them when they throw parties. Kids love to poke domes and dust caps, but adults cannot resist using speakers as tables.
At one point I wondered about building speakers to the same dimensions of some of the IKEA tempered glass shelves they use in their kitchen cabinets. Use that as a glass top.
Formica FTW!! Nice party rockers! What adhesive did you use?
I have used some grills very similar to those you used on the tweets to protect some 4" Tang Bands in a boom box build. I isolated the grills from the cabinet with some small rubber washers. I don't know for sure if it was needed or not, but they don't buzz a bit.
The red can Weldwood.
Yeah I believe it was Formica brand. Solid navy blue color. My phone camera seems to lighten up the color due to brightness correction. In reality it is more like this forum default blue background. Maybe slightly darker.
These grills are fully 2-piece. I was worried a bit about buzzing or rattling, but the screws push both pieces down to the foam gasket enough to not be a problem it seems. In this case I drilled separate screw holes through the woofer mounting flange for the grill screws.
Curious, do you have a closeup of a laminate seam?
@Kornbread
The flash lightens things up, but the laminate edge is a darkish brown. I'd estimate ~1/32". The Weldwood shows up as white if it is very thick or under high light.
You can see a tiny faint broken line of scuffing from the fixed bearing trim bit around 1/4" down from the edge. I either didn't have enough lubricant in that spot or needed to clean off the bit. But it is really difficult to see it in person.
I wonder if the laminate is resistant to mineral spirits. Weldwood is quite the PITA to clean all the tiny boogers off the seams without solvents.
From my experience the formica laminate is very resistant to mineral spirits. As well as denatured alcohol, non-chlorinated brake clean, , trichloroethylene, and gasoline. I haven't used carb/choke cleaner, lacquer thinner, or MEK on it, so that's a big ?
Isopropyl alcohol works great for that cleanup as well. Nice to have on sight for cleaning cuts as well.
Yeah it cut me a few times. Those are nasty like cardboard cuts
So I found that I misinterpreted JR's writeup and didn't wire the midrange polarity correctly. Now that they are wired correctly.. Holy F-n crap! I wasn't expecting them to be quite this good since I haven't heard this design up close and centered before. My brain refuses to acknowledge any vocals are actually coming from the speakers even turning my head and staring straight at one. Easy to tune how laser focused you want vs wider soundstage with small toe-in tweaks. As far as tone goes. Highs are not super airy and bass isn't super tight. Which I think is an advantage since nothing calls attention to itself. There is only the music, and the speakers themselves begin to fade into the background. Best holler for your dollar for sure!
Yep, quite good and inexpensive. A great design.
InDIYana Event Website
I am finding that phase tweaks can really bring life to a dead sounding recording too - JR knows his sh*t as do many others here, obviously.
Well the sound of these proved very much inspiring...
So the following config might be the next project. I want to try the PC105-8 in magnet to magnet isobaric config. Mostly out of curiosity since it sounds like there are some potential benefits. And, well, they are cheap so no huge loss if it doesn't do much. The same available trim rings should fit and tie everything together a bit better.
Could be nice but why isobaric on the mids?
What is the woofer? I just got a pair of the PC105s for a similar looking 3-way.
There was some talk about potential benefits to midrange. So I though I might try to see if it does anything for a small cone. Do you think it would have a negative impact?
My initial thought is to use 4" PVC pipe so it keeps the iso chamber volume relatively small (Mostly filled with the drivers). Then can add a flange to it, and a flange on a back cup and sandwich the second driver between. Seemed no worse to accomplish than Ben's aperiodic voodoo. If I find that I don't want or need it I guess I can just pull the driver and bolt everything back together.
Dayton SD215A. I'm going for an inexpensive Dayton based 8" 3-way in a small (~1cube) package. Initial thought was DC200, but in research it seemed the SD should be better on bass distortion so I splurged on the extra $3 ea.
That's what I was afraid of, but I like your thinking. My plan was SD215A, PC105 and either DSN25F or ND25FA. I went with the ND25FA. It'll be months before I do anything though.
Right On Man! I did a 3 way with that SD215-88 driver. Great bass in about 1 cuft! I went with the Peerless TC9FC for a mid and Beston RT003C planar for the tweeter. Fun fun fun. Some of you heard them at Indy a couple years ago. That was the project with speaker grills and lots of felt on the baffles.
What is wrong with that? I think it is kinda neat to try similar builds and see what each other comes up with.. Almost like the theme challenges.
I'm sure it will take me a while to do this too. Like JR, I've got to finish some home renovations before the wife catches me working on more speakers. Have the next couple days off to try and get as much as I can done, but ran up to PE to pick up this order.
Kind of rhetorical question but if you do isobaric push pull for distortion reductions, where the summation point for reduced distortion?
Definitely nothing wrong with it. Its kind of fun to "try" to be original, but the bottom line is to try to get good sound for the money. I bet you did exactly what I did - scour PE for good bargain combinations. I started with PC105 as the cornerstone and then just browsed for what else would work.
I've seen the threads of past Iron Driver competitions where everyone has to use a specific driver but is free to choose the other. I think that would be fun but it's been awhile (5 or 6 years?) since it was done.
Yep we seem to be on the same wavelength. For better or worse I suppose. Been eyeing the PC105 for quite a while. I finally picked some up a couple months ago, but decided I didn't want to use them how I was thinking initially. Sorry to steal some thunder, but I have no doubt yours will turn out better overall.
I remember you asked about the trim rings over on PE TT. I hope it wasn't for this build too (faceplam)
Any concerns regarding the 5 dB peak around 1700 Hz?
It has been a while since I looked into it. But I think I came to the conclusion it may not even be there. Or at least not as bad as the factory graph would indicate.
@a4eaudio Tell ya what. You go ahead and do that combo first. I'll hold of until maybe next year. I might learn something from you anyway
Until then I'll try this combo.
I still have yet to do a build that requires a separate enclosure for the mid. I have some 32oz plastic beer mugs.. The thick flexible plastic kind that you get at festivals with a nice convex bottom that shouldn't resonate. That is nearly 1 liter. For the TC9FD though it seems a bit small? Giving a Q of 1.3 with a 3db peak around 240hz. Was hoping to cross mid-baffle step (somewhere around 500-600hz). Would that necessitate the aperiodic chambers?
You will be fine - possibly a simple parallel resistor across the driver coil will flatten the resonance.
Is that the MDOTW 830667?
Sweet, It might need a db or so knocked off anyway to line up with the woofer.
Yeah snagged it since I could stack the MDOTW price then take another 12% off.
That should be a nice combo of drivers. The TC9FD is super low distortion and sounds very neutral/natural.