Thread: Soundabar Build With Sub, Tassie Oak and African Ironwood WIP

Didn't get a huge amount of time to have a play today but I got all the holes in then rather stupidly messed one up so the outers of the 4" speakers are now a bit of an oval shape, se the router a bit deep

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I've always wondered what the stereo separation is like from such a small width. Conventionally, speakers are 3-4m apart, depending on listening distance of course.

Looks good though.

Yeah it won't be fantastic but it will sound nicer than mono, the ports have about a 15 deg angle on them to try to fill the room with a touch more midbass/midrange.

I know both drivers sound fantastic but I have never run a tweter without a stock faceplate or had tweeters so close together, the angle towards the centre of the face has a steeper angle to try to alter the dispersion.
It's all an experiment, if it doesn't work I'm down maybe $50 in wood and consumables so it's not a huge loss.

Almost done, the face piece was a bit of a test as I am not a fantastic woodworker, I have a bench seat with three legs as my work bench, hahaha!

I had to match the speaker mounting angle to the angle of the face so I made two wedges up, glued them on then routed through to get the angle I wanted then I chipped them off.
I doubt anyone will notice the speakers are angled, but hey, it will hopefully sound a touch better and it was a good learning experience.

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I like your all-in-one design and the curved front panel.

It will be interesting to know how it sounds.

Thanks, I think I''ll have to have the sub turned off or down if the PVR is going as spinning hard drives don't like vibration very much.

Just have to mount the speakers and fith the top on and it's done, oh, I have to modify some previously built crossovers, waiting on some zero inductance resistors to lower the tweeter's output as they are more efficient and a lower imperdance than the woofer.

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Whipped up the crossovers tonight, they aren't pretty but I had stuff lying around so I used it. L pad attenuator isn't made yet, guessing it will have to be about 5dB but I will fire the speaker up before making anything then see how much the tweeters dominate.
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Amp arrived yesterday and it is an impressive little unit, puts out enough power for the speakers to start hitting their mechanical limit, yet to try it wihth the sub, I'll mount that Thursday.

I do have to stiffen the top panel as it seems to resonate and increse the midrange at higher levels.

Sound is directional as expected but it sounds nice and natural, I am going to add a cap to limit the lower frequencies the mids see, it should also leave a bit more power for the sub and drop operating temps a bit.

Sadly I killed a dustcap so I have two new textile(currently plastic) ones coming from China, I love China!

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EDIT- I am house sitting and managed to find a use for one of those stupid vibrating platforms.

Got most of the other bits for the mini amp, still waiting on the second amp as it will be running a passive crossover in dual amp mode.

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Turns out I got a FM transmitter and not a receiver so I went out and bought a digital/FM one, then I gutted and modified it to suit my needs.
We have no DAB+ here yet but I couldn't find any FM tuners with a decent screen so I bought A Bush pocket radio. At $70 on sale it wasn't super cheap so I had to be careful not to damage the board when de-soldering components, I did lift one section but luckily the pad(?) next to it did the same thing.

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Started wiring but am waiting for the tweeter amp to arrive so can't go too silly yet.
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The top of the amp will be an offcut of some super on trend upcycled Ironbark-

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Started the front panel today, some routing and much head scratching was done. Had to remove the volume control and will later remote mount it, I will also be removing all of the buttons on the radio and replace them with larger momentary switches after I get the second amp, can't do much 'til then-

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Ahhhh, this silly website and it's love for rotating pictures!

Hmmmm, do I try and colour match the front piece with the rest? It is an offcuts box

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That's the hardest part done, rotary encoder mounted, buttons with LEDs in and wired, digital radio and preamp display in. The back half of the amp is pretty easy.
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This was abandoned, it was rubbish.