wombatsauce

iTrader: (7)

I have built a few various speakers, enclosures and car systems over the years. It's really fun, and I miss it. Did a lot of car setups with my friend in high school. Some home setups. My favorite was a bandpass sub patterned after an old JVC design using a "labyinth" port on the ported side. Not amazing for loud music, but you can make something like a 6" driver put out tones you would think were coming from a 12" sub with a lot more power. Something that would be great for a stealthy system. Most of the guidance and math came from .

I am also a huge fan of "vintage shelf audio systems" and those often have really nice amp sections and speakers that can be hidden away. My pops is using my old Sony MHC-300 head unit strapped under a shelf to power some tiny speakers in hand-made wooden cabinets in a room where speakers are "not allowed" due to spousal restrictions. I have a JVC MX-90 in my bedroom right now which uses those same type of subwoofers built into the cabinets that also house a mid and a tweeter.

I just got rid of a set that seem like they would be perfect for this application - same deal, but had two full-range drivers per cabinet. About 14" by 8" by 8" or so. So, you replace the drivers with something better, and make the speakers part of a nice looking shelf that meets your needs. There are tiny amps and pre-amps available, or even better yet - take the example here and build something.

I would totally follow a hi-fi thread, and have another set of older Sony shelf speakers I could use. Would be great to build a small, clean 2 channel amp.

Been trying to get my pops to make some little amps or speaker boxes. I think he could make some really nice stuff. Right now he makes stained glass lamps and light boxes, and custom furnishings and such usually for houses in SF. Here is some of his stuff right now. He's make things before that were built-in, like an office desk with a built-in subwoofer and another with hidden drawers for PC cases, things like that. He could totally make a TV stand type thing with built-in enclosures and such, I would think.

Been thinking of downsizing my setup. I already took it down a notch by getting rid of the pre-amp, amp and bi-amp setup for the speakers, replaced with a Pioneer Elite receiver which I do not really like so much. Just getting tired of massive speakers I don't use anymore. Full 5.1 NHT setup with 2.9's in front - it sounds amazing, but could be replaced with something much smaller for my purposes.

wombatsauce

iTrader: (7)

What I did was set a goal and picked up things that worked best alone, but also toward what I wanted. For example, I am a huge fan of NHT speakers, so I saved up and got a set of 2.5i's and used those as front channels. They were around $2500 for the set. I also picked up a cheap refurb Sony ES receiver, and a friend gave me a Polk center channel with blown drivers. Used to be, go online with any Polk speaker, enter the serial number, open a ticket, and you have new drivers on the way. Picked up an old Cerwin-Vega sub, and I had my system, basically. I picked up a set of cheapy Boston rear surrounds, and blew the amp in the CV sub, replaced it with an NHT mono class-D sub amp (SA-3) and then replaced the driver with an Infinity 12.1.

That was my basic system, until I could find pieces to replace it. Eventually I found a used Carver AV-705tx which is an amazing amp. Found two more NHT SA-3's, and then a Sony TA-9000ES which is an awesome pre-amp. I found a set of NHT 2.9 front channels with the matching AC-2 center channel for sale in AZ for around $1800, the fronts alone were around $4k new. So I drove down and picked them up. The 2.5i's became rear surrounds, 2.9's are front channels, with the AC-2 as center. Found a SW2Si sub system on CL, and the system was complete.

So, now at this point it's ~125 w/channel to the tops of the four front/rear channels and the center, with the front channels and rear channels each getting their own 250w sub amp, with a 200w 10" sub and another 12" "frankensub" when that is just not enough. That was Crazy with a capital C for a few years, watched a lot of movies and broke some windows. Toned it down by replacing most of the amps and all that with a Pioneer Elite SC-35 140w/ch receiver to simplify things, but I don't like it as much. Considering toning it all down and selling this stuff but I am not 100% sure yet and I hate selling stuff. System is amazing though, these speakers are my favorites.

04GG

iTrader: (33)

I have a spare set of A/V-1 kits that I am likely to finish and sell soon. I have x-overs components that need to be soldered up, I have cabinets and some of the drivers. I used the tweeters in another pair so I think I need 1 or both tweeters.





The other pair I pulled everything out of and rebuilt with all new fully upgraded x-over/drivers a few months ago (where the tweeters ended up going). These are my surrounds:



A/V-1 on top A/V-2 on bottom


I bought the A/V-2s already built from the guy who was building the cabinets for GR years ago. When they arrived, one of the tweeters had been damaged, so I replaced both tweeters and upgraded the x-overs (Sonicap, foil inductors) at the same time. I love the A/V-2s so I am having a hard time deciding if I am going to put them up for sale or not right now.