bonnie & jason

Zaph Audio ZDT 3.5 speaker build

After building a set of small 2 way speakers, I decided that I couldn’t trust the kiddies from knocking them over on themselves. So, they are currently on loan to Alan while I build a set of floorstanding speakers that will be stable enough so as to not be safety hazards to the troublemakers.

I chose the ZDT 3.5 design, from the same guy who came up with the other pair I built. Since Bonnie wasn’t a huge fan of the all wood look, this design will use a combination of painted MDF and plywood.

Here’s a pic in progress:

And here’s a pic in the later stages of assembly:

3/30/2010 – They’re done! Sort of…

Got everything glued up and wired. I still have to fix the paint that I screwed up while gluing the front and rear baffles. And since taking the pictures, I’ve already made some little outriggers.

They sound pretty darn good. I’ll reserve my thoughts for a more thorough review after they break in a bit and I get a chance to listen to a bunch of stuff. But initial impressions are that the imaging is very good even at close listening distances. The crossovers seem to be doing a very good job as I can’t discern any distortion or other bad behavior. And I think there’s enough bass response for my needs. I have yet to try any home theater stuff, but for music, I think I’ll be happy.

As for build notes, I did make that one mistake with the mid recess but it’s not too bad. Otherwise, I was very happy with the textured paint although I might polyurethane on top of it next time. It tends to hold on to dust and everything else pretty tenaciously.

More to come. In the meantime, here are some pics.

The crossovers are velcro’d to the bottom empty space of the cabinets: