bonnie & jason

Sunflower speakers archive

By jason, August 30, 2011 on 10:33 pm | In projects | 2 Comments

Archiving the sunflower speakers page here:

For my third pair of DIY speakers (I know… running out of rooms to put speakers in), I decided to try a new style with an open baffle design. The open baffle designs that get most of the press are Linkwitz’s Orions and John Krekovsky’s NaOs but those use really expensive drivers with active electronics requiring multiple channels of amplification. So instead, I’m using one of Paul Carmody’s designs that he has dubbed the Sunflower XT.

It uses dayton reference drivers which are great performers at a good price. I used a few from this lineup for the ZDT 3.5 speakers from the last project as well. Also, it uses a Vifa XT tweeter which is a driver used in many high end designs that is generally accepted as an excellent tweeter with low distortion and great dynamics. Whatever that means.

In any case, here are a few pictures of the speaker in progress.

March 13, 2011

The baffles:

The rears with the cutout and recess for the port:

A little photoshop on what will be the side panels (maple birch ply):

The “box” part glued up:

View of the bracing and foam on the inside:

Side panels cut and just positioned to see what it will look like:

Next step is to do some sanding and bondo-ing before figuring out how to assemble the pieces together and paint. Speaking of which, I think the “box” part is just going to be black. Either a spray textured black or a brushed/rolled on enamel flat black. The plywood sides are going to just have a few coats of a simple tung oil rub. That’s the plan right now anyway. More to come.

March 27, 2011
A few updates:

The “translam” top piece (still needs to be trimmed and sanded)

It will look something like this:

Also, here’s what I think the crossover box top will be:

It’s a remnant piece of hardwood (not sure what species) that I book-ended and sort of-kind of biscuited together with my table saw and a piece of MDF.

It will look something like this (carrying through the translam concept):

Got some glue/water sealing done today also.

March 29, 2011

March 31, 2011
Got some painting done:

April 5, 2011:
Drivers installed and crossovers partially complete:

April 9, 2011
Got the crossovers done an everything wired up.

Seattle vacation video

By jason, August 30, 2011 on 10:27 pm | In alissa | No Comments

Here’s a “trailer” version of our vacation video followed by the “director’s cut.”. The former is a minute long whereas the latter is about 4 minutes long. Enjoy!

2011 08 28 Seattle Trailer from Jason Wang on Vimeo.

2011 08 28 Seattle vacation – director’s cut from Jason Wang on Vimeo.

A full post will follow shortly!