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Deluxe Wave (Re) Build

4343

4343

Super Member
OK, this:

http://www.audiokarma.org/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=206683&d=1271891616

is what I started with for this project. The pic makes them look like the back is sloped forward, but it's an optical illusion, the front actually slopes back.

They sounded OK with the L-112 components, but I got the E-Wave bug a while back, and eventually they fell under the knife.

This is the story of the process. Start here for Zilch's recipe: http://www.audiokarma.org/forums/showthread.php?p=3448405#post3448405

BTW, I'm going to use thumbnails so you can open more than one and tab between them if you want.
 
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Cutting out the Baffle was the easy part.

Getting it straight was a little harder, but it went OK. After cutting the 1" MDF with all the holes in it out of the way, I glued small support strips to keep the new baffle from falling into the box using white two ton epoxy.
 

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Test fitting the Baffle

Here's where I made my first mistake: The corners are a little too close to the existing Grille peg holes.
 

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Second Mistake...

Put the woofer a little too high, which pushed the waveguide too close to the grill pegs. My excuse? I wanted to raise the woofer as high as possible to keep it away from the CRT's in my rear projection TV. I always had problems with the 128H-1's causing magnetic interference when too close to the sides of the TV. (The CRT's are at the bottom shooting up and to the rear on this model TV.) Right now I have L-150A's pushed right up next to the TV and no interference, so that was my goal for these. I'm not sure yet if I met it, I'm liking the L-150A's for now...
 

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Cut the Baffle

I am going to rear mount the woofer with JBL clamps, so the Tee nuts have to be on the front. The woofer will be inserted through the opening for the waveguide. I put a little shelf on the back to hold the woofer up while tightening the clamps.
 

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Plugz

Next up, I made plugs from some softwood dowel, and relieved the rear so they wouldn't get pushed out by the 1/4-20 bolts. In the second pic you can see the original 3" rear port.
 

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Which Brings Us to...

Test fitting the baffles.
 

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And Gluing Them In.

Which of course led to Mistake #3, using the wrong glue! I had the tube of construction cement on hand, and decided it was better to use it before it got too old, rather than spend more on epoxy. The problem is, it does NOT get really hard like epoxy does, and was a real pain to sand smooth. The glue lines are still visible under the paint even now, and I gave it a few months to harden up. Still, it's only cosmetic...
 

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Woofer and QSC/DE250 Offset Saga

Here's where I found that the 128H-1 was just too shallow to work with the QSC waveguide. I was still going to try it at this point, as you can see from the preceding post. But this is where I found a pair of 2214h's on CL for a good price. (Complete L-100T component set actually. Which led to a set of L-100T cabs almost free a week later, which led to ANOTHER pair of 2214H's a week later.)

The 2214H has a much deeper cone and brings the offset down to almost none, so I decided to switch over to them.

This mid-design change led to all sorts of unforeseen problems.

See, it went like this:

First I found that the opening for the waveguide was too small to allow the 2214H to be inserted. Turns out the 2214H is almost 1/4" larger diameter than a 128H-1!

Remember the little strips I glued in to keep the baffle from falling into the box? Well the 128H fit between them, but the 2214H wouldn't fit!

All this happened AFTER I had glued the baffles in, so I had to remove portions of the strips through the openings in the baffles.
 

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Connections and Ports

After finally getting the new woofers to fit I made a pair of new plates for the connection panel and L-Pad from 3/4" MDF. After painting them, they got foam tape all around as a seal.

For the port plate, I started with a piece of 5/8" MDF cut to allow the 4" PVC tube to pass through, which got sandwiched to a piece of 1" MDF with a 4" hole. I rounded the 1" piece over with the same 3/4" bit I used for the woofer cutout. I ended up cutting a square hole in the rear panel 1" smaller than the flange size and then slicing off a 1/2" from each side of the 1" MDF, to a depth of 3/4". The relieved portion got foam tape to make sure it was sealed properly when it was screwed in.

After reading how a baffle on both ends of the port tube can reduce distortion, I decided to put an 8" by 8" plate on the inside. To save some weight hanging on the 5" long pipe, it's made of 3/4" MDF with the port tube running all the way through it. I then used the roundover bit there too. I calculated the length of the port using WinISD, then added the dimensions of the roundovers at each end.
 

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Cutting the Waveguide

To lower the Center-To-Center distance of the woofer and waveguide, I decided to cut a small piece off the bottom flange of the waveguide so that it wouldn't cover the rounded edge of the woofer opening. With that, the final form has taken shape out of the void...
 

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Xo

To build the Crossover, I started with a small piece of 8mm ply, drilled holes and wired the components together on the back side. The coils are bolted on or strapped on with tie-wraps, while the smaller bits all got glued onto the board.

This is my layout for the HF side, it allows the L-Pad wires to stay in the same order as they are on the L-pad since I'm using a flat 3-wire cable.

I also added a 50 ohm resistor across the woofer terminals per a post in the E-Wave thread. Here: http://www.audiokarma.org/forums/showthread.php?p=3732054&highlight=2214#post3732054
 

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The End, Or Just The Beginning?

So now I've been listening to these for a few weeks, and I can say that they are great! I've used them as background music all day long, for a party, and they did it all without any obvious problems. They can get LOUD too, with that thumping bass that I associate with larger drivers. (Not as low as 128H-1, but tighter.)
 

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skywave-rider said:
Wow...sweet. I am going to the top of the thread and reading now. Thanks for the tip off.
Click to expand...

Self promotion, more like! Thanks!

The only thing I'd like to do now is to recess the waveguide, but I'll need a lot more practice with my router before I would attempt it on these.
 
Very nice job, Mike. I watched this thread as it was entered, beginning with post three. I didn't want to jump in before you were finished.

Re-doing a previously finished set of speakers can sometimes get you in situations where the engineering must be done as the project progresses. I loved the part about you having to cut the strips through the holes in the baffle so the 2214H's would fit. I have been through things like that many times. You did very well to recover from that fiasco.

But at the end, you can sit back, listen, and pat yourself on the back, because you have accomplished something most guys won't tackle.

Feels gooood, doesn't it?
 
Impressive! I am definitely going to try this Econowave one day, as soon as I find some suitable speakers. Or I could construct my own...
 
Freebies from DavidF

Zilch said:
What were the cabs originally?
Click to expand...

See here:

http://www.audioheritage.org/vbulle...ea-no-drivers.&p=104556&highlight=#post104556

My favorite part: "Designed around the JBL L112 components. The tweeter mount is back-of-baffle to fit the 044 or 044Ti (and will require major modification to refit another model). The mid mount will handle the LE5-6,8,10,12, 11, 2105H, 104H, 104H-2/3. The woofer will mount the 128H but I do not know if other 12” models will fit in without modification."
 
jackgiff said:
Very nice job, Mike. I watched this thread as it was entered, beginning with post three. I didn't want to jump in before you were finished.

Re-doing a previously finished set of speakers can sometimes get you in situations where the engineering must be done as the project progresses. I loved the part about you having to cut the strips through the holes in the baffle so the 2214H's would fit. I have been through things like that many times. You did very well to recover from that fiasco.

But at the end, you can sit back, listen, and pat yourself on the back, because you have accomplished something most guys won't tackle.

Feels gooood, doesn't it?
Click to expand...

Real Good!:D 'Specially when the house is empty and I can crank 'em up. Have Black Sabbath "Paranoid" running around 92 dB in the front room right now.
(I'm not in there, they sound good throughout the house!)

Thanks guys!
 
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