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Old 06-10-2007, 06:35 AM   #1 (permalink)
dcheming
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Join Date: Aug 2005
Location: Richmond, CA
Posts: 439
Default Cheap DIY Computer Speakers

Since my KRK's have way too much bass for late night listening in my apartment I built a small pair of computer speakers to replace them for the time being. I wanted to keep this project cheap, but still have good sonics of course. With that in mind I decided to simply go with some 4" wide-range drivers, something I've always wanted to try anyways. I went with the Tang Band W4-1052SA and I'm powering them with my modded T-amp. Overall I'm pretty impressed with their sonics. My only complaint is that the top end doesn't extend as far as I'd like, but I expected that based on the driver's frequency response chart. Still not bad for $25 each though. For my next pair I want to use the W4-1320SD drivers since they have much more top end extension as well as cast frames.

Since I live in an apartment I couldn't build these out of MDF using power tools so I just used 1"x6" and 1"x8" pine boards to make it easy as possible to construct. They are built tall in order to get the center of the drivers up to ear height at my computer desk. I cut the cabinet pieces to length by hand using a hacksaw with an 18-TPI blade and the the braces were done using a coping saw. To supplement the two shelf braces I used 1" hard wood dowel in between them from bottom to top and 1/8" thick vinyl floor tile with adhesive backing from Home Depot provides a bit of dampening and mass loading to the low density pine wood. General purpose epoxy was used to bond the cabinet together. I still need to round over the front edges and sand things flat. The total project cost was about $100. Pics:











__________________
Sources: Dell 4400 > foobar2000 KS > ST Audio DSP24 MKII, Modded NAD C521BEE, Gemini PT-2000 > Grado Red > Velleman K2573
Cables: DIY CAT6 HD15 to XLR Umbilical, DIY Belden 7882A CAT6 IC's, DIY Belden 9258 RG-8/X Coaxial IC's, DIY Calrad 55-715 8mm Coaxial IC's
Head Amps: Hot Rodded Xiang Sheng 708B
Headphones: Modded HD580+650 cable, Shure E2cs, HD201, HD280 Pro (returned), K240M (sold)
Speaker Amps: Modded T-Amp, AMP6, Rotel RA-972
Speakers: KRK V6 II, DIY 4" Carbon/Kevlar & Neo3 planar(DNF), 4" Tang Band W4-1052SA, Magnepan MMG, Decware DM944

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