A 3D model

Google just released Sketchup- which is really easy to use.. and free. Here's a quick sketch of the room- with the shelving and the climbing wall in the back of the room.

Infinitely Baffled wiring

When you build your own sub, there's a lot to it. Phase delays, sound pressure levels, cabinet volume and construction are just the start of it. When you get into multiple drivers, it gets even more complicated.

In my case, I'm trying to figure out how to wire my speakers. I have two of them. But.. each of them have two voice coils each of which is 8Ohms. I can wire them in series, which would make them 16 total. I can wire them in parallel, which makes them 4. But- I have two speakers to wire, so the choices continue- I can make them parallel or series too- so depending on how I wired the voice coils, that could make them as low as 2 Ohms, or as high as 32.

Throw into the mix that my amp has three modes- stereo (two inputs, two outputs), parallel (one input, two outputs), or mono (one input, one output) and can delivery scary amounts of current, I need to make sure it is done right.

And finally, I may add two more drivers later which add into the conundrum. I've been consulting with two of my friends whom I consider experts, and they've given two different answers as to how to meet my needs.

The good news is that my amp is flexible enough to drive 8 down to 2 ohms, so I have a lot of choices.

Mr. Stocks sent me this diagram, which is the way I'm headed. I only want to climb into the attic once more to wire it (kind of unpleasant to be up there with a soldering iron).

IB Sub

After reading the prose from "The Cult of the Infintely Baffled", I decided to drink the KoolAid and go this route. What you see here is the manifold that will hold two Adire Tempest 15D8 subwoofers. The box is made of MDF and will be braced and painted. Steff wants a speaker cloth to cover it so it isn't seen from the main room. The speakers are dual-voice coil, 8 Ohm high-excursion speakers. I'm going to wire the voice coils in parallel, which takes the resistance down to 4 Ohms. At this point, I could then series the two speakers to drive them back to 8 Ohms with a monoblock amplifier, but Mr. Stocks recommended I use parallel outputs of my amplifier and send 4Ohms to each. I still need to order the amp, but I'm going to go ahead and wire the speakers up and get everything ready.

-frederick

Speaker Shuffle

After my binge on EBay, and other acquisitions, I've got the following speakers:

NHT SuperOnes (2)
NHT SuperZeros (2)
Paradigm CC-350 (center channel)
Yamaha NS-777 (2)
Cerwin Vega D-7s (2)

(Also, I've got the Polk in-wall and in-ceiling speakers already installed)

Here's the deal: I need speakers for the living room, which is occasionally used for TV/Movies, but usually music. I need speakers for the HT. I have an extra pair of speakers right now.

I bought the NHTs several years ago; they're great speakers, but relatively inefficient, which means they take a lot of power to drive them. They really didn't fit into my open living area because they just didn't put out enough sound. I was given a pair of Cerwin Vega 'rock and roll' speakers, and just had them re-baffled (the foam around the subwoofer). They do pump out the volume, so Steff has decreed that they'll go in the main living area. I got the Yamahas from a friend, and they're beautiful speakers- big tall towers. I'm trying to figure out which speakers will be better for the HT- the NHTs or the Yamahas. It is a tough call. Of course, whichever ones don't go into the HT... where do they go?

Things to do...

With the big things out of the way, I need to make a list of what needs to be done. Might as well record it here:

• Build subwoofer (get drivers, build enclosure)
• Get subwoofer amp (nagy, behringer?)
• Mount projector to ceiling and wire
• Get rack for equipment
• Repaint areas
• Paint closet
• (other stuff I'm forgetting right now)

-frederick

In ceiling/wall installation

I picked out where the speakers would go- the circular rounds would go with the round lights to act as rear speakers, while the rectangulars would go in-wall for my surrounds. The speakers had templates to show where to cut, so it was just tracing a circle and cutting out the drywall. I also pulled out some insulation to give the rear of the speaker a bigger area to work. I hadn't pulled the speaker wire through the ceiling for the rears when the drywall was going up, even though it was run up to the attic space. So, the boys and I took the opportunity to add some additional attic lights, while wearing our headlamps and 'caving' our way to the theater area of the house. We got the lights working- the boys staying up to wire the speaker as I passed it to them from below.

For the sides, I wanted them lower than where I had put the wire- so we had to cut new holes fairly low in the 45 degree wall and fish the wire down to them. I really like the installation method of the Polks- quite secure. Steff painted the ceiling speakers, but will do the in-walls right on the wall, since I have some drywall repair (the former speaker hole) which will require repainting later.

Speaker choices

Talk about getting flooded with information- trying picking out in-wall speakers.

Speakers are actually very simple. A little DC magnet pushes a cone to create air vibrations. However to get really good sound, you need multiple cones which are specific to a certain frequency. Even harder, you need to design a circuit to only send certain frequencies to certain speakers and watch where they overlap, etc. Add on top of that the fact that that cone moves in as well as out, so the back of the cone makes sound waves too. Therefore, you need to design your enclosure to either have a hole to let air in or out, the size of the hole, how far the speaker should be from the back of the wall, etc.

But in-wall speakers are simpler in many regards- because you don't care what happens on the back-side. You don't need to worry about the enclosure size or material because the speaker is mounted flush with the wall- and it backs up to a relatively large space in your wall.

But- in-wall speakers are priced from $20/pair to thousands. I have a whole list of speakers I've never heard of- nor have been reviewed by anyone I trust. Do you really trust a vendor's website who has a half-dozen positive reviews by satisfied customers- do you think they'll post the two dozen who said "Yor speekers suCk!!!#!!!11!" independent review of low-cost speakers just don't happen because those same reviewers get paid by advertising of the big boys.

Here's a partial list of some brands I've never heard of:

• Pyle Pro
• Bic America
• Audio Source
• M&S
• ADS
• Jamo

I asked around at a couple of places to see if anyone had heard of them, and none had. Even using my rule of thumb of 'trust products made elsewhere than China' doesn't even work as pretty much everyone is making speakers in China (and not lowering their prices.. gosh!). Even worse- or better depending on how bitter you are- some Chinese manufacturers that have been making speakers for big companies have started selling their own models- which could even come off the same assembly line as the expensive ones. I read one site who said they were the actual JBL maker, when JBL canceled the line and went to another factory. They didn't change anything but remove the label.

So, it's a dilemma- I could save some coin and luck into a speaker that's really well made- or pay a lot for a speaker made right next door to the cheap one.

The answer? The Fleabay Shotgun!(tm). You want your speakers to match, right? The 'timbre' of them should be the same and all that other horse hooey. So- what I did was bid on a bunch of speakers I knew about on Ebay. I bid on Klipsch, JBL, Polk and Boston Acoustics. Be thee careful on Ebay- some speakers were selling for more than you could buy them (on sale) at Circuit City. And be doubly-careful about paying attention to the shipping prices- the JBL speakers had $85 shipping. Anyway, I won the Polk RC60i- which retail for like $250 for $135 shipped. So, now I knew which brand I was going to go with. They would be my rear in-ceiling speakers. Now I needed my surrounds- I was going to pick the R55i, which are rectangular in-wall speakers. Ebay? $180+ shipping. Circuit City? $150 on sale, in-stock. Now I need to pick out my fronts and the center.

Blog color

To get a better idea of the colors of the room. I've changed the blog defaults to be as close as I can figure out. I'll get Steff to fine-tune the colors. They are Behr Spanish Raisin and Toasted Wheat. I'm impressed by the thickness of the Behr paint- but I'm not thrilled with the results of the satin finish. It does not seem at all durable. Any touch against it discolors it and it acts like it still needs to dry. The paint for the trim was a semi gloss and seems tougher.

Here's a great tool for picking colors on web pages. To change colors in your own blog, you have to change the template, which is a cascading style sheet. Here's the info from blogger: Templates