Hi
Recently sold my speakers to Non-Smoking Man and am ready to start building my second pair of Troels Gravesen (TG) designed speakers.
After weeks of deliberations, with a little guidance from the designer, I chose the recently launched ‘Ekta mkII’ the AT Three way classic.
So far I have bought the correct Scan-Speak drivers from Falcon Acoustics. Now that the pound is gaining against the EUR I will order the crossover kit from Jantzen Audio.
Figured out my approach to building the cabinets, which essentially involves using a router to rebate all joints. So far so good.
The challenge I have found now is sourcing the correct quality and size of birch plywood that TG specifies. If I deviate from this it won't sound right and I would need to recalculate all the dimensions!
I called Timbmet near Oxford, to briefly summarise the call for you, the min order value for collecting is one hundred pounds and they stock B/BB in 18mm. They have a cut to size service.
Then I called James Latham up near Leicester. I must point out that these guys really helped me out in 2011 with my first set of speakers. I spoke to Mark who politely explained that the business had moved on and I could no longer pop in and buy one sheet of wood. He advised that I order via Travis Perkins (across the road from their depot) and collect & pay them instead. They only stock 18 and 24mm B/BB, by the pallet load. Could not get hold of Finnish A/B fair face quality.
The conclusion at this point is that 18mm and 24 mm are kept in stock of b/bb grade but no 21mm as specified. Presumably this is the nearest to the old imperial sizes of ¾ and 1 inch.
My third call will to Metsa Wood UK. Their online brochure states they make 21mm Finnish ply so fingers crossed.
My question is, have any other speaker builders out there found top quality 21mm birch ply in the UK. My second choice is 18-21mm high density fibre board (Medite). To this, I could glue on a nice veneer on both sides.