Small speaker for Alpair 12p

[dp1959]

Hello all, I've been a member here for a while but this is my first post.

This is a project I have been working on recently- a pair of 20 litre speakers for the Alpair 12p drivers from Mark Audio. I bought the drivers directly from Madison Sound 18 months ago when I was over in the States and I originally planned to build the M12-A12 floor standing speaker from Brines Audio. In fact, I bought the plan from Bob Brines but lack of time meant that things got delayed and decided to build these cabinets as a quick project to get the drivers run in.
The design is from the Mark Audio website and I kept things simple by using 18mm MDF left over from a home diy project. All cutting was done at home using basic diy tools + table saw, router etc. There are no fancy joints, just edges butted up and glued together. It's a small box so it comes out pretty rigid. The whole lot is lined with left over carpet felt and I bought two ports and a pair of speaker terminals from eBay for a tenner.
I initially ran the drivers in for 100 hours on low volume acoustic music just in the cardboard boxes they came in, then for another 100 hours or so in the bare MDF cabinets before I added a secondary baffle and a coat of off-white paint sprayed on. The paint was left over from a built in wardrobe project and I admit there's a bit of a theme going on here.

Total running time is now is about 250 hours and I've begun to introduce some blues + jazz and a bit more volume.

So, how do they sound so far? Bags of low level detail, a big, deep soundstage and an overall crisp, musical and tuneful presentation. Bass isn't room shaking but it is tuneful and rythmic. I've been listening to vinyl all afternoon- records that I havent played for ages and I'm happily letting it run through both sides just enjoying the music.
At the moment I'm running them from a diy 'Rocky' integrated amplifier rated at 4 watts/channel and I also have Quad 57's, LS3/5a's and Tannoy DC6's that I listen to in rotation, albeit powered by different amplifiers. They fit right in and I'm well pleased!
Dav