Reiver custom commissions photo-gallery

[Ali Tait]

Aye, they were even nicer in the flesh. :-)

[ScottL]

In the flesh? I knew it was quite a rare / special veneer, but I didn't realise it was that different.

Since the zircote has gone down well, here are a few more images of it. One of the raw veneer, and a couple of the cabinets from different angles. Plus another shot of the one in American black walnut, since I quite like that one too.

In all honesty, I'm always impressed at the quality of finish Colin achieves. It's craftsman made, bespoke-furniture. Granted, I'm biased. But all you have to do is ask somebody who has seen something he has built. They'll say the same. Because that's what we want to provide. Colin can speak for himself on this one, but you know those small artisan shops selling bespoke wooden furniture and accessories? You find them in little villages all over the place -North Yorkshire, the borders, Devon, Somerset, parts of Scotland etc. That's the sort of 'feel' that I think we try to provide.

[ScottL]

A set of custom, stackable LP storage boxes. These are constructed in Finnish birch ply, with real oak veneer, fronted with 6mm solid oak, with our usual rubbed-oil finish.

Before anybody asks -no, I don't know what those red and blue things are that Colin was using to prop the boxes up in the last image!

[ScottL]

This is a pair of bass-reflex cabinets for one of the (many) Diatone P-610 driver variations. Their owner had bought them from the chap who had built the enclosures, and was happy enough with the sound they produced, but wanted the aesthetics to be improved. Fair enough. This was probably one of the most challenging refurbishments Colin has had to do, because the basic carcass was not in the best of shape. The material wasn't great, the main angles were not properly square, and the thing was riddled with hidden nails, screws etc. These images show the boxes as they were when they arrived for a little 'cosmetic enhancement'.

[ScottL]

...and this is what Colin did to them. I still don't know how he did it. It would have been easier to build a new pair of cabinets from scratch.

Short version: a massive amount of work was done on the box itself; it was properly sanded back, screws removed & holes filled, smoothed, new chamfers cut (as good as could be done, since the original box was not square / was out of alignment). Trimmed out vent, new binding posts, and veneered in Santos Rosewood, with a gloss varnish finish.

[ScottL]

Yes: it's a pair of Yamaha NS1000s. Now, whatever you think about the NS1000 from an acoustic perspective, they were not the prettiest of speakers. Well built, functional and well designed -yes. Attractive? Especially if the years have not been kind to their finish? No.

Here's a pair that came in for Colin to refurbish. Their owner had stripped out all the hardware beforehand; cabinets sanded, given bookmatched real-oak veneer, and an oil finish. A custom pair of stands were also built (not shown). The images show the process as the cabinets were taken back, minor issues fixed, and veneered.

[ScottL]

First up, two bass reflex boxes I designed for the Mark Audio Alpair 12P (a driver I had a small amount of input into). The first is the prototype, with gloss black side panels, and a carbon-fibre effect wrap over the front, top, back and base to give a contemporary look. The second pair Colin built for fun, but were later snapped up, with their matching stands. They are veneered in a remarkable and very distinctive real-wood birch-burr. The photographs do not do justice to the figuring of this veneer -it really was a stunner. Both pairs were constructed in 18mm Finnish birch plywood, with doubled front baffles and rear-positioned ports.

The third cabinet is a custom Mass Loaded Transmission Line (MLTL) commissioned from us by our friend Andrew. The cabinet is again in Finnish birch plywood, with a doubled front baffle, real-oak veneer, with solid oak corner pieces, top and bass, and our usual oil finish. For anyone who isn't familiar with MLTLs, they're in essence a quarter-wave cabinet with the terminus choked down, either by a slot-vent or port tube. They look like bass reflex cabinets, but are functionally different. A bass reflex cabinet assumes standard Helmholtz resonance conditions, a uniform air-particle density in the cabinet, and no Eigenmodes / standing waves. An MLTL deliberately stretches one dimension relative to the others in order to generate and use standing waves. The crossover point between the two enclosure types can be said to occur when one dimension is stretched sufficiently for the standing waves generated to be sufficient to change the cabinet tuning away from what standard Helmholtz based alignments would predict for the given box volume and vent dimensions.