I thought I ought to start my own thread here instead of kibbutzing Phil's.
This build started last year, and the speakers have been running since midnight on 22nd December. If that sounds rather precise, it's because I was having an operation on my hand on the 23rd, and if I didn't get them running before then, it would be several weeks before I could continue!
Anyway, I made it, but haven't touched the crossovers since then, and they WILL need some tweaking. I won't post all the pics, as some of them are very similar to Phil's, so I'll mainly document the differences.
My cabinets are 24mm, 18mm birch ply plus 6mm MDF, with the fronts 18 + 6 + 18mm. These are screwed on at the moment, but will be glued when I have finished routing the edges. At the moment I am veneering the new sand filled side cheeks, which is a pain. My veneer is old and splits easily, but it was cheap!
The tops will be 15mm sandstone set into oak framing.
The carcasse is biscuit jointed, glued AND screwed. I believe in overkill!
I started out using some SEAS bass units I had, but quickly found they weren't suitable, so bought the specified type.
Phil sent me some reticulated foam for the ports, which wedge in easily.
I stained the fronts black, just to see how they would look (they will be covered with black leather similar to Sonus Fabers), and put bars over the drivers to protect them from grandsons with rucksacks! It turns out my wife likes the look so they will be staying. They may all be brass in the end.
After a while I felt the midrange could be improved, so I earned enough to replace them with the Nextel W18NX001 drivers. Crossover is still the same for now, but I emailed Troels with some questions, so it will soon be modified, as they are a bit brighter than the old mids.
When the sand filled sides are ready to fit, I will trim the front panels, rewire and modify the crossovers. Then work on the TL stuffing.
I have had some success with Townshend style stands, so will make some to fit these speakers and see how that works. I use 2 inner tubes, which means I can adjust for tilt.
At the moment Massive Attack is rattling away, but these speakers seem very sensitive to cabling; I've changed the speaker cables from silver plated stranded to Polk Cobra litz, quadrupled. Makes quite a difference, so I will try changing the internal wiring too, and run direct from the crossover to the drivers with no breaks.
Well, that's where I am at the moment, and as soon as they sound half decent I want to host a bake-off to try different amps. I need to know what the limiting factors are before I try to fix problems that may be nothing to do with the speakers!