Great speakers for my new ST-120

I recently finished building a nice set of 3 way speakers and thought I’d share the detail. The speakers are designed by Troels Grevesen, they are 90dB and have valve friendly impedance.

Troels home page - Speakers by Troels Gravesen

The speaker project I built - 3 Way Classic


I have been running my system (ST-120 amp) with some older 2 way Infinity book shelf speakers till I did this 3W speaker build. The sound was good till now… Now the sound is amazing. These speakers were made for this amp and the two pair up perfectly! I spent a lot of time pondering what speakers to build and I feel great about the choice I made. These speakers do it all and well. Any music I run (country, Hard Rock, Speed Metal, Jazz, Classic, Trance/Techo, Rap.. you name it) sounds better than ever.

I was looking for a nice pair of full sounding speakers to pair up to my tube amp. Something that could reach low on bass… High in treble… with some some solid mid range… Speaking of the midrange, the MCA12RC in the sealed compartment is amazing. It is like a little stand alone full range driver parked between the low of the woffer and the high of the tweeter.

I built using maple ply... Troels builds with hardwoods... Some debate on using hardwood VS MDF for speakers. These 8" woofers kick some bass!

Anyway, these speakers really paired up well with the amp. This is a pretty good DIY project... But worth the work. These SEAS drivers from Norway are nice!

Drivers - $400.00 (www.madisound.com)
Crossovers (Jantzen) - $250.00 (www.partsexpress.com)
wood $100.00 4' X 8' 3/4" high grade maple ply
Misc $100.00

PS - The speakers are designed by Troels Gravesen and not Troels Grevesen. Typo... Troels is a good help with questions and quickly responds to e-mails..

Thought it should at least get his name correct!

Nice Job! Those look great!

There is great satisfaction in rolling your own speakers.

And obviously, you've been "amp"- ly rewarded for your efforts.

Are these speakers ported? From the photo I couldn't see a whole in the cabinet. Thanks for any info.

Hi all,

The speakers are ported with a 3" dia. port X 7" In long out the rear of the speaker.

I sent a Thank you to Troels and provided some photos. Troels posted my speakers on his web site which is pretty cool. In this link to the site you can see the port out the back.

http://www.troelsgravesen.dk/3WClassic-Andy.htm
link to my speakers on Troels site

It was not easy to decide on the speakers.. I was looking at some build projects and then looking at some Klipsch or Magnepan used. I also looked at Klipsch or Magnepan new but the price got up to closer to 2K or so. I think for the 900.00 or so these speakers I built are a great option for the tube amps talked about on this site. Some day down the road perhaps I drop some more serious $ into a nicer set. Buying used speakers seemed wrong to me for some reason.

I appreciate the feedback all! I'm looking forward to the coming weekend to enjoy these!

Is that 3/4 inch ply wood or 1"?

That is 3/4" Ply

You thinking of doing some building?

PS - I have a lumber retailer that is great to work with... Buy a 4' X 8' sheet of premium maple ply for about 100 bucks... The pay about 14 bucks for all the cuts... Just do the full plan and outline the size of pieces. I've got the sizes and such if you want em.

That's a good value on the cost for cutting to your plan.

I'm curious to ask about finishing work you did on the cabinets? As I say, they look great, and should encourage other members to take the opportunity to build their own speakers, as they did their amps.

I probably should have included some mention of tools you'd need. The big one is a plunging router. You can use a non plunging router but it is a little more tricky.

you really need the router and then some form of circle cutting jig. I have this one:
Circle Jig at Parts Express

You need a bit to cut the holes... You run a 1/4" bit in this jig... Cut a hole and then re-set the jig a little smaller.. Run a hold again..

You can do it nice and do a larger recess hole for the speaker edges to sit in and then a smaller hole thru the wood. The speaker sitting in the recessed hole looks nice. With the router and the circle jig it is easy and fun. Just keep zipping circles.

I also used a rounder on the face and back

Wood clamps are realy handy when building the boxes.

The rest is a drill... Bits... Sandpaper. I think most people have this.. Then a solder iron and solder. I think most people on this forum have this.

If you think you may build some speakers like this then I'd get the router and circle jig.. play with some cheap wood to get a hang of it. The rounder is a piece of cake... it has a ball bearing on the bottom to guide it

What is it that the guys who do a lot of routing always say? Oh yeah, "hey buddy, can you spare a finger?"

Maybe it's table routers that are dangerous, but those things scare me.

I used a hand held belt sander to round the outside edges of my Saburos. For the driver hole, used a drill attachment to make a 4" hole, I think it was, and then a sander attachment for the same drill to get the bevel. Not a exactly pretty, but reasonably symmetrical. Router would have been best I think.

I agree with everything mantha3 wrote! Here's an additional suggestion: If you don't have access to a good quality table saw, I would highly recommend finding a wood supplier that does have one and will pre-cut all of your cabinet pieces. The cutting charge is usually minimal compared to the cost of the wood. Yes, you can buy pre-cut wood at the mega home centers , but they typically do their cutting with imprecise panel cutters, not table saws. You will find that having all your pieces consistently and accurately cut will make the assembly much, much, quicker and easier!

Best Regards, Charlie

P.S. Tube Nube...I have been using routers for years and still have all nine (uh, I mean ten ) of my fingers. Seriously, all power tools (actually all tools!) can be hazardous if used carelessly. But then, we builders of thermionic electronics routinely work with potentially lethal voltages which, if caution were not employed, might produce far worse results than just a missing finger.

Yup, find a good smaller family owned lumber supplier who sells higher quality maple, oak or even better Baltic birch (Troels Gravesen and others in Norway like this). Anyway, find a lumber supplier who has a saw. The place I went to had a giant one and could cut to size. The blade was not the best... One side of the cut board may be rough... Just have that on the inside of the speaker. Go to the lumber yard with a clear layout of the cuts like this:



Then put a plan together for the build... This is from Troels on his side for these speakers.. he does mm... So I started to convert to inch.



PS - I don't think a router is that dangerous... Not much more then a drill. table routers I can see being more of an issue.

Building the crossovers is supuer easy for someone who built or re-built these amps... Go to www.partsexpress and they have some "how-to" on building crossovers and speakers.. Just busy work that is rewarding. Troels also is great with e-mail response. Like the Bob Latino of speaker building. Check the other speakers Troels has designed.. He has 2 or 3 tube amps and has many other speaker designs better then the pair I built.. But more $$ for the parts.

mantha3 wrote: The place I went to had a giant one and could cut to size. The blade was not the best... One side of the cut board may be rough... Just have that on the inside of the speaker.

It may not have been the blade after all. The veneer layer on plywood is typically about 3/64" thick and is prone to tear-out on the bottom side of the piece being cut, even with a sharp blade. This can be minimized by using a solid insert in the saw table and then running the blade up through the insert for close tolerance, however this procedure is not practical at a commercial lumber supplier. Of course, as long as all cutting is done with the good side up, then the "rough" edges will (as you noted) be hidden inside.

Best Regards, Charlie

P.S. If you really want "razor" accurate edges, then cut the pieces a few thirty-seconds oversize and plane them down to exact size on a wood jointer. Years ago, I built a couple of folded horn enclosures using that procedure, however that was mainly due to the odd angles required on many of the edges. Finally, if you're really particular and willing to pay the bucks (ouch!!!) find a cabinet shop that can cut everything, including the driver and port openings, on a CNC wood cutting machine...now that's nearing perfection.