Anybody tried Selah Audio speakers?

Congratulations! Talk about meticulous workmanship. Will you be adding grills in the future or leaving as is? They do look sharp as is....

Shopdog,

They look great!

Please....pretty please describe your impressions once the drivers have been properly broken in. I'm especially interested in your impressions of the Morel mid. Rick and I had a couple discussions concerning these. I'm afraid I've never heard them.

Thanks for posting this.

Your build is very nice. Were they worth the $1800 for drivers?

Legrace
Long story but practically gave blood getting the damn Lacewood veneer to take a finish, so absolutely no plan for grills

Mress
Have only had a few hours to listen and hard to isolate the Morel from the whole, but so far I would venture that the speaker might be described as "accurate". For instance percussion strikes are heard clearly as strikes with few artifacts. Morel seems to blend well with tweeter and a very nice two way could probably be had from the pair. (my apologies, but I feel close to treading in waters occupied by audio reviewer types, this is not my home turf and am uncomfortable....). (I'm actually very fond of BS, but prefer it to be clearly marked as such rather than wrapped in pretense which makes audio review extremely challenging). Will do my best to fill in the blanks as possible. Rick was a great resource and seems a straight shooter, he can certainly help more than moi.

Dogstar
My personal view is that audio gear (and a lot of other stuff) is pretty much a silly indulgence, so no, none of it is really worth the money when one boils it down. From what I could gather reading, SB Satori drivers are likely way more bang for the buck and Illuminators are surely entering the realm of (very) diminishing returns ($18 is low) but I bought in with idea of going to the margins on the whole build. (e.g. enjoying the inner zen of schlopping wiping varnish on a wood box for a few weeks ...)

P.S.
"Morel from the whole" ???? Gawd, who put that phrase together? Leaving it in the post to kindly set up the likes of Kently or Deepee to tee off on - go to town boys.

After looking at all the designs offered the speakers you chose certainly do provide the most for the money. My current collection of speakers includes two factory built speakers I purchased for what I think we're great prices. The first are Polk Audio LSiM703's I purchased through the Polk Audio eBay store as factory refurbished speakers. They were in virtually perfect condition except for one small dimple in the bottom surface. Many people seem to not have a high opinion of those since they're Polk Audio speakers...but they are considered to be top end speakers by Polk Audio fans. And they really do sound pretty good in a 16 X 18 room with my ST-120. I paid $750 for the pair. One friend suggested putting in a better crossover would improve the sound even more so. Perhaps in the fiture I will..

The second pair I gave are JBL L100T3's. These had rebuilt woofers and the crossovers were upgraded by a service tech. The L100T3's are not the typical L100's. These are three- way towers that were around in the late 80's. They got very good reviews back in the day. The only cheap thing about them are the plastic stands that were factory stapled to the bottom surface. I'm considering replacing those but the speakers I have are probably a 9.5/10. And they too sound very good with my ST-120. But currently I have them as part of my McIntosh system. I paid $275 for them.

And the last pair I have started out as Klipsche speakers. I was originally looking for Heresy's but a Klipsche forum member told me he build me a pair of speakers with new cabinets and Bob Crites crossovers for $800. After breaking them in I decided these are my ST-120 speakers though I switch to the Polk's occasionally. They were damaged in the shipping and the seller refunded about $300 to have them repaired. Since these are not commercially built speakers I've decided to build new cabinets out of 3/4" Birch plywood to improve the appearance and hopefully not detract from the sound.

I have wanted to build a nice pair of speakers for a long time but it seems when the money is available I end spending it on other things like necessities. Your build appeals to me the most out of all the others I've seen. I like the way they look and I like the fact that they are efficient.

Thank you.

I considered building my own, but it just seems way more daunting then most DIY projects. Especially achieving as professional a result as we see here.

Can certainly relate to your comments about the Polks. I own LSiM705's which are fine speakers. They do get trash talked a lot tough.

LeGrace wrote:I considered building my own, but it just seems way more daunting then most DIY projects. Especially achieving as professional a result as we see here.

Can certainly relate to your comments about the Polks. I own LSiM705's which are fine speakers. They do get trash talked a lot tough.

Whenever I have the urge to make my own speakers, to paraphrase Paul Terry, I lie down until it goes away. This exercise has always been a vague niggle in the back of my mind on a 'some day' program.

Until I heard my first pair of Maggies.

All temptation to create my own speakers was entirely eliminated as of that moment.

And, best of all, my wife accepted them into the household AND allowed their proper placement. Ungrudgingly.

This thread, however, does raise the temptation yet again. In a word: WOW. I feel a nap coming on....

[quote="Peter W."]

LeGrace wrote:

And, best of all, my wife accepted them into the household AND allowed their proper placement. Ungrudgingly.

Quite something: high performance loudspeakers, as big as Maggies are, that look like innocuous room dividers (though your wife deserves thanks for not PLACING them like room dividers)

Peter W. wrote: .... In a word: WOW. I feel a nap coming on....

Laughing hard, almost made my coffee come out my nose....

For all:
There are kits on the market in many forms, ranging from pre made, pre finished boxes that just need parts installed to flat pack MDF panels that need to be glued up and veneered or painted. The higher end stuff tends to skew towards more difficult carpentry. A lot of different ways to make a project of it.

I do suggest being cognizant of size. Anything that is too large or heavy (both in my case) to easily move about will likely be much more difficult to conveniently set aside and one should plan on punching it through rather than dragging out.

Just a few final words after living with these for a month:

Basically I'm completely happy and satisfied.  Made some minor positioning adjustments that improved imaging, still fussing with driver tubes to hit a tone that suits my personal preference, but this will be an ongoing never ends process. (otherwise why have all those tubes in the basement??   )

Some simple impressions for anyone interested:

Great bass section - I believe the Illuminator drivers are well regarded for being very good here and to my ears they meet their reputation.  With a pair of them in a cabinet of this volume there is absolutely no need for a sub - none.  

Mid and tweeter - I think the carbon cone Morel mid driver had some mechanical break in and now it is a seamless bridge between bass and tweeter.  At first on some recordings I could point isolate it from other drivers in that it perhaps was mechanically damped a bit more than the others.  Sounds great now ("smooth and sweet" ??) and everything is very cohesive.  

User friendly - There is a sweet spot listening position for sure, but it is reasonably wide.  These are placed in an L-shaped semi large room (25 by 25 on outside edges of the "L") and we quite enjoy listening in most all areas of the room.  They are easy going enough that bad recordings get smoothed over a bit, but details and depth shine on better recordings.  This was important for my wants as I'm in this to listen to the music rather than my gear.  My collection dates to mid-late 60's so there is a wide range of quality on the shelf.

Cheers.