Main Speaker

During December 2001, after several months of building, I finally completed my main speakers.

The cabinet is built by Martin Electronics in Burlington Square; although it is costly, I find it worthwhile as the quality is very good. The 1½" thick MDF, as well as the internal bracing, reduces the vibration of the cabinet by a lot compared to conventional cabinets. It measures to 10" by 12" by 14" on the outside.

The drivers used are Scanspeak D2905/970000 1" soft dome Tweeter and 18W/8546-00 Kevlar 7" midbass Woofer, both ordered from Leda. The crossover uses Jantzen Cross Coil Foil Inductors - from Leda also, and Solen capacitors - brought from Well Audio at Burlington Square. I use 2 inductors, 2 capacitors and lots of resistors for each speaker. I use silver-coated Teflon hookup wires I got from B & Lee at Sim Lim Square for the internal cabling. 18AWG wires for the woofers and 22AWG wires for the tweeters. The crossover is placed at the base. A piece of a 2½" thick acoustic foam is then placed over it. Another piece of acoustic foam is placed at the top of the cabinet. For the rest of the same spaces, I stuffed cotton wool. Although from the outside it may seems like a big speaker, the effective volume left is very small, thanks to the thick MDF and acoustic foam.

(left speaker)

Instead of using normal binding post or bananas as connectors, I use Speakon® NL4MPR from Neutrik - 4-pole connector, just right for bi-wiring or bi-amping. The corresponding cable connector is NL4FC. This connector is sometimes seen on professional PA systems. The advantage for this connector is that you do not have to worry about the polarity, touching the + with the -, thereby no blowing of amp, or having hands touching the bare wire.

I use a single run of Belden 1585A as speaker cables. This is a CAT 5e cable which have 4 pairs of twisted pair in it. Each individual cable is Teflon insulated and is 24AWG. The outer jacket is Flamarrest. I use it because it is very cheap and good.

The stands are Atacama SE24 which I got from Electrades. They are half-filled with sand which I got from Electrades too.

In total, I spent just below S$1500 for the components for the speaker, excluding the stand.

The speaker have always be the "reference" for my friends whenever we have a AB shootout for any other components for these pass years. We have always used it to AB gainclones, cd players, pre-amps, cables. As it is able to reproduce down to below 40hz flat, there is no need for a subwoofer.

When it is not used for ABing components, I hook it up to my AV-amp to enjoy watching movie or listening to music.