HiFi Speakers (2002)

I met a dude in my web design class in University who built his own speakers. I didn't know speaker building was a hobby, but a quick search of the internet showed a large community of people interested in building and designing high quality speakers and sharing their design.Definitely something I would be interested in.

I came across a design for a Transmission Line speaker that looked interesting, designed by Dave Brown - the speaker was called the dB61TL. A transmission line speaker has a single long tuned cavity within the enclosure that extends the bass response of relatively small and inexpensive woofers.

The company that sold the speaker drivers required for this design would only ship within the United States, so my buddy Eric brought them from Detroit into Canada one night when he was a guest on my campus radio show. The design called for a cabinet made of 3/4" MDF and I remember having Home Depot cut a large sheet roughly into shape. I just got my first table saw at the time to cut the pieces down to exact dimensions. Once the cabinets were finished, they were veneered with birch veneer and finished with polyurethane.

The speaker drivers sit in recessed holes, so I bought my first plunge router and made a circle template. I remember messing this up a bit and didn't practice on any scrap pieces first, so some of the holes are a bit wonky. MDF dust is terrible so all of those cuts were done outside.

Over the years these speakers have moved with me, from my bedroom in my parents' house to an apartment then to a house and then out of the province. In hindsight I wish I built smaller speakers, these things are total beasts that weigh 60lbs each. I've since heard some pretty amazing speakers that sound better than these, but I can't bring myself to replace them.