Cheapish HiFi Bookshelf Speakers Limited Tools NO Aesthetics

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Fred
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Re: Cheapish HiFi Bookshelf Speakers Limited Tools NO Aesthe

Post by Fred »

Fred wrote:Weight of MDF in these two is approx:

((1.480 + 1.352) * 0.3 * 0.019) * 800 kg/m^3 ~= 13kg

Pine looks to be about 500kg/m^3, and I had about 2.4 * 2 * 0.02 * 0.02 in it. So about 1kg

We'll call the stuffing and wires and terminals 1kg all up, too.

The drivers are supposed to be:

Woofers: 1.9kg each
Tweeters: 0.5kg each

Then there was the screws @ approx 0.7kg

So, grand total:

13 + 1 + 1 + 1.9 + 1.9 + 0.5 + 0.5 + 0.7 = 20.5kg or there abouts.

I guess if I Pull the woofers out and pull the cheap stuffing out and fill them full of clothes or something, I can put up to about 8kg more in a bag with them.
0.338 * 0.3 * 0.019 * 2 * 800 = 3kg less if I whip the sides off and replace them later. 17.5kg if I do that. Bag weighs 3 to 4kg so I'm pretty much using one bag just for these even if I remove the sides. On the brighter side, the sides were 2 or 3mm too short anyway and would be nice to replace. On the other hand, the toroidial transformer is 2.2kg alone, plus the heatsink and caps and old cassette deck enclosure.
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Re: Cheapish HiFi Bookshelf Speakers Limited Tools NO Aesthe

Post by Fred »

Looks like standard Spanish air mail will be ~200 euros if I send 30kg of stuff. 150 if I send 20kg of stuff. With current exchange rates, if postage + declared value exceeds 235 euros, I'll have to pay another 100nzd of tax or more.

Postage fees: http://correos.es/ss/Satellite/site/pro ... s-producto

What I might do is combine old amp with speaker boxes, take the drivers out, and declare the value as 0 or close to it, which is what some scrap MDF and screws cost me in NZ. The old amp casing was free too.

Weight, if I ditch the drivers, will be roughly 15.7kg for the boxes, 12.7 if I rip the sides off. I need to know what the amp setup will weigh in total.

Image

From: http://www.consumer.org.nz/news/view/ne ... action-fee

Which is slightly wrong, should be 60 min before charges. Calculator here: http://www.whatsmyduty.org.nz/

Basically, if duty + tax is 60nzd or more, they also sting you two more fees. Duty on speakers is 5%. Duty on cassette decks/recorders/players is 0%, but the duty is not on the postage, so it's OK.

5 euros each worth of materials (truth in NZ) = 10 euros * 1.05 = 10.50 euros = 20nzd

I think I have a plan!

Fred.
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Re: Cheapish HiFi Bookshelf Speakers Limited Tools NO Aesthe

Post by Fred »

A loose cable tricked me into thinking my makeshift amp was failing. I dismantled/destroyed it before I realised the cable had been loose. So tomorrow I will dismantle the speakers too and pack them ready for shipping. I was hoping for more use before sending but this is how it has to be. RIP speakers! For now...

Fred.
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Re: Cheapish HiFi Bookshelf Speakers Limited Tools NO Aesthe

Post by Fred »

Currently my gross cost/value has to be 243 euros or less, preferably a lot less. It's looking like it'll be less than 150 euros for postage at the current weight of around 17kg with packaging. This leaves me 93 euros max for value.

Listing:
  • Homemade custom rugged MDF-based packaging - 1 - 10 euros
  • Modified and disassembled 1979 Kenwood KX-550 cassette deck - 1 - 30 euros
Justification:
  • 10 euros covers the MDF cost at home to recreate what I did.
  • 30 euros covers the toroidal transformer and assorted other junk inside the free cassette deck.
Fair and honest in terms of replacement values! I have 30 or so toroidal transformers in NZ, so I wouldn't even need to buy that. The rest is typical cheap stuff.

Fred.
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Re: Cheapish HiFi Bookshelf Speakers Limited Tools NO Aesthe

Post by Fred »

Fail! Not allowed magnets in checked baggage! :-(

So I'll have to ship everything, ugh! I guess extra baggage weight won't be much of an issue, though. That's something.

Maybe I can fit some other stuff in the bags instead.

Fred.
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Re: Cheapish HiFi Bookshelf Speakers Limited Tools NO Aesthe

Post by Fred »

Fred wrote:338 * 300
^ sides. These boxes no longer have sides. I need to give them new sides. Preferably a bit thicker than the last ones.

I have a half sheet 2400 x 620 that I can use. I'll get 4 out of it very easily, less than half of it, and it's thicker. How much? /me goes to check... 24mm or maybe 25mm. That'll make it slightly out of proportion, but I can fix that later with the hardwood skin thickness on the bottom and/or top.

Or perhaps I should consider the posts for the future incarnation up front and not make it more difficult than it needs to be to fix that later. Keen to reassemble them and attach a proper amplifier for the first time (I have several to choose from, now).

Which hardwood should I use for the skin? I'm thinking something kiwi would be nice. Rimu? Kauri? Macrocarpa? I don't really want to go foreign, especially not something unsustainably logged from South America or Asia, that's not cool. Not teak, not my style, too dark. Perhaps left-over kwila, laminated together?

Minimum 4mm thickness, maximum 13mm thickness, preferably 10 or 12, I guess, to ease assembly. Thin will get fussy and crackable. Thick will want to hold its own shape and tear apart. Hence medium is good.

Enough musing, maybe I'll get onto putting them back into service in the next few days.

PS, I have all of my stuff again! Nothing lost of damaged, that I've seen, so far. Only unopened thing is amp/boxes package.

Fred.
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Re: Cheapish HiFi Bookshelf Speakers Limited Tools NO Aesthe

Post by Fred »

Yesterday I extracted the speakers and amp skeleton from the most excellent box ever. I also managed to get the piece of 24mm MDF out from where it was being used as a shelf and replace it with scrappy 18mm x 300mm strips instead. Good progress.

Today I took to the speaker box sides with a 4" angle grinder and a sandpaper pad and cleaned up the side faces ready for new sides. (removed the PVA and peeled-off MDF)

Also today: TODO list created for bringing these suckers back to life! Shopping list is integral to the TODO list.

Need to go shopping for some T-nuts, screws and glue and deadening material before I can proceed further. Then I can get stuck in and put them back how they were, or a little better than that.

More news as it comes to hand.

Fred.
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Re: Cheapish HiFi Bookshelf Speakers Limited Tools NO Aesthe

Post by Fred »

I've decided to risk not installing T nuts as it would be difficult to do a nice job as it stands. I asked my old man to give me a hand cutting the new sides, and he did, but it wasn't ideal, as he didn't realise I didn't intend to do any sanding of the MDF and wanted it "OEM" look. Ahh well, the thread title does say "NO Aesthetics", and it's still not that bad. I plan to laminate some NZ hardwood over it all at some point anyway, so it's not a huge deal for the MDF to be a little rough for the time being.

I have:
  • Screws, 45mm multi-head (really good design) passivated zinc self tapping wood screws. 200.
  • Cheap PVA to stick the sides on.
  • A decent tin of ADOS F2 for gluing the deadening material to the sides.
  • The sides cut and marked for deadening glueing.
I need to:
  • Mark and drill the sides ready to screw on.
  • Find and buy some deadening material (wish I brought more from BCN now) and glue it on.
  • PVA the sides and screw them down hard.
  • Solder on and screw in the drivers.
  • Re-assemble the crossover setup.
  • Dig out my amp and cables and give it a whirl.
More news as it comes to hand.

Fred.
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Re: Cheapish HiFi Bookshelf Speakers Limited Tools NO Aesthe

Post by Fred »

All done! Listened to a few albums worth tonight alone in the dark with my amp and my speakers. Loving it! <3

Next job is to bi-amp them with a 24db/oct linkwitz riley e-xover. A fair bit of coding to do before that, though.
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Re: Cheapish HiFi Bookshelf Speakers Limited Tools NO Aesthe

Post by Fred »

Here they are with the new sides, split MDF from fat screws (woops) and my ancient but still perfectly functional and fairly well protected 4x100wrms amp:

Image




Future iterations include electronic crossovers and hard-wood outer skin (8 - 15mm thick).

Fred.
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