My first Visaton floorstander build

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Terra

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Thought I'd make a general discussion of my Visaton Alto 3C build for the forumites that don't follow the DIY thread. You can skip the blah blah first paragraph on the story on how I got to build them if you want.

I got to a point with my HT system earlier this year where I required to improve on my sound setup, some you might laugh at this, as I got tired of management constantly asking to turn down the volume as our first born was going to wake up. I had to turn up the volume due to the dialogue of movies and tv shows that's constantly at a low volume, but still I required the effects of the movie/show as well. The setup at that stage was old Sansui floorstanders with 2x 8inch drivers and a tweeter each as main left and right and oldish Sansui bookshelves for rear left and right. It worked well but only at high volumes. The 8inch's of the floorstanders just couldn't give me higher frequencies ie, dialogue, at low volumes as the drivers just was too much. So I did some research on HT and found that dialogue is mainly produced through your centre channel which I did not have. So I went on the search for a cheap and old centre speaker to test this. I found a cheap Mission center speaker and hooked it up at my pc's 5.1 sub/amp and had a good listen to movies and shows and found it to be just that! Great, so I have a solution for my problem, went to Audiovision and purchased a brand mission centre channel, sommer a size one, M3C2i, as luck would have it, they had a brand new one that was hidden way back in their storage as these were discontinued a while ago. So a new problem then arose. The Sansui's and Mission didn't blend sound wise, damn! another problem. So I went back to Audiovision and listened to the Boston A26's and A225 centre and brought them back home. Oh fantastic! But alas, I missed the bass reproduction of my Sansui's and got myself the Jamo J10 sub that was on a lekker special at Dionwired. Sorted! Well....uhm.... after a few months the aesthetics of the bookshelf left and right started bothering me as I adore and missed the aesthetical appeal of a floorstander but buying the A360 was not an option as these guys are out my price range and first have to upgrade my receiver. So I started looking into second hand options and also discovered the world of diy. Never knew that this world is so big. My knowledge on diy speaker build go as far building my car speaker stuff back in the day when my cars came with crap tape decks and shoddy full range brandless drivers. Today my vehicle consist of a fantastic 14 speaker B&O system which I believe is a main contributor to my need for proper sound quality!

Anyway, up and down between second hand options on floorstanders, possible diy builds backwards and forwards, maybe upgrading the Sansui's, it consumed my life and it was irritating me out the walls! Enter Mister Blizzard and his Visatons after I contacted him regarding some drivers. He eventually convinced me to get the Alto 3C kit and build this into the Sansui cabs as the dimensions are fairly close. So I decided to go for it!
Doing some CAD designs and assessing the amount of work and precision that was required to produce a baffle that can be attached to a modified baffle of the Sansui's just got too tricky and risky. So I opted to build the cabs from scratch rather. I made peace with myself that I will most definitely build them twice as I'm, unfortunately  :facepalm:, one those people with little patience and when I want something I want it now! So I kinda rushed the build to get it done. And over time, bit by bit I'll rebuild the cabs at a slow and detailed pace as I already have the Alto up and running!



So the build begins. Had the panels cut by The Board Store here in Durbanville, highly recommended if anyone in the area require some board cutting, they cut precise!
Having limited large clamping equipment I made my way with heavy steel weights and gas bottels to pressurize the glued areas. Worked quite well, I know its not the right way, but next time! I discovered later in the build that my neighbour have some lekker big clamps that I can borrow.



Years ago I built myself a 20ton bearing press from heavy structural profile steel off-cuts which I mainly use to press out dings and smileys on my m/cycle rims. Comes in handy for application as in the picture as well!



Got the cabs done without the front baffle. One of the cabs came out slightly miss-aligned by working with my improvised steel and gas bottle weights. Luckilly only about 1.5mm, but even this tolerance is not acceptable to me. Precision and neatness is key in my life. Buuuut, I made peace yet again as I know that I will rebuild them again.



Initial thoughts were to paint the complete cab as the finish render, but halfway through the build I saw one of JimGore's builds (thanks for the inspiration JimGore, your builds are out of this world!) and thought that I'd give the timber look with a black baffle finish a go. By cladding the cabs with exotic timber was not a option as this would've made the width of the cab too wide to my liking due to the baffle/driver width ratio. Some speakers can pull it off I suppose, but I wanted the slanted edges in the corner, and the ration just wouldn't work. So opted to give 4mm plywood a go. Had some sections cut after struggling to find a shop that is willing to cut them. They are all to scared as they say its too risky as I required them to be chamfered at 45? to fit neatly at the joints. Long story short, I had to scrap all the panels because the shop that did it couldn't understand measurements properly as it seemed. Anyway...
Up and down with machinery on how to cut the 3.6mm ply panels I bought the second time around, I eventually got them cut sufficiently. (Check my DIY thread on how I did it with my Dremel)

So I stuck them on, again with the improvised weights.



Woodoc'ed and ready..



The front baffles was quite a challenge making them by hand. I had a quote on the table for R2k to have them cnc'd but I opted to attempt them myself as R2k is a lot and I have a high quality router and access to a radial arm saw. The radial arm saw unfortunately limited my cutting angles for the slants but worked out well in the end. The initial design for the bottom slants was to continue all the way up to the bottom 6.5" driver to match the 4" driver slant termination, but as said, the radial arm saw was limited. So I matched the slants in all four corners. Looks okay, not as planned, but I'm happy...next time  :giggle:



With some kop krap and clear thinking, I eventually got the wires soldered up on the xover as I didn't have a schematic drawing on where the wires go, well, I had one, only found it in the bottom of the box the next day after I finished the soldering already!  :walled: Could've saved myself a whole hour of figuring it out from the electrical diagram drawing. I'm not an electrical engineer, I'm a structural engineering technician so electrics is not my fort?, but I got it sorted with some ingenuity in the end! The wires on the xover is soldered as a mirrored image of the diagram! Looks funny on the xover, but hey, it works!  :BWAHAHAH:



So, I got them done in the end. Turned the last screw 11pm at night.

Prior to this I had to still fit the dampening and do you think I had any idea how this works! No! Got to chatting with Blizzard on Whatsapp during that evenings works. Technology is really lekker sometimes! He guided me all through the night with all the bits and pieces including the dampening. Luckily I sent him a picture of me pointing to a specific area to ask him about damping behind the mid/tweeter enclosure and he picked up that I got the dampening wrong for the 6.5" drivers. He explained to me how the dampening works and I moved it in the right place. Thank goodness he saw it before I closed it, as I can really hear in the sound why it is done this way. As my understanding goes (Blizzard, jump in if I'm wrong), the cab also produces resonance by sound waves at the rear side of the driver. By placing the dampening directly behind the driver and not leaving a void between the driver and dampening you lessen the cab resonance and create a tighter bass reproduction, basically removing the 'echo' if I can call it that.
So after I turned the last screw at 11pm, Blizzard informed me that he's on his way to me to come and have a listen at my creations. Unfortunately management and mini-me already went to bed so we couldn't step on the gas pedal too much that evening. We sat drinking honey induced white Muscadel till 2am that morning.

It's been almost three weeks now with these guys running every evening at a steady pace and whole day on the weekends with music filling our home. I'm amazed, just absolutely amazed! Even with my cheapie Sansui 50W receiver'tjie. These guys really warms my heart with the joy by sitting back and listening to these DIY's. I'm confident that with some proper amplification giving these guys food I'll kick some serious commercial speaker butt. As days go by and the drivers get settled, they sound better and better and you know what, I can really hear them settling and improving as I watch series and listen to the same music and I can hear it just getting better and better.
Funny thing, I changed the audio setup from my sources as well over the weekend, moved my Android box to have the audio run through the hdmi into my tv and utilize the aux out from the tv into the receiver. Big difference already. The tv's DAC is slightly better quality than the receiver so it assists in cleaning the sound. I also changed my Bray player to run a genuine digital coax cable, and also, biiig improvement!

Overall, the Alto 3C, recommended to all! Natural sound reproduction with a lekker wide dispersion. So that, I chucked all the HT stuff and I'm running only these two guys now. No need for any centre or surround speakers or subwoofer for that matter. Being a 3-way, I found that I can increase my bass setting without compromising the mid and tweeter treble. Dialogue is awesome and clear and the explosions and gun shots from the movies are controlled with great effects. From sitting with the remote in my hand all night previously to setting one volume and putting the remote aside for the remainder of my TV experience, priceless!! People, 3 way speakers are the right way! Look, I'm no fundi on all things audio, but heck, with my little knowledge and little years around the block on this, I can hear the difference between quality and sommer net gou aanmekaar geslaan om geld te maak speakers! These Visatons cry for attention and they will give you something special in return!
The sound quality combined with the knowing that my hands typing these words now built these, absolutely fantastic! Can't wait to start and rebuild the cabs to a very high spec and finish render!!

Blizzard, my appreciation for your knowledge and guidance and convincing me to go this way! Anyone is more than welcome to come have a listen at these guys if you are in the same boat as I was a while ago. My speakers, I'm sorted now for years to come! Now it's onto source upgrades, well, when my ship docks at CT harbour one day!










 
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