• The move to the new server is done. There are some software and database maintenance updates in process. This has us passing the hat around to help out. We appreciate any donations. Seriously, even a dollar helps. The payment page may be found here - https://www.audiokarma.org/support.html

Kraut's New Listening Space

These are not my speakers but a friend's REGA RS1 that I veneered in zebrano.



I just wanted to give a shoutout to these magical, little things. They are without a doubt the best micro speakers I've ever heard.
The soundstage they project into the room is vast, they are utterly smooth with a full, creamy midrange and slightly rolled off highs. There's just enough 'bass' to pass without a sub for jazz, though they really shine with dual subs of course.
They have the kind of warm sound that never gets old or fatiguing and makes you look forward to listen to music every day.
I normally don't put anything into this thread that isn't my personal system, but I'm making an exception for these babies. If anyone out there ever stumbles across a pair of RS1, no matter how beat up or boring they look in stock form, I'd jump on them.
 
Still haven't found the right 'cream beige' spray paint color to redo the front baffles of the Tannoys, though I've been looking at HD, Lowe's and Walmart. All the ones they have are either too light, like Ivory, Antique White, Almond (the kind I used) or too dark like Nutmeg, Light Brown, or similar.
I finally found a few minutes to sand down the walnut cabs, and I like what was hidden under all that 1960s brown stain. There are some dings and scratches, but I'm OK with a little character. Obviously, starting with 60 year old veneer I wasn't chasing perfection.

Sanded down before any finishing:





 
Instead of sanding back the dyed shellac sanding sealer and risking light (over sanded) edges, I wet sanded the oil straight onto the veneer to smoothen out the sealer. Worked really well. Buffed off the oil after it began to feel tacky. At this point the walnut feels super smooth and has a nice sheen to it.
This is how it looks now, sanded, sealed and dyed, oiled one coat:







I'm letting the oil cure for a day or so, but most likely won't have time to work on this project again for a good while anyway.
The crazy thing is this whole time I was moving these Tannoy cabs along, I wasn't sure I'd even like how the old veneer would turn out. But now that I finally sanded back the old stain and got the walnut looking natural, I really like how it looks.
 
Last edited:
I recently had a large pair of vintage 3 way speakers with 12" woofers come through my space that was loaded with Jensen drivers. All the drivers worked, I recapped them and gave them a serious listen for a couple days. In the end, I decided to part them out. For their large size of 26" high, they just didn't pack enough punch and they had to be real close to a wall to sound good, so not really a good fit for me.
All the drivers are parted out, so I decided to do something cool with the empty cabs because they have this really nice front edging.
Sorry, no before pics. Many speakers pass through my space without me writing about them or taking pics, if I don't feel they're worth the effort.

I cut them down into cube-like shapes to turn them into record crates:





The front edging stuck over the insides, so I had to line them with something. I used some thin 1/4" plywood I've had around. It's supposedly made of reclaimed wood. I just like the tight grain pattern, so I picked up a sheet a while ago before I knew what I'd use it for:



I lined the inside walls with said plywood, then dyed it 'orange' using Fiebing's leather dye. The first coat of polyurethane is just drying in these pics, I'll probably do two coats for a nice, hard surface inside the crates.
The outsides got sanded down, then re-stained in brown. It's not actually walnut, but birch. So not really a crime to stain it brown and mute the grain.



I plan on stacking them with just felt pads or maybe hockey pucks in between as spacers, so to round it off I picked up a set of 6" high chrome feet on ETSY for a modern look.
Next round of pics will be in a couple days once the finish is all dry and the feet are attached.

 
Last edited:
Major scroe:
A pair of 12" B&C woofers from a fellow AKer to supplement the 8" Tannoys. Plan is to build dual subs with these to match the Tannoy enclosures and act as stands for them as well. I will probably use the Smashly crossover to bi-amp the setup. Once it's built and set up, I'll have to play with the crossover frequency to see what's best. The Tannoys do roll off below about 80 hz or so but are very dynamic and fast above that, so I couldn't use just any subs.
Hopefully the B&Cs will blend well with the Tannoys, both sonically and visually.
Rumor has it, I've got more vintage walnut cabs to cut up to make similar enclosures for the subs...

 
It's been a while and I'll get right down to business. After restoring and sadly selling my beloved Yamaha NS-200M speakers:















...I decided to finally restore and upgrade the Mini Me Yammies NS-1000MM. I'm just giggling the whole time I'm working on them, because I'm about to spend ignorant amounts of time and money on these little toys (in between working on other people's stuff). I'm taking pics of the progress so fellow inmates of the asylum can join in on the madness.
Current status: cabs stripped and ready for veneer, upgraded caps on order, plans for custom stands in the works...







Solid metal badge on front panel.



Crossover on separate panel with stand-offs that was stapled to the rear wall. I might clean this up a bit, but it is point-to-point wiring and the tweeter has a paper in wax cap. Replacement caps are Audyn Q4.









Heavy, double magnet mid-tweeter:



Beefy, little 4.5" woofer with shielded magnet, paper cone and cloth surrounds:





 
KrautNotRice said:
It's been a while and I'll get right down to business. After restoring and sadly selling my beloved Yamaha NS-200M speakers:















...I decided to finally restore and upgrade the Mini Me Yammies NS-1000MM. I'm just giggling the whole time I'm working on them, because I'm about to spend ignorant amounts of time and money on these little toys (in between working on other people's stuff). I'm taking pics of the progress so fellow inmates of the asylum can join in on the madness.
Current status: cabs stripped and ready for veneer, upgraded caps on order, plans for custom stands in the works...







Solid metal badge on front panel.



Crossover on separate panel with stand-offs that was stapled to the rear wall. I might clean this up a bit, but it is point-to-point wiring and the tweeter has a paper in wax cap. Replacement caps are Audyn Q4.









Heavy, double magnet mid-tweeter:



Beefy, little 4.5" woofer with shielded magnet, paper cone and cloth surrounds:





Click to expand...

Love your work man - looks like a great little project.
 
Decided to address the lack of bracing and dampening inside of these speakers. I cut out some plywood strips for the front baffles and the large sides. Tried gluing the fronts on:



But the inside of the front baffle is actually lined with black melamine, which wood glue will not stick to at all:



Side bracing being glued in:



Built some stands out of solid, knot-free pine:







However, I really don't love the color contrast between the oiled pine and the finished zebrano. In these pics the zebrano is oiled and waxed and the stands are oiled.
I may try a darker oil for the pine, if that doesn't work I may just black them out.
Dampening will go in once the bracing is done and the crossovers are reinstalled. Will be acoustic foam on the sides and light fiberglass stuffing.
 
Justgotohm said:
It funny how big they look in the pics, like full size speakers.
Click to expand...

Turtley! Like a scale model car without a size reference in the frame, it looks full size.
Btw this was my inspiration for the simple, low rise corner post stands:



And doing a/b listening with the NS-1000MMs and Rega RS1s made the Yammies sound slightly boxed in (and bright), hence my messing with dampening and bracing. But then again, to anyone who's heard Regas from that era, they'll make almost anything sound boxy in comparison.
I'm hoping the Audyn Q4 caps will tame the brightness just enough, as they did with the edgy treble on the Tannoy PBM-6.5s. They really transformed those speakers.
 
KrautNotRice said:
Decided to address the lack of bracing and dampening inside of these speakers. I cut out some plywood strips for the front baffles and the large sides. Tried gluing the fronts on:



But the inside of the front baffle is actually lined with black melamine, which wood glue will not stick to at all:



Side bracing being glued in:



Built some stands out of solid, knot-free pine:







However, I really don't love the color contrast between the oiled pine and the finished zebrano. In these pics the zebrano is oiled and waxed and the stands are oiled.
I may try a darker oil for the pine, if that doesn't work I may just black them out.
Dampening will go in once the bracing is done and the crossovers are reinstalled. Will be acoustic foam on the sides and light fiberglass stuffing.
Click to expand...

The stands themselves look great, but I agree on the mis-match. I think it may be more due to the different patterns in the wood, rather than the color mis-match. But making the stands darker and muting the pine pattern will probably work.
 
I ended up oiling the stands with the darkest oil I had and they're a little darker now. I should've blacked them out, but I just didn't know how well paint would stick to the recently oiled wood, so I didn't bother.
Since the inside front bracing didn't stick to the melamine using wood glue, I used contact cement and that did the trick. There's now bracing on the fronts and on both long sides, it made a tremendous difference to how dampened these cabs are:





Added acoustic foam as dampening on top, bottom, and both sides:





 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom