Bob 5

Well, as you can see I went for the modified Orion shape. The cost of the aluminium side panels and the complexity and cost of a 4 way were the initial reasons, but I find the shape rather fetching. The side panels are MDF painted with black hammered finish.

The idea was to cover up my extremely poor painting skills, and to a degree I succeeded, but closer examination reveals more errors than a Kournikova tennis match.

One of these days I must also get rid of the slight bubbling of the rubber baffle, which is because I didn't apply glue over the whole surface. I thought about getting a proper gloss back finish from a spray shop, but got drunk one night and started them myself, so there was no going back.


The construction is different from the Orions, partly because of lack of skill, and partly because I had a Theory.

My previous baffles, and Orions so I've heard, vibrate considerably, with the top part of the baffle flexing from big bass notes.

So I built them as two separate pieces, with the top sliding over the top of the bass section. It is slightly wider so it doesn't actually touch the bass section. This does decouple it, although whether this matters sound-wise is, like the talent of Britney Spears, debatable.



From the back you can see the cross brace that keeps the midrange section semi-rigid, and also how shoddy some of my finishing is.

They look a bit better in the flesh, but not fantastic. I will fix the wiring up next time my all too frequent bouts of indolence bid a temporary adieu.

Besides, alligator clips rock. I'm sure there is a pun there but I'm just too lazy to find it.



And here we have a moody shot of Bob and Roberta. Roberta is the center and surround speaker and has a Seas L21 and Seas Millenium (Focal TC90 for surrounds). She is active because I really felt the need to have 13 channels of amplification and three crossovers. The center uses a Behringer CX2310, and the surrounds a Rane AC 23. I use an ARX six channel parametric EQ for dipole EQ, and cross at 80Hz to a monopole sub.

I bet you wanted to know that. The speaker are a very close match for each other in spite of the different drivers, which leads me to think the real secret is dipole operation, rather than specific drivers.