Wanted - Advice on building speaker cabinets for old stock speakers

Daveaa2

Ok so first off I am a nuby to this forum, I have had a set of Polk Audio Monitor 10's for about 23 years! and they still sound great! Only problem is that they are too big for my space so what I would like to do is build new cabinets for the drivers and tweeter more like a bookshelf size (approx 8w x 20h x 12d). These would be used for side or rear channel in a surround setup.

- First off is this even advisable or am I nuts
- Second if this is something that is possible are there guidelines for cabinet building (I am pretty good woodworker so shouldn't be a problem with the right plans). I have been doing some reading on the subject and it looks like the inside dimensions and port size are very important

Does the crossover play into the cabinet size, port size and so on (could I use the original crossover with the new cabinet design).

I am also looking into purchasing similar vintage/old speakers on eBay and building a center cabinet for them.

Any advice / guidelins / plans would be greatly appriciated.

Dave

F1nut

Welcome to the fray.

First off, your speakers are not ported, rather they are a sealed design using a PR instead of a port. That feature you don't want to change.

Cabinet volume is critical and I don't see a way to reduce the cabinet to the size you specified and still have the same performance.

Forum member Ben may chime in, he's got a lot of experience building cabinets. However, my advice would be to find another speaker that fits your size requirements and to not hack up the 10's.

shadowofnight

Welcome ,

First, I wouldnt butcher a perfectly nice pair of 10's...if you really need smaller you should pick up a pair of bookshelf speakers and call it a day.

That being said, if you are hell bent on this ride well then more power to you



I bought a LOT of raw Polk drivers...radiators and crossovers a long while back....so I didnt have to chop up a pair of 10's for this...I just had loose components to play with.


The monitor 10 drivers/radiator do extremely well in an enclosure that is between the stock 10's cubic ft volume and the volume of a CRS+ enclosure.

Tried smaller as well as larger volumes then that "Window " and didnt like it .

On the front , do the driver arrangement in an MTM vertical alignment ( No SDA to worry about like on the CRS+'s that have to sit horizontal because of the SDA feature . I modified my MTM alignment to offset the tweeter a bit and mirror imaged the pair so I could use tweeter in or out depending on where I was going to use them ...or if I wanted to experiment and lay them on their side and throw CRS+ crossovers and mid's in there and try them as super CRS+'s ) .

Then make the 10" radiator rear facing ala a CRS+ again...this makes the cabinet much narrower and shorter then the 10's cabinet ( Again like the CRS+ ) so you have to add a bit of depth to the cabinet to make up some cubic volume.

That setup sounds so SWEET, and will fix your size problems and have nice new looking cabinets to boot.


Here is the pair I built....they are internally braced heavily ( Like a brick if you rap your knuckles anywhere on them ) with the same internal cubic volume as CRS+'s and have the rear facing 10" radiator. Since I have stock monitor 10's.....CRS+'s...and these I can side by side test them...the heavily braced CRS+ volumed customs sound better to anybody that I have demo'd them for.




I was going to flush mount the drivers and then veneer like I do all my subs now , but when I built these a LONG time ago my router was on the fritz ...so I never got around to it....I still may do so one day

Poee7R

If you dig the sound of the 10's, then find a set of monitor 4's, 5's, or 7's.

While they may not be the exact dimension's you stated you may be able to make them work, even though the 7's are a bit big to be considered bookshelf I think. Maybe midget floorstander's.

Ah hell, you could probably find a set of crs's that may work for ya. All you have to do is drop the saw and back away from the 10's.

Welcome to Club Polk.


Dave

Daveaa2

Point taken on the hacking of the 10's , maybe I will build some stands for them to get them off the ground and make room for them. I am learning alot about speakers in general and much appreciate all your advice.

Shadow - your cabinets look very nice (well done!), maybe I will just start looking for components and experiment on them like you did. I am not necessarily hell bent just looking for good feedback like I’m getting.

I will look into the other models mentioned and yes I have been actively seeking some bookshelf jobs that I can hang on the wall.

Dave

Daveaa2

:mad: Oops tried to edit and added instead.... NUBE :mad:

shadowofnight

Daveaa2 wrote: »

These would be used for side or rear channel in a surround setup.

I hadnt even noticed this in your original post. That opens up your options tremendously and you can even go to micro sized bookshelf speakers or maybe inwall if you really wanted to since you dont have to worry about 80Hz and below capability.

You could even look for a pair of rt600i's or rt800i's....no stands needed ( Very tall ) but they are extremely narrow to fit in tight places ( The 600i's are almost to a T what you wanted in size...just a bit taller but the width and depth are spot on ). I picked up a really nice set of the 800i's for side surround duty and they fit/looked/sounded perfect for the application.


http://www.polkaudio.com/homeaudio/products/rt600i/

chriscrawford

Hello shadowofnight and group,

I'n new to the group but I've been thinking of doing exactly what you've done so beautifully with these Monitor 10 parts. I have a pair of 10's that I've been wanting to re-veneer for ages (they look pretty bad), and recently thought of just building nicer looking and more vertical cabinets instead. Anyway, I'm new to the speaker building/restoring scene and a novice woodworker but very enthusiastic on both fronts. Also I'm not interested in giving PartsExpress what they're asking for empty cabinets no matter how pretty they are.

Anyway, so do you have anything like a drawing or plan that you could share on this? Is the woofer (Radiator?) mounted sideways and facing out? And how did you build your face plate? The woodworking is gorgeous btw.

Thanks for your time and pics posted on the forum.

Chris

shadowofnight wrote: »

Welcome ,

First, I wouldnt butcher a perfectly nice pair of 10's...if you really need smaller you should pick up a pair of bookshelf speakers and call it a day.

That being said, if you are hell bent on this ride well then more power to you



I bought a LOT of raw Polk drivers...radiators and crossovers a long while back....so I didnt have to chop up a pair of 10's for this...I just had loose components to play with.


The monitor 10 drivers/radiator do extremely well in an enclosure that is between the stock 10's cubic ft volume and the volume of a CRS+ enclosure.

Tried smaller as well as larger volumes then that "Window " and didnt like it .

On the front , do the driver arrangement in an MTM vertical alignment ( No SDA to worry about like on the CRS+'s that have to sit horizontal because of the SDA feature . I modified my MTM alignment to offset the tweeter a bit and mirror imaged the pair so I could use tweeter in or out depending on where I was going to use them ...or if I wanted to experiment and lay them on their side and throw CRS+ crossovers and mid's in there and try them as super CRS+'s ) .

Then make the 10" radiator rear facing ala a CRS+ again...this makes the cabinet much narrower and shorter then the 10's cabinet ( Again like the CRS+ ) so you have to add a bit of depth to the cabinet to make up some cubic volume.

That setup sounds so SWEET, and will fix your size problems and have nice new looking cabinets to boot.


Here is the pair I built....they are internally braced heavily ( Like a brick if you rap your knuckles anywhere on them ) with the same internal cubic volume as CRS+'s and have the rear facing 10" radiator. Since I have stock monitor 10's.....CRS+'s...and these I can side by side test them...the heavily braced CRS+ volumed customs sound better to anybody that I have demo'd them for.




I was going to flush mount the drivers and then veneer like I do all my subs now , but when I built these a LONG time ago my router was on the fritz ...so I never got around to it....I still may do so one day