Overnight Sensation Speaker Kit

I recently purchased and built a speaker kit available from both Parts Express and DIY Sound Group called the ?Overnight Sensations?. They are a tiny monitor that use a 4? woofer and a 0.75 inch dome tweeter. The kit is first rate, good drivers from HiVi and Dayton audio, quality crossover parts including air-core inductors and polypropylene capacitors in the tweeter circuit and knock-down cabinets. You have to assemble the cabinets which requires little more than some wood glue and masking tape to hold the panels together, plus drilling some holes for the binding posts and driver mounting screws. The cabinets use nice 1/2" Baltic birch plywood which I finished with some wipe-on poly from Minvax. You also have to build the crossover yourself which requires hot gluing the components to a small board and soldering everything up and of course providing leads to the binding posts and drivers. You also need to stuff about two handfuls of poly-fill behind the woofer before you button everything up. I have them in my kitchen driven by a Dayton audio DTA-100 chip amp fed by my iPhone (196kbps mp3).

As for the sound ? they are outstanding particularly the bass response, I just can?t believe that a box that small can put out that kind of bass, they are rated down to 45Hz and I believe it. The midrange and treble is very non-fatiguing and clear, they throw up a sizable sound stage and are quite transparent. For the $128 they are a steal, I put them up against some Polk Monitor 30?s from my bedroom system and it was no-contest, and I?ve always thought the 30?s were great.

For those considering trying some do-it-yourself the ?Overnight Sensations? are a great first step.