Bottlehead Forum
Bottlehead Kits => Jaeger Speaker => Topic started by: Doc B. on May 22, 2020, 11:37:58 AM
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We've been out of the Jagers for a few weeks now and I see several names on the Jager wait list. I have an interest in doing a pair of Jagers in walnut veneer. It's a somewhat involved process to switch over to walnut from the birch. Allowances in thickness may need to be worked out and edge banding materials need to be acquired as well as the veneered panel material. I am wondering if others might be interested in walnut cabinets as well. If there is enough interest we could probably include panel sets made for any current owners who might want a pair of walnut cabs as well as the new production run of kits.
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Aw man, that would’ve been my veneer of choice! I’m interested!
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I'd be interested, too (cabinets only).
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Hello!
Any update on the next run timing?
Working from home in the pandemic times - time saved in traffic could be used for that speakers project.
And also a question - I am using Cain&Cain Abbys for last 8-9 years or so. Do you think Jager will be better/different enough to justify this investment?
Thanks!
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I'd definitely be interested in this finish!
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We've been quite busy filling orders and writing a new preamp assembly manual so I have to admit I have not gotten any further with this. I will contact the cabinet maker next week and see what his current production situation is with respect to the pandemic.
Re the Abbys - obviously I can't tell anyone what they will like best, but I can say the Jagers will sound very different than the Abbys.
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I'd be interested in some walnut veneers cases. That's my preferred look too.
Thanks,
Philip Fontana
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yes, I would be interested in walnut veneers cabs. (cabinets only)
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Hey Doc, any update? I know you all have been very busy.
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Sorry, we have indeed been busy as heck. I will try to contact the cabinet maker this week.
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Thanks! No grief intended.
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No grief at all, I appreciate the enthusiasm! We're just playing bop-a-mole with a number of upcoming projects at the moment. I sent an RFQ for walnut cabinets a short while ago.
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What I know so far -
The raw baltic plywood panel size that is veneered to order with walnut is a little smaller than the pre-veneered birch we have been using. This increases what is called the falloff, i.e., extra material is needed since not as many pieces can cut from these slightly smaller sheets. Thus it will not be as efficient a use of material. That and the cost of the custom veneer itself will mean a higher price for these cabinets than the birch ones. I don't have that price yet, but I will crunch numbers as soon as I do and let everyone know what it would run.
Once ordered it will take a few weeks to get the veneered material in at the CNC shop. So it might take 4-6 weeks to get cabinets out after we order the material.
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Hey Doc, just checking back in. Even if you don’t have a dollar-perfect amount, do you have a ballpark?
I’m finishing up a bench for my wife so I have space coming free in the workshop again.
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Bugging the cabinet guy for an answer has proven to be part of the manufacturing process. It's on my list today.
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Thanks Doc! Best of luck with the cabinet guy.
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I still don't quite have a definitive price for a full Jager kit in walnut or for cabinets only in walnut. But I do have an estimated cost. Walnut veneer layup on Baltic birch is not a common material and thus it has to be veneered to order. The panel size used in the process is slightly smaller than the standard birch material we use. That means there will be more panels needed for a given production run and more "fall off" - excess material - than with the standard birch cabinets. So between the custom walnut veneer, the fall off and walnut edge banding our cost for a run of walnut cabinets is double that for birch.
Part of the determination of the price will be figuring out if we can use that falloff to create something else to sell to offset the material cost. I am working with the shop to determine how big and how many excess panels we would have so I can cook up something to do with them.
As soon as I get a better handle on this I will post some prices and see if people are interested. I think the way this is shaping up we would probably be limited to a single run of walnut cabinets, then we would go back to birch in the future. For this to be feasible at the costs I have mentioned we would need ten orders total of full walnut Jager kits and/or cabinets only. Well, nine, as I would take a pair myself.
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Unless the cost is just bonkers I’m in. Even if you could ballpark me (email is fine if you don’t want to share publicly) I could get you a more definitive yes or no.
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It looks like the kit price for this limited walnut veneer cabinet version will be $3499. To be clear, this is walnut veneered Baltic birch plywood, not veneered MDF. So the sonic performance will remain the same as the standard Baltic birch version.
Those who currently have Jagers in birch may purchase a pair of walnut cabinets only. Please contact me at docb at bottlehead dot com and I'll quote a price. I would appreciate your posting an acknowledgement here if you plan to buy a walnut kit or cabinets so we can determine if we have enough orders to make this happen.
As an aside it was nice to hear a mixing engineer friend of mine mention that he thought the Jagers suitable for mixing and mastering yesterday, during a conversation about PMCs and ATCs and the like.
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Shot you an email. Thanks for keeping this alive, Doc.
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Hi Doc,
I'm interested in walnut cabinets - will drop an email to you asap.
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Was thinking about this and wanted to make sure I did what you asked, Doc. I’m posting here to confirm that I’m in for cabinets.
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I'm in too!
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Peer pressure is the worst...I'm in for cabinets.
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Hell yeah
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OK, I am willing to gamble and order 10 pairs of cabinets if we can get one more person to commit and bring us up to five pairs.
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I have, finally (!) gotten a page up in our store for the limited edition walnut version of the Jagers. We have six pairs of cabinets left from the minimum production run, and we need one more order to initiate that run. Who's gonna be first?
https://bottlehead.com/product/limited-edition-walnut-jager-speaker-kit/ (https://bottlehead.com/product/limited-edition-walnut-jager-speaker-kit/)
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Come on dudes, buy a set before my wife changes her mind and goes anti-walnut cabinets for Jameson
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Doc, I assume you’ll email or something when you’ve hit the threshold and don’t need me to place an order on the site (I don’t see a cabinet only option anyway)
This is part question, part bumping this up for visibility so more people buy in
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Yup, I will let folks who are interested in cabinets only know if we have anyone else get on board so I can push the button on a cabinet order.
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Hi there,
While I would be interested, I would need some more info before taking the leap...
The kit panels come veneered and I would only need to glue this together, correct? Is it reasonable to expect that these panels make it across the country in a pristine state, with no dents and nicks and scratches? What treatment goes on the veneer? A clearcoat or some form of wax or polish? :-\
Most importantly, how do these speakers perform when hooked up to a first generation Stereomour? I understand that people with a Kaiju are very happy with these, but that puts out three to four times the wattage of the Stereomour. Well, the name of the speakers tells me what amplifier they are meant for...I am asking because I have Blumenstein Orcas with subwoofers, which sound really good with the Stereomour. I would need a substantial increase in quality of sound over that to justify new speakers. :) And I would not want to run these under-powered or beneath their actual potential...
Has anybody tried those with a Smash/Seductor combo? How would that compare to the setup with a Kaiju versus a setup with Stereomour? Would be nice to have two Seductors to bi-amp these speakers...which brings me back to my question from a few months ago: Will there be Seductor replacement in the near future?... :P
Thanks in advance for sharing your experience and insight.
Cheers,
FS
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I’ll tell you my experience and Doc can weigh in.
You’ll need to screw some hardware into pre-drilled holes, then glue it, then tighten some locks onto the hardware. It’s a lot like building IKEA furniture but with higher quality parts. You’ll also need to solder the crossovers.
The packing job on the panels I received was really incredibly done. I live in Kansas City, so there were a few hops for UPS, and even with their manhandling the contents of the box were perfect. I was astounded by how well packed the kits were.
For walnut veneer I’m planning to rub in a coat or two of Odie’s oil. No stain or anything.
I can’t comment on your equipment combos. I am biamping with a Kaiju and a Stereomour II and am happy with the combo.
Let the others weigh in on the equipment, but building the kit was fun and easy enough, and they sound great to me.
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I understand that people with a Kaiju are very happy with these, but that puts out three to four times the wattage of the Stereomour.
The Stereomour is 3.5 watts per channel, the Kaiju is about 8 watts per channel. If the Orcas play loudly enough for you with the Stereomour, the Jager will play more loudly. If the Jagers are placed relatively close to your back wall, I do not imagine that you'll need a subwoofer.
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I can speak to packaging. I'm in the military, stationed in Japan. Military mail is slow, and each and every package gets a good drag down teh road by tanks or something. My set took almost a month to make the journey overseas, and the outer packaging took a rather decent beating, along with one of them being soaked in what smelled like fabric softener. I feared for the worst when I opened the boxes, but everything inside was in perfect shape. Everything was very carefully wrapped, and then firmly secured in custom foam inserts that isolate the panels from the outside packaging.
Over the years, I've ordered 10 different amp/preamp/headphone amp kits, the Jagers, and various upgrade kits. All shipped overseas with military mail, and I've never had anything damaged in shipping.
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One of the biggest issues for me was that the expensive CNC'd panels had to arrive at the customer's house in perfect condition. Consequently we hired a company that specializes in custom packaging and we invested a small fortune in custom cut foam inserts and custom shipping boxes. When Josh was with us he worked out a very precise method of stacking the panels and wrapping them in plastic so they are protected from the environment as well as impacts.
Not to discount the Orcas at all - I own three pairs of Orcas, an Orca center channel and two Dungeness woofers and love them - but we are talking apples and oranges vs. the Jagers. The tiny Orcas with their 3" drivers are absolutely great for a small room, a near field setup on a computer desk, and as surround speakers. The Jagers have the equivalent of a 12" woofer in each cabinet, can get into the mid 30Hz range and can fill even a large room with a couple of watts. Jager sensitivity is quite a bit higher than the Orca. Going by the driver manufacturer ratings it is at least 6dB more sensitive.
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OK, it's been just about a month since I announced the pricing and a few weeks that we've had the order button up for the walnut limited edition. Unfortunately we haven't had anyone opt in for a full kit and just two bottleheads requested cabinets only. The cost of the walnut panels is high enough that I am not willing to carry the expense of the other 16 cabinets we would need to order for a minimum run. I just had a request for two Jager kits in birch today and so I am going to cancel the limited walnut run. I will be ordering another ten pair of birch cabinet kits instead, as we have a large number of names on the Jager wait list. Sorry folks, I really wish it had worked out.
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That's disappointing to hear but I understand. Thanks for the update.
If this gets revived in the future, you know who to email first!
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Thank you for working so hard to try to bring this together, Doc.
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Hey guys,
I was pretty sure I had posted a response here a day or two ago, saying that I had been ready to pull the trigger on this, only to find out that this deals is not real anymore...:-( Now that post seems to have vanished...WTH? Do posts disappear in this forum?
Cheers,
FS
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I didn't see it, but ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
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Not sure what happened to it - I did not remove it - but I did see it. I believe your response was that you had interest in placing an order after the election. It was probably removed simply because we're trying to stay as far away as possible from politics on the forum right now. Sorry for that.
Unfortunately we have to stick to either birch or walnut. The timing was just off a bit as your post hit after I had to make a decision, and I had already switched gears on our cabinet maker to go with another run of birch since we had about 20 people on the wait list for birch kits. Believe me when I say I am as disappointed as anyone that there wasn't enough interest to make the walnut run happen. I can't justify floating the cost of the extra 6 or 7 pairs of cabinets I would have to order, that no one seems interested in buying. The limited edition Kaiju and BeePre kits in walnut that we sold a few years ago sold excruciatingly slowly, and that has made me very cautious. If we can get more firm commitments in future we can try again.
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Now that post seems to have vanished...WTH? Do posts disappear in this forum?
I deleted your post. Please refrain from posting about politics on this forum.