Speaker kit experiments - an archive of the Jäger Speaker development

[Chris65]

Due to size/weight of the cabinets, shipping outside North America is pretty much precluded. So I was wondering if there any thoughts to offer this as a kit with drivers/crossovers & cabinet plans for those in other parts of the world to DIY their own cabinets?

[Doc B.]

One of the main ideas behind this exercise is to offer a speaker for which the builder does not have to fabricate their own cabinet. The cabinet is a fairly unique design that relies upon CNC machining, so I don't feel that it would translate that well to a DIY cabinet.

The idea of a speaker kit that is just drivers, crossover and a cabinet plan might be something we could consider in the future.

[Audio Islander]

Doc,

Do you guys have a high level timeline goal for production readiness of these kits?  Just for my own budget planning and Kaiju combo

I won't keep you to your timetables just curious.

[Doc B.]

I'm kind of thinking that we will do a pre-order run for 25 pair or something like that. To get there we need to determine the cabinet material, get some production prototypes made, work out the crossover cabinet and get a production prototype, and then write an assembly manual. I will give you a SWAG of around the first of the year, and categorically deny that I ever said it if someone tries to hold me to it.

[Rocketman248]

I'm definitely in for a preorder.

[caffeinator]

Hey Doc,

Sounds great - I'm very interested and hope to join the pre-order.  Did you mean a 'SWAG of around the first of the year' for the pre-order itself or for delivery of the pre-order run?

[Doc B.]

I'd like to say first of the year for the delivery, but I'm too smart for that. By the time we work out the final prototype and all the other stuff - of which there's more than one might think - I suspect the holiday will be upon us. In a fortuitous event some very nice folks stopped by today who do custom shipping boxes and packaging. Making sure the flat pack panels arrive in good shape is another important detail and I have tentatively arranged to have them work up custom made boxes.

[caffeinator]

Thanks, Doc, for the prompt reply.  Hope I'm not pestering you too much with questions today.

The boxes are an important detail.  I recall the excellent shipping crate in which the S8 flat-pak arrived.  It was far too nice to scrap or burn...and, as it happened, a handy size for things more-or-less shotgun-shaped.

Speaking of shipping, any chance of local pick-up for we NW Bottleheads, or will they be drop-shipped from the cabinet shop?

[Doc B.]

Local pickup will be encouraged! Gives us an opportunity to hang with you - and convince you that you need our latest harebrained scheme. We will be getting a run of panels in one shipment and packaging them to ship to our customers from here. I am envisioning the kit fitting into two boxes. One box for the panels, one for the drivers, ports, crossovers bits, wire, binding posts, etc., etc.

[Doc B.]

I guess it's time for an update -

We have had a pair of the speakers running since the last DIY tube meet. Lots of "I will order when they are ready to sell" comments were heard.

The next step has begun. I have asked JR to make a pair of cabinets in Baltic birch plywood with maple veneer. I'm hoping that birch ply will be the actual production material. We are also working out a 6" high base that the speaker will sit on, that will house the passive crossover/compensation networks.

PJ has begun planning out an active crossover as well. It will replace the passive crossover parts in the base. The compensation networks will be retained.

Price is still up in the air, but will probably be in the $2K or a bit more per pair range.

[Hank Murrow]

PB & Doc;  Have you been listening to the new speaks yet? Any word on when we can expect them?

Cheers from Eugene, Hank

[Doc B.]

You can see my comments on performance in the notes from Saturday's meeting. They sound very good, good enough that I find myself going up to listen whenever I could catch a break today. I am hoping to see the birch ply cabinets soon. We still have some other details to work out before we are ready to take orders.

[Jim R.]

Sounds really, really interesting. If I have a vote, baltic birch (veneered or not, external crossover and what seems to me to be an interesting and attractive form figure. If I were to get one, it would take a lot of time to save enough pennies, depending on what else I can sell and at what price (and maybe a borrowing from my allowance fund :-).

37 hz -- very nice number that will go very well in my room. Now I'm most interested in how close to the front wall these can go (ports)?

Keep the updates coming.

-- Jim

[Doc B.]

Big breakthroughs the past couple of weeks. PJ was over a while back and we experimented to great effect with a little stuffing in the ends of the chambers to reduce a box resonance in the 250Hz range. Yesterday I remounted the woofers with some rubber o-rings, which had a dramatic effect on a little bit of upper midrange shout that I was trying to eliminate.

These speakers are now where I was hoping to get them. Yesterday I ended up listening for several hours, doing that listening to stuff you are familiar with thing, to see what new information the speakers were capable of revealing. A lot! Vocals are now very natural and it's quite easy to pick out how things were mic'd and mixed. I was able to complete a mix I had been working on for a while, that I was struggling a bit with for lack of a good enough point of reference for my changes. With the midrange issues tamed the job became a whole lot easier.

To top off the great week, the next set of prototype cabinets showed up today. Below are pics of one cabinet dry fitted together. The first cabs are made of veneered MDF, these are made of Baltic birch. It will be interesting to see what effect the new material has on the sound. As you can see the new cabs also have a cubbyhole in the bottom for the passive crossover components and a base for stability.

[Paul Birkeland]

Looking good!