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Overnight Sensations 1 of 2

This is my first pair of the Overnight Sensations, designed by Paul Carmody. Paul is an active member of the DIY speaker community and has been generous in sharing his designs with others, free of charge.

I bought the “flat pack” kit from Erich H. of the DIY Sound Group. My garage is in no shape to be doing much wood cutting right now – not to mention I have no table saw. As I understand it, Erich essentially leverages the buying power of the collective hobbyists to get good pricing on CNC cut cabinets parts. I believe he does it in his spare time just for the sake of the community. Very nice. This kit was made from 1/2″ Baltic Birch plywood.

After a lot of sanding I finished the wood several coats of  Minwax Wipe On Poly, finally topped with a carnauba-based wax. It was a learning process. It isn’t perfect, but I would call it satisfactory.

Assembly was comparatively simple after my last build. The most time consuming elements were the finish of the wood, building the crossovers, and of course the final assembly always takes longer than expected.

I followed the very helpful post by a member of the Parts Express forum named Soundslike for the arrangement and assembly of the crossover. I’m still quite a novice, so it was helpful to be able to mimic the work of another. I’m sure it isn’t the cleanest looking crossover in the world, but it works.

This first pair was made as a Christmas gift. After hearing these, I am very eager to finish the next pair. I was blown away by the huge sound that these small speakers can produce. The imaging is very precise – the phantom center channel is very well defined. The 4 inch midwoofer produces very clean and articulate bass. It is hard to believe that the driver cost is just over $30/speaker.

I listened to them with a borrowed Lepai Tripath TA202 T-Amp. I think that this amp would suffice 80% of the time. I prefer to have more power on tap than is needed, rather than just enough, so I’m arranging another family member to provide the more powerful Dayton DTA-100a as a complementary gift to the recipient.

Complete.

Rear

Crossover parts (this is for 4 crossovers)

Top and Bottom

Pre installation

Preparing to box up