# Building some surrounds



## Mike Edwards (Mar 10, 2011)

Being that I built some very high efficiency SEOS speakers last year for my mains I figure it's about time to replace my Polk M30's for surrounds. As such I will be making 4 Volt 10's from Diysoundgroup to replace my 2 polks...yes deciding to go from 5.1 to 7.1.

For those of you not in the know, the Volt 10's are coaxial based surrounds, using a compression driver that's hidden behind the woofer which has an acoustically transparent dustcap (and the woofer kind of acts like a wave guide in some small respects too). these are supposedly amazing at surrounds due to their off axis abilities. They're going to be mounted about 7 feet up on the walls using angled boxes.... I have the stuff in hand. all it should take is some time with me and my buddy down at his workshop

Pictures will come as the build starts

this one will give you an idea what they will look like


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## willis7469 (Jan 31, 2014)

Subscribed! Curious to see this play out. How high is your ceiling?


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## Mike Edwards (Mar 10, 2011)

willis7469 said:


> Subscribed! Curious to see this play out. How high is your ceiling?


it's a sloped ceiling, so 8 feet on the left and 11 feet on the right


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## justforthesoundof (May 8, 2012)

I don't know about your WAF, but I made something similar looking for my eldest daughter. I made it white to blend in with the trim. I made a removable white grill. In order to keep the black speaker showing through, I painted the wood flat black with the grill cloth on the front of the frame. 
One thing I have decided that I will do differently is to measure the sweet spot and angle each speaker to point there. I had designed them with a 15°angle.


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## Steeve-O (Dec 3, 2010)

I'm subscribed too. That is one projet I would like to build in the future (building seos speaker for all my speaker) and sure it's currently only a dream but still I'm debating between Volt-10 and Fusion-8 as surround.


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## Mike Edwards (Mar 10, 2011)

Steeve-O said:


> I'm subscribed too. That is one projet I would like to build in the future (building seos speaker for all my speaker) and sure it's currently only a dream but still I'm debating between Volt-10 and Fusion-8 as surround.


It depends on your tastes but as surrounds they are superb. I got a chance to hear the volt 10s in action and they are incredible as surrounds since the sound coming from them were impossible to locate. That coaxial setup has fantastic off axis range. Even better than when we tested my buddies seos speakers for surrounds.....


And on a side note the sickness has ahold of since I'm considering replacing my cheap thrill seos mains with the insane 1099 seos bad boys


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## dougc (Dec 19, 2009)

I have 6 of the ported v8 and am very happy with them. Are you building the sealed version?


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## fusseli (May 1, 2007)

Looks cool and sounds like a very interesting build, I like the coaxial with transparent dust cap. Definitely unique and practical.


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## Mike Edwards (Mar 10, 2011)

dougc said:


> I have 6 of the ported v8 and am very happy with them. Are you building the sealed version?


yeah, I'm going with the sealed angled V-10.... the ported is a kewl idea, but would over double the size of the enclosure, and for surrounds it's not necessary. I might do that if I was using them as mains in the bedroom or something, but not as surrounds


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## Mike Edwards (Mar 10, 2011)

well, being that this year has been VERY busy for me, and I was just plain lazy it's taken me a while... I got the first 2 of my 4 surrounds wired up (switched to 5.1 for the next week, maybe 2 until I can get the last 2 speakers up for my back surrounds)... I decided I was tired of waiting and cutting angled cuts so I bought the Flat packs from Erich over at DIYSoundgroup to finish up the boxes and let me say this. they are EASY to assemble. I'm not the woodworker, my buddy is, I'm just good at designs and tweaking stuff. long story short, I built the boxes over the weekend and finished running them with duratex in 24 hours... the last 2 boxes just need duratex and I can toss in the components

I'm hanging them on my side walls with french cleats from Home Depot and they blend seamlessly with my SEOS 15 Cheap Thrills. the clarity on these things are WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY better than my Polk M30's, giving off effortless detail that I didn't realize was in the audio track before. absolutely love that they're hung up near the ceiling and angled down so I don't have to have my sides on stands anymore taking up space. here is the pics I took to show the process


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## dtsdig (Oct 31, 2012)

Mike Edwards said:


> I'm hanging them on my side walls with french cleats from Home Depot and they blend seamlessly with my SEOS 15 Cheap Thrills. the clarity on these things are WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY better than my Polk M30's, giving off effortless detail that I didn't realize was in the audio track before. absolutely love that they're hung up near the ceiling and angled down so I don't have to have my sides on stands anymore taking up space. here is the pics I took to show the process


Looks good! :T
I have been using a set of Volt-10"s in the same slanted boxes as my mains for a year with my 1099 center, and even in that application, they are excellent. I normally wouldn't have bought flat packs, but for time and convenience sakes, I too purchased Erich's flat packs and they are a no-brainer for the price.
I used to use Polk monitor 30's as my surrounds too until I sold all of my Polk stuff to go towards my front pair of 1099 kits. For the last year I've been using a set of early 90's Mission 760i bookshelves as surrounds so I can't wait to hear what the Volts do when they are finally moved into the surrounds position!


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## Mike Edwards (Mar 10, 2011)

dtsdig said:


> Looks good! :T
> I have been using a set of Volt-10"s in the same slanted boxes as my mains for a year with my 1099 center, and even in that application, they are excellent. I normally wouldn't have bought flat packs, but for time and convenience sakes, I too purchased Erich's flat packs and they are a no-brainer for the price.
> I used to use Polk monitor 30's as my surrounds too until I sold all of my Polk stuff to go towards my front pair of 1099 kits. For the last year I've been using a set of early 90's Mission 760i bookshelves as surrounds so I can't wait to hear what the Volts do when they are finally moved into the surrounds position!


yeah, I normally don't do flatpacks cuz I'm a cheapie, but I needed to get these guys done as it had been too long. they definitely made things easy


I think you'll be well pleased, they are a HUGE improvement over my old ones. the detail is astonishing for surrounds and their off axis response is incredible... now I just need to get my lazy (read as overworked) tail in gear and duratex the last two boxes so I can complete it out to 7.1


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## Mike Edwards (Mar 10, 2011)

after a few movies under my belt I'm REALLY liking these as surrounds. they're nearly impossible to pinpoint where the ambient noises are coming from. a whisper over the shoulder just scared the tar out of last night cuz it felt like it was LITERALLY just over my shoulder. normally I can tell that it's coming from my surrounds, but this time I couldn't localize it at the speaker..


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