Martin’s Eikona DCR

Over the years, Ted Jordan’s Eikona DCR design has proven to be very popular with our customers. We regularly receive feedback on the quality of the speakers’ sound and they have featured on the blog before. The latest feedback was from Martin, a customer in the UK. He was kind enough to send photos and a detailed description of his construction process, which you can read below:

 

“I first learned of Jordan Eikona drivers from the great thread over at Lencoheaven.

“I work in construction and the challenge of building some cabinets appealed. The driver cut outs are really the tricky part. Holesaws in a pillar drill provide a starting point. This cut is then improved with a bearing-guided router bit. I reached the exact size by varying the cutter diameter in relation to the bearing, until I had two accurate templates.

“The process of making the stepped cuts at first seemed complicated, but really a simple compass to mark the concentric circles is sufficient, lining up the templates on the baffle to these marks. 

 

I decided on 18mm birch ply for the cabinets – I’m no fan of MDF due to its dust. The ply is great to work with and offered the possibility of a reasonable finish without the need to veneer the cabinets. I deviated a little from the DCR plans but the internal dimensions are as recommended. The sides of my cabinets are wider, and stepped front and back.

The back is built in two parts, so is 36 mm thick, and removable. The bottom section is sand filled. I rebated the joints, used glue and pocket hole screws for the assembly and it makes a strong cabinet. After about five coats of tinted Danish oil they were ready for the Eikona drivers and wiring!

“Now I was ready to connect to an amp and finally hear some music. I’m fortunate enough to have a couple of amplifiers and combined with the option of either parallel or series connection to the two Eikonas in each cabinet, this gives a few different possibilities. 

“Never having heard speakers of this type before, I wasn’t sure what to expect. The expense and the time had been a bit of a gamble, and the first few minutes of music left me thinking I would need a while longer to figure these out. Well, over a week later I seem to have settled on series wiring (12ohms) and at the levels I listen, neither my 300b amplifier or modestly-powered solid state amplifier have any problems providing sufficient volume.

“As for the sound: The bass is surprisingly good for the size of cabinet and the size of the drivers. The higher frequency seems to have a tighter on-axis response than I’m used to, but it doesn’t lack any extension. They’re fast, vivid, detailed, and I think they’re great at revealing the accurate timbre and texture of sounds and they have a monitor-like clarity. Given this, they certainly don’t flatter any recordings, but for the most part they have put a grin on my face!”

We wish Martin many years of listening pleasure!

For more details of the Eikona DCR, visit our DIY plans pageWe are always happy to help our customers with any queries they may have when constructing their speakers.