Most people who want THX cinema monitors either pay the steep retail price or settle for something smaller. The maker did neither, choosing to recreate the Klipsch KL-650 THX Ultra II at home for roughly $200 per speaker against an original price of about $1,750 each. That gap is the whole appeal of the project, and the result reads as a proper pair of home theater speakers rather than a compromise.
Construction looks more careful than the usual hand-cut box. The cabinets are MDF panels cut on a Shapeoko CNC with a DeWalt router and dust boot, with a table saw and a router table on a Rockler plate also in the mix. The CNC cut the driver openings, ports and window braces into the front baffles. Panels were glued and clamped with internal bracing blocks, edges routed and sanded, seams sanded flush. Wood glue, screws, bar clamps, hand sanding blocks, a cordless drill and an orbital sander carried the assembly, then standard rollers and brushes for the grey finish before drivers and horns were screwed into place.
Each cabinet carries two FaitalPRO 6.5-inch woofers on one side and a tall rectangular horn-loaded waveguide on the other, with a JBL compression driver attached to a Dayton Audio waveguide horn. White baffles with black components in a mirrored layout, plus a horizontal front-facing port under the waveguide, keep the look faithful. Dual-binding-post terminal cups are a nice touch. The maker kept Klipsch's design goal of more direct sound with reduced room interaction, and the speakers cross over at 80 Hz as THX-standard home theater units.
One thing is still open: whether the vertical horn orientation matches the 6-inch drivers for stereo listening. Listening tests with movies, including Pacific Rim and 9, through a Marantz receiver and an ICEpower amplifier came back positive from family and a friend.
Project by Toid. Watch it on their YouTube channel: