Yes, I will be using a hard wood, maple is extremely hard and often has a beautiful figure. Cherry looks nice and is more acoustically neutral than maple.I'll leave them un-insulated but if they do in fact, ring, I'll use some foam, or perhaps experiment with neoprene. My aim is to in fact, incorporate the wood into the tone. Let it resonate and all.
I'm actually using 2.1s right now. They claim 30 watts, well, it's certainly a weak 30 watts. There is no mid range, really. The satellites are so thin sounding that they are practically absent. Highs are highs...nothing good about them, kinda harsh though. The 4 inch woofer isn't a woofer at all, it compensates somewhat for the mid's thin-ness. But anything with a significant amount of bass in it (Daft Punk's Alive 2007 is a perfect example) makes the woofer into a wooly thud machine. Not good. Actual speakers aside, the overall sound just sounds...like something you'd expect from computer speakers, digital. There is no warmth in it.
For the amp, I'm not sure yet, but one step at a time. AC97 preamp should be fine, for the power amp I am considering EL34s, actually. But building a tube amp has it's own challenges, most notably: the output transformers and filter caps. Where am I supposed to get them? Ideally, somebody is selling a tube poweramp from a record player, and I can just mod that to suit my needs. I'm looking for about 30 watts from the EL34 tubes, class A that would be 4. Yeah, I have big ambitions with this thing, but I'm seriously fed up. The best part is that once I'm done with the amp, 30 watts from EL34s will rip the house apart.
As far as the three way, Dr. Death, I've been thinking. All the monitors I've seen are two way, and they are big enough as it is. I like my highs sweet and mellow, my mids warm, and my lows lush. I don't need to be awash in sheer rave woofer power....it would be nice though. Two way is simple enough, I can have a simple capacitor crossover (capacitor bleeds through the highs to the tweeter, oughta do). Three way presents all kinds of new challenges, in the construction, design, and size of the cabinets.
But my thinking is, that a silk dome tweeter and a 8 inch woofer should be enough, that is a pretty common "layout". I've seen three way bookshelf and floor speakers, but never computer speakers (not talking about the .1 systems).
My aim is to keep it simple and keep it cheap. The Wharfdale Diamond 9.1s are essentially what I'm aiming for, except there will be only one port (I'm thinking from the back would be better, not as boomy) and a square case. Reddish brown stain with a clear laquer, and these things will be beautiful! I hope....(one can only imagine)
I'm not sure whether separation would make much difference, it would isolate the speakers, but it would give them less room to work with. Actually I don't know, I'm not a audiologist. That's why I came here for any information even slightly related towards the subject.
The thrift store had some dusty old bookshelf and floor speakers. I didn't look much at them, forgot to lock my bike, but some of them had obvious visual issues, but some of them not so much, any pointers?
The Wharfdale Diamonds that I was talking about.