(This page originally written in August 2008. The Asawari Mark II prototypes were completed in Aug 2013.)

The Asawari Mk II was conceived of as soon as the first Asawari showed signs that it would be a usable speaker. Since then, the Mk II has moved from concept to completion. The pair started singing on 18 Aug 2013.

The differences between the original and the Mk II are as follows:

• The original was constructed entirely out of 20mm marine ply, whereas the Mk II has a shell made of MDF (including front and rear baffles) and internal bracing of very good quality 20mm commercial ply.
• The original used a Peerless India TG25 tweeter, while the Mk II is designed to use a North Creek D25-06 silk dome tweeter. (Since this tweeter is no longer available, a local copy of the North Creek document about it has been archived with this page.)
• The front baffle is a shade wider in the Mk II (if I recall correctly, about 2cm).
• The separate acoustically isolated crossover chamber of the original has now been discarded in the interests of reducing overall external volume. The original Asawari was rather large, specially in the depth dimension.
• The internal acoustic volume of the Mk II is a shade smaller (perhaps 5%) than the original. This, coupled with the elimination of a separate crossover chamber has resulted in significant reduction of overall size.
• Cosmetic changes: the base has been reduced in size to have exactly the same footprint as the body. In the original, the base projected out on all sides below the body. Also, the glass top is now 6mm, not 12mm thick.

The midbass driver remains the same. The enclosure is still a floor-stander, and at first glance, someone who has seen the original Asawari will probably mistake the Mk II for the original, specially from the front. From the side, the reduced depth is unmistakable.

The tweeter has been replaced primarily to allow me to try a lower crossover point. The North D25 will happily cross over at 1,600Hz, fourth order, and I am intending to try an Fc of 1,600-1,800Hz. I wish to see whether the sound of the midbass driver changes if I restrict its reach into the higher frequencies. The North D25 is (was) a very affordable tweeter. IIRC, it cost me less than $20 each, and John "Zaph" Krutke has reviewed it and found it to be quite a decent performer. At that price, I doubt there is (was) any tweeter which performed so well and also allowed such a low Fc. At $20, its price was comparable to the TG25 from Peerless India.

One sad side-effect of this is that no one else will be able to make the Asawari Mk II after I publish my full article. North Creek has stopped selling drivers though they still make them. These drivers are only available as part of their kits. Since the time I started work on the Mark II, the Peerless India midbass units too have gone off the market. There is a black Kevlar cone driver with a very similar basket and surround, but with different T/S parameters. Therefore, the Mark II will not be copied. (And one of my goals with the Asawari was to make speakers which other Indian DIYers could copy...)

If I had to replace the D25 with another driver which delivered excellent performance for a low price, probably the next driver I would look at would be the Seas TBFC/G and TDFC models. They cost less than $40 each, I believe.