e-Lips

[tmazz]

Down low the audiophileness is far less important, if it gets the freq and phase right it should sound good. The 6 band EQ is nice too. How much does it cost?

My Feastrex needs to cross up near 200Hz, can your B200 go down to 125Hz?

Didn't see anything on the used listings. (Audiogon sold on this week , but I can't see what it went for.)

Audio Classics shows is showing a new piece for $399

http://www.audioclassics.com/detail.php3?detail=RICHTER-SCALE&nav=cat

[opnly bafld]

My Feastrex needs to cross up near 200Hz, can your B200 go down to 125Hz?

No, but with 2,3, or 4 more B200s used as helper woofers no problem.

Lin

[richidoo]

That would be very cool... 

[tmazz]

My Feastrex needs to cross up near 200Hz, can your B200 go down to 125Hz?

No, but with 2,3, or 4 more B200s used as helper woofers no problem.

Lin

Hey Lin, something just occured to me.  The drivers in your speakers are monted to a single board with nothing else around them making you "opnly bafld". Mine on the otherhand are mounted in a sealed box and enclosed on all sides. Does that make me completely baffled? 

[djdube525]

Hi Rich,

I just wandered to this thread... was wondering if you have found someone to CNC your steel plate yet. If not, you could check out (both places may be pricey as they are more artistic):

McConnell Studios From recollection they are close to Tryon and 70
Vega Metals Downtown Durham - I know they can CNC 4x8' sheets of steel

Also... are you planning on treating the steel? My wife had built a steel handrail for our old house (alas, it remains there) and over time it would develop light surface rust even though she used some poly to seal it up. If you need a place that will powder coat, I can get a name of a place that's pretty cheap off of 70 by the Airport in Raleigh. My wife did a large gate door at the old house, and they charged something like $60 (this was a while ago mind you)... it was rather reasonable and it held up very well through several summers in the outdoors.


Dave

[richidoo]

Hi Dave, thanks for the links. I have used a small prototype shop in Dunn that Carl introduced to me, he uses EDM. Another full service company in Raleigh uses laser and can do the powder in house. There is a big raw metal distributor near my house but they don't cut anything other than shear to size. There is a techshop in Durham that I was thinking of joining, so that I could do the work myself. They have CNC plasma and welders as well as shopbot for the wood parts. Membership is $1000 a year, and I could do a lot of things there, but that's a lot of time commitment. So I'm kinda floating in the middle yet. So your links are much appreciated, I will definitely check them out. The contract powder coating especially sounds good, then I can get them cut anywhere and still get powder coating.  I still need to work with the speaker concept before I can decide if it's a keeper. Thanks Dave!
Rich

[opnly bafld]

Hey Lin, something just occured to me.  The drivers in your speakers are monted to a single board with nothing else around them making you "opnly bafld". Mine on the otherhand are mounted in a sealed box and enclosed on all sides. Does that make me completely baffled? 

Doesn't "completely baffled" describe "normal people" trying to understand our "audio nervosa"?

Lin

[Bigfish8]

Rich:

I have followed your speaker project with great interest.  Please keep the comments coming concerning how they sound and congratulations on the success so far.

Ken

[richidoo]

I've been working on the speakers the last couple days, they are finished now, except for finishing. My wife being a former architect likes the raw wood look, so it may stay that way, not sure yet. I think I'll chalk this one up to dev prototype and move onto the next. Base doesn't need to be so long, because there is no vibration to speak of. That will shorten the rear braces too. Doesn't need weight in the base, but making it out of steel will make it a lot heavier anyway. This depot ply is extremely lightweight.







The other thing that has been sucking up the time is setting up the software crossover. I made a preliminary impulse wav which contains the linear phase crossovers, EQ and room correction using a demo version of AudioLense XO. Then trying to play it in foo_convolve tonight I learned that plugin can't do multi channel output.     So now I'm looking at the many other convolution engines available.  A little each day...

But the AudioLense is a really cool program. Using the free demo version, anyone with computer in the audio chain can use it to linearize your speakers, apply EQ and room correction with foobar as DSP host. Carl, (and Shane? Steve?) since you already play all your music through foobar, this is a natural for you to correct your lumpy bass, add tube warmth, coliseum effects, there is no limit to what you can do with FIR, even crossovers, group delay correction, anything. Processing in foobar is 32 bit precision, so there is no affect on the SQ. I'll be happy to help anyone try it out, measuring with Earthworks mic and generating convolution filters, setting up foobar.

Hopefully I'll be able to get the other convolution engines working too, maybe in a linux black box. I found some info on how to make my Firepod work in Linux. Presonus never wrote drivers for Linux, but Jack drivers supposedly work fine.

[Bigfish8]

Oh man!  They are beautiful!

Thanks for the pics.

Ken

[Scott F.]

Rich,

They look awesome 

You've got me thinking about some of the software based eq'ing. I may give it a try. I really don't need anything on the top side (Lowther) but the Altecs could use a smidge. Where I sit, I've got a bit of a bump at about 70hz and just a bit below 40hz. The 40 doesn't bother me a bit. The 70 isn't too bad either but it might be nice to notch it out.

Then again, when I want to rock my brains out, giving a bit of boost would be nice too 

When you go to rebuild them, rather than steel, 3/4 acrylic would be really cool. I love the way mine look. Being see-through they are extremely unobtrusive looking in the room.



hmmmm, I can't figure out how to post a picture again 
Here's the link
http://www.audionervosa.com/index.php?action=mgallery;sa=media;id=548

[richidoo]

OOOOOOHH Mighty pretty Scott!   Your listening room is gorgeous. I'm not surprised based on your articles, you are an artist.

Acrylic is a fairly non resonant material too. Good material for speakers.

[bacobits]

Extremely nice Rich.
Do they satisfy what the Ushers did not?

D

[richidoo]

Thanks Den.. Yes, this has been an extremely satisfying project so far, and I have not even heard them in full glory yet. The software is the heart and is not yet in place. I am learning how to do the software part as I build. I hit a dead end with foobar, but now I am testing 3 different audio processing host programs which are much more flexible and powerful and should allow me to easily do what I have planned. Hopefully that will be done by the weekend. I can taste it, I want to hear the full potential!  Soundwise, they are already showing hints of great performance even using the limited foobar approach. Fully dialed in I think they will hold their own against any comers. But more importantly I hope they will allow me to hear my favorite music in the way I have always imagined it could be. That's all that I care about. BEETHOVEN SYMPHONIES IN MY LIVING ROOM   

[richidoo]

I've got these plugin hosts downloaded for tryout tomorrow.

Reaper recommended by mojave from AC, a PC audio whiz
Console, simple but not developed anymore
VSTHost - Free! and looks good
Bidule

These run as standalone hosts, or some act as a VST plugin to use in media player like JRiver, etc. I think I only need the standalone to run on the computer, and use the Sonos as controller for network music, feeding the soundcard digital input by SPDIF. If I want to use a media player app in the computer the host program can route that into the FIR engine. Reaper looks cool, but might be overkill, but it's cheap and fast.

These will allow me to route analog line input from soundcard to the crossover and correction effects in the computer. None of the media players can do that AND run the plugins I need also.

This is the plugin I plan to use for my crossover, EQ and room correction:
http://convolver.sourceforge.net/
Note that it can be used in slimserver too, as convolverpipe.
Rich