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 Post subject: Re: Advice
PostPosted: July 23rd, 2014, 7:17 pm 
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Joined: March 12th, 2013, 1:49 pm
Posts: 214
mix4fix wrote:
Roscoe Primrose wrote:
:character-oldtimer:
I like to use an analogy when talking about audio gear... Think of a piece of gear like a woman. A good design is a beautiful woman, a bad design is an ugly woman. Boutique parts, think of that as makeup. Put a lot of makeup on an ugly woman, and she may look a little better, but she's still an ugly woman. A beautiful woman is beautiful even without makeup, but a beautiful woman can sometimes look even better with the proper application of the right makeup..

Roscoe


Am I wrong for liking the plain looking chick with the big knockers?


that's pretty shallow, man. IF, however, you said "with a big ass", well now, that's different!


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 Post subject: Re: Advice
PostPosted: July 23rd, 2014, 9:29 pm 
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Joined: June 22nd, 2013, 11:00 am
Posts: 1036
randy warren wrote:
mix4fix wrote:
Roscoe Primrose wrote:
:character-oldtimer:
I like to use an analogy when talking about audio gear... Think of a piece of gear like a woman. A good design is a beautiful woman, a bad design is an ugly woman. Boutique parts, think of that as makeup. Put a lot of makeup on an ugly woman, and she may look a little better, but she's still an ugly woman. A beautiful woman is beautiful even without makeup, but a beautiful woman can sometimes look even better with the proper application of the right makeup..

Roscoe


Am I wrong for liking the plain looking chick with the big knockers?


that's pretty shallow, man. IF, however, you said "with a big ass", well now, that's different!


Image

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 Post subject: Re: Advice
PostPosted: July 23rd, 2014, 9:55 pm 
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Joined: July 16th, 2014, 3:05 pm
Posts: 19
Location: MD
Stuart Polansky wrote:
One more point regarding the sonic signature of components. I have no idea what the exact mechanism is by which power cords affect sound (especially in a system filled with voltage regulators, chokes, various noise filters, etc. and a circuit with a very high PSRR) but most of us have heard the effects clearly. Judging by the variety of power cord designs, I'd say the physics of whatever is going on isn't very clear to a lot of folks. However, just because I can't, does 't mean that there isn't a difference.

Stuart

Cannot say about the cords, but I (and independently a couple of fellow audiophiles) did hear the difference between a power strip and no power strip. Was noticeable on power amps and made no difference on everything else. I plug my power amp(s) directly into the power outlet since then.


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 Post subject: Re: Advice
PostPosted: July 23rd, 2014, 11:27 pm 
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Joined: March 12th, 2013, 1:49 pm
Posts: 214
Am I wrong for liking the plain looking chick with the big knockers?[/quote]

that's pretty shallow, man. IF, however, you said "with a big ass", well now, that's different![/quote]

Image[/quote]

hmm, you may be right after all, haha!


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 Post subject: Re: Advice
PostPosted: July 24th, 2014, 7:19 am 
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Joined: July 3rd, 2014, 7:47 am
Posts: 89
First, I wanted to thank everyone for your replies. I appreciate the information shared as it brings to mind things that are easily forgotten when in the weeds of searching and reading about so many different speakers.

I understand that listening is a very subjective thing. Perhaps part of it is I have always been very sensitive hearing wise. When I was stationed in England, I swore I kept hearing this high freq beep every so often, but could not for the life of me figure out where it was coming from. As I was outprocessing at the end of my tour, I was speaking with the dorm manager. I made a mention of the annoying beep and he laughed. He told me congratulations, you are one in 16,000 people that can hear it. Apparently the smoke detectors in the rooms, have a beep when they do a self power check - the beep was programmed to be at a very high frequency that people typically don't hear. Lucky me lol. Also I always thought it was funny that when pulling into the foot of my Dad's driveway I can always tell if the TV is on by the high pitched humming noise it makes. Guess I am just weird.

I fully intend on this not being my last speaker. The reason I am trying to go with a known design is so I can 1: Enjoy the process of making my own speaker, take my time and really get an understanding of what each part is etc. 2. Not have to worry about the planning as much as the design part is done.

But - I do want to build a speaker I will enjoy listening to for a while. I also want to make sure that the speaker I build has characteristics that lend itself well to use in the manner in which I intend to use it. It doesn't make sense to me to go out and build a tri amp speaker that requires 1500 watts rms, and takes up half my room. (For the record, Nelson Pass's website shows a loudspeaker that does just that. Thing is massive.) From my novice understanding, many things can be tweaked to help a speaker sound better in a room - various methods of acoustic treatment, placement, eq etc, and these can help me fine tune the sound to better suit my preferences and my listening area.

I was speaking with my brother a few weeks ago when he was over at our house. My wife was laughing about the amount of research I do before any major purchase. My brother smiled as he is the same way, but for slightly different reasons. She thought I researched so much, because I wanted to understand everything about the product. I replied no- not really. I wish I didn't know half the things I know about sofas, mattresses, lawn mowers, string trimmers (All things we have needed in the past year or so.) And the reasons I needed to know certain information was

1. Lets say there are 3 tiers to everything in life. Budget level, mid tier, and top tier. I cannot afford top tier. My budget for things is typically right at the line of budget tier, and mid tier. The difficulty in this placement is that there are some budget tier items, that share great things from mid tier models, so you get the opportunity to get a more mid tier product, but at a budget level price. Same goes for mid tier. A lower end mid tier product can sometimes be a great buy, and be a step up from the budget tier.

2. Specs, while not always a complete picture, are capable of showing a glimpse of the quality to a product. If a sofa has a Leggett and Platt reclining mechanism, and 2.0 foam in Dacron encasement- those are indicators of a quality sofa. It doesn't mean its a great sofa- moreso an indicator of its level of quality due to the quality parts used in its construction.

3. The last reason research has proven to be useful is the never ending BS of re-branding. Nothing irks me more than finding out two products are the exact same product internally - but have different names on the front and thus- two completely different prices. I do not think its right to charge someone 5 times more for a product simply because of the brand. There have been countless times in researching a product that I find a lower priced model that has exactly the same internals, but is sold under a different name elsewhere for much less. This happens a lot in the audio field especially. Numerous drivers that have the same specs, built on the same manufacturing line in China, but are priced differently.

It is for these reasons I have researched so much, and hopefully, as I begin to hear more speakers, listen to people's systems, I will have a better understanding of the components that reproduce sound in a way I enjoy. Hopefully, I will be able to discern quality from junk by both appearance of components and construction quality, and be more poised to listen to the music, instead of asking tons of questions while the music is playing lol. Sure I could but the flatpack for Overnight Sensations today, build them in a day and be listening tomorrow. But I would rather spend a bit more, build a speaker with a bit more capability to maximize this stage of my speaker building career. (Luckily I have a big attic to store speakers)

I would love the opportunity to hear people's systems on here. Those plutos look really amazing. I have always wanted to hear a set of horn speakers to see what they are all about. Can't wait to hear those LX Mini's. Linkwitz has quite an amazing reputation. I would love to hear as system driven by a 6 watt tube amp that blows my mind in sound. Hopefully in time I will. Hopefully as time progresses I will be able to hear more systems and determine what the next speaker build will be.

Thanks again for all the input. Really appreciate it.

Hope to see some of you this weekend!

Jeff


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 Post subject: Re: Advice
PostPosted: July 25th, 2014, 10:12 am 
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Joined: March 5th, 2013, 9:35 am
Posts: 259
Location: Highland, MD
Just remember, Jeff,

Use us as sources of opinions and ideas, listen to a lot of equipment, and decide for yourself how far you want to go - find your level of 'good enough.' If I spend what I think is Too Much for my system, I'll get less enjoyment from it; however, there are a number of less expensive ways to improve your sound. In the end, many club members get great sound from DIY stuff at a fraction of commercial cost. The research can be expensive, so tap everyone who tries things to see what works before incorporating it - that's why we need to have meetings to audition various approaches. Just Saying.

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 Post subject: Re: Advice
PostPosted: July 28th, 2014, 7:09 am 
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Joined: July 3rd, 2014, 7:47 am
Posts: 89
Odd question,

Just curious, but I am from the realm of Car Audio so I was wanting to ask.

In car audio- in my truck for example, I have an Amplifier that is capable of 75 watts rms at 4ohms into each channel. The amp is rated at .03 THD. Each channel has its own gain setting, its own crossover slope setting etc. This is all designed to run off of a 12v system. Mine is a higher end amp, so it cost me about 550.00 brand new about 3 years ago. I then have a monoblock amp driving my sub. This amp is capable of over 1000 watts at 1ohm stable. I only used a third of its useful power at a 2ohm load. Its stout, but you can easily move it around. Those specs are listed on its birth sheet as tested before shipment from their factory.

What is it that car audio companies are able to do in smaller spaces, and with less power being supplied, as well as less overall weight ?

Knowing this - why is it these amps are not used more often in home audio? Seems like you get a lot of control, they are extremely compact compared to most home audio gear. I understand you would need a power supply, but a pc power supply can be had for very reasonable prices. A friend of mine who made his rounds in IASCA SQ circles for years, always removed the cases from his amps - placed them under lexan displays for his setups. He would have fans to exhaust the heat- but this was necessary as it was in the floor of his trunk. The internals of these amps look no different than the chip amp kits I have seen online.

I know I must be missing something, just can't figure it out


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 Post subject: Re: Advice
PostPosted: July 28th, 2014, 8:48 am 
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Joined: February 28th, 2013, 1:06 pm
Posts: 54
I started going to IASCA events in 1993. For the next few years I spent a lot of time and money in the car audio realm. I've probably done complete installs on about 20 cars over the years. I eventually moved on to home audio. I have a 30a 13V smps that I can use to listen to car amps in any home system, and of the 20 old school amps I have tried only 1 had better sound quality than the $30 dayton DTA-1 digital amp. As for sub amps, there are some great car audio choices, but you'd have to spend about $100 on a really nice computer power supply to run it and add that to the price of the amp and you can get something else on the 120V side that will sound as good or better. Once I heard how good a home system can get I lost most of my interest in car audio, it starts to feel like just a waste of my time and money. I also spend 3 hours a day commuting to and from work, and I still have my stock stereo in my civic. I may add something later, but I'm not motivated to really do so.

I don't know if I answered your question? :?

Another thing to consider, there's only 1 or 2 car audio amps that are class A, most of the tube amps we use are class A, since most of us don't need 75W to drive our home systems to "loud" levels. So for example my speakers are about 95db at 1 watt. So a 10w amp is all I should ever need in my system, especially since I bi-amp my system.
The majority of car audio amps are biased well into AB or are Digital designs that make efficient use of the power supplies they have.


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 Post subject: Re: Advice
PostPosted: July 28th, 2014, 9:02 am 
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Joined: March 5th, 2013, 9:35 am
Posts: 259
Location: Highland, MD
Well, Jeff, maybe the thing to do is bring your amps and speakers (and a 12V battery) to a gathering at someone's house and compare the sound to a system using a possibly different approach. One should be better than the other - if not, then you have your answer that your system would sound great in your home. One thing I learned is that some people have their audio-technology preference and place it on their altar whether it's better or not, and there is no shaking their beliefs: tubes, solid state (I like to mix them, but some pale at the crossbreeding); horn speakers, open baffles, ported, sealed, etc. This is why I listen to as many other systems as I can to see what sounds good to me, and talk to the people who made them to learn about their approach.

This is on of the points of DIY: mix this with that and see how it sounds: better? That's good; worse? Okay, don't do it that way. Keep mixing and matching as you work through the audio chain - source to speakers to room - hopefully with it sounding better and better. Some of the people in the club have gone so far that they are hearing shortcomings in the recording process that make it less exciting to listen - I don't want to go that far.

I've heard the effects of differences in systems that by convention shouldn't be noticeable - but they are. It is disheartening and entertaining and interesting. So see if you can bring some stuff to a meeting and see how it sounds. My house sucks for a meeting so I'm not volunteering to host though I'll bring supplies and some gear if I ever get it built.

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 Post subject: Re: Advice
PostPosted: July 28th, 2014, 9:35 am 
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Joined: February 28th, 2013, 10:38 am
Posts: 1682
Probably a bunch of reasons, but I'll give you a few to think about....
1: Most affordable 12VDC switching supplies are fairly noisy electrically, large linear DC supplies often make mechanical noise which could be heard in the listening position.
2: Power output. A car audio amp rated at 100w into 1ohm will usually only be able to put 12.5w into an 8ohm load, which is the most common for home speakers.
3: Form factor. Many high-power car amps won't fit in a standard audio rack.

Also, don't read too much in to THD (even with home amps), it's pretty much a meaningless number if you don't know the harmonic distribution. IMD, which you almost never see spec'd for car amps, is a much more meaningful number.

A JBL/Urei 6260 or QSC USA400 can be bought used in the $150 range, puts out 125-150W/channel into 8ohms, sounds at least as good as any car amp you're likely to chose, and will probably be working fine long after your ears stop working...

Roscoe

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