The best thing about DIY is...

[romanbednarek]

...every time you design or build a new set of speakers you have an excuse to listen to your entire CD (or vinyl) collection over again because it will sound different.

The only problem from a design point of view is that once the project is complete you have to get your brain out of "analyze/tweak mode" to "enjoy music mode" so you aren't constantly wondering if the piano sounds too dull or the vocals sound too breathy. Then once you are able to enjoy the music you dream up a new speaker design and the process repeats.

No wonder why DIY speaker building is so addictive.

[AJ]

I've come to the same conclusion. I find if i go straight from tweak mode to fun mode if the speakers just sound good. If it takes awhile to get drawn into the music it means somethings not quite right. At least thats me...

[romanbednarek]

> I've come to the same conclusion. I find if
> i go straight from tweak mode to fun mode if
> the speakers just sound good. If it takes
> awhile to get drawn into the music it means
> somethings not quite right. At least thats
> me...

I'm the same way. If there is something about the sound that persistently bothers me with multiple recordings I usually first go back to tweak mode and then if that doesn't fix the problem the speakers get shoved in storage and my previous favorite design goes back in place. I've also found that the transition to enjoying the music goes much quicker if the speakers are neutral and enjoyable.

[shawn_a]

I've found I'm my own worst critic about how a design sounds and it's a hard time for me to get out of tweak mode and into listen mode. I have to stop myself from over-tweaking things and leave well-enough alone. Once I do that, I start hearing the good things a speaker is capable of and I can really enjoy them. Once I'm at that point it's pure addiction. Needle in the vein so to speak.

It took me a month of doing nothing but listening to my Pluggers and not allowing myself to change anything on the crossover before I realized just how darn nice they sound. With that said, they aren't done just yet. I have to put them in their final cabinets next spring. Then they will be done.

shawn

[jonpike]

that you have a new, unannounced project completed?

Or are you finally getting to the "Ahhhhhhh" state with the Alpheus MkII? ;-)

[romanbednarek]

Provided Link: Alpheus MkII


> that you have a new, unannounced project
> completed?

> Or are you finally getting to the
> "Ahhhhhhh" state with the Alpheus
> MkII? ;-)

Upon completing my Asterion design a few years ago, every new design has fallen short of providing a sound that I prefer. I came close with the original Alpheus which was my first attempt at a three way speaker design but there were issues with bad XT19 tweeters and the sound of the L12 midrange driver. So they got pushed aside and I was back to listening to my Asterions. The Daedalus was my second attempt at a three way speaker and they came out fairly good but they still had weaknesses that led me to prefer the sound of the Asterion (mostly dealing with soundstage depth and musicality). That was one of the speakers that I think could be improved with some additional tweaking but a lot of the issues probably had to do with the natural character of the drivers used. So I sold those to a friend and was back to listening to my Asterions again.

Upon completion of the Alpheus MkII design I finally found a speaker that didn't make me want to take the Asterions out of storage. It didn't take long at all for me to forget about analyzing the speaker and listen to the music with these speakers. I'm pretty confident that I got the crossover right.

I don't have any immediate projects planned for the future except finishing my motorized potentiometer remote control kit. I just built (sort of) a sub using the PE 1cuft sub cabinet, RSS265-HF driver and 240W plate amp w/bass boost and it sounds pretty nice. For now I'm going to enjoy my Alpheus MkII speakers and I have a lot more CDs that I haven't heard yet but I don't think I'll go through the entire 1,500+ pile.