The Minions

[Leroy R]

Re: The Minions

Sorry for the late reply. Yes, when the 2" drivers were no longer available, I made a new slightly larger enclosure for a Tangband 3" driver with gold cone and called them Minions II. Then those drivers became no longer available. It took me a while, but I eventually ordered and tried the regularly stocked 3" Tangband full range driver with black cone that I posted the link for. I can't hear any difference between the driver with the gold colored poly cone vs. the one with the black colored poly cone. The Minion II design is sealed whereas the original Minions were ported.

Replaced these Minions II drivers

http://www.parts-express.com/pe/showdetl.cfm?Partnumber=299-113

with these in the Minions III

http://www.parts-express.com/pe/showdetl.cfm?Partnumber=264-880

[Wolf]

Re: The Minions

http://www.parts-express.com/pe/show...number=264-880 works as a replacement driver for the version 2 Minions.

That's a 3" driver when the original was a 2", right?
Wolf

[Leroy R]

Re: The Minions

http://www.parts-express.com/pe/show...number=264-880 works as a replacement driver for the version 2 Minions.

[Leroy R]

Re: The Minions

I thought I had posted these here before, but don't see them. These are the 4.5" external dimension cubes again using 1/4" mdf with the Tang Band driver currently in the PE buyout section. The hammered copper ones are actually 5" external dimension cubes. These are sealed, not ported like the original Minions. I haven't experimented with porting them.

Minions II

[hooligan72]

Re: The Minions

I received the 2 inchers and have them set up in a temporary ABS plastic baffle I bent up and drilled out. I have them in my car using as a center channel.

My initial thought was that with the small size and low sensitivity I should use 2 of them @>300hz simple high pass 6db. I have a small bag of polyfill behind the baffle.

My initial impressions are quite good. Vocals sound great and they have no problem keeping up with the output of my 6.5" components. What I didn't expect is how high they play. They may not have the sparkle of a dome tweeter but cymbal splashes and vocal detail are very good.

One of the serious problems in a car is speaker placement vs crossover point with respect to timing. I'm going to buy a few more of these little guys and mess around with running my setup tweeterless. 250hz and up on axis on the dash and 250hz and down on the 6.5" in the doors. Should be interesting. I've read about this before (search "the wideband approach") but have not tried it myself.

[ROTECH]

Re: The Minions

My addition to this thread is that of necessity. Necessity for a camping stereo when I could not bring myself to build yet another big heavy cooler boombox, or buy some plastic consumer $30 special.

I took some of the speakers left over from my minion making weekend a while back and decided to waterproof them. By waterproofing I mean I built them into a NEMA 4x washdown cabinet that I had laying around. I tore the guts out of a 2.1 altec lansing PC setup and installed the chipamp and powersupply/transformer in the void below the speakers. It plays as well as we would expect, and have seen from the minions. And listening to Adele on these speakers is almost shocking, they seem to handle her sibiliance very well. It was a fun build, as I like building Niche systems as much as HIFI.

[michiganpat]

Re: The Minions

yeah, I need to order parts, I want to build some to use as the front speakers of my duster....I have some dayton ND105-4's sitting in the basement I might have to try my mini-tower using them in a bandpass box to fill out the low end...

[Leroy R]

Re: The Minions

Patrick is close and should be easy to meet up with when I come up there, since I am in Muskegon when I am there. If you build some Minions, you'll have to post some pics here. I just did some purple ones for my niece that I will give her for Christmas and have to build a few more sets for my other nieces between now and then.

[cantgetitright]

Re: The Minions

Flint? I'm sorry....;)

Yeah a lot of my family are Auto workers so we are definately feeling the pinch. Flint used to be a rockin place. I actually live between Flint and Lansing now. Lapeer huh?? I used to run with a girl from there...........:rolleyes:

[michiganpat]

Re: The Minions

Flint? I'm sorry....;)

my in-laws are in your neck of the wood, between Lapeer and Imlay City....
I'm over in Grand Haven

-Patrick

[cantgetitright]

Re: The Minions

Im near Flint. Yeah I am just about to wrap up my own project. Ive got 11 of the 23 drivers needed to finish my build. I have the center done except for the grill. It sounds amazing. But I was thinking of some minions next for my computer speakers. Not quite ready yet for my own design. I was just giving you a hard time anyways.

[Leroy R]

Re: The Minions

Where are you in Michigan? Looks like there are at least two of you there that I need to meet up with. MichiganPat is there too. All I would have had with me is a set of the Minions. Looks like you are about to wrap up a nice project of your own.

[cantgetitright]

Re: The Minions

Damnit man. You came to MI and didnt stop so I could finally hear some real speakers. Im crushed.

[hooligan72]

Re: The Minions

Well I pulled the trigger and ordered up 3 of the tymphany two inchers. At least one is going in my car for center channel duty. The other two may be computer speakers.

[Leroy R]

Re: The Minions

The closest I've come to an array is the 4 driver version I built on page 2 of this thread. I don't have measurement gear up and running yet, so maybe someone else that built these could post some measurements from theirs.

I may get around to playing with some other designs using these drivers, but for now I am working on other projects. I'm planning to build a few more pair to give to my nieces for Christmas.

If you wind up building some, post some pics here.