Americana's My 2018 Indiyana entry

[ugly woofer]

The woofer is Tang Band w69 1042

[Psycoacoustics]

The woofer is Tang Band w69 1042

Thank You!

[ugly woofer]

Here are some more preliminary measurements, there is a definite cancelation happening at 45 degrees.

[jhollander]

8K looks like the waveguide, 4K looks like the x-o

[ugly woofer]

Good point John, I got so wrapped up looking at the waveguide affects that I completely disregarded the crossover.

[JavadS]

Nick just saw this thread, good stuff, can't wait for the event! I'll be following along, in case you missed my thread it's http://techtalk.parts-express.com/fo...x-build-thread

[craigk]

Nick, did you ever get your DAC ? If so, what do you think ?

[ugly woofer]

Javad your build looks very nice I just checked it out, good job with the kerfs.

[ugly woofer]

Craig, I just sent the m51 back, it was kind of depressing to do so. I really liked the build quality, the remote, and the fact that it had an hdmi input, but the sound was a bit of an enigma, to use a couple of examples that I'm sure everyone is familiar with, Miles Davis sounded much better through the m51, smoother, with a better sound stage, just more real. It was the equivalent of upgrading a preamp, but on the other hand Norah Jones sounded harsher with what I can only describe as more noise. The Oppo was definitely better on Norah Jones, and just so no one thinks that I was imagining things, at one point I had my wife switch the preamp between the oppo and the m51, which I had level matched while I listened and I could pick out which one was playing every time. I listened to the m51 for about 2.5 weeks trying to discern what was causing what I heard. I tried swapping cables thinking maybe there was a bad connection, I tried different inputs on the preamp, I looked at the output on a scope, I finally looked at a track on audacity that sounded poor and it seems like the offensive places were the ones that had a peak that was coming close to maximum level, not clipped but close. I don't know if the unit I received was defective or not but it is certainly possible. So its back to the drawing board, I may order a benchmark as they have a 30 day trial period.

[Wolf]

On the note of Norah Jones;
If that was the studio pressing and the standard Redbook CD of "Come Away With Me", or even others from her catalog, then it's no surprise it was noisy and clipping out. That first album of hers is nice, don't get me wrong, and a reference for what it is. But- it did have some clipping in the recording. The MoFi SACD pressing is much better, IMO, recorded at a lower level, and produced better. For an example of what I'm referring to, the snare sounds like a snare on the MoFi, whereas they reduced the peaky vocal situation that plagues the Redbook studio pressing, and the background is cleaner as well. She SHOULD sound shouty on the studio release if everything else is up to snuff.

YMMV,
Wolf

[ugly woofer]

I agree with you that the Norah Jones cd is not great, and yes she does sound shouty, but that is not the problem that I heard Ben, there was extra noise, almost like an amplifier clipping, but not to that extent. I wish that I had a better description. The problem that I had with the m51 was that this happened on multiple discs it was not an isolated occurrence. I actually considered the possibility that the m51 was just being more accurate because the quality of recordings varies so much, and on bad recordings there was virtually no difference in the sound of the m51, the oppo, or the peach tree. The problem only presented itself when the peaks were close to clipping, and not actually clipped, which is all the stranger. I'm not picking on the m51, as I said it may have been defective.

[ugly woofer]

If anyone is interested the current cost of the drivers for the pair is $219 and the tweeter needs to be mounted .080 from being all the way back in the woofer.

[ugly woofer]

I'm sure Bill has better pictures, my photography skills are lacking.

[Wolf]

They sounded very nice, Nick!
Wolf

[KEtheredge87]

Nick, I thought that your homebrew coax sounded great! It also looked the part, quite professional. I also appreciated the oblong woofer choice, as we don't see those all that often outside of car audio 6x9s. It was so much fun going head to head! Hopefully we get to have more fun in the future.

Also, if your (...wife, fiancee, girlfriend??? Apologies, useless memory moment) isn't on the forums herself, please tell her I wish her all the best in her speaker making endeavors! With you as a guide I'm sure she'll have a great project to show off soon enough!