Iron Driver style event in Grand Rapids - June 16

[Navy Guy]

Hey guys, I've been talking with mattsk8 and Mark at Meniscus about doing an Iron Driver style event in Grand Rapids since the one in NY isn't happening anymore. I don't have all the details on how everything will run yet but it will be done as a blind listening competition much like the one in NY.

I guess the first thing to hash out will be the budget and then we'll pick a driver. Just for reference, the point of the original Iron Driver was to pick a cheap driver and then show what you can do with in on a limited budget. The budget was set at $225 and you must include crossover costs in the total so it can make things a bit tight. There has been a lot of discussion in the past about changing the budget to accommodate price increases in the market. Given that this is a new event and doesn't need to run the same, we could open it up to a higher budget and slightly more expensive drivers.

Let me know what you think. I've got 4 options in the poll. Remember, this includes crossover components. I'll keep this open until Christmas so we can get started on driver selection.

Also, if you have ideas for the drivers, go ahead and post them here. I will start a new thread after this poll for the drivers.

[Wolf]

I'd like to add that Dakota DIY is normally in June around that time frame.

Later,
Wolf

[Mike220]

The eclipse 5-1/4" or the new diysg 5" woofer might be good options.

[mzisserson]

The orignal $200 budget was to make it an actual challange. Many designers here can do quite a bit when you break the $200 ceiling. It was always suppose to be a challange, tough.... once you start getting the Iron Driver itself past a$20 driver, there are many options to choose from that are way too easy to work with. David Crewe's Saffrons still blow my mind when I think about what he did with sucj a small budget....

Just $0.02 It is nice to see this alive in any form. It was A LOT of fun.

Ship-ins allowed?

Edit: The market changes were due mostly to copper. Dayton's new inductors, as well as other companies, are offering soultions that have reflect the settled prices. Just my last argument to being the real challange back ;)

[r-carpenter]

The point of Iron Driver was not the only blind listening tests of inexpensive speakers. People build good sounding inexpensive speakers on the budget all the time now days.
It was to relate measured data to listening preferences. That's why everything was measured and data released after listening comparison. That's also why designers opted to dipoles or hybrids and all kinds of different arrangements. The price limitation made the design more challenging.

[skatz]

Question, are the costs proposed for two speakers or one?

[isaeagle4031]

Question, are the costs proposed for two speakers or one?

Price is for 2 speakers. Price includes drivers and crossover components.

[Derekj]

I'm interested - might have to mail an entry in if you are going to do that. Will be on vacation around that time.

[Navy Guy]

I'd like to add that Dakota DIY is normally in June around that time frame.

Later,
Wolf

Thanks for the heads up.

[Navy Guy]

The orignal $200 budget was to make it an actual challange. Many designers here can do quite a bit when you break the $200 ceiling. It was always suppose to be a challange, tough.... once you start getting the Iron Driver itself past a$20 driver, there are many options to choose from that are way too easy to work with. David Crewe's Saffrons still blow my mind when I think about what he did with sucj a small budget....

Just $0.02 It is nice to see this alive in any form. It was A LOT of fun.

Ship-ins allowed?

Edit: The market changes were due mostly to copper. Dayton's new inductors, as well as other companies, are offering soultions that have reflect the settled prices. Just my last argument to being the real challange back ;)

I do like the challenge of the limited budget and some of the creativity it adds to trying to get the most bang out of your setup.

[kenrhodes]

Let me know if there is anything I can do to help. I can get to Meniscus on my lunch break.

[Ron_E]

It's nice to have an event in Grand Rapids with some lead time. If you want to up the cost limit you can always pick a more expensive iron driver to keep the cost challenge.

Ron

[jhollander]

Is the iron driver a woofer or tweeter? Does it matter?

[Ron_E]

John,
It's been either in the past.

Ron

[mzisserson]

So......

What are the full set of rules/details? Roman brought up a good point. We went through some pretty fine details to keep it as blind as possible right up to anyone involved with the physical handling of the speakers not being able to judge since they knew what speKers belonged to who. Also being able to fit on stands to make ship-ins have a chance, too. And on.....