SDC (not MWAF) 2022 fallout thread....

[4thtry]

Yes, Bill, that is the correct build for the third place under unlimited. There is an AMT tweeter that set on top of that. Don't really know how he worked them together, but the coax underneath the cone disperser is something that made me question how he had them integrated.
Wolf

Thanks, Ben. I'll edit my post above and add some closup pics that I took of the tweeter section on top.

[Wolf]

Yes, Bill, that is the correct build for the third place under unlimited. There is an AMT tweeter that set on top of that. Don't really know how he worked them together, but the coax underneath the cone disperser is something that made me question how he had them integrated.
Wolf

[4thtry]

3rd place in open unlimited went to Jack. His speaker was a tower system with omnidirectional diffuser on top. I did not get the name or driver listing for this one. Hopefully this is the correct picture; not sure about this one?

EDIT: Added a couple pics of AMT tweeter section that gones on top. Also added a closeup pic of the midrange/dome tweeter diffuser.

[4thtry]

2nd place in the open unlimited category went to Julian F. This was SP29, named "T3-0 Omnipresence". Drivers were the Peerless 25mm corundum dome tweeter, the Dayton 2" dome midrange, and (not sure) I think he used a sidefiring Dayton RS series 8 inch woofer. They used very unique and interesting looking spherical diffusers mounted just above the tweeter and midrange drivers to create an omnidirectional radiation pattern. Beautiful cabinet and finishing work.

[4thtry]

I'll start with a few pics of the 1st place winner in the open unlimited category: Charlie Laub. His entry was SP03 and named "Baffle-less-ness." A wire frame was used to hold 3 of the 4 drivers in open air without baffle. The sub was mounted in an enclosure. Drivers were: 1) Tweeter: GRS PT2522 (2.7kHz+), 2) Midrange: Dayton RS150P-4a (600-2.7kHz), 3) Woofer: Dayton RS270P-4a (150-600Hz), and 4) Subwoofer: UM12-22 (150Hz and below).

[wogg]

I like the feedback so far and largely agree, with this basic points:
Plus - The acoustics and lack of distraction in the judges room
Plus - The large area to mingle and chat
Minus - The jam room setup and timing made it difficult to get to hear everyone's projects, acoustics were a little odd

Like every year, more time to listen would be good. I also like the idea of taking another step in making the audio judging more objective with blind evaluation like Wolf is suggesting. I generally liked the venue, nice space! Also, fully agree that it's impossible to satisfy everyone so huge props to Parts Express for trying!

I was a little disappointed I didn't place, but there are a whole lot of excellent builders to contend with so it's all good. One always hopes Looking forward to seeing the judges notes!

[Paul K.]

Nick, I know you know there are 6 criterion the judges use, with two of them being Craftsmanship and Originality/Design, both of which are identified as visual. While the sound/performance of a speaker is definitely its most important attribute, this judging criteria and process is how PE (and perhaps the judges over the years) believe is the best and most fair way to run this event, viewing and listening simultaneously after the builder has an opportunity to describe his creation.
Paul

[4thtry]

I'm currently processing and will post pictures of all the winner circle speakers in the next hour or two, together with a short description of each one. They were all taken with my cell phone, but the quality is almost as good as my Nikon DSLR, believe it or not. Bill

[jhollander]

IMO It's just not meaningful to try to improve a few minutes of subjective listening. I also want to hear the contestant speeches to the judges. How else would we know about how the devil went down to Georgia and built a giant speaker at Lockheed Martin?

[tomzarbo]

What a good time this weekend… I really enjoyed catching up with the guys, and having such a large open area seemed like a great place to hang out and do that.

From what I gathered, it seemed like the judges all liked the judging-room, as it resembled our real-world living rooms more than a larger space.

I didn’t seem to listen to very many speakers this time for whatever reason – maybe it just seemed nicer to hang out in the large open area. I did miss hearing many of the speakers like I used to, even my wife Eileen mentioned that she missed that as well, which surprised me a bit.

Not hearing lots of speakers changed the feel of the day for her from being mostly a “Speaker Listening” event to more of a ‘hang-out’ day. Not that that’s all bad, it isn’t really possible for EVERYONE to listen at the same time as there were at times a LOT of people there, but maybe the location and size of the listening room kept some people from doing more listening than they normally would… I suspect that’s why I found myself not hearing too many speakers myself.

Eileen and I discussed suggestions for possible suggestions for next year’s MWAF on the long ride home yesterday, and here is my/our ideas…

Maybe we could display/distribute all the speaker entries in the main open gathering area when you first walk in. I ‘think’ there would be enough room if it were re-jigged a bit, possibly use the space near the two bathroom doors towards the rear/left of that large area as well.

This year’s ‘speaker holding’ area could become a decently sized ‘jam room’ for us, with probably enough space for a good amount of chairs and enough accessibility for listeners to enter/exit from that first door, and setup/breakdown speakers from the door farther away.

Of course, that would place the ‘official’ judges listening room too close to the ‘jam room,’ so maybe we could move the official judges room to where our ‘jam room’ was this year. Do you think with some thoughtful room treatments it could become a decent listening area for the judges?

These are just a few ideas – not criticisms – just sharing my observations on how it flowed and a few ideas for possible changes. I’m sure the folks at PE have good ideas on changes too after seeing after-the-fact how things flowed. Version 2.0 is always better than Version 1.0 right? Nothing can be perfect the first time, and this will never fully please everyone anyway, but all the PE folks I talked to seemed very open to hearing our ideas on how things went. Parts Express does have some really nice people working for them and they were all super-nice all weekend.

I had a great time, and I forgot how much I missed doing this! Thank you to the folks at PE.

TomZ

[jhollander]

My comments to Josh were to embrace the inaccuracies of 4 minutes of judging. The SDC is a social event where everyone wants to hear how everyone else's speakers sounded in the same room with the same music. You really can't duplicate that separately. The whining and complaining will always be a part of the event. I enjoy all of it, so do what's easy and best for everyone including the PE staff.

[Shawn_K]

I think one of the issues with the Speaker design competition in general is that it always seems so rushed. To many speakers to evaluate in a short amount of time, especially on Saturday when there are three categories. I would guess the judge's ears are tired before the end of the day. I appreciate all the effort and expense PE has done to put these competition events on. I think the event needs to start earlier on Saturday morning and go later into the evening with half hour to full hour breaks between the categories,

[4thtry]

The chief positive about the new format is that it gave builders time to hang out in the loudspeaker holding room area and discuss builds with other builders in detail without being disturbed by the jamming or testing room playback sessions. Charlie Laub, for instance, described the operation of his baffle-less speaker in detail and I learned alot about this type of design as people asked questions.

The chief negative for me was that I was unable to compare the sound of the house tracks on my speaker verses all the other speakers in my category (>$300). At previous events I could always get a faily good idea of how my speaker sounded compared to the other speakers in my category. But at this event, no one was playing the house track. And the room acoustics were very bad as well. This made any type of comparison impossible. As a result, I spent very little time in the jam room.

[Billet]

The Parts Express Speaker Design Competition inspired me to upgrade my B11's into the B12's. I'm thoroughly enjoying listening to them today and I am very grateful for that.

The actual show and contest made for an enjoyable weekend. Thanks Parts Express!

[Wolf]

FWIW, i only listened to 6 of the winning entries this past weekend in the Jam Room.
Wolf