Brief InDIYana recap

[maynardg]

Catching some zzzzzz's in Murfreesboro and taking a moment to recap.

As always, Ben arranged a great show. The room at the Hyatt place is pretty good for a hotel meeting room with ample space and decent sound. Now, down to it:

Best in Show - to my ears - Seth's version of Jed K's Minuet M72. The birdseye maple was perfectly executed and stunning. It is a 2.5 way with W18NX Nextel woofers and the HDS tweeter. Sounds was excellent.

Sounds Better Than It Has Any Business Sounding - Tie between Dan N.'s wild crazy omni with umpteen drivers costing $160 total. Tied with Rory's Tangband W6-789e-DQ25 two way. They just sounded real fine for a modest two way and this may be the first time I like a DQ25 implementation.

Biggest disappointment was the absence of some of the usual suspects that could not attend this year.

All in all, a great show. Thanks to sponsors for the great door prizes. I scored some great Airborne woofers as a prize and got a great bargain on some Phil Bamberg surplus items. Left the event with many more drivers than I arrived with.

What a hobby!

[[email protected]]

Re: Brief InDIYana recap

thanks for your impressions. please drive saftly.

[Paul Carmody]

Re: Brief InDIYana recap

I had a great time!!! (All you regulars who dropped out, just know that we all had the party of our lives. Best part was when all the underwear models came in and handed us each a pair of Scan-Speaks. So sorry you missed that.)

I got to put some new faces to names, had lots of great conversation, and there was a really nice variety of designs to listen to... really, no two were alike.

Thanks Ben. You done real good!!

[s7horton]

Re: Brief InDIYana recap

Wow, thanks for the compliments Maynard! I had a great time being my first one. Another big thanks to Ben for all his effort!

[isaeagle4031]

Re: Brief InDIYana recap

Maynard your AC130s were also a hit. Your craftsmenship is beauitful. I hope to attain that level some day (sooner than later I hope). My favorite would be Bens attitudes I think for a larger speaker and Pauls speedsters(?) TB4" and planar. Very nice time and thanks to Ben and the vendors! Can't wait to next year and new projects!!

[Paul K.]

Re: Brief InDIYana recap

This is the first DIY event I've attended where I wasn't able to bring a pair of speakers, too.:( Anyway, Ben did a great job and I thank him for his efforts and also the sponsors for their great door prizes. As to how the speakers sounded to me, all were quite good. My favorites were Maynard's ML-TL rendition of Jeff's Continuums; they portrayed best the little bite Louis Armstrong's trumpet should have, for instance. I also very much liked Jeff's Piccolos and Paul Carmody's tiny speakers with the Fountek short ribbon tweeter. Dan Neubecker's Contrapessos (sp?) were amazing considering they contained four 12" woofers, 8 midranges and 2 tweeters, all of which cost a total of ~$160, with his typical "way out there" approach to performance and looks. Towards the end I sat in the first row so I could watch the SPL display and hopefully learn something. For the most part the loudest average SPL was in the 70-80 dB range. With the mike at ~2 meters, that translates into 80-90 dB at 1 meter, and I think most everyone there would agree that was plenty loud.
Paul

Edit: Some days my math skills aren't nearly up to snuff! I should have said, "...that translates to 76-86 dB SPL at 1 meter,..." My point with this was that it doesn't take nearly as much SPL as some people seem to think to sound really loud, even on a variety of music.

[Pete Schumacher]

Re: Brief InDIYana recap

Sorry to have missed it guys. :( Looks like it was a real great time. :D

Got home Friday night. Van is still in Effingham Illinois, waiting on a rear end to be sent to replace the one that fried a bearing, and had literally caught fire. :eek:

What an adventure. Got the Byzantiums home relatively unscathed, except for the gouges in the veneer at the very bottom of one of the baffles when loading. Still not sure how that will be repaired.

So, I guess I'll have to wait until the fall event . . . Chicago? Hopefully, something new to bring . . . D,Rose is back home and has some big plans on a tower 3-way that should turn some heads , along with the Mini.

Those Byzy's ain't moving again. But anyone coming through STL is more than welcome to stop in for a listen.

[dlneubec]

Re: Brief InDIYana recap

Pete,

Man, I was sorry to hear about your troubles, Pete and we missed not having you there. I was looking forward to hearing the Byzantiums again.

I can identify with not wanting to move the Byzy's. I dragged the Blades to InDiYana, MWAF and Iowa last year and they are beasts. You put a tweeter, mid, 2 woofers a subwoofer and a plate amp into a mutiply folded TL cabinet made of MDF and you end up with a hernia.

The moving of the beasts notwithstanding, it still seems like everytime you take a speaker somewhere, it ends up getting dinged somewhere, somehow, and the bigger and heavier they are, the more it seems to happen.

We just have to make smaller, lighter speakers, I guess.:D

Sorry to have missed it guys. :( Looks like it was a real great time. :D

Got home Friday night. Van is still in Effingham Illinois, waiting on a rear end to be sent to replace the one that fried a bearing, and had literally caught fire. :eek:

What an adventure. Got the Byzantiums home relatively unscathed, except for the gouges in the veneer at the very bottom of one of the baffles when loading. Still not sure how that will be repaired.

So, I guess I'll have to wait until the fall event . . . Chicago? Hopefully, something new to bring . . . D,Rose is back home and has some big plans on a tower 3-way that should turn some heads , along with the Mini.

Those Byzy's ain't moving again. But anyone coming through STL is more than welcome to stop in for a listen.

[rtkelly]

Re: Brief InDIYana recap

Hope you make it or have made it home safely..........Mr. Krebbs;)

[Pete Schumacher]

Re: Brief InDIYana recap

We just have to make smaller, lighter speakers, I guess.:D

Not a chance . . . I'll always have to build speakers than I can't reasonably handle myself. :D

There will be the occasional two-hander though. ;)

Thanks for the sentiments Dan, I missed seeing the gang.

I really wanted to hear that "contraption" you came up with. If there were covers over those woofers, you'd not have a clue what you're looking at. I hope those make it to the fall event, whether it be Iowa or Chicago.

[maynardg]

Re: Brief InDIYana recap

Just got here. Thanks!

Hope you make it or have made it home safely..........Mr. Krebbs;)

[Paul K.]

Re: Brief InDIYana recap

When Ben announced you weren't going to make it, I couldn't hear why and I thought maybe you threw out your back or something similar lugging your speakers around. Happily I was wrong but it's unfortunate you couldn't make it; we missed you and your speakers.
Paul

[Taterworks]

Re: Brief InDIYana recap

Sounds Better Than It Has Any Business Sounding - Tie between Dan N.'s wild crazy omni with umpteen drivers costing $160 total. Tied with Rory's Tangband W6-789e-DQ25 two way. They just sounded real fine for a modest two way and this may be the first time I like a DQ25 implementation.

Just a correction: The tweeter in the Firestorms is not the Vifa DQ25. It's the Tang Band 25-1719S. And thanks to everyone for the comments. This is my first try at a well optimized design, and it's good to know that I'm on the right track. Personally, I'm pleased as punch with how they sound. I just wish I could have gotten by with a smaller enclosure than what was required.

For my money, Maynard's "Sonoma" AC130 MTMs with the Hiquphon 3/4" tweeter would probably be the speaker I'd purchase as a commercial product. While not the best sound of show, it sounded good and had an excellent blend of performance, aesthetics, and a practical form factor.

[maynardg]

Re: Brief InDIYana recap

Just a correction: The tweeter in the Firestorms is not the Vifa DQ25. It's the Tang Band 25-1719S.

Sorry. They are not DQ25's. which explains why I did not dislike them.

[raiderone]

Re: Brief InDIYana recap

Hi Maynardg, thanks for the recap. Will you be doing writeups of the speakers that you brought to the event? Of particular interest is the MTM. Several others have commented very positively on them and it would be interesting/edifying to read about your approach in designing them (ie, why the OW2?).