Where you normally plop a pair of speakers down and then move them around a bit until they sound OK, with these you've got to do all that and adjust the EQ and try putting cloth round the back of the driver and so on.
Oh, and I'm doing all this while running in a pair of speaker cables.
A few design pointers about the OBs @Jim has built for me:
They had to be as near as possible to the footprint and volume of the RR3s on their stands
OBs normally have large baffles to get sufficient bass extension. I just don't have the space
In recent years, the concept of 'full-range' drivers has given way to 'wide-range'. In other words, no-one expects a single driver to do all the work from bottom to top - Jim's Lowthers need a little help at the bottom end, for example ;-)
My OBs have just one driver per channel - no we're not mad!
My rig now has no crossovers - active or passive
The Supravox drivers in my OBs are known to extend well towards the bass end, but most people agree that they need a (super)tweeter at the top end
Instead of adding drive units and extra electronics, I'm boosting the bass and the high treble using digital EQ. And that's where the fiddling is coming in
Very cutting edge intriguing project Dave. So there is no pre-amp or crossovers in the chain - very minimalistic indeed.
Will follow it closely.
ps is that Tellurium Ultra Blacks you are running in btw ?
Thanks Mervyn
It seems to me that there are some components in an all-digital rig that are a hangover from vinyl - e.g. the pre-amp - and other components whose function may be better achieved digitally - e.g. crossovers. Or perhaps even a different approach to speaker design, such as Jim came up with here. These components can usefully be ditched IMHO.
I'm really working on 'the best component is no component' here.
Yup. The speaker cables are the Ultra Blacks, and very good they are, too. I wondered when someone would notice I'd edited my signature :-)
In this kind of minimalist rig, I think everything in the signal chain has to be considered, so I have Paul (@PAC) lined up to make me some more custom phono-to-SMA cables using even better components and
cabling than he did for me last year. They'll be ordered once I've got what I have in the rig now working as I want it to.
It seems to me that there are some components in an all-digital rig that are a hangover from vinyl - e.g. the pre-amp - and other components whose function may be better achieved digitally - e.g. crossovers.
^This. At least it's a good general point. Time will tell just which components can be taken over digitally.
Alan, I love building stuff. If you want some just ask!
Thanks Jim :-bd I'll have a listen to Dave's sometime so I can 'learn' what they do. Have you heard Dave's Royds? I'm using the same and rate them (I suppose I ought to say "for a box speaker"!) and it would be interesting to know what else is out there. My dream is exactly what I have, but more efficient, with more scale.
Scale is somewhere the OBs win over the Royds, without a shadow of a doubt.
They also hammer the Royds on efficiency, which may lead to problems with volume control in the digital domain, according to some people. That is another tin of earth movers, though.
It's nothing to do with loudness or sound quality. It's to do with presenting instruments and performers in a believable way in relation to each other and the sound space set up in your room. I'm assuming you have a large sound space set up in your room.
Yeah, 'room filling' I guess. My speaks' give a scaled down but accurate (imo) facsimile of a live performance, I'd be looking to retain all those good points but have a more palpable sense of 'scale'.
Good news on the OB front. The Supravox drivers can be repaired for considerably less than the price of two new drive units.
They'll be off to France in the not-too-distant future.
Maybe I shouldn't say this within Jim's earshot, but maybe if digital armageddon had to happen it was as well the Royds didn't get fried. There are no parts available any more.
Good news on the OB front. The Supravox drivers can be repaired for considerably less than the price of two new drive units.
They'll be off to France in the not-too-distant future.
Maybe I shouldn't say this within Jim's earshot, but maybe if digital armageddon had to happen it was as well the Royds didn't get fried. There are no parts available any more.
That did occur to me last night after you phoned.
Sacrificial Supravox has a nice ring to it don't you think
Thorsten Loesch made a pair with acrylic and Supravox drivers. It generated a huge thread on Diy Audio a few years back. I heard them at a show when he made them commercially. Pretty good actually.
I'd forgotten all about them!
Acrylic is fairly light and pretty self damped so no reason why it won't work well.
Comments
:-))
That chair Is far to close.
;-)
Hope jim's paying you well...
;-)
Very cutting edge intriguing project Dave. So there is no pre-amp or crossovers in the chain - very minimalistic indeed.
Will follow it closely.
ps is that Tellurium Ultra Blacks you are running in btw ?
At least it's a good general point. Time will tell just which components can be taken over digitally.
Would love to hear them sometime when you're happy with them Dave, if you're so inclined...
It would interesting to see what can be done.
Efficiency is always good - less distortion for one thing. But there are other advantages.
Scale is a difficult one to get into.
What do people mean by scale?
Sacrificial Supravox has a nice ring to it don't you think
I could probably make one of those with the stuff I have laying around!
I'd forgotten all about them!
Acrylic is fairly light and pretty self damped so no reason why it won't work well.
Should be quite transparent