Hi XRK and Holtet,
Thanks for sharing your experiences.
The Tabaqs are coming together quickly; I expect to finish them up next weekend.
I can buy a TDA7297 from a local e-tailer, so it should be in my hands by the time the Tabaqs are done. Step one will be playing from the stock TDA7297, step 2 will be modding it.
Probably I will still build an ACA some day.
Cheers,
Laurens
Thanks for sharing your experiences.
The Tabaqs are coming together quickly; I expect to finish them up next weekend.
I can buy a TDA7297 from a local e-tailer, so it should be in my hands by the time the Tabaqs are done. Step one will be playing from the stock TDA7297, step 2 will be modding it.
Probably I will still build an ACA some day.
Cheers,
Laurens
ACA is easy to make. I just made it in a few hours last night with no PCB.
Dead bug ACA:
TABAQ with Tangband W3-871B
Hi guys,
Finished up my TABAQ the weekend before last and have been playing them for a week now.
I had a local carpenter saw the panels to size out of 12mm Baltic birch plywood, so I only needed glue and very basic tools: drill, bunch of clamps, hole-saw and wire stripper.
Of course, I made a bunch of newbie mistakes; sanded off all the nice and sharp corners, leaving gaps where the panels meet / over-tightened the clamps so front panel and side panel are 85 degrees – only noticed when offering up the rear panel / trusting that all panels had been cut exactly to size, I will definitely need a sander for the next project.
But at least I put in the stuffing in time (before gluing on the top panel), none of the panels were upside down, and all the joints appear to be tight.
All in all, lots of lessons learned, and I enjoyed the process.
Now of course, you want to know how they sound.
For something I cobbled together myself for a small budget, they sound very good. Way more bass than I had expected from such a small speaker.
Playing Arcade Fire / Reflektor, Bruckner #9, Dave Brubeck Quartet / at Carnegie Hall, Arne Domnerus / Jazz at the Pawnshop, and several Calexico albums, I did not feel like there was anything missing.
If anything, the sound was little bright, but that may be because I did not include the filter that is part of the original design. I may try this at a later stage.
In the end, the TABAQS will not replace the LXMini’s in my living room, but they will get a lot of use in my study.
I will be building the folded TABAQs later with different drivers and may do some comparisons when they are done.
@ XRK I played the TABAQs of a TDA7297 and it sounded quite nice, again incredible for the cost and dimensions. Unfortunately, it is quite noisy and picks up a lot of RF interference. I bought two, so I will be modding the spare (it looks like it was soldered by a drunk monkey so it can’t get much worse) and hope to improve it. I found a bunch of posts on TDA7297 so I won’t want to go further off-topic here.
Hi guys,
Finished up my TABAQ the weekend before last and have been playing them for a week now.
I had a local carpenter saw the panels to size out of 12mm Baltic birch plywood, so I only needed glue and very basic tools: drill, bunch of clamps, hole-saw and wire stripper.
Of course, I made a bunch of newbie mistakes; sanded off all the nice and sharp corners, leaving gaps where the panels meet / over-tightened the clamps so front panel and side panel are 85 degrees – only noticed when offering up the rear panel / trusting that all panels had been cut exactly to size, I will definitely need a sander for the next project.
But at least I put in the stuffing in time (before gluing on the top panel), none of the panels were upside down, and all the joints appear to be tight.
All in all, lots of lessons learned, and I enjoyed the process.
Now of course, you want to know how they sound.
For something I cobbled together myself for a small budget, they sound very good. Way more bass than I had expected from such a small speaker.
Playing Arcade Fire / Reflektor, Bruckner #9, Dave Brubeck Quartet / at Carnegie Hall, Arne Domnerus / Jazz at the Pawnshop, and several Calexico albums, I did not feel like there was anything missing.
If anything, the sound was little bright, but that may be because I did not include the filter that is part of the original design. I may try this at a later stage.
In the end, the TABAQS will not replace the LXMini’s in my living room, but they will get a lot of use in my study.
I will be building the folded TABAQs later with different drivers and may do some comparisons when they are done.
@ XRK I played the TABAQs of a TDA7297 and it sounded quite nice, again incredible for the cost and dimensions. Unfortunately, it is quite noisy and picks up a lot of RF interference. I bought two, so I will be modding the spare (it looks like it was soldered by a drunk monkey so it can’t get much worse) and hope to improve it. I found a bunch of posts on TDA7297 so I won’t want to go further off-topic here.
A friend of mine wanted me to build him a set of TABAQs, and since I needed a project for a prototype I needed, I combined the two.
Result is quite stunning. It's a stone called onyx.
I still need to add a baffle, and get a pair of drivers for them. The Tymphany 830987 is out of stock at the moment.
Result is quite stunning. It's a stone called onyx.
I still need to add a baffle, and get a pair of drivers for them. The Tymphany 830987 is out of stock at the moment.
Attachments
Wow! Beautiful speakers man!!
Thanks!
Now, I've got the end-user breathing down my neck... I'm not sure he wants to wait all the way till October for the 830987 to be available.
What's the next best one I could get?
I've been looking at MarkAudio, and a bunch more.... There's always a catch I don't like about them while looking at responses.
Most new TBs have a very low Qts, and not sure how they would sound in this now.
Suggestions?
Ah! I was looking at the usual suspects, like parts-express, or Madisound...
I'm a little scared of that huge peak at 12kHz though....
Hi Bjørn
No need to reduce the stuffing, I only stuffed the upper 2/3.
Probably I did not express myself correctly. My comment was mostly directed at ewollowe who had not “a whole lot of bottom end” from Tangband W3-871B.
For my taste there is plenty of bass for rock, jazz and classical.
By “bright” I tried to say that the highs are bit forward / present / prominent. But, I did not include the baffle step filter straight amp into driver.
Maybe my stock *bay TDA7297 is the reason for the brightness. My next project is to mod the TDA7297.
But, I am playing Saint Saens No 3 “Organ” right now, and the TABAQs are holding their own.
I am thoroughly impressed that a speaker that is simple enough for me to build it can sound this good. Very happy with TABAQ.
Thank you for developing TABAQ and for sharing your design.
Laurens
Hi Laurens
Glad you like the design.
You will experience the "brightness" with 830986 and 830987 if you dont use BSC. Some people like it this way, it depends on placement of the speaker, listening distance, type of music, source of music etc.
PS:
If you are using a mobile with BT, disable all sound "enhancements".
Hi
Bjørn
Glad you like the design.
You will experience the "brightness" with 830986 and 830987 if you dont use BSC. Some people like it this way, it depends on placement of the speaker, listening distance, type of music, source of music etc.
PS:
If you are using a mobile with BT, disable all sound "enhancements".
Hi
Bjørn
Hi, i bought a pair of P830986, they are arriving from china in maybe 1-2 weeks (depending on brazilian post good will, and the olympics don't quite help 
) I was planning on a folded TABAQ, more suited for my pc monitoring use, but i hasn't seen much on them in this tread, so i got worried if they might be an inferior option. And the bsc would be something like 6,8R-8,2R 1,5mh, right?
) I was planning on a folded TABAQ, more suited for my pc monitoring use, but i hasn't seen much on them in this tread, so i got worried if they might be an inferior option. And the bsc would be something like 6,8R-8,2R 1,5mh, right?
I recommend you give the P830986 a listen from the blind test tread vol 2 in here. Compared to how easy they are to order from eBay, I don't understand why they see so little use. They are a good driver, and you can get a good implementation by simply using BSC (either line-level or speaker-level) and turning the speaker 15-30 degrees to lessen the HF peak.