To Paul
Here's the schematic of the Aikido line preamp I brought.
Tubes are 6N1P all around, running off a 300V B+ supply.
In case anyone is interested, on 11 March John Broskie released a major revision of the PCB: Rev. E. This is easy to find on his tubecad.com blog.
The version I brought is much older. I imagine the new one sounds better
.
Here's the schematic of the Aikido line preamp I brought.
Tubes are 6N1P all around, running off a 300V B+ supply.
In case anyone is interested, on 11 March John Broskie released a major revision of the PCB: Rev. E. This is easy to find on his tubecad.com blog.
The version I brought is much older. I imagine the new one sounds better
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I took a couple pictures ;-) .
I can't remember all the background on everything so if someone needs to feel free to reference these pictures.
I brought along the Obsoletes. Mark Kravchenko likes the name so he is going to use it. Big John's quip was " Call them the Obsoletes Mark Too. Spelt T-O-O."
My voicing going in was adjusted to a second set of ears with honest feedback. People are often "kind" instead of accurate. It was refreshing to get useful feedback. Mark K also heard the tweeters distorting on the low end and advised moving my xover points up. Thanks for the tip Mark.
The planar's in the Obsoletes I'm remembering as from a company that's become LRAD. Sound that gets directed to certain people only with up to 5.5 kilometer (with line of sight) up to 160 db. Cool stuff !!! During my presentation some people sounded interested in more info. Here's a link to a TED Talk by Woody Norris Woody Norris: Hypersonic sound and other inventions | TED Talk . A link describing how it works How LRAD Works | HowStuffWorks .
For the couple people that liked Good Night Irene - it was Kelley Joe Phelps singing.
Pierre brought along a couple crates of records as gifts as well as setting up the cabin arrangements. A pleasure as always Pierre.
I can't remember the book Dave was referencing on voicing lessons so hopefully that gets sent along. Dave brought along his 2.1 system which sounded good as always. He is using version 4 of the xover and John brought a version 1 set to compare. They both sounded good.
Thanks to everyone that participated this year. As usual it was a fun day.
Grant.
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Some pics
Rain, Rain and more rain. Adam and I showed up to watch two ducks feeding in the park on the walkway/monster puddle.
We were waiting for the other animals to come in two by two.
So the first presentation was a collaborative effort:
Felix had his tuntable and phono stage. Pierre's preamp was driving the TI amp built by John all played on Tall John's Mark Audio BVR Loudspeaker.
Pierre giving his presentation on the tube Pre-amplifier.
So John had a set of speakers to. A great sounding backloaded horn design made out of Foam core.
Click on the image and it will be right side up. This is John's foam core wideband loudspeaker.
John giving his presentation.
All you have to do is pay attention to the height difference in the same window to know why there is John and Tall John!
John setting up his next song. We had a variety of sources and they all had their great moments. The vinyl was hit and miss depending on the record itself. I heard really nice sound from vinyl and not so great sound from vinyl. The takeaway from the listening is that the speakers were good enough to resolve the differences. That's a big plus in my books!
Rain, Rain and more rain. Adam and I showed up to watch two ducks feeding in the park on the walkway/monster puddle.
We were waiting for the other animals to come in two by two.
So the first presentation was a collaborative effort:
Felix had his tuntable and phono stage. Pierre's preamp was driving the TI amp built by John all played on Tall John's Mark Audio BVR Loudspeaker.
Pierre giving his presentation on the tube Pre-amplifier.
So John had a set of speakers to. A great sounding backloaded horn design made out of Foam core.
Click on the image and it will be right side up. This is John's foam core wideband loudspeaker.
John giving his presentation.
All you have to do is pay attention to the height difference in the same window to know why there is John and Tall John!
John setting up his next song. We had a variety of sources and they all had their great moments. The vinyl was hit and miss depending on the record itself. I heard really nice sound from vinyl and not so great sound from vinyl. The takeaway from the listening is that the speakers were good enough to resolve the differences. That's a big plus in my books!
Dave, I will ask for the Napoleons documentation. The x-o rework, new version for study - if possible, please. Also since many car stereos use little Neo tweeters that cross with midbass that are often 60 deg off axis or more it makes smooth transition very problematic without going into 3 way, or crossing little tweeters low and pushing them into distortions or frying them. The best car audio system use regular home audio drivers: ScanSpeak, Satori, Seas Excell, Eton, Dynaudio are quite common. Crazy to put top of the line speakers plus elaborate DSP in the car but some people go to extremes that most of us would say borders on insanity.
It was good meaning everyone yesterday - thank's for organizing this.
Dave Brubeck's "Time Out" Album is a classic. Unfortunately, I don't think the Quartet ever released an album that equaled "Time Out." However, in 2010 Sony released 5 CD set which includes "Time Out" and 4 other albums. You'll be able to cherry pick through the other 4 CD's for pieces of interest.
The Dave Brubeck Quartet - Original Album Classics (CD, Album) at Discogs
Also, the jazz piece "Sing, Sing Sing" was played yesterday.
If you like that piece, the real deal was played by Benny Goodman's Orchestra in their famous 1938 live Carnegie Hall Concert. They didn't hold anything back. Its this particular live version you want to listen to - especially if you play the French Horn.
Next year I'll bring the necessary components for DIYCoffee.
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Dave Brubeck's "Time Out" Album is a classic. Unfortunately, I don't think the Quartet ever released an album that equaled "Time Out." However, in 2010 Sony released 5 CD set which includes "Time Out" and 4 other albums. You'll be able to cherry pick through the other 4 CD's for pieces of interest.
The Dave Brubeck Quartet - Original Album Classics (CD, Album) at Discogs
Also, the jazz piece "Sing, Sing Sing" was played yesterday.
If you like that piece, the real deal was played by Benny Goodman's Orchestra in their famous 1938 live Carnegie Hall Concert. They didn't hold anything back. Its this particular live version you want to listen to - especially if you play the French Horn.
Next year I'll bring the necessary components for DIYCoffee.
.
.
Mark - Brubeck, have some live recording of Desmond from Toronto 1975. Poor Desmond too much coffee and cigarettes, and ladies - lang cancer. The audio shop is awesome. 2010 Sony release, I just hope it's not like 2016 Pink Floyd Echoes re-release - copies of the original CD made on analog tapes using a fine mid 80's deck, encoded in Dolby probably sound better. Hmmm, hmm.
BTW, some individuals who heard the KXBL tweeters commended highly about them. I had tears in my eyes when I saw the one crashed lying on the ground after the unfortunate door slamming incident, saying damn, hopefully Mark has some extra sitting somewhere at his place, if not I'm screwed.
HELIX DSP PRO MK2 | Audiotec Fischer
This one would do nice DSP home set-up, maybe even better than MiniDSP unit, and it's for car use, but $$$
HELIX DSP PRO MK2 | Audiotec Fischer
This one would do nice DSP home set-up, maybe even better than MiniDSP unit, and it's for car use, but $$$
Part the second, er two!
So this is not all we enjoyed all day. There were other learned presentations. We are a rag tag bunch but the brain power in that little community center was in the 10's of watts easily! Power of a Human Brain - The Physics Factbook
Grants latest and best sounding reconfigurable loudspeaker. Pretty impressive from where he first came a few years back.
Key to Grant's great sound was his use of the DIRAC software that he is giving us a great explanation of.
And listen we did.
This was an interesting dynamic duo team. Tall John built an original version set of Daves Napoleon two way nearfield speakers. And Dave the veritable revisionist that he is just had to gild the lily. It was an interesting demonstration that Dave does know what he is doing. There was a difference and it showed in not to subtle ways in carefully chosen program material.
Yes Dave gave us a presentation to.
Dave spares no expense on a large screen presentation of the performance specs of his Napoleon loudspeaker. Joking aside he has created something that is incredibly rare in the audio world. A loudspeake rthat within the main range of where music resides has almost identical response from on axis to 90 degrees off axis. (Yes this is correct not a typo.)
Paul has had a passion for audio from when he was a teenager. Something many of us have in common.
Here he is describing he hybrid tube preamp and the the careful engineering behind it and what he has learned about common heritage in audio design.
40 years young and still going strong is Paul's High school amp.
So this is not all we enjoyed all day. There were other learned presentations. We are a rag tag bunch but the brain power in that little community center was in the 10's of watts easily! Power of a Human Brain - The Physics Factbook
Grants latest and best sounding reconfigurable loudspeaker. Pretty impressive from where he first came a few years back.
Key to Grant's great sound was his use of the DIRAC software that he is giving us a great explanation of.
And listen we did.
This was an interesting dynamic duo team. Tall John built an original version set of Daves Napoleon two way nearfield speakers. And Dave the veritable revisionist that he is just had to gild the lily. It was an interesting demonstration that Dave does know what he is doing. There was a difference and it showed in not to subtle ways in carefully chosen program material.
Yes Dave gave us a presentation to.
Dave spares no expense on a large screen presentation of the performance specs of his Napoleon loudspeaker. Joking aside he has created something that is incredibly rare in the audio world. A loudspeake rthat within the main range of where music resides has almost identical response from on axis to 90 degrees off axis. (Yes this is correct not a typo.)
Paul has had a passion for audio from when he was a teenager. Something many of us have in common.
Here he is describing he hybrid tube preamp and the the careful engineering behind it and what he has learned about common heritage in audio design.
40 years young and still going strong is Paul's High school amp.
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Another enjoyable year and allot of good sounding kit. It was great seeing everyone.
Really nice pacing, it just kept humming along. It was great to see Dirac in action, thanks Grant. And year in and year out it blows me away how John squeezes nickels till they scream and transform into nice sounding audio gear. The foam core was a jaw dropper for what it was. And once again a special award to Adam and Mark who so importantly keep continuity alive by designing their crossover in the back room 10 minutes before presentation time. I would disappointed if it were any other way.
For the curious, here's the thread for the Napoleons:
The Napoleons: a Compact 2 Way that punches above its weight
Here's that book that's so useful (IMO) for speaker design voicing. Make sure you get the CD with it.
Critical Listening Skills for Audio Professionals: F. Alton Everest: 0082039530239: Amazon.com: Books
Paul, here's that Brubeck CD I mentioned. Much better sounding than the vinyl copy I have. Bypass ebay extortion, be glad to give you a FLAC rip sometime.
DAVE BRUBECK " TIME OUT " (SONY-24KARAT-GOLD-CD/FACTORY SEALED) | eBay
Really nice pacing, it just kept humming along. It was great to see Dirac in action, thanks Grant. And year in and year out it blows me away how John squeezes nickels till they scream and transform into nice sounding audio gear. The foam core was a jaw dropper for what it was. And once again a special award to Adam and Mark who so importantly keep continuity alive by designing their crossover in the back room 10 minutes before presentation time. I would disappointed if it were any other way.
For the curious, here's the thread for the Napoleons:
The Napoleons: a Compact 2 Way that punches above its weight
Here's that book that's so useful (IMO) for speaker design voicing. Make sure you get the CD with it.
Critical Listening Skills for Audio Professionals: F. Alton Everest: 0082039530239: Amazon.com: Books
Paul, here's that Brubeck CD I mentioned. Much better sounding than the vinyl copy I have. Bypass ebay extortion, be glad to give you a FLAC rip sometime.
DAVE BRUBECK " TIME OUT " (SONY-24KARAT-GOLD-CD/FACTORY SEALED) | eBay
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And once again a special award to Adam and Mark who so importantly keep continuity alive by designing their crossover in the back room 10 minutes before presentation time. I would disappointed if it were any other way.
The worst part was that we tweaked it when we were doing the presentation to! The low end was to distorted. We had the speakers falt to 20 hertz but bumped that up to 27 hertz and it really cleaned up the low end distortion. I wasn't happy with the first track that I played.
We had the system optimised for a different amp and at the meet we had two very different amps to power the system. Pierre's F4 for the tweeters which sounded great and my Parasound amplifier for the low end. Tons of potential headroom. As the speakers are 95 db/watt and the available power was 200 watts/channel into the low end and not quite sure into the top end.
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To Paul
Here's the schematic of the Aikido line preamp I brought.
Tubes are 6N1P all around, running off a 300V B+ supply.
In case anyone is interested, on 11 March John Broskie released a major revision of the PCB: Rev. E. This is easy to find on his tubecad.com blog.
The version I brought is much older. I imagine the new one sounds better
Thanks for posting this.
There was so much to learn from Saturday, I'm still saturated taking everything in.
My favourite sequence of gain devices is
tube preamp ==> jFET's ==> (possibly bipolars) ==> MOSFET's ==> Speakers
So it was great hearing the Aikido tube preamp ==> First Watt F4's.
Its amazing that a great tube preamp like this can be built for a fraction of the cost of a commercially made tube preamp.
Right or wrong, I see the first stage providing a high Zin and voltage gain,
while the second stage is a cathode follower providing a low Zout.
Both stages seem to be operating in class A.
The input before the first Grid will be the most susceptible to EMR.
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It is single ended and therefore Class A indeed.
If you recall the preamp layout, I used a long board and placed the power supply at one end (the rear), and the input tubes, including the input jacks, at the other end (the front). This helped keep it quiet.
Glad to read you enjoyed the event. So did I.
If you recall the preamp layout, I used a long board and placed the power supply at one end (the rear), and the input tubes, including the input jacks, at the other end (the front). This helped keep it quiet.
Glad to read you enjoyed the event. So did I.
I recorded 20 paying customers/attendees. It is possible that I missed some people, but that is the count that I'm going with.
I don't have my past stats at hand, but based on the movement of bodies, I found that this was a good turnout for our event, and the size of the hall... I believe that we've sometimes had more attendees & it was difficult to move about; and we've had less & had to wonder whether or not our get-together was sustainable.
This time around was pretty close to "just right", in my view. And I also have to agree that I found the "pace" of the presentations at this year's event worked very nicely.
- Ron
I think our record was 38 attendees about four years ago.
I did count 22 people in the building at one time.
The great part of the event is the presentations. It is so encouraging to listen to people that are both knowledgeable and enthusiastic about what they presenting. I learned something from each of the presentations.
Dave I hope you have published your measurements of your latest Napoleon crossover work. It is a very rare thing to have such uniform on and off axis response. Very rare. Combination of driver sizes, baffle size and cabinet dimensions and the Dave secret sauce.
