The Burning Amp Festival- an Audio Happening

Jason · 2008-10-20 9:24 pm

Thanks to Variac and AR2 for pulling this together, Nelson and all the donors for the prizes (the air was so amazingly thick with energy during the auction and raffle!), Jan, Siegfried and Ian for their enlightening and interactive talks (I'll be buying my metallica CD's second hand now thank you!), and all the guys who came so far with interesting stuff to show, be it modest, grand or eclectic. It was great to get to talk to so many of you in person and get feedback on what the website has done for you.

Cal, be seeing you soon I'm sure

Expect great things from the site in the year ahead...

Wavebourn · 2008-10-20 9:46 pm

Re: Speaker design

benchtester said:
I had a great time at Burning Amp.

Shown directly above (at the corners of the table) are some speakers I built. Someone asked me if there were plans, and I only gave a brief answer: no but one can get the plans for the ZD5 at www.zaphaudio.com. My speaker design is a derivative of the ZD5.

A more complete answer is that these particular speakers are the equivalent to a breadboard prototype. So they were different last week and will change again in the near future. Also the waveguide is not documented, and I will be challenged to recreate it for myself. One of my goals is to refine the waveguide into a machinable and reproducible design.

I removed the ladder delay and went with a waveguide to facilitate the future use of an active crossover. On a previous project, I used a ladder delay and it worked great. So I am confident that the ZD5 is way to go for someone who wants to build a documented design.

Although, the ZRT is looking pretty good (I haven't heard it). I do like the AirCirc tweeters.

Unfortunately the balance was shifted left, but the speakers themselves sounded very - very real! I wish to see more of such great breadboards the next year! :smash:

Variac · 2008-10-21 1:54 am

Yes!!!!

It was great. More people, more rooms, great projects, great talks, more swag to give away!

The talks were were exceptional- Serious information, but always interesting. Thank you Seigfried Linkwitz, Jan Didden and
Iain McNeill. you guys did great!

Thanks to Nelson Pass Jack Hidley and Aleksandar Radisavljević especially for their generous donations of goodies for our attendees.

I don't think anyone needing drivers for speaker projects walked away empty handed from Jack's tables. I got some cool drivers from Jack and I think I'll try a speaker construction project soon.

One person won top of the line ribbon tweeters donated by RAAL.

Of course Nelson came through - if anything better than last year! He brought about 15 fully built class A amp chassis, Most with capacitors and transformers installed. We gave away about 8 in the drawing and auctioned off about 4 The highest price paid was $120 which was still a bargain. Also speaker drivers, exotic parts, unobtainable JFETS.....

Of course the heart of Burning Amp are the DIY projects lovingly crafted by those attending. Some were familiar, some new, most all sounding shockingly good!

I hope that next time we can be a bit more organized for the auditions, we could have been a lot more efficient I'll admit.

The weather was also a bit cool. Who would believe that two days earlier we had a heat wave?

Other than those issues, it was fantastic. The best part for me is seeing all the people I have met online. It really is a great crowd!

Thanks to everyone, especially Vladimir (AR2)

Mark

TheEyeLady · 2008-10-21 2:37 am

I must say...

it was QUITE the experience. I believe I understand a bit more fully what I've gotten myself into after this!

Of course, the highlight of the event for me was finally meeting Jan Didden. I loved Jan's presentation... probably because it's the only thing I heard all day that I understood. Unfortunately, I never did get his autograph.....