The DIY hobby will never die. It will continue to evolve, but those who don't evolve with it will be lost. Many hobbies do go away. When I was young the only way to get into ham radio was to build your own rig. Today that is barely even an option. It is possible that the same thing could happen to diy audio. I think the SS and chip amp hobbies will survive, but tubes could dry up in the next 50 years. Support your local metal head so that he keeps buying tube based guitar amps, that is what pays to keep the tube factories running.
The internet and SMD are just new tools for us to use. You can build a tube amp using SMD. The purists really hated this one. I not only pasted silicon all over the place, I even used a dsPIC microcontroller to modulate the supply rails. A class H tube amp? You bet. Need to do some tweaking? Just plug in the laptop!
The internet and SMD are just new tools for us to use. You can build a tube amp using SMD. The purists really hated this one. I not only pasted silicon all over the place, I even used a dsPIC microcontroller to modulate the supply rails. A class H tube amp? You bet. Need to do some tweaking? Just plug in the laptop!
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An oldie, but a goody:
Q: How many Southerners does it take to change a light bulb?
A: 4. One to charge the bulb and 3 to sit around and talk about how good the old bulb used to burn.
This seems to apply to hobbies. They are never as good as they used to be.
Makes me wonder why we even get up in the morning.
Q: How many Southerners does it take to change a light bulb?
A: 4. One to charge the bulb and 3 to sit around and talk about how good the old bulb used to burn.
This seems to apply to hobbies. They are never as good as they used to be.
Makes me wonder why we even get up in the morning.
Yes you did.
I was referring to the power requirements.
Oh, I get it now... That was a bit daft of me...
Anyway, I'm becomming increasingly horrified when someone tells me to "listen to the bass on this track", through a phone speaker. Turned up too loud (for the 0.5" diaphragm), on a (more often than not) track that has little content below 80Hz.
In this respect, people my age don't really know what quality sounds like, but I'm willing to bet they'll try a bit of DIY if it means going one louder than their mates, when they have their own place (though HTIB systems have "bass units" that go pretty loud, even if it won't go below 60Hz). Then again, they might just buy some of those 2.5 way 2x15" cabinets that get cheaper every day.
Chris
PS - I think if parents try diyAudio, the kids are more likely to follow.
I hate working with parts I can barely see!
regards
The worst is when you sneeze and lose them in the carpet. I have a big ceramic magnet lying around for recovering from that, but it doesn't work so well for the signal transistors.
The worst is when you sneeze and lose them in the carpet. I have a big ceramic magnet lying around for recovering from that, but it doesn't work so well for the signal transistors.
Tell me about it, although not sneezing, sometimes when trying to flip over a resistor with the tweezers they will shoot across the room and you've forever lost it to the void. However you can buy 50 1206 for 2 pence each at farnell so it's not like it really matters
We all have a bit of daft in us and mine likes to make itself known at the worst of times.It's the same with all these you tube videos of people trying to show off how awesome their stereo sounds. Most often you hear horribly distorted bass with over driven amplifiers and over driven drivers.
I started early with the DIY thing at around 11, then got serious with it by the time I was 16. My mates thought I was crazy to spend all my money on hifi, and then I gave them a demo and they were like... okay now I get why you spend money on this. It's a sad case that people don't know what good sound is like.
Well my father had always been hot on DIY, we had all the tools and even a room at the top of the house dedicated to working in. From that point of view I didn't need anything special, except an idea, to try something out. He had also built a pair of loudspeakers himself, I think everything together helped fuel my imagination.
If you're aware of the things you can possibly accomplish by yourself, you'll give it a go, but most people simply think 'that's impossible' or 'it's too hard'. So what? I'd say, what's the worst that could happen, it doesn't work? Been there, done that and then through perseverance I've got everything I've ever built to work.
Where there's a will there's a way, but you do need to be shown that, that way actually exists in the first place.
"At the 4'th day of the imprisonment Eagle's Eye suddenly realized that paleface's wigwam did not have a 4'th wall" (C)
It gets better when the camera's mic clips too.
Sounds very similar to how I've done this (started later at 13, with some oldish 3-ways, 8" bass etc) (16 now, built a Tripath amp and a few pairs of speakers, bought some FE126eN drivers so they'll get a nice box...). A friend came around recently, I sat him down and played a couple of tracks. He told me later that going back to his PC monitor's in-built speakers was "noticable".
Chris
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