Columbus DIY Audio Club

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Ok, hopefully some other folks will find this thread before we set our first meeting so we can find a date that works for everyone (or at least most). I am guessing there must be at least 2 or 3 other people interested in this who are forum members, and probably some others who are not.

We could start discussing online what people would like to see/talk about/mess with, what particular related areas of interest we have.

I've got a pair of bookshelf speakers with proto-type cabinets built and the woofers mounted, I have yet to decide how/where I'm going to mount the tweeters and I'm hoping to setup a PC in the garage soon to do measurements so I can design the crossover.

I've got some Panasonic microphone capsules for building measurment mics, so far I've "made" a couple simple ones without the Linkwitz modification.

I'd like to build a mic preamp, and possibly get some TriPath amps to build bi-amped active speakers with DSP (or just use a PC) "crossovers".

I've got a nice table saw, big drill press, air nail/staple guns. I've got a half-way finished router table I'm building, and most other tools needed for cabinet building. I don't have a bandsaw or any metalworking/welding tools other than a couple bench grinders, hacksaws, and a dremel tool. The garage doesn't have an air conditioner though, so if we do any collaboration there we'd want to do that in the evening I think.

I had the notion of designing a very high end system to sell, but that notion has been pushed to to the back burners since we had our son Ryu, he's 2 1/2 now, not old enough yet to help dad with speaker designing... I think I'll stick with less ambitious, simpler speaker designs for a while unless I find somebody else to work with. I've got an uncle in Indiana who has a full CNC setup + a 3d solid printer who I might be able to convince to let me use his shop for building some some prototype parts, not sure about that yet.
 
Hey hey, guys!

Critofur directed me to this thread.

A quick background about myself. I've been into speaker building now for almost two years. I currently have a pair of line arrays with ten Vifa BC11 drivers and a single Fountek JP-2.0 tweeter in the center. Crossover is handled by a Behringer DCX2496 and I also have a Behringer DEQ2496 for EQ duties. As far as measurement goes I'm still pretty new to that. I've been using a Behringer ECM8000 mic, an M-Audio Mobile Pre, and a copy of TrueRTA 1/24 octave version for quick, dirty measurements. I have yet to build a speaker with a passive crossover but I'd like to venture down that road soon.

As far as my speaker plans for the future I have a pair designed and ready to build once I get a little free time. I'm going to do a Linkwitz Orion clone with dual 12" Dayton RS315HF woofers, dual RS180 mids, and a single RS28a tweeter in an MTM configuration up top. Crossover will be active, of course, with the DCX2496. I also have an IB sub installed in my basement theater room with four Adire Shiva 12" drivers. My listening room isn't ideal, due to living in a townhouse for the time being (wife and I just landed good jobs) but it works for the time being.

As far as tools go I have a brand new Ryobi BT3100 table saw and a new Ryobi plunge router (something 180 model) that I haven't yet used. For my line arrays I used my brother's small Delta table saw and an old Craftsman router my father-in-law gave me.

I may know of one or two other guys in Columbus that would be interested and I'll forward this thread onto them.

Oh, and as far as the videogames go, Critofur, I mainly do PC gaming with minimal arcade emulation (although my brother does that). I have an Opteron 165 with an X1900XT video card (yes, it's sick) and I mainly play newer games, with the ocassional oldie.

Alrighty guys, this sounds like fun!
 
I have only been in this for about a year. My current setup is three way active with Dayton 12" HF, Peerless 830875, Seas 27TDFC. The amplifiers are combination of four ucd / and two plate amps.

I designed an active filter board for my needs, no experience with passive filters, and until cost makes it a necessity, I'd like to stay active. Recent project I am just getting printed now is a simple psu with muting relay outputs for active filters.

I have the same measurement/prototype tools, behringer deq2496, m-audio mobile pre, behringer microphone, and a laptop.

I got no woodworking tools besides a sucky jigsaw, and no place to work. Just a soldering iron.

My ambitions for the future are replacing the woofer with a 830883, upgrading the crossover based on some things I learned in this version, and maybe doing a better integrated system. In the future, I'd like to move to two 10's per loudspeaker, and include the amps and active crossover in it. I'd also like to employ zaph's waveguide on the tweeter.

I'd help design some speakers to sell on the side, just a warning though, I tried collaborating with someone on this forum and we had to part ways because we couldn't reach some compromises.
 
mazurek said:
...I have the same measurement/prototype tools, behringer deq2496, m-audio mobile pre, behringer microphone, and a laptop....

...I got no woodworking tools besides a sucky jigsaw, and no place to work. Just a soldering iron.

...

I'd help design some speakers to sell on the side, just a warning though, I tried collaborating with someone on this forum and we had to part ways because we couldn't reach some compromises.
Well, if you didn't get far then not a problem, let's say we got fairly far along and had the same situation, well then we could just do both and let the market decide, or if we couldn't aford to really produce both then just do prototypes and then do some listening tests with other folks.

I'm not working presently, back to college & I have a little kid, he takes much of my time. If I could make a little money selling a few speakers that would be cool to supplement my financial aid. I'm probably older than either of you guys, soon to be 37 but still a kid at heart.

I have some ideas for a very high end speaker which I already know will sound awesome, and in some areas even be unmatched by speakers like the $20,000 Madrigal Revel Salons (which are the only commercial speaker I've auditioned which I really thouroughly) liked, ever). This high end speaker idea I have is basically my version of somebody else's idea and I would want to work out a deal with him if I ever actually did get it completed.

Have you guys sat close to someone playing a cello? I had a friend who was a cello player and you can "feel" it playing, in the air, in the objects around you. When I listen to cello on a stero system I don't get the sense that a cello is really right there in front of me, I don't feel that same sort of presence. I would like to make a system capable of that kind of presence/accurate natural sounding timbre.

This is my first real speaker design: http://www.6moons.com/audioreviews/walsh/micro.html

The owner (for over 30 years) of Ohm Acoustics was my roomate for a few years. Before I met him I knew a bit about speakers, my dad had been a partner at an audio store in the 70's and gave my my first stereo when I was 8, but I had no idea how complex the process of designing speakers is until after many many hours of discussing it with John.

I used to listen to music all the time, sometimes as a background thing, at parties, at work, in my car driving, and sometimes just sitting down for the sole purpose of listening, a kind of theraputic pleasure. For the past 10 years or so though, I don't really like the stereo systems I've heard, other than for home theater. I LOVE my Onkyo reciever for DVD playback, it totally kicks *** for that, but for music, simply uninspiring. I'm hoping some day I can bring back that pleasure again, without having to play speakers so loud that I'm damaging my hearing.


mazeroth - I don't have a X1900XT, I'm getting by on just a 6800 with the extra pipes & vertex unit unlocked, slightly overclocked. I setup my AMD 64 system shortly before the Opt. 165 came out, or else I would have gone with that. I've got a 3200 overclocked to 290Mhz FSB, plenty fast for any game I've tried so far. I think the only game that's out so far that would even get me thinking about upgrading would be Oblivion, but I haven't tried it yet. I play mostly Urban Terror, a Quake 3 mod. My son's name Ryu, which means dragon in Japanese, is inspired by Ryu from Street Fighter II. I love NHL Hockey, the Tekken series, and I like driving games once in a while.


Oh, I've got school in the morning, what am I doing up this late, doh...
 
well then we could just do both and let the market decide
- I think we could get along.

The concept you are talking about looks similar in theory to the the dipole bass/mid -> monopole tweeter you always see people suggesting is the ultimate nirvana. I am also approaching a similar shortcoming in a more brute force way, I see that all loudspeakers these days are too small, and there is not enough radiating area to produce any oomph and presence. I think there is a gap in mid-high priced speakers for larger driver speakers.

Would be very interesting to talk in person. One thing I see if any of us individually or working together wants to get serious, we might want to get or develop some good distortion testing software.

It seems the internet (htguide, zaphaudio) standard is soundeasy. Something I thought about briefly, a cheaper alternative could be matlab script, it has some easy to use functions to whip up something simple real quick. It would not be very difficult to work up a distortion testing program in matlab, which is especially conveniant if none of you have a good measurement program, and your are at a university with free matlab.

I can see I should get along with you guys, before college I did 3d graphics programming as a hobby, learning all the technology they use in video games and animation. I haven't been into the video games so much since college (though the occasional deathmatch many years ago with my old roomates was fun). My brother was showing off his 7900gt, duel athlon system he built with all his money while he was in school. It doesn't look to me that graphics is moving as fast as it was, because when I left the hobby demoscene people had done all this high dynamic range stuff, and besides that being integrated into his fancy videogames, the only other difference I could see is spectacular resolution. One thing I learned though in graphics, and in speakers is that everyone invented everything in the 70's, its just now that people can actually implement a lot of the cool stuff.
 
Hello guys,

nice thread. Would you guess where I made this photo (2002)? ;)

Cheers,
Pavel
 

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tweed said:
hey i'm in columbus too. i'm in for a cowtown diy club.
anyone got the ball rollin onthis yet.
tweed
Cool, my finals are over Monday, one other guy said sometime after the 12th is good... so we can start talking about scheduling.

I don't have good speakers/system setup in the house presently so my place isn't a very good option for a beer + listen to music type meeting. As I mentioned in earlier post, I do have the 2 car garage setup with woodworking tools so we can do some cabinet building here. I live just east of OSU campus.

We could meet at a restaurant/bar type place near campus with pen & paper and start making some loose plans. A place called Mad Mex at the "South Campus Gateway" SE of OSU has a half price deal for students from 2PM - 4PM weekdays and isn't very crowded then. I don't know if that kind of time is good for any of you guys, how many have reg. day jobs etc. I figure some of us will be students, some will have "regular" 9-5 job, any old farts already retired?

I startd this thread after I saw another guy had this idea on another forum, but he didn't get back to me yet. I emailed him like a week ago. I was searchin google for DIY Audio folks here in Columbus. I wanted to find at least one other person to collarborate with. The Internet is great, but not the same as talking in person.
 
PMA- is it COSI in the corner of the picture?

I start work as a GRA at Baker Systems on the 19th, the week before I can be on and off campus anytime, though I'm pretty sure research hours are flexible if I know beforehand.

I agree its probably a good idea to meet on campus to get things going. I live out in Hilliard, and would be open to people meeting here if it is not too far away. Don't have anyone that will be bothered here, girlfriend is easygoing (and if you can find a way for us to make a couple of dollars so I can afford to take her out, she'll be even more amiable).

I got a small list of some cool stuff to play with, and an ok stereo setup to listen to stuff.
 
"Make a couple dollars..." Well ~ the speaker business is tough. So many speaker companies have come and gone over the years. I have a concept (which has been proved with prototypes) for a speaker system that could compete with speakers in the $20,000 and up category, but that design would require custom drivers with an uncomon motor structure and possibly custom cones and voice coils, though we might be able to use off the shelf for those if we can find a close enough match. Would need a custom basket for the drivers also. Anyway, we could discuss that idea later. We could design speakers using off the shelf drivers which sound very good, and we could build some, but how do we market them, who would buy them? Companies like Bose pay less for their whole speaker completely built than we would for just one driver. A store like the one on High Street doesn't want to sell speakers from DIY types 'cause (they said) they're too inconsistant, among other problems. Now if we could get people to do a listening test then we could sell some speakers! My MicroWalsh "short" design done in all white has a very high WAF, I have some improvements in mind for a design like that.

mazurek said:
PMA- is it COSI in the corner of the picture?

I start work as a GRA at Baker Systems on the 19th, the week before I can be on and off campus anytime, though I'm pretty sure research hours are flexible if I know beforehand.

I agree its probably a good idea to meet on campus to get things going. I live out in Hilliard, and would be open to people meeting here if it is not too far away. Don't have anyone that will be bothered here, girlfriend is easygoing (and if you can find a way for us to make a couple of dollars so I can afford to take her out, she'll be even more amiable).

I got a small list of some cool stuff to play with, and an ok stereo setup to listen to stuff.
 
mazurek, I'm in Hilliard, too! I live right down Cemetary road near the Kroger.

As far as getting a business started, I'm in this more to learn and have fun, not for monetary gain. I'd love to have a few buddies that are nearby that enjoy building speakers, as all of my current family/friends, with the exception of my one brother, think I'm nuts.

I'm good for whatever day you guys want to meet.
 
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