Hello. I thought I should finally introduce myself. I'm a physical chemist by training and teach and do research in a liberal arts college here in south central Maine, USA. I've done quite a bit of design and construction work on scanned probe microscopes as part of my research (STM's and AFM's that work on the nanometer scale) and have been surprised by the amount of overlap the work has had with my life-long audio preoccupation.
I very much appreciate the international nature of this site, but thought I'd also ask if any any other diy audio sorts are lurking in my locality without me being aware of it. My main audio diy focus has been on speaker design and contruction (ESL's and dynamic drivers---also played a bit with diy ribbons a few years ago) although I do some electronics work as well.
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I very much appreciate the international nature of this site, but thought I'd also ask if any any other diy audio sorts are lurking in my locality without me being aware of it. My main audio diy focus has been on speaker design and contruction (ESL's and dynamic drivers---also played a bit with diy ribbons a few years ago) although I do some electronics work as well.
Few
Thanks for the response. For my own use my two most recent speaker projects have been a pair of large ESL panels (~7'x20" perforated steel stators, double-sided foam tape spacers), driven from about 250 Hz on up. I have a pair of NHT 1259 woofers in sealed boxes to fill in the low end, but, as expected the midbass isn't what I'd like. I'm currently sketching out Plan B for this system. Crossovers and dipole equalizers are all active with BurrBrown OPA2604 op amps.
I also built a pair of MTM's using the Vifa 5.25" midbass drivers (mineral filled polycone variety) and a ScanSpeak D2905-9300 tweeter. Crossovers for this are passive first order. Each channel consists of heavily chamfered (~3") 1.5" thick MDF individual enclosures for the midranges, with enough space between the woofers so that the tweeter can be repositioned axially for proper time alignment as I play with crossovers. I have an old leftover Phase Tech "sub"woofer to fill in the low end at the moment.
I've overseen the design and construction of quite a few speakers because I've offered a five-week hands-on speaker construction course as a way to teach some physics to students who might otherwise shy away. 20-year old males seem willing to set aside their fear or disdain of science if they get to play with woofers.
I've also toyed with some simple ribbons but haven't yet gotten very serious about them. I guess I've played just enough with each of the most common driver technologies not to believe the hype about any of them. I've concluded you just have to choose which compromise best suits your own interests. There isn't a "best" one. Nonetheless, they're sure fun to play with!
I also built a pair of MTM's using the Vifa 5.25" midbass drivers (mineral filled polycone variety) and a ScanSpeak D2905-9300 tweeter. Crossovers for this are passive first order. Each channel consists of heavily chamfered (~3") 1.5" thick MDF individual enclosures for the midranges, with enough space between the woofers so that the tweeter can be repositioned axially for proper time alignment as I play with crossovers. I have an old leftover Phase Tech "sub"woofer to fill in the low end at the moment.
I've overseen the design and construction of quite a few speakers because I've offered a five-week hands-on speaker construction course as a way to teach some physics to students who might otherwise shy away. 20-year old males seem willing to set aside their fear or disdain of science if they get to play with woofers.
I've also toyed with some simple ribbons but haven't yet gotten very serious about them. I guess I've played just enough with each of the most common driver technologies not to believe the hype about any of them. I've concluded you just have to choose which compromise best suits your own interests. There isn't a "best" one. Nonetheless, they're sure fun to play with!
DIY Audio, Maine
I'm from Midcoast Maine and have a speaker design that I have been trying to get feedback on from other "practitioners". Would you be willing to take a look at it?
Below is the link to the PDF-formatted paper that I've written about it:
http://www.build-it-electronics.com/page6files/pikku9rev4.pdf
I'm from Midcoast Maine and have a speaker design that I have been trying to get feedback on from other "practitioners". Would you be willing to take a look at it?
Below is the link to the PDF-formatted paper that I've written about it:
http://www.build-it-electronics.com/page6files/pikku9rev4.pdf
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