Hello from Tennessee

[evsentry3]

I am not so new around diyAudio as far as reading, but joined more recently when some things were listed for sale that I was interested in. Just noticed a comment somewhere that introducing yourself here was a path to have direct posting privileges.

I've been a broadcast engineer for more than 25 years now. I've built and maintained dozens of radio stations and learned much the hard (best) way. But I've found that its a big difference between maintaining and the making of decisions about designing your own when you start down the DIY path.

I discovered there was a higher quality audio available many years ago when I stumbled upon an electrostatic speaker and was blown away by its sound from such a thin profile. A few years later, with some money in hand I was looking for some of the Carver Amazings after reading reviews of them. Instead I found a dealer with Martin Logan's and came home with a pair of Sequel II's. A couple years later I came into a very early pair of the ML Monolith's that I still have.

I built a hybrid tube line stage with Welborne modules in about 93 or so and used it, the Monolith's driven with a Carver monoblock pair then for about the next dozen years or so.

But upon moving to Tennessee, I stumbled into a group of guys doing a lot of DIY, mostly tubes, and a whole new world opened up. I had an opportunity to get a pair of EV Sentry 3 speakers and jumped at the chance since their being about a 100db effecient, I could then use tube power. That was the biggest problem with the stat's, needing big power.

So in the last couple of years I've had the opportunity to work on several speaker designs, including a current project of open baffle that I made some quick change, quarter turn mount design style speaker mounts. I can fairly quickly change different drivers into the panels and now I'm getting ready to use a DCX2496 to be able to readily alter crossover and small EQ amounts and be able to figure out the best drivers and crossover points for more permanent designs.

More than enough about me, I sure enjoy the forum and the kind and helpful people that hang around!
Mark

[Cal Weldon]

Hello and welcome to the forums. Those quick mounts sound interesting. Can you post a pic or two?

[c2cthomas]

Hi Mark,

Welcome to the forum!

I'm near Nashville so if you are in the area let me know and perhaps we can share some things or help each other out. I've been doing electronics since the mid 60's and learned on tubes way back then. Currently working on my 1st DIY speaker project at the Walsh 5 remake thread.

Glad to see another person from Tennessee here!

BTW - I just relocated here from California - and I'm loving it!

[evsentry3]

That worked real well!

[evsentry3]

Much better! Above is some drivers mounted and some spare mounts. Here is what the OB look like...

[evsentry3]

Thanks for the welcome Cal!

Maybe those pictures will explain a little bit better about what I was referring to. The baffle design that I started with was the JE Labs, but I wanted to try to stick with the overall diminsions, but I wanted uneven sized wings to act as supports. And I wanted to have some ability to try different speakers.

Hello c2cthomas! I'm located in Knoxville but some guys over there participate in some of the get togethers over here. And we've been over there a few times too! A gent there in Nashville has some interest Lowther based speakers in some ACE design cabinets. Drop me a PM and we can talk and get you over here sometime!

Have a great weekend!!

[BWRX]

Hot damn, that's a pretty cool idea! Nice woodwork too.

[EC8010]

Interesting stuff. Welcome to the forum from one (ex) broadcast engineer to another.

[Ampzilla4ever]

I joined to see if I might find help. I am going to attempt to overhaul a non-working Son of Ampzilla. Finally found some schematics from David Riddle Company. Now if I can just find parts. I'm in east Tennnesse so I'm not sure if I can score any of what I need in this area. I miss my old Ampzilla. It sounded so good when it played. This is the third time it has quit. I hope there is someone out there that might have done this before that can give me some good info on where to start. I'm not an electronics tech but my brother is but not in audio/stereo. I have an old H/K tube system I'm hoping to do the same thing to as well. I think parts may be more available for it that the Ampzilla. We'll see.

[evsentry3]

Drop me a line and we can get together and I'd be glad to see if I could help! I don't have experience on the Ampzilla, but I know people that know people that probably do.