Pics from the DIY Meet

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"They"? Are you talking about the Isa? Well, I hooked them up to the Plinius amp they rocked pretty good. I got some good comments and with some power behind them the bass response really kicked in. I'm pretty happy. The other speaker of mine that got many positive comments is the BV1. With the AV20 pushing them they got a nice punch going. That, along with the bipole configuration gives them a very open sound. Of course, many people have been waiting for the smaller XBL2 powered drivers. The MTM from CSS is just a wonderful speaker. I could listen to those all day. Also, I think Aaron's Emerald Towers are quite nice. One of the smoother setups I heard.

Jean-Pierre: I'm going to figure out a way to get you the plans for the Isa. Give me a couple of days.
 
Yes I agree with Tim
The 4" MTM came out very well from the comments I got.
In the 4 days up to the event I built the X92 ported bookshelfs, Fullrange 3" Tline in solid Maghogany ,then the cabinets for the MTM 4" XBL with a new ribbon tweeter, no not the G2 a new tweeter Bob at CSS is looking into getting.As well as a MT using the X92 and this same tweeter these never made it to the show.

So the design on the 4" XBL MTM was done in a 30 minute time frame at 10:30 friday night as the drivers just arrived Thursday from the manufacture.

Last talk is the 4" is a go just which frames and what split 4,8,16ohm in the order.Round frame to trunk frame.Great for MTM or a LINE ARRAY.
And yes i did get the van loaded friday night to hit customs for 6 am.on Saturday
And even though i priced all those other designs to move them out at $120.00 for a MTM ( not the new XBL 4" MTM ) I thought was a loss just to cover a little of parts i did end up putting them back in the van to come home.Now try one last time to sell them on line then sell off just the parts and junk the cabinets.

I did like to see the Jordan design that was in the works as well as a few others.
Room was tight with that many speakers to show off for sure.And with 3 rooms going not everyone got to listen to every speaker that was there.
Even the Spires never made it on the list to play.
Just not enough time.

was a blast.
I did think the north creeks needed about 40-50 more screws in the cabinets.

Al
;)
 
Tim: I'm sure glad you gave us some insight on the Isa. Sounds good to me. I'm also glad you mentioned others designs as well. Are you (or someone else) going to write a more in-depth review of the speakers shown at the meet ? That along with a with to get in touch with the designers would be a real nice touch to those interested in DIY speaker building.
 
Like Al said, there wasn't enough time to get around to listen to everything, and that's if you're just a spectator. If you're one of the hosts you have even less time. That makes me highly dependent on the people that heard the speakers to offer their opinions. If anyone would like to e-mail me their thoughts on a particular design I can add them to the web page.
I have a dream, a dream that we can have a big Meet and hear everything there.......
 
Timn8ter said:
Like Al said, there wasn't enough time to get around to listen to everything, and that's if you're just a spectator. If you're one of the hosts you have even less time. That makes me highly dependent on the people that heard the speakers to offer their opinions. If anyone would like to e-mail me their thoughts on a particular design I can add them to the web page.
I have a dream, a dream that we can have a big Meet and hear everything there.......

I really enjoyed the event and as you say it was just not possible to be everywhere. :bawling:. There were a lot of really great sounding speakers there! It was really wonderful to see and hear all the different approaches and share ideas about them.

It would be very helpful if Tim is able to collect and summarizes thoughts about the different designs. Perhaps there will be some comments from those really concentrating on certain designs or comparisons. But I think that opinions more likely will be formed from a patchwork of comments from various people.

For me it was not really a "shoot out". To do that objectively I personally would need to do that with music I am familiar with and room placement I could play with. That was not the situation here. The purpose here was to be able to give a listen to as many as possible and be able to talk to the builder about there choices, impressions, ideas etc.

There were some designs I liked better than others but I hesitate to advance my thoughts as a true comparison because I was often standing in different parts of the room, speakers were different distances from the wall than optimal, I was unfamiliar with the music etc. Overall there were a huge number of speakers that cause me to say "I would be glad to have those in my house".

Unless someone steps forward with some true "reviews" I imagine the closest we can get is a "patchwork" of impressions.

To the folks that brought electronics: Great enclosure work ! I appreciated the discussion of your techniques and sources. Great headphone amp! It is the best headphone set up I have ever heard. Opened my eyes to what is possible.

Thanks Tim and the folks from Adire, CSS, and Raw Acoustics!
 
I think the HE10.1 was in the Multi-way room and sealed 281s were in the Single-driver room.

I had hoped to get opinions from the judging forms but that wasn't happening either. I will consolidate any opinions that are sent to me and and them to the web page presented as a "general impression" type comment.
 
The larger ones on the stands are the 281s. The HE10.1s were also on the stands in the Multi-way room.
 

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Thanks all for coming, and a BIG THANKS to Tim and his wife Alegria for all their hard work to make this happen - kudos!

In the upstairs Suite 102 room (big green room...;)) it was a Denon single disc player with a Plinius 8150.

Electronics in the high efficiency room (upstairs suite 105, with the big screen TV) were a Philips SACD1000, Vaza preamp (our own unit), and a pair of ASL AV20 monoblocks.

Warehouse had a Denon single disc player, Vaza preamp, and a QSC PLX3402 power amp.

Office system (downstairs, by the small leather loveseat) were a Sony 5 disc changer and an ancient AudioResearch integrated amp.

Dan Wiggins
Adire Audio
 
it was most definitely an informal meet. I spent most of what time I could find in the multi-way room. Having allot of speakers in the same room had allot to do with the fact that, to me everything sounded... muddy and lost for a lack of better words. There were some nifty designs though. I was much more impressed with the HE10.1's than I thought I'd be. And I had a chance to sit down alone with the little Eton/ribbon designs and thought those were pretty nice. I liked the MB20's allot, and tried to use them as a reference having heard them before, but I finally gave up, nothing was really standing out due to the room and all those speakers. I also got to spend some time with the Scan MTM's (the ones with the kevlar cones) however I had to sit on the floor since they were obviously designed with a comfy chair in mind, not a full upright kitchen chair that put me a good foot above the tweeter level.

There never was any speakers of any substance down where the subs were. So, to me, other than the ooo'ing and the ahh'ing over some good air movement, there just wasn't anything there to listen too.

Every time I hobbled over to the high efficiency room it was packed... I wished I had a chance to hear some of that, I understand some of the best sound of the day came from there.

Between blasts from some subs elsewhere, I had the chance to listen to a very quiet, and well built headphone amp. It sounded very clean and was running class A, however I think the batteries were low or something cause there just wasn't any guts with the Sennheiser cans that were there.

The Pass Amp was a blast to look at. My hat's off to anyone who can take a project to that level. I only wish I could have heard it. THere was another Pass'ish amp (death of Zen???) that also had very impressive looks to it.

I guess on one hand, I wished it was a more formal meeting, perhaps with a schedule of what was playing when. On the other hand, it really had a party feel to it, made me wish I had a beer in my hand. But hey, 5 bucks and a chance to poke around audio stuff all afternoon, talk to some interesting folks, what more can a geek ask for? I had fun and would return in a hearbeat.

I wish I had more to say, but the signal to noise ration was just to low that day for any real listening.

Oh yeah, hooking the Parthenon up to a 9V battery was worth a good giggle :D
 
I really enjoyed the meet. Everyone was really nice and fun to talk to. I was intimidated at first seeing all those speakers but soon realized that we were all there for the same reasons. Much different feeling than when I went to VSAC and was accosted by "VSAC Security" who mistakenly thought I was trying to sneak into the event for free. That still makes me bristle enough to not ever go back.

I agree with the earlier comments. The listening rooms were pretty small (and stuffy). It might be nice to have a room moderator to facilitate equipment changes and making sure everything gets played. I think people were a little shy hooking up others equipment.

I would have liked to see a room with a couple "reference" speakers for trying out different electronics.

All in all, I had a great time and I'm appreciative of Adire providing a venue and giving some great information.

Do we have to wait a year for the next one? My Ellis 1801b's are breaking in as I type this and sounding amazing.
 
johnkramer,

The MTM 8546 scan-speaks were designed with the IMP audio analyzer. They are used in a much larger room seated 12 to 15 feet back. I did design them to be listened to above tweeter level just not that close. I did listen for a brief time to a track from Patricia Barber and the room was very bass heavy, too much for my taste and if I would have had more time I would have plugged the ports. In my room at home the bass is just right, but that's the benefit of DIY to be able to tailor to your own listening room and personal taste and not to the masses. I suppose some of the smaller speakers with less bass output had an advantage.

Thanks for the compliment on my Pass DIY amps. I knew when the number of people got to be that large that we wouldn't be able to hear all that was available. I know I wanted to hear more of the equipment. The ZEN is Nelsons version 4. Now that amp gets warm, but has the same midrange character as the Aleph.

In the fullrange driver room we did manage to hook up the Alephs and have a listen. I must say that Tims 4" Radio Shack drivers had a great sound and in the small room the bass was good also. Good job Tim! The Jordans in the transmission lines sounded good to me also, Dan (dont know his last name) commented on the Jordans needed more time to break in and then they would sound even better. I spent most of my time here just because I haven't heard many fullrange drivers.

All in all I enjoyed myself, OK it was great!! I would like to say thanks to all who put this together especially Tim and Adire audio. Also to those that I was able to visit with about a great hobby. Hope to share ideas and projects in the future.

BDP
 
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