New Tangband DIY Kit

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#11
Mine just arrived and I've only had time to check the box for contents. The horn is not the usual backhorn. It divides after the first chanber, then there are two separate and differently shaped paths whiic rejoin at the mouth. It's not to easy to visualize in 3D just from the website photos. You have to look at the kit for a while until yhe interior shape sinks in. The kit includes peel and stick damping material that has to be lined up just so. While it look straight forward, it looks like one needs to pay attention to the assembly sequence.

Material are all substantial and physical quality quite good.quality. In a couple of months maybe I be able to comment on the sound as well.

Material is HDF, by the way not MDF. Looks not too bad as is, but I want to paint and/or veneer the thing. It will take some thought on how to go about that.
 
#13
Tang Band kit

Just received mine. Kit looks very well made. Will assemble at the weekend. Very clever design produces a very long horn folded into thin sections.

Will probably have to replace outer section with solid wood to give them wife appeal but otherwise look good.
 
#14
Tang Band Kit review

Just completed a pair of the smaller Tang Bands. Haven't written a speaker review before and I have no way of measuring the performance. These are my first impressions.

Reference is to a pair of full range Jordan JX92S Transmission Line speakers that I made a couple of years ago. I am very pleased with these.

The sound quality between the two pairs is similar, very open, good imaging, distortion free, about the same loudness. Most obvious difference is that the Tang Band's are shifted up, wider high end and so so much low end as the Jordan's. Need to listen a lot more but so far am impressed by the volume, sound quality, and amount of bass from such a small driver and enclosure. Suspect the larger kit has better bass and is very good. The bass on these units is clean, not boxy and far from lacking. With the Jordan's I have no need for a Sub-woofer on my Audio-Video set up but the TB DS's may need one. Hope the DS4s have more extension.

I am impressed enough that I am in the process of copying the Tang Band idea in a slightly larger (wider) box to house a couple of CSS FR125S drivers that I have. I am hoping that the performance of these will lie somewhere between the Tang Band and the Jordan's.

The kit is well made, very easy to assemble with only a few minor issues which were partly my own fault for not reading the instructions. Took about 5 hours in total.
 

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#17
I just complete one D3-1.

It took quite a while due to excessive ambition/hubris regarding how to finish these, i.e., a combination of cherry veneer and piano gloss paint. I say excessive because this was a first attempt to do either. Despite the results being better than feared, had I known the difficulties I might have chosen a different appearance.

The actual assembly is pretty easy provided you can follow the instructions which are basically pictures with a minimal amount of text. A few point to watch for:

**Only peel back a little bit of the sticky-back felt at first. The larger sheets are floppy like to stick to one another, making something of a mess if you are not careful.

**Consider using your own hook-up wire. The piece that runs through the throat of the horn (as opposed to the one that routes through a short groove) is just a little too short when it come time to solder it to the driver. There is very little working space for iron, solder and hands (three required) making a trivial solder job into a significant aggravation.

** Study the section where you bolt all of the plates together with the 3x threaded spacers. If you get it wrong, driving then back out with damaging something may be impossible.

With only one I can't provide much of listening impression yet. When the second one is complete I'll post again.
 
#18
Do you think that an 8 watt push/pull type tube amplifier will be able to drive these??

I am thinking of getting a s-5 kit and am also checking out these speakers. I really like the looks of the design, but... how tall of a stand do they need? They look like a cross between a bookshelf and a floorstander.

I bet they'd be good with a gainclone.


((AE))
 
#19
They claim max amplifier power is 35 watts. That's not much so I'll bet your tube amp will work fine. In general I'm of the impression that most backhorn designs work well with low wattage tube amps.

You are right about being halfway between floor standing and book shelf. The kit comes with cone feet. There may be some benefit (bass extension) with the horn mouth next to the floor. Anyway I don't use stands and they seem to be fine on the floor. If you go for stands, I think you will need to either build you own or modify a pair of store bought ones. The "footprint" is long back-to-front and narrow right to left. I don't think there are any ready made stands that quite work. I thought about this for a while and if I had gone to stands I would have tried finding either a piece of wood or Al plate the dimensions of the foot print with four hole located where the feet screw in. Then I would try to find a way to attach this "adapter" to the stand.

The speakers are made of HDF rather than MDF. Unfinished they look OK but a little raw/basic. Paint is the easiest solution. I got ambitions and tried a combination of veneer and paint. If you stand back 5 feet it doesn't look bad - but this is my first veneer experiment.
 
#20
I have been speaking to TB about becoming the US distributor for these kits. They would be sold at www.ZillaAudio.com. I would have to create a button and section for them. Before commiting I would like to build a set of each and evaluate their performance as well as make sure I feel the kits are easy to build. I would support each customer with building assistance and troubleshooting so becoming familiar with these kits is a must. There would be a large financial commitment on my part to do this. I would have to be 100 percent involved in this process for it to succeed.

If you are interested please contact me. I would like to better determine if this will be a worthwhile path to travel. Anyone who has already built either of these kits please let me know your comments. I am very interested in your experience with these kits - both likes and dislikes. I will let everyone know if and when I may be selling and supporting these kits.

Godzilla
Godzilla3@hotmail.com
 
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