I am late to this thread and I have not read all posts, but NO, I CAN'T AGREE TO THIS!
To make a good sounding speaker, the design must be based on a solid understanding of acoustics (a big topic!). While this is independent of parts costs, good parts and box construction will take you a long way to make the "acoustics work well". Good parts and construction tend to cost more money.
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Same country here, expensive, so even small money appears to have a lot of value. I wouldn't buy a Klipsch or JBL even if I had several times the money, especially when PAudio parts are available for DIY. Many here just can't spend so much just for trying, so they take the hard way of having to read and learn to get good results. It's tiresome but definitely returns results.
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Thanks for the reply to my questions.
The reason for me to post something is that I am certain we have a numerous amount of kit builders here. Derailing their trust in kits in general isn't going to help. I still don't particularly like the secrecy, as it would be good to know who or what we are talking about.
Can you state, or have you seen any kits that do add the value? The ones that are worth it to build?
Thanks again for explaining your role in the building of said speaker. To me it seemed like you were willing to build a kit, that wasn't worth being build.
Maybe one more question:
Can you list some? "well accepted by the audiophile community" might not trigger a lot of confidence for the more 'science inspired' crowd.
Are we talking the school of Harmon or more along the lines of B&W...
My post wasn’t 11:00am post after couple of beer. It either wanst inspired by some new fresh negative expierence. It was inspired by humble fat that now I have few free days and can give something(not only taking) in diyaudio community – I can start topic and have day of two for explaining information I explain now over and over again. I already knewed possible reactions before starting this thread so its no surpsise for me. However those two days went and I will become reader of amplifier and dac sectons again. I do not want name that designers, I believe they have its own forums and do not visit this, but I’m not going spoil someones activity just for their past “sins”. Maybe now their expensive /ultimate speaker projects are much much better.
I also cant name any good comercial speakers examples for same reasons- Just don’t wasn that someone assaulting me having personal benefits (like pushing comercial brands 50K+ speakers on do it yourself forum) would harm their "cool" status. Because anyone with objectve point of wiew understand that this is absurd. I'm trying to prevent conflicts before they apear. Best strategy, however it does not help always.
someone mentioned Magico. this is good example of well designed technical performance speakers. DIYers should like it. but they don’t. I saw person tried to sell magico drivers and people didn’t liked that (critics was point to hmand magico in general). When in 2011 Q5 came I flied to UK visit the absolute sound redactor and listened for good 5hours in his setup. those large VC needed some power to came allive. once they feed with dartzeel nhb458 sound was good. not the most fastest in subtile microdynamics , but great for enjoying large organ works. once you put some gas they opened up. wanted to get them on partial trade- I just wanted to have speaker(for job duties) that everybody liked on tis debut. deal breaker were hights. not the airy ones (15khz+) which puts some nice efects, but lower ones. as soon as put well known vocals I listened trought many systems a sibilance and elevated hights were obviuos. opera, organ vorks strings all was fine and hided that. I didn’t started to judge speakers negatively. I just tried to “see” designers vision on to this. and vison is ‘only for adults 50+” and “ 100w/ch is for headphones driving only” now after 10 years believe Magico q5 have better balanced hights. in next 5 years I believe hights still continue to improove where they should setlle a bit untill I change my bobby. that is real burn- in. just not speakers but listeners ear
hm.. I rerepeatidly said multiple time bus maybe my keyboard is mising keys - there is nothing wrong with diy speakers, they offer small to significant perfomance levels comparing to comercial ones in most cases. the problems is only expensive diy projects. my advice stays the same- DO NOT build expensive DIY designs BEFORE audition them. just that.
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I still do believe in driver linearity and most folks don't have room for very large drivers, so I tend to stick with acceptably sized designs and proven international drivers. Mostly prefer using SB and Satori drivers, though I've also used Volt, Dayton and Peerless drivers. I do end up paying retail for driver at the inflated retail locally, but it still works out okay.
The few times I have used/recommended Beyma and Eminence for projects that needed it, I've not really been disappointed except that 'home' drivers tend to be slightly more linear at modest SPL, which again is fine because most Indian homes are small and made of concrete.
The first few times are always burners though. Thankfully I was assigned a project by an 'speaker designer' of 'international repute', and got hands-on time with measurement gear so I could hone my skills on someone else's money.
In my mind, the ability to avoid dogma is one of the biggest challenges of any aspect of human endeavour. And the refusal to do so is we have so many poor products (including DIY speaker designs)
After a lot of loitering around on the internet, I gathered that the larger drivers tend to put you at an advantage. That is, if the excursion is limited to 50% of Xmax (by choosing a larger diameter driver), their BL factors remain consistent throughout the region, resulting in excellent linearity. But, unfortunately, this kind of brute force approach could oversize things a lot, which many would find unattractive.
Another difference would be <1dB power compression (already mentioned by AllenB above), but I believe the limits are hard to approach at home.
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Allen - is this something that could show up in frequency response curves? Or is this a subjective evaluation?
I always let my system run for 30 minutes before serious listening, because it sounds better that way... when first turned on, it sounds "off". I always assumed it was the amplifiers warming up... maybe not?
j.
I always let my system run for 30 minutes before serious listening, because it sounds better that way... when first turned on, it sounds "off". I always assumed it was the amplifiers warming up... maybe not?
j.
I realise I've been a bit vague, but what you describe sounds plausible. Here is a link with quick information - Thermal Compression Design Guidelines
and one that has some better descriptions - From Power Compression towards Thermal Distortion / developing on a point of view
Incidentally, did you tune your system when it was warmed up? If you were to EQ it when it was cold, would it get worse? (rhetorical question)
and one that has some better descriptions - From Power Compression towards Thermal Distortion / developing on a point of view
Incidentally, did you tune your system when it was warmed up? If you were to EQ it when it was cold, would it get worse? (rhetorical question)
You turn your amps off Jim?
..I like to be "green" ..but that's the one thing I won't compromise on - always sounds better after several hours of warm up IMO, so I leave them on.
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Actually, I would not suspect existence of 10k Euro speaker kits on the market. Can you point me to the sites selling such things? I'm curious now what kind of drivers those kits (monkey coffins I assume ) use. Resale value of High -End speakers is only bad if you buy those speakers new, and a lot of people who can afford them don't care since the expense is a small change for them.
if this only for personal curosity I can sent you PDF file of one of those speakers project ,with condition that i you promise do not disclose or share it this in thread.
Nice you live in a mega-city. If there are any competent speakers within 500 miles of here, besides some Peavey PA models, I haven't heard about them. Possibly in the home of the rich who don't find me famous enough to invite. Most wealthy men I know are deaf; many think Yamaha makes a good console or baby grand piano. Yamaha makes a durable console piano that holds its resale value, but has weak highs or lows. Speaker meets occur in Nat Guard halls (Frankfort KY) or motel rooms (Muncie IN), vile acoustic environments to hear anything in.
Only speaker besides SP2-XT & SP2(2004) I've heard live in last 10 years worth considering was Meyer Sound at Brown Theater, Louisville. About size of a 14 cu ft refrigerator. Not something you'd want in your living room.
Been perusing candidates on another thread Advise on a 2 way kit css-audio.com and meniscusaudio.com
Those two do actually provide on-axis frequency response curves. SP2-XT provides that plus response plots 500-10000 hz over 180 degrees. - 3db out to 22.5 deg off axis. Proved it in person, I could walk around my room and the sound didn't change much.
SP2(2004) provides harmonic distortion charts of 2nd & 3rd harmonic 80-8khz. 20 db down from 5 w response. Proved in person, a piano CD played through them does actually resemble the Steinway grand piano that was recorded.
Why don't the kit builders, or quality builders like JBL stand behind their products like that? Not enough instruments to run the tests? Lack of an anechoic chamber? JBLpro.com EON615 quotes "consistent response throughout its 110 deg coverage pattern". Yeah, how much, 12 db consistent? Radio Shack speakers used to brag about 20-20000 response, but I only saw the "production tolerance +-20 db" printed once by mistake. In the store Radio Shack sounded horrible and I bought LWEIII instead. Which blew a tweeter in 2 years, and my father gave them away while I was in the Army.
BTW I listen at 1/8 to 70 w/ch in my music room, on these 500 w rated speakers. That won't pretend to warm up the voice coil in a 1505-8KADT driver. They better sound good cold. I'm building because bar quality speakers get stolen. My home builds will be UGLY.
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I would doubt a 75K euro speaker generally has better sound quality than a 10K euro speaker. (And maybe even lower.) They are worth that much to a particular kind of customer due to other factors, they basically become a work of art, piece of furniture, etc. And there is nothing wrong with that.
While the high end companies may or may not have custom drivers made, DIYers have access to world class drivers. RAAL, Accuton, Audio Technology, Transducer Labs, Scan Speak, Purifi, etc, etc. And as someone mentioned earlier, you don't need the most expensive drivers out there to make a truly excellent speaker.
While a newbie buying a bunch of expensive drivers isn't going to build a world class speaker on his first attempt, there are designers out there who really know there stuff. Andrew Jones has come to some DIY events in the US and some people (like Jeff Bagby, but not myself) could have an extensive conversation on cutting edge speaker design.
While the high end companies may or may not have custom drivers made, DIYers have access to world class drivers. RAAL, Accuton, Audio Technology, Transducer Labs, Scan Speak, Purifi, etc, etc. And as someone mentioned earlier, you don't need the most expensive drivers out there to make a truly excellent speaker.
While a newbie buying a bunch of expensive drivers isn't going to build a world class speaker on his first attempt, there are designers out there who really know there stuff. Andrew Jones has come to some DIY events in the US and some people (like Jeff Bagby, but not myself) could have an extensive conversation on cutting edge speaker design.
Yes, absolutely personal curiosity, nothing more. I'm astonished this category of kits exists. I knew Audio Note alnico E speaker kit was pushing it close ($6k ??) but it's an "exotic" company and wouldn't be considered on those boards. I came close to buying their finished upper tier of Alnico E locally for $10k but it really is a speaker for European medium sized rooms and I would have to take a loan. No worries, I shouldn't have posted in this thread at all since I don't see any point in building a speaker I never heard when out of many speakers I did hear I really liked only a few. It's like going to the audio store, closing your eyes and pointing. High performing speaker is such a bogus category.