Cheers from Germany to the friendly folks out here!
I am happy to have discovered this incredible forum. I have already been able to learn a lot by passively reading along, but I hope that I can also receive helpful tips for some specific questions (in the respective sub-forums).
Apart from a brief how-do-I-get-as-many-people-as-possible-to-listen-to-my-music-tastes-through-my-car-system phase now half a life ago, I've never really had anything to do with or interest in audio systems. But recently, I had the idea of trying a record player in addition to streaming music (I wasn't allowed to touch my father's system at the time, so this was/ is really new for me.)
As luck would have it, a very good friend who now also has young kids (pulling on cables all the time) wanted to sell his system but gave it to me as a birthday gift a few months ago, when he learned about this new interest of mine. That was the foundation stone, to which a few other parts (some vintage, but nothing fancy) have since been added. As a result, my home office has also become my listening room. And I'm having really a blast with it.
Then last month I was lucky enough to be shown the main system by a very friendly guy, which totally swept me off my feet. The whole system is the result of a long journey with many iterations, DIY-mods (and certainly a lot of money). Even though I am aware that the individual parts of the entire chain and their interaction and tuning to each other are very important, I assume that the loudspeakers are responsible for most of the wow effect. As I don't have any comparisons with other (high-quality) systems nor any solid acoustic understanding, I'll keep back from trying to describe the sound in detail. I can only say that it was simply a different dimension to anything I've heard before, especially for vocals, but also this feeling of "just beeing there". An album (Made in Japan - Deep Purple) that I have listened to countless times before was hardly recognizable, in a good way, obviously. The speakers are some quite unique OB with PHY-HP 21/15 drivers and piezo tweeter wired in parallel, phase-inverted and without xo.
My goal now is to have, or at least approach, this experience in my own home using the DIY path, with a reasonable budget and little experience with electronics or woodworking. After reading a lot back and forth, I think that the Manzanita might be a promising and managable OB-project. But I'm unsure whether I have a chance of being happy with OB speakers in my room, where the speakers must be placed under a heavily sloped roof. I think it makes sense to ask this question in the respective thread with a more detailed description and pictures.
If this proves to be unfeasible, I also love the idea of going "completely FR" and xo-less with building a set of Pensil speakers.
TL;DR:
I want to built my first set of speakers and hope to find some guidance here, so that I don't mess up to badly.
I am happy to have discovered this incredible forum. I have already been able to learn a lot by passively reading along, but I hope that I can also receive helpful tips for some specific questions (in the respective sub-forums).
Apart from a brief how-do-I-get-as-many-people-as-possible-to-listen-to-my-music-tastes-through-my-car-system phase now half a life ago, I've never really had anything to do with or interest in audio systems. But recently, I had the idea of trying a record player in addition to streaming music (I wasn't allowed to touch my father's system at the time, so this was/ is really new for me.)
As luck would have it, a very good friend who now also has young kids (pulling on cables all the time) wanted to sell his system but gave it to me as a birthday gift a few months ago, when he learned about this new interest of mine. That was the foundation stone, to which a few other parts (some vintage, but nothing fancy) have since been added. As a result, my home office has also become my listening room. And I'm having really a blast with it.
Then last month I was lucky enough to be shown the main system by a very friendly guy, which totally swept me off my feet. The whole system is the result of a long journey with many iterations, DIY-mods (and certainly a lot of money). Even though I am aware that the individual parts of the entire chain and their interaction and tuning to each other are very important, I assume that the loudspeakers are responsible for most of the wow effect. As I don't have any comparisons with other (high-quality) systems nor any solid acoustic understanding, I'll keep back from trying to describe the sound in detail. I can only say that it was simply a different dimension to anything I've heard before, especially for vocals, but also this feeling of "just beeing there". An album (Made in Japan - Deep Purple) that I have listened to countless times before was hardly recognizable, in a good way, obviously. The speakers are some quite unique OB with PHY-HP 21/15 drivers and piezo tweeter wired in parallel, phase-inverted and without xo.
My goal now is to have, or at least approach, this experience in my own home using the DIY path, with a reasonable budget and little experience with electronics or woodworking. After reading a lot back and forth, I think that the Manzanita might be a promising and managable OB-project. But I'm unsure whether I have a chance of being happy with OB speakers in my room, where the speakers must be placed under a heavily sloped roof. I think it makes sense to ask this question in the respective thread with a more detailed description and pictures.
If this proves to be unfeasible, I also love the idea of going "completely FR" and xo-less with building a set of Pensil speakers.
TL;DR:
I want to built my first set of speakers and hope to find some guidance here, so that I don't mess up to badly.
How many people even have OBs, as life progresses? It's no wonder; I can tell tales of countless years of listening to music reproduced in a room via typical box speakers - until finally there is no other kind of sound I know of. Unless you do something like go outside, where it's mostly ambient sounds.
OBs do a couple of things about the box and the room. There are tradeoffs that many would not make to get those effects. It's kinda like an FR speaker; it too comes with tradeoffs. What an FR does, has to beat - for you - what you give up to get that aspect.
Good luck in your journey here, to get that feeling of the new dimension you heard - but in your very own audio system.
First of welcome to the crazy high-end diy world.
I would suggest Troels Gravesen website as a starting point.
If you need help, let me know
All the best
Welcome.
Well the speakers likely have the most effect on the voicing, the WOW effect requires all of the system to be synergetic Al too often a decent loudspeaker isw let down by the source or the amplifier driving them. And even modest loudspeakers can sound fantastic in the right system.
Note: my experience with the PHY was not pleasant. And i gave up on OBs.
dave
I understand (theoretically) what you mean about the other parts of system possibly letting down even the best loudspeaker. My idea was just to start from the end and then upgrade the rest, escpecially the amplifier, according to the requirements of the speakers. And the jsources need to be upgraded in any case - as another friend put it: "crap in - crap out".
From what I could gather online the PHYs are/were ... an aquired taste? Especially for their price. I'm certainly looking more to the "biggest-bang-for-the-buck"-category. Surely I would have been amazed by a completely different system with other speakers, too. Obviously it would be worthwhile for me to listen to other people's systems, if i had the opportunity.
Thank you Dave for sharing your view and experiences.
IMO: Markaudio Alpair 10 MAOP on the higher end, CHN-50, CHN-110 are cheap & cheerful.
If used in an OB helper woofers needed (in most cases no mkatter what an OB typically has helper woofers.
dave
Lot to learn there, great!
I‘m already aware of those drivers as the go-to for Pensils etc., but still trying to figure out, if I would go with MAOP or Alpair. Maybe because of an irrational attraction to to non-gold-gold finish (SCNR) of the Alpairs (and their similarity to the variants in the Sibelius speakers that catchend my attention)?
But you would rate the MAOPs as bigger value for money vs. the Alpairs?
Considering the whole cost for all parts for building new speaker, the difference in price isn’t that much anyway.