You seem to be obsessed with speaker design.
Hey Jay,
I was always convinced that DIY was the only way to achieve high-end without the high price, and that probably stemmed from reading about and understanding the realities of manufacturer mark-up about 14 years ago, around the time I first discovered the madisound webpage!
But you're right, I am obsessed with design, I have been my entire life, it's what one lecturer at my university kindly terms 'the engineering brain'. It's in our nature to constantly seek a better solution.
I was initially scared away from DIY on the basis of not understanding the electronics side of things, however as I returned to education (i'm currently finishing my 4th year of Engineering) I have learnt much of the theory and fundamentals, in addition to reading many DIY forum sites over the years, build logs, douglas self's excellent works on amplifier design and his loudspeaker design cookbook (which I must admit this is more reference at the moment as I learn to gain an intuitive understanding of things)
Douglas Self convinced me of my initial beliefs as an engineer - I am without doubt an objectivist, and my idea of audio nirvana is an amplification system that take what you put in and amplifies it within your listening environment with as little variation as possible.
Despite this I do believe certain 'distortion mechanisms' can still be perceived as 'better' (Vinyl source & valve amplification seems like an obvious example) And this is something which I am reading about.
On the subject of intuition, there's only so far you can go with theory and copying others, eventually you need to come up with your own ideas founded on solid theory and intuitive understanding. This has always been my practice and would of course be my aim one day with audio, be it for personal or commercial gains.
These speakers I am working on represent my deliberate 'throwing myself in at the deep end' - becuase no driver parameters are available it forces me to learn to measure them myself, and even just spending time listening to the crossovers whilst making adjustmens has given me abundantly more experience and intuition than reading books would have done.
I fully accept that I am noob, but I am doing my best to learn, and this is a learning exercise!
On the subject of adjustment by ear, I should point out that I've spent a reasonable amount of time working in recording studios (professional studios) producing music (at home) engineering live sound (for some reasonable well known bands) and various other audio-related crafts, so I do have a good understanding of what 'good sound' is and what it should be like. Admittedly only for my own ears, but I've never had any complaints
Sorry for the rant, just thought it would all make a bit more sense if you knew where I was coming from!
I've ordered the measurement mic, so I look forward to getting some real-world measurements of these speakers within a few different rooms, then you guys can tell me how bad I did!
Oh, and the speakers are currently sounding comparable to other £1200 ish speakers I've auditioned with Hi-End Naim gear, and that's from an old Denon AVC-A10SE amp with my computer as source (incidently a stupidly cheap way to get a half decent dac, stereo amp and surround sound decoder in one, mine was £80 off ebay, I also have an AVC A1D which cost me £28 'broken' and I have since repaired, the torroid in the thing would have cost twice as much alone!) ... though this is all highly subjective.
Double Oh, I should point out I started this project cos I was offered the drivers for £120 for the set, which I figured was good value. If I'd have known then what I know now about how long it takes to design, make, test a speaker properly, I'd have just bought a pair of PMC's and been done with it, but hey, I've learnt a lot along the way and had great fun, just a pitty this hobby seems to eat time and money, two resources I'm guessing we're all short of!