Hello from Leeds, England.
(Sorry all words no Pics yet.)
I have been “Ghosting” for a while. I don’t join up for things easily. “What’s on your work bench” nearly made me sign up but the upcoming UK diyAudio meet has tipped the scales. I have been into electronics from childhood. The first magazine I bought was a Practical Wireless (bit complicated for me then and it still had adds in for surplus valve gear!) I then liked Hobby Electronics (remember that one? with the rub down PCB transfers to make my first PCB’s with an icecream tub of ferric chloride on the kitchen table. The Maplin catalogue was my first reference book. I started at the deep-end with the 150W Amp (2pairs 2N3055/2955). Drilling the heatsinks with Dads handheld Black&Decker and blunt drills led to short circuit and fuse / transistor meltdown and temporary project abandonment. The following Christmas brought my first analogue multi-meter to enable fault finding and completion of `Big Amp’. Over the following years I worked my way through Maplin kits and circuits in the first few years of the Maplin magazine. I graduated to Elektor and occationaly Electronics and Wireless World. I made the Elektor Sub with a 10” Focal and switchable cutoff LT circuit. Most recently I have constructed SDS Labs push-pull EL84 amps, ZV7-T & BOSOZ, Symasym and to use the power supplies in the box of a stalled amp project stuffed in a couple of UCD180s to listen to sometime when I get round to it!
Currently in the pipeline projects include: ESL headphones Headwize – Kevin Gilmore Current-Domain Amp (may be ESL’s oneday I’ll make do with 57’s until then). Dual concentrics to try, in vertical pipes? SL Orion (challenge) I started the H-baffles without plans or looking through all the gallery pictures and decided to make them demountable from the sides/front. Dipole bass is addictive and 12 XLS’s later I could vertically stack 3 pairs per side! (So far I only run 2 pairs side-by-side per side. The pair of W22 and T25CF002 are still in boxes waiting fitting in to the holes in the front baffles. There is enough info on SL’s site to construct the ASP (build-up from the Phoenix schematic). In the meantime I have a Focal A200 centre kit from Falcon Acoustics (it’s very sad they are closing down) the eventual construction of it led to a DIY construction frenzy of various front/rears using the same excellent Focal 5N411 and TC90 drive units. I really liked the idea of maxlorenz, small scale replicas of Tannoy Autographs, perhaps Westminsters scaled for Aura NSW2’s done in Perspex?
Chris
(Sorry all words no Pics yet.)
I have been “Ghosting” for a while. I don’t join up for things easily. “What’s on your work bench” nearly made me sign up but the upcoming UK diyAudio meet has tipped the scales. I have been into electronics from childhood. The first magazine I bought was a Practical Wireless (bit complicated for me then and it still had adds in for surplus valve gear!) I then liked Hobby Electronics (remember that one? with the rub down PCB transfers to make my first PCB’s with an icecream tub of ferric chloride on the kitchen table. The Maplin catalogue was my first reference book. I started at the deep-end with the 150W Amp (2pairs 2N3055/2955). Drilling the heatsinks with Dads handheld Black&Decker and blunt drills led to short circuit and fuse / transistor meltdown and temporary project abandonment. The following Christmas brought my first analogue multi-meter to enable fault finding and completion of `Big Amp’. Over the following years I worked my way through Maplin kits and circuits in the first few years of the Maplin magazine. I graduated to Elektor and occationaly Electronics and Wireless World. I made the Elektor Sub with a 10” Focal and switchable cutoff LT circuit. Most recently I have constructed SDS Labs push-pull EL84 amps, ZV7-T & BOSOZ, Symasym and to use the power supplies in the box of a stalled amp project stuffed in a couple of UCD180s to listen to sometime when I get round to it!
Currently in the pipeline projects include: ESL headphones Headwize – Kevin Gilmore Current-Domain Amp (may be ESL’s oneday I’ll make do with 57’s until then). Dual concentrics to try, in vertical pipes? SL Orion (challenge) I started the H-baffles without plans or looking through all the gallery pictures and decided to make them demountable from the sides/front. Dipole bass is addictive and 12 XLS’s later I could vertically stack 3 pairs per side! (So far I only run 2 pairs side-by-side per side. The pair of W22 and T25CF002 are still in boxes waiting fitting in to the holes in the front baffles. There is enough info on SL’s site to construct the ASP (build-up from the Phoenix schematic). In the meantime I have a Focal A200 centre kit from Falcon Acoustics (it’s very sad they are closing down) the eventual construction of it led to a DIY construction frenzy of various front/rears using the same excellent Focal 5N411 and TC90 drive units. I really liked the idea of maxlorenz, small scale replicas of Tannoy Autographs, perhaps Westminsters scaled for Aura NSW2’s done in Perspex?
Chris
Welcome Chris...
Is that because of retirement with no one to carry on? I know that 30 years ago when i was selling their product in the hifi shop that they seemed already well established.
dave
Originally posted by Mr Chris Falcon Acoustics (it’s very sad they are closing down)
Is that because of retirement with no one to carry on? I know that 30 years ago when i was selling their product in the hifi shop that they seemed already well established.
dave
Intro Pic
Thank you for the welcomes. Planet10 you’re probably right about Falcon Acoustics. The simple detail that endeared them to me was that the first parcel I received was beautifully wrapped in brown paper and tied up with string. There is a classic outdoor speaker test photo on their website.
I got the camera out at the weekend…
From left to right:
column 1. Chip amp, Parametric EQ, Class-A ‘phones amp, baby chip amp, Elektor Sub Amp.
2.‘Big Amp’ (3rd and final case with ‘temporary` front panel)
3. ZV7-T (contender for heaviest amp), Transformer and BOSOZ.
4. Symasym.
5. Abandoned now UCD.
6. Dummy load.
+ other interesting reflections!
Spot the MP3 player?
Chris.
Thank you for the welcomes. Planet10 you’re probably right about Falcon Acoustics. The simple detail that endeared them to me was that the first parcel I received was beautifully wrapped in brown paper and tied up with string. There is a classic outdoor speaker test photo on their website.
I got the camera out at the weekend…
From left to right:
column 1. Chip amp, Parametric EQ, Class-A ‘phones amp, baby chip amp, Elektor Sub Amp.
2.‘Big Amp’ (3rd and final case with ‘temporary` front panel)
3. ZV7-T (contender for heaviest amp), Transformer and BOSOZ.
4. Symasym.
5. Abandoned now UCD.
6. Dummy load.
+ other interesting reflections!
Spot the MP3 player?
An externally hosted image should be here but it was not working when we last tested it.
Chris.
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