Is the MiniDSP 4x10HD powerful enough to drive the Icepower ASX modules to max power?
I´ve been doing something similar to your setup. Just running with the MiniDSP 2x4HD. And without pumping the gain to the max i sounds like I´m getting about half a watt out to the speaker.
Are you running them with a balanced or unbalanced input?
I´ve been doing something similar to your setup. Just running with the MiniDSP 2x4HD. And without pumping the gain to the max i sounds like I´m getting about half a watt out to the speaker.
Are you running them with a balanced or unbalanced input?
Hi guys! I'm considering making a Nao Note II RS and have been in contact with John K. I just have two questions...
1. I've got a Minidsp Opendrc-DA8. Has anyone already transposed the settings into the Minisharc-96k plugin? If not, I assume it would be pretty straightforward to do? I still intend to buy the plans from John K.
2. I'm in Australia. I'll probably buy the tweeters, midrange and woofers from Madisound (USA), but getting the subwoofers over would be prohibitively expensive. I've got a chance to pick up some Peerless XLS 830500 12" drivers at a good price local to me. Would these be okay with a bit of fiddling with the DSP settings? I assume they should still be able to go high enough to meet the Scanspeak 22W?
Thanks!
1. I've got a Minidsp Opendrc-DA8. Has anyone already transposed the settings into the Minisharc-96k plugin? If not, I assume it would be pretty straightforward to do? I still intend to buy the plans from John K.
2. I'm in Australia. I'll probably buy the tweeters, midrange and woofers from Madisound (USA), but getting the subwoofers over would be prohibitively expensive. I've got a chance to pick up some Peerless XLS 830500 12" drivers at a good price local to me. Would these be okay with a bit of fiddling with the DSP settings? I assume they should still be able to go high enough to meet the Scanspeak 22W?
Thanks!
I hate to resurrect an old thread but it looks like this has been active for years and years now! Would anyone by chance be willing to audition their creations in the lower mainland of BC? I live about 45 minutes from Vancouver and would love to hear these before tackling such a project. I know I don't have many posts here but have lurked for years here and on a few other sites.
Has anyone made a transition from Magnepans to these? I currently own a set of 1.7's with class A/B power and a tube pre mostly fed by digital sources and am looking for a change of pace.
Thanks,
Michael
Has anyone made a transition from Magnepans to these? I currently own a set of 1.7's with class A/B power and a tube pre mostly fed by digital sources and am looking for a change of pace.
Thanks,
Michael
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Since I can no longer edit my above post, please ignore the request. I'm just going to take the plunge and have ordered most of the parts already. Hoping to have things up and running by January!
John K has been fantastic answering all my questions and providing support for the project. Plans were delivered in nine minutes and all his responses were super quick too!
Thank you to everyone who has posted in this giant thread with impressions, tips and updates on the progress of their own builds. I've always found diyaudio.com to be one of the best sources and communities for help and motivation to try something different.
John K has been fantastic answering all my questions and providing support for the project. Plans were delivered in nine minutes and all his responses were super quick too!
Thank you to everyone who has posted in this giant thread with impressions, tips and updates on the progress of their own builds. I've always found diyaudio.com to be one of the best sources and communities for help and motivation to try something different.
Old thread bump again but I figured I can't start diy shenanigans and not at least follow through once the job is done!
Finished! Not 100% as per the plans with the edges of the main baffle not being rounded properly and I didn't screw the access panel into position but rather used stainless cap screws so they could be removed without damage. A big thanks to John for answering every question I had along the way. It was a hell of a lot more work than I anticipated but I learned a lot and am glad I took on his crazy project. This was my first woodworking project in about 15 years (high school shop class) so every step of the way was a learning experience. Just about every piece of the puzzle, tool and finishing process used was a first.
I made a ton of mistakes along the way and had quite a few disheartening moments. One especially was when the router jumped trying to do a final round over on the main baffle only to scrap about 15 hours of work. Perseverance (stubbornness) came through and I carried on. The paint was also a nightmare from day one but at the end turned out half decent despite the amateur mistakes. I've never taken on anything like this before so it was an eye opener.
The most important thing I learned along the way was to throw out any timelines or expectations. Setting dates for when you think you'll make progress only creates pressure and robs the fun out of a journey towards something you can be proud of. Through this it's given me confidence to start making furniture and continue driving my neighbours batty with not only the sweet music these produce but the tools in my garage.
Listening impressions are still too early to weigh in on too much as I finished these last night. They're quite similar to my magnepan 1.7's but with a little more weight and ease.
The community here is wonderful and I appreciate all the posts you ingenious maniacs make daily.
Finished! Not 100% as per the plans with the edges of the main baffle not being rounded properly and I didn't screw the access panel into position but rather used stainless cap screws so they could be removed without damage. A big thanks to John for answering every question I had along the way. It was a hell of a lot more work than I anticipated but I learned a lot and am glad I took on his crazy project. This was my first woodworking project in about 15 years (high school shop class) so every step of the way was a learning experience. Just about every piece of the puzzle, tool and finishing process used was a first.
I made a ton of mistakes along the way and had quite a few disheartening moments. One especially was when the router jumped trying to do a final round over on the main baffle only to scrap about 15 hours of work. Perseverance (stubbornness) came through and I carried on. The paint was also a nightmare from day one but at the end turned out half decent despite the amateur mistakes. I've never taken on anything like this before so it was an eye opener.
The most important thing I learned along the way was to throw out any timelines or expectations. Setting dates for when you think you'll make progress only creates pressure and robs the fun out of a journey towards something you can be proud of. Through this it's given me confidence to start making furniture and continue driving my neighbours batty with not only the sweet music these produce but the tools in my garage.
Listening impressions are still too early to weigh in on too much as I finished these last night. They're quite similar to my magnepan 1.7's but with a little more weight and ease.
The community here is wonderful and I appreciate all the posts you ingenious maniacs make daily.
Attachments
From what I have noticed, the minidsp with these speakers tends to provide a decent amount of background noise from the tweeters and upper mids. It is a substantial hiss that only happens when the dsp is on. I double checked the input gain dip switches on the board and they are set to the factory low setting. The problem lies somewhere forward of the DSP. It does not change in volume whether I have the adcom or the rotel on the tweeters / mids. The hiss is not affected in any way with volume adjustments on the preamp, dsp, source or even when muting outputs on the dsp. I have not tried swapping out RCA cables or speaker cables as I do not have enough but did attempt to manage them well so it wasn't a total nest behind my rack.
There was next to no background noise with the Magnepans hooked up using all the same electronics but I suspect it could have something to do with the low efficiency creating leeway (86db).
Has anyone troubleshot this issue and had any success in taming the background noise short of replacing the mini dsp with something else? This weekend I will see if anything changes after bringing the dsp to factory defaults before profiles get loaded.
FWIW, order of chain:
win 10 desktop / raspberry pi with coax hat (musicbox os) / chromecast audio / project debut carbon turntable
Wyred for Sound DAC-1 (usb / coax / toslink)
JJ Electronics 243 tube preamp
Minidsp 4x10HD
Adcom GFA 7605 (tweeters and lower mid)
Rotel RB-985 (upper mid and subs)
By the way, they still sound fantastic. It's just for the late night listening at low volumes where it becomes slightly distracting.
There was next to no background noise with the Magnepans hooked up using all the same electronics but I suspect it could have something to do with the low efficiency creating leeway (86db).
Has anyone troubleshot this issue and had any success in taming the background noise short of replacing the mini dsp with something else? This weekend I will see if anything changes after bringing the dsp to factory defaults before profiles get loaded.
FWIW, order of chain:
win 10 desktop / raspberry pi with coax hat (musicbox os) / chromecast audio / project debut carbon turntable
Wyred for Sound DAC-1 (usb / coax / toslink)
JJ Electronics 243 tube preamp
Minidsp 4x10HD
Adcom GFA 7605 (tweeters and lower mid)
Rotel RB-985 (upper mid and subs)
By the way, they still sound fantastic. It's just for the late night listening at low volumes where it becomes slightly distracting.
I agree the residual hiss of the minidsp is higher than a Teac UD501 DAC. The latter produces virtually no noise with any of my amps, even with ear right at tweeter. The minidsp, OTOH, always produces some hiss at the tweeter -- any tweeter I hook up to my active multi-ch setups. But the actual level is still pretty low. I'm never bothered by it, though I admit I listen louder than softer. Perhaps the residual noise from a (very quiet, suspension damped) hard drive in my audio PC is enough to mask it... and my room is very large, 22'w x 46'l (a single large room for LR,DR & kitchen), which helps to suck up background noise more, methinks.
I doubt there's a solution within the minidsp, this must be the residual noise level of the analog circuits.
I've read (on another forum) that the Hypex DSP devices are "better". Whether that means quieter, I don't know.
I doubt there's a solution within the minidsp, this must be the residual noise level of the analog circuits.
I've read (on another forum) that the Hypex DSP devices are "better". Whether that means quieter, I don't know.
Jamite,
Great work as others have said. Welcome to DIY!
An exceptional engineer, Tom Christiansen, measured your Minidsp model and I think you will find the measurements compelling and interesting.
MiniDSP 4x10 HD Performance Measurements.
Due to my concern of certain aspects of the minidsp design I decided to go with the Behringer DCX unit but implemented AMB Audio (Ti Kan’s) Kappa DCX board which completely upgrades the unit (AMB Laboratories). Measurements are exceptional and yes, the unit is very quiet. You have to know your way around a soldering iron, particularly SMD parts though!
That being said, the minidsp certainly isn’t bad! So please enjoy your accomplishments!
Best,
Anand.
Great work as others have said. Welcome to DIY!
An exceptional engineer, Tom Christiansen, measured your Minidsp model and I think you will find the measurements compelling and interesting.
MiniDSP 4x10 HD Performance Measurements.
Due to my concern of certain aspects of the minidsp design I decided to go with the Behringer DCX unit but implemented AMB Audio (Ti Kan’s) Kappa DCX board which completely upgrades the unit (AMB Laboratories). Measurements are exceptional and yes, the unit is very quiet. You have to know your way around a soldering iron, particularly SMD parts though!
That being said, the minidsp certainly isn’t bad! So please enjoy your accomplishments!
Best,
Anand.
I use RCA from 4x10HD to my ICEPower modules. First cables were unsielded and gave lots of noise (RF interfence?) . Shielded cables helped a lot, but still there is some noise, but mainly AC hum and it's harmonics. I can't hear or measure anything with a microphone at spot( it's below ambient noise level). I control spl in my source (AV receiver) which feeds analog to 4x10HD working at full gain low input, high output. Power amps use full gain always too.
My worst source of noise is now second-hand Denon AV receiver. Now AC noise can be heard at the spot too, when the house is silent. Volume setting doesn't affect it, but when I change source and relays shut off output temporarily, no noise is heard.
My worst source of noise is now second-hand Denon AV receiver. Now AC noise can be heard at the spot too, when the house is silent. Volume setting doesn't affect it, but when I change source and relays shut off output temporarily, no noise is heard.
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Thanks for all your ideas and help. A huge room like Mike's would definitely make it less noticeable. You're probably right on it being what it is. I was hoping for some golden tweak that brought it down a little bit. The mini dsp is still a cool piece of gear that allows for an incredible amount of flexibility and range of functions. Testing it as a dac and preamp was surprisingly good too but having no display or easy way to monitor output level without constantly having a computer connected to it seemed a little risky.
The Behringer with the mods looks like a nice alternative. SMD soldering can be a fussy process that my skills and tools may not be up to just yet.
The Behringer with the mods looks like a nice alternative. SMD soldering can be a fussy process that my skills and tools may not be up to just yet.
My system runs on JRiver/Windows -- the PC (fanless with elastic suspended super quiet HDD) is always on when music is playing. Don't always have the miniDSP interface software on, but it's never posed a problem.
The trouble with the Behringer is that its user interface is really outmoded as are the connections to PC, and it seems to break down easily. Lots of detailed comments about this in various forums.
The better alternative to miniDSP, imo, is a dedicated PC (a small or mini)+ multi-ch soundcard running something like DSP Crossover for PC. Frequency Allocator. I was going to try this, still haven't got around to it. I have an old M-Audio Firewire 410 that's suitable, but need to add a IEEE 1394 adapter to the PC.
The "Nadja" seemed like a good miniDSP alternative, but I'm pretty sure the developer (one guy, I think) stopped working it. WAF-Audio The last time he posted on his own thread about this (DSP Xover project (part 2)) was 3 years ago.
Or you could wait for Hypex to release a new version of their DLCP; they appear to be reworking it, slated for release Q1 2019. It might be quieter & more flexible than their original & maybe it won't be quite as expensive as before (hah, right!)
The trouble with the Behringer is that its user interface is really outmoded as are the connections to PC, and it seems to break down easily. Lots of detailed comments about this in various forums.
The better alternative to miniDSP, imo, is a dedicated PC (a small or mini)+ multi-ch soundcard running something like DSP Crossover for PC. Frequency Allocator. I was going to try this, still haven't got around to it. I have an old M-Audio Firewire 410 that's suitable, but need to add a IEEE 1394 adapter to the PC.
The "Nadja" seemed like a good miniDSP alternative, but I'm pretty sure the developer (one guy, I think) stopped working it. WAF-Audio The last time he posted on his own thread about this (DSP Xover project (part 2)) was 3 years ago.
Or you could wait for Hypex to release a new version of their DLCP; they appear to be reworking it, slated for release Q1 2019. It might be quieter & more flexible than their original & maybe it won't be quite as expensive as before (hah, right!)