viral projects, sort of

Just a few tweaks and it's a grand slam. My goal was to make a speaker with clear, natural midrange and I succeeded. As usual, minor adjustments brought the crossover region (2500 Hz) into focus.

They're so clear and so loud. Bass is warm with great kick drums. Acoustic jazz sounds so fine on these speakers.

When the weather warms up I will disassemble, sand, stain, varnish. Will keep them light colored. Everybody says the wood is beautiful.
 

Attachments

  • 20240222_125058.jpg
    20240222_125058.jpg
    493.5 KB · Views: 199
  • 20240220_200636.jpg
    20240220_200636.jpg
    344.4 KB · Views: 191
  • 20240220_122156.jpg
    20240220_122156.jpg
    321 KB · Views: 196
This one...
Its part of akai mini system i once had complete. Included nice fm tuner, preamp and cassette deck. Deck was decent. I gave the system to a friend. Only power amp remained because of faulty switching power supply. I gave it massive toroidal trafo plus filtration, as much i could stuff inside. It sounds powerful and clean. It has three chips inside, one stereo chip for voltage swing, and two power packs i believe stk0050ii. I like the fluorescent display reading the power on output. It shows how little power we need. It has 0.1x switch, otherwise no bars would move.
This kitchen system will be fun to swap various amps to.
I tried aca mini, jlh, lineup amp, those two goldmunds so far. Plenty more to try.
 

Attachments

  • 20250326_082611.jpg
    20250326_082611.jpg
    246.8 KB · Views: 118
  • Like
Reactions: Vix
To whom it may concern.
There is never enough multimeters around when you fiddle with classA amps and bias changes dc offset and two halfs need adjustment at the same time.
After the move i was low on multimeters, as few developped some issues.
Sometimes simple solution is best. Parts express has some inexpensive dmm which worked just fine for me, less that ten bucks.
https://www.parts-express.com/DT-83...gital-Multimeter-with-Transistor-Test-390-500
 

Attachments

  • 20250516_191758.jpg
    20250516_191758.jpg
    422.7 KB · Views: 93
  • Like
Reactions: gerrittube
Finally organized my headphones rack. Source is cambridge audio azur. It has rather good output, dual wolfson. Plus it has optical and coax outputs. Those feed cirus logic dac and breeze audio dac1. Both excellent. Headphone amps include ACP+, Whammy, Lehmann, various versions of Musical Fidelity tube headphone amps, Schiit, plus many other diy stuff. Bunch of Sennheiser and HiFiMan, just those on the rack. Plus many others, grado, ess, koss...
 

Attachments

  • 20250520_183313.jpg
    20250520_183313.jpg
    364.9 KB · Views: 101
Accidentally stumbled upon this sony cd walkman. Its D-F20. It has an amazing fm tuner section. Great sound, no tone control required, perfect stereo image. Assuming good signal, no audible his. Even has 9/10kHz tuning step selector. Highly recommended. Tried with ESS, these are better, little bass heavy. Small koss portapro junior is just right for portable application.
 

Attachments

  • 20250527_100857.jpg
    20250527_100857.jpg
    413.1 KB · Views: 90
Last edited by a moderator:
While i was driving in everglades, tuning to different radio stations, i turned on the hd tuner. Normally i do not bother with hd, since i am old fashioned and preffer good old fm stereo. The one which either goes to hiss or mono if signal is low.
Not like sirius satelite radio which just randomly goes in and out.
My dodge durango has sirius, but i did not subscribe, why would I! Boy they tried. Calls, emails, texts.
Anyway, car has hd tuner as well, just like fm stereo, so i activated that option, and to my surprise, behind normal fm public radio broadcast, there is hd 91.3 classical radio station.
Offcourse it comes in and out, most out as I drive. But its classical radio station in miami area over the antena, free, no internet required.
 
Last edited:
Offcourse neither of 3 fm tuners in the kitchen could receive it. Sony being the best one, most sensitive and refined, magnum dynalab ft11 being most fun, and magnum dynalab ft101 being most boring one.
So i purchased sangean hd radio, and to my surprise it works.
So i can have either great latin jazz 88.9 or classical hd 91.3 fm stereo in the background all the time.
 

Attachments

  • 20250531_185520.jpg
    20250531_185520.jpg
    365.7 KB · Views: 89
  • Like
Reactions: von Ah