What’s On the Bench Tonight (OBT)

Aesthetically I prefer rhodium plating to gold. I've read that it's very durable against numerous connection cycles, and it won't tarnish. The downside is soldering it is just odd to me, takes more heat and the solder doesn't really wick onto the rhodium in the way it does with copper/silver/gold, not so bad if you scuff a little of the plating off to get to the underlying copper.
 
It's not what's on the bench, it's the new bench. A couple of more days, and I'll have the rest of the mess sorted!
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Been working on that myself: third week-in and it's tough, like a video game: put things in cardboard boxes, move cardboard boxes out of the way, organise things, re-move boxes again to new spot, lose the one or two important tools you didn't know you'd need next in the process, get new ideas for re-org., find out you need to work some more on insulation inside, rinse-and-repeat.

I'm not even sure I can store everything we have after I'm done.

Keeping the desk clean is a challenge - always tempting to put things on it.
 
On the digital bench is a new compact 5in woofer TL speaker.
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Baffle (without the vent) is similar in profile to the Vanguard. Simulations predict F3 of 46Hz and F6 of 42Hz. 82dB at 2.83v in 4 pi space. Working out the crossover in a sealed foam core enclosure:
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Listening to it now in sealed box and it sounds great.
 
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I have made them but as Adason suggests, doable at 70dB but they won’t sound good much louder. Physics states that bass requires moving a lot of air. The only way to do that with small cone is a well designed horn speaker. Something really large with a long path and a wide mouth to get the gain needed to make bass with small cone movements.
 
83dB? I bought a pair of Micca RB42 that I actually liked quite a lot. I honestly couldn't believe how much bass came from a pair of "cheap" speakers.
I bottomed one of them out too hard one night and effed the woofer on one of them. Micca didn't reply to my request to buy a replacement, and they aren't round so it's hard to find the woofer.
It's typical in room is stated at 50Hz... I don't have a typical room apparently.
It'll move almost an inch when it's "ranging". Rather than a horn loaded system, I was thinking more like brute force like in a car system.

https://www.miccatron.com/micca-rb42-reference-bookshelf-speakers/
 
Those are photo realistic renders of the actual 3D solid model of the amp. Every nut bolt screw, circuit board etc are all fitted together virtually before we build it physically using SolidWorks. We check for manufacturing issues, like interferences and assembly. The render is simply a detailed ray trace of the actual 3D model. I make it sound easy but of course it requires a very skilled mechanical engineer and we have a very good one. Huge thanks to Darko M. for his expertise and making this all possible.
 
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