desktop speaker with Markaudio Alpair5

@waxx
Thanks for the answer. I was expecting and answer like that but hey, you never know! I still really like the look of this speaker and from what I have read it seems to sound really good as well.
how much smaller would you be aiming/hoping for?


@nandappe
Interesting alternative! Did you design it yourself? In such a speaker, is it possible to "push" the woofer in a little bit to have a flush mount? Also, in general, is it possible to do a small roundover on the edges without modifying the sound too much?
yes, just use a bit thicker baffle and use a router. small R roundovers will go without issues
 
Hehe funny that you bring that up, the BloodHound was on my shortlist as well. I had a hard time finding impressions on it though as not a lot of people have built it it seems. Do you have any comments on the sound quality?

I'm afraid I tend to avoid subjective comments; what I hear is very unlikely to be what you hear, and what I mean by a given phrase is also not necessarily what other people would mean.

Bloodhound rather fell through the cracks as it's within the wider pdf file so not always obvious at first glance. MA also discontinued the 5.2 driver it was designed for, so I suspect some people naturally assume it's not suitable for the 5.3. Normally they'd be absolutely correct -ramming drive units into boxes designed for something else rarely works well. However, the 5.3 is identical to the 5.2 apart from the coil material (copper rather than CCAW) and the differences are sufficiently small that it's a drop-in replacement.
 
frugal-phile™
Joined 2001
Paid Member
Henkjan’s old design is not optimum for the new drivers. He suggested he might do a redesign.

Let me add this set to your choices:

uMK5-set


The 1st silhouette does not show the trapezoidal shape, here the prototypes:

uMar-Ken52.jpg


we also built Bloodhound, it works well.

dave
 
frugal-phile™
Joined 2001
Paid Member
MA also discontinued the 5.2 driver it was designed for, so I suspect some people naturally assume it's not suitable for the 5.3. Normally they'd be absolutely correct -ramming drive units into boxes designed for something else rarely works well. However, the 5.3 is identical to the 5.2 apart from the coil material

As it turns out the Alpair 5.2, A5.3, and the CHN-50 all fit into the same µMar-Kens. I have yet to finish, but there exists 2 of the µMar-KenPlus with sloped baffles specifically to aid in desktop placement.

Same as the 2 on the bottom row in the µFonken set but for the tuning and driver mounting details.

uFonkenFamily.gif


dave
 
Ahhh too much choice!
The uFonk family did not interest me at first as I am not really into the trapezoidal shape personally but I did not notice that the smaller ones are more classic box shaped. I will certainly take a deeper look at them.
The BloodHound looks like a winner as well for my needs.
The Alpair TL from Henkjan is still very attractive to me, I love the elongated shape of it.


Thanks for all the recommendations everyone it is very much appreciated. I will look into all of this and make a choice.
In the meantime, here is a picture of one of the two pairs of Zaph Hi-Vi I did some years ago for my daughters if anyone is interested. Built of solid maple. They are very satisfied with these! The sound is surprisingly good.
 

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