@6thplanet said:
Hey Charlie, figure out what happened to the amp?
I will be trying to figure that out today. My working theory is this: the speaker cables used a breakout box on one end. This is a 4-pair binding post plate like this one: https://www.amazon.com/Monoprice-103538-Binding-Two-Piece-Speakers/dp/B009GUQ7DE/ref=sr_1_9
It's a plastic plate that can mount in a standard electrical box. On each side of the plate (inside and outside) are binding posts. Only they are really cheap.
I put this together last year for my project and it work out fine. I have been using them for the last couple of months for the project I brought to the PE SDC last weekend without any problems. But since the binding posts are cheap, they can loosen with vibration like when you drive in a car for 4 hours. Also connecting, disconnecting, pulling on the cable, etc. can all cause the wiring to pull out and/or the binding posts to start to unscrew. I think that is what happened - internally the binding posts unscrewed and two of the wires touched, causing a short. The amp was cycling in and out of protection as a result.
It's too bad. I would have like to have had the speakers fully working for the event, judges, and attendees. They are IMO pretty good sounding.
I plan to ask DanP if I can bring them to the CSS event late next month. It's only about 45 minutes away from me and I have the method for packing them in my vehicle as well as set up and take down all figured out. In the meantime I have ordered some better 8-conductor cable and will be converting to speakOn connectors at the speaker ends.
I think Perry Marshall won the Open Unlimited class with his birch baffle dipole (name is something along those lines). I haven't seen any pics of it here.
@charlielaub said:
I think Perry Marshall won the Open Unlimited class with his birch baffle dipole (name is something along those lines). I haven't seen any pics of it here.
Perry posed for a picture on his way out the door:
I'll start out with a shot of Nick's "Napoleons and the Cavalry" This is the only pic I took of these. They were tucked away in a small area at the end of the Dayton table and it was difficult to get a good photo. Beautiful cabinets with a buffed out high gloss finish. Later on, I missed taking photos of the actual presentation. Sorry about that. These speakers sounded fantastic. There was an "airy" or "detailed" quality in the mids and highs, with good soundstage depth, and I was sitting way off to the right side. Bass did not go as low as other speakers, but overall tonal balance was very smooth from top to bottom. Great job, Nick! And congrats on your 1st place finish!
There was a tie breaker twice in the 300+ 2 scored 150, and 2 scored 147. This means there were 5 builds in the top 3 before finding tie breaker votes. Apparently the 300- also fared similarly and needed a tie breaker.
It was really tight! I had good compliments on both of mine all day, so I wonder where I ended up in placement.
I'll post my scores when I get them as I have always done.
@6thplanet (Eric W) took first place in the >300 category. Congrats! Furniture grade cabinets and finish. Excellent sound quality with lots of inner detail. Tonal balance was excellent. I really liked these. This speaker was the last to play in the large group of about 14 or so speakers.
David E. took 1st place in the <300 category with his "Vellabrezzy" speakers. From info that David posted over on the facebook project pad, drivers are Scan Speak R2604/832000 tweeter and Dayton RS225-8 8" woofer. The waveguide is a Monacor WG-300. Simple 7 part two way xover used. Very large and beautiful cabinets with sloped front baffle and facets. These are almost too big to fit on standard sized speaker stand. They sounded fantastic from where I was sitting. Congrats, David! EDIT: The front baffle is not sloped. The huge facets just make it seem like a sloped baffle when you look at it from the side angle. DOUBLE EDIT: Added another picture showing the back side. 3rd EDIT: Here is a link to the full build thread over on HTguide: https://www.htguide.com/forum/forum/mission-possible-diy/945065-davids-new-8-1-build-dayton-rs225-8-scanspeak-d2604-833000-in-wg300-~42-litre
@4thtry said: @6thplanet (Eric W) took first place in the >300 category. Congrats! Furniture grade cabinets and finish. Excellent sound quality with lots of inner detail. Tonal balance was excellent. I really liked these. This speaker was the last to play in the large group of about 14 or so speakers.
The look of those totally seemed like something from the old world that I would have found in my great grandparents house. Not knocking it at all. Takes something special to evoke those kind of strong feelings.
For the sound I was most impressed by how strong but still reserved/controlled the bass was. Like I was actually hearing the speaker, instead of all the room loading. I wasn't sitting up front so I couldn't get the best listen for the rest of the frequency range.
Speaking of, it seemed like that room was rather bass happy. I wonder what it was like at the judge's seating position.
@4thtry said:
David E. took 1st place in the <300 category with his "Vellabrezzy" speakers. From info that David posted over on the facebook project pad, ...
Just a note for those that don't know, David E. Is DaveFred here at MAC
As noted above, Perry M. took 1st place in the Open Unlimited category with "The Birch Dipole" speakers. This is an extremely complex open baffle dipole design that sounded amazing. But you have to get used to the open baffle dipole type sound quality, which gives a very huge, lifelike type sound compared to a mono-pole. Room acoustics are very important. Here is a link to Perry's website with a pdf that details his design approach, drivers used, and crossover connections: https://www.perrymarshall.com/speakers/
Congrats to Michael H. for finishing in 2nd place in Dayton & 3rd place in Open Unlimited. If you don't look closely, they look like the same speakers, but one has all Dayton drivers and one does not. Two of the best sounding speakers at the event!
2nd place in the <300 category went to Dan N. with his "Pipelines" entry. This speaker used a 6" diameter PVC pipe for the woofer (ML-TL) and a 4" diameter PVC pipe as a sealed chamber for dual 3" mids. The tweeter was mounted in the 6" diameter pipe and used the 4" pipe as a waveguide to split the sound to the front and back. Crossovers were 700 & 3000Hz. Woofer: Silver Flute W17RC38-04 (MLTL). Midrange: Dayton DS90-08 x 2 parallel. Tweeter: Dayton PTMini-06 planar.
2nd place in the >300 category went to Brad E. with his "No Money No Problem" entry. Purifi 6.5 woofers.
2nd place in the Open Unlimited category went to Aaron L. with his "A-MK1 (The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly)" speakers. Powersoft amped MTM's.
3rd place in the >300 category went to John H. with his "Not Qualified" speakers. Dual RS225P's were arranged in a compound isobarik configuation. Xover: LR2 @ 2kHz. Volume 40 liters, Fb 32Hz, F3 30Hz. Deep, non-resonant bass, smooth, liquid highs.
Does anyone know what happened to @Billet ? He was supposed to be at the SDC with his PurpleTone speakers (>300 category). I didn't see him there or his name listed on the monitor. Hope he is doing OK.
3rd place in the Dayton category went to Bill S. (aka 4thtry) (me) with his "Zonker" speakers. Drivers: Dayton RST28F-4's (golden versions) and compound isobarik Dayton SD215A-88 subwoofers. Crossover: 910Hz, 8th order acoustical. This low xover was selected because the isobarik tunnel somehow magnified the severity of the first breakup mode, which was around 1.1kHz. This low xover point suppressed the breakup by about 20dB. The speaker box also incorporated an internally stuffed trap behind the tweeter that significantly suppressed box and port resonant peaks in the 400Hz to 1kHz region.
3rd place in the <300 category went to James P. with his "Aztek" speakers: EDIT: Added more detail from the James' InDIYana tent card: Drivers: Vifa P21-08 and Peerless DX25SG05-04.
The counting of Fan Favorite peer ballots resulted in no speaker receiving more than 1 vote. So there was a random "tossing" of peer ballots to determine the winner. The award and prize (Hybrid tube amplifier) went to James Polk with his "JP Cubit Spires" speakers. The speaker name is a reference to the biblical unit of measurement called the cubit, which is equal to approximately 18 to 22 inches or so.
Paul K's cabinets were another work of art and craftsmanship. 3/4" Bambo outer panels and 18mm Baltic Birch plywood inner panels. The baffle looks like a Mahogany inlay, but Paul told me that it was solid Bamboo. I wish I had his cabinet building skills. Drivers were the Dayton ES140TiA-8 woofers, Morel MDM55 mids, and GRS RT1.R-8 tweeters. The woofers were mounted in a 5 ft ML-TL with an F3 of 32Hz, F10 of 26Hz, and Fb of 32Hz. Xovers were 900Hz and 3000Hz. I thought that the low frequency response was very good. The high frequencies, however, seemed a little rolled off to me, but maybe that was just where I happened to be sitting. I was in the 3rd row on the far right side of the room.
@4thtry said:
Does anyone know what happened to @Billet ? He was supposed to be at the SDC with his PurpleTone speakers (>300 category). I didn't see him there or his name listed on the monitor. Hope he is doing OK.
Yeah, I am OK. Thanks for asking! We had big problems at work all week and I ended up being on call for the weekend. I had to cancel my trip last minute I sent Jill an email Friday morning. It looks like I missed hearing a bunch of fine speakers.
@4thtry said:
Does anyone know what happened to @Billet ? He was supposed to be at the SDC with his PurpleTone speakers (>300 category). I didn't see him there or his name listed on the monitor. Hope he is doing OK.
Yeah, I am OK. Thanks for asking! We had big problems at work all week and I ended up being on call for the weekend. I had to cancel my trip last minute I sent Jill an email Friday morning. It looks like I missed hearing a bunch of fine speakers.
At least I can see some great photos
Good to hear that you are OK. Bummer you couldn't make it. Hope to see you at the next event.
Comments
I will be trying to figure that out today. My working theory is this: the speaker cables used a breakout box on one end. This is a 4-pair binding post plate like this one:
https://www.amazon.com/Monoprice-103538-Binding-Two-Piece-Speakers/dp/B009GUQ7DE/ref=sr_1_9
It's a plastic plate that can mount in a standard electrical box. On each side of the plate (inside and outside) are binding posts. Only they are really cheap.
I put this together last year for my project and it work out fine. I have been using them for the last couple of months for the project I brought to the PE SDC last weekend without any problems. But since the binding posts are cheap, they can loosen with vibration like when you drive in a car for 4 hours. Also connecting, disconnecting, pulling on the cable, etc. can all cause the wiring to pull out and/or the binding posts to start to unscrew. I think that is what happened - internally the binding posts unscrewed and two of the wires touched, causing a short. The amp was cycling in and out of protection as a result.
It's too bad. I would have like to have had the speakers fully working for the event, judges, and attendees. They are IMO pretty good sounding.
I plan to ask DanP if I can bring them to the CSS event late next month. It's only about 45 minutes away from me and I have the method for packing them in my vehicle as well as set up and take down all figured out. In the meantime I have ordered some better 8-conductor cable and will be converting to speakOn connectors at the speaker ends.
Huge congrats to Nick (Ugly Woofer) for winning the Dayton class! I hope he brings them to Iowa so I can hear them.
Edit... I heard wrong info regarding the other class winners
David Eisen won the under $300 class.
I think Perry Marshall won the Open Unlimited class with his birch baffle dipole (name is something along those lines). I haven't seen any pics of it here.
Perry posed for a picture on his way out the door:
SDC 2023 Winner Circle listing. Let me know if I messed anything up, this is per my memory of the event with some corrections made by Wolf.
Open Unlimited
1 Perry M "The Birch Dipoles"
2 Aaron L. "A-MK1 (The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly)" Powersoft amped MTMs.
3 Michael H. "Bella Sonus 3"
Dayton
1 Nick S. "Napoleons and the cavalry"
2 Michael H. "Bella Sonus 5"
3 Bill S. "The Zonkers"
1 Eric W. "Monuments Redux" (Peer Ballot Tie-breaker)
2 Brad E. "No Money No Problem" (Peer Ballot Tie-breaker)
3 John H. "Not Qualified"
<300
1 David E. "Vellabrezzy"
2 Dan N. "Pipelines"
3 James P. "Aztek"
Fan Favorite
James Polk, "JP Cubit Spires" (No speaker received more than 1 vote, so there was a random runoff peer ballot "toss" in the air)
Thanks Bill!
I'll post some pictures of some of these as I organize my photo collection. Let me know which ones you would like to see.
Umm... all of them. LOL
Thanks Bill!
I'll start out with a shot of Nick's "Napoleons and the Cavalry" This is the only pic I took of these. They were tucked away in a small area at the end of the Dayton table and it was difficult to get a good photo. Beautiful cabinets with a buffed out high gloss finish. Later on, I missed taking photos of the actual presentation. Sorry about that. These speakers sounded fantastic. There was an "airy" or "detailed" quality in the mids and highs, with good soundstage depth, and I was sitting way off to the right side. Bass did not go as low as other speakers, but overall tonal balance was very smooth from top to bottom. Great job, Nick! And congrats on your 1st place finish!
There was a tie breaker twice in the 300+ 2 scored 150, and 2 scored 147. This means there were 5 builds in the top 3 before finding tie breaker votes. Apparently the 300- also fared similarly and needed a tie breaker.
It was really tight! I had good compliments on both of mine all day, so I wonder where I ended up in placement.
I'll post my scores when I get them as I have always done.
InDIYana Event Website
Wolfy's Photobucket
@6thplanet (Eric W) took first place in the >300 category. Congrats! Furniture grade cabinets and finish. Excellent sound quality with lots of inner detail. Tonal balance was excellent. I really liked these. This speaker was the last to play in the large group of about 14 or so speakers.
Thanks Bill! Wonderful pics as always. I really enjoyed your towers, they presented beautifully.
David E. took 1st place in the <300 category with his "Vellabrezzy" speakers. From info that David posted over on the facebook project pad, drivers are Scan Speak R2604/832000 tweeter and Dayton RS225-8 8" woofer. The waveguide is a Monacor WG-300. Simple 7 part two way xover used. Very large and beautiful cabinets with sloped front baffle and facets. These are almost too big to fit on standard sized speaker stand. They sounded fantastic from where I was sitting. Congrats, David! EDIT: The front baffle is not sloped. The huge facets just make it seem like a sloped baffle when you look at it from the side angle. DOUBLE EDIT: Added another picture showing the back side. 3rd EDIT: Here is a link to the full build thread over on HTguide: https://www.htguide.com/forum/forum/mission-possible-diy/945065-davids-new-8-1-build-dayton-rs225-8-scanspeak-d2604-833000-in-wg300-~42-litre
Wow. Some cool stuff. Thanks for the pictures and info.
The look of those totally seemed like something from the old world that I would have found in my great grandparents house. Not knocking it at all. Takes something special to evoke those kind of strong feelings.
For the sound I was most impressed by how strong but still reserved/controlled the bass was. Like I was actually hearing the speaker, instead of all the room loading. I wasn't sitting up front so I couldn't get the best listen for the rest of the frequency range.
Speaking of, it seemed like that room was rather bass happy. I wonder what it was like at the judge's seating position.
Just a note for those that don't know, David E. Is DaveFred here at MAC
Thanks Ben!
As noted above, Perry M. took 1st place in the Open Unlimited category with "The Birch Dipole" speakers. This is an extremely complex open baffle dipole design that sounded amazing. But you have to get used to the open baffle dipole type sound quality, which gives a very huge, lifelike type sound compared to a mono-pole. Room acoustics are very important. Here is a link to Perry's website with a pdf that details his design approach, drivers used, and crossover connections: https://www.perrymarshall.com/speakers/
Those Radian coaxs were fantastic! Of course for what they cost...
Perry definitely worked his magic on them. Definitely deserved the win.
David E.'s entry was also top notch👍🏼
Congrats to Michael H. for finishing in 2nd place in Dayton & 3rd place in Open Unlimited. If you don't look closely, they look like the same speakers, but one has all Dayton drivers and one does not. Two of the best sounding speakers at the event!
Bella Sonus 3: Open Unlimited 3rd place winner
Bella Sonus 5: Dayton Audio 2nd place winner
2nd place in the <300 category went to Dan N. with his "Pipelines" entry. This speaker used a 6" diameter PVC pipe for the woofer (ML-TL) and a 4" diameter PVC pipe as a sealed chamber for dual 3" mids. The tweeter was mounted in the 6" diameter pipe and used the 4" pipe as a waveguide to split the sound to the front and back. Crossovers were 700 & 3000Hz. Woofer: Silver Flute W17RC38-04 (MLTL). Midrange: Dayton DS90-08 x 2 parallel. Tweeter: Dayton PTMini-06 planar.
2nd place in the >300 category went to Brad E. with his "No Money No Problem" entry. Purifi 6.5 woofers.
2nd place in the Open Unlimited category went to Aaron L. with his "A-MK1 (The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly)" speakers. Powersoft amped MTM's.
3rd place in the >300 category went to John H. with his "Not Qualified" speakers. Dual RS225P's were arranged in a compound isobarik configuation. Xover: LR2 @ 2kHz. Volume 40 liters, Fb 32Hz, F3 30Hz. Deep, non-resonant bass, smooth, liquid highs.
Does anyone know what happened to @Billet ? He was supposed to be at the SDC with his PurpleTone speakers (>300 category). I didn't see him there or his name listed on the monitor. Hope he is doing OK.
Way 2 go John !
3rd place in the Dayton category went to Bill S. (aka 4thtry) (me) with his "Zonker" speakers. Drivers: Dayton RST28F-4's (golden versions) and compound isobarik Dayton SD215A-88 subwoofers. Crossover: 910Hz, 8th order acoustical. This low xover was selected because the isobarik tunnel somehow magnified the severity of the first breakup mode, which was around 1.1kHz. This low xover point suppressed the breakup by about 20dB. The speaker box also incorporated an internally stuffed trap behind the tweeter that significantly suppressed box and port resonant peaks in the 400Hz to 1kHz region.
3rd place in the <300 category went to James P. with his "Aztek" speakers: EDIT: Added more detail from the James' InDIYana tent card: Drivers: Vifa P21-08 and Peerless DX25SG05-04.
The counting of Fan Favorite peer ballots resulted in no speaker receiving more than 1 vote. So there was a random "tossing" of peer ballots to determine the winner. The award and prize (Hybrid tube amplifier) went to James Polk with his "JP Cubit Spires" speakers. The speaker name is a reference to the biblical unit of measurement called the cubit, which is equal to approximately 18 to 22 inches or so.
Paul K's cabinets were another work of art and craftsmanship. 3/4" Bambo outer panels and 18mm Baltic Birch plywood inner panels. The baffle looks like a Mahogany inlay, but Paul told me that it was solid Bamboo. I wish I had his cabinet building skills. Drivers were the Dayton ES140TiA-8 woofers, Morel MDM55 mids, and GRS RT1.R-8 tweeters. The woofers were mounted in a 5 ft ML-TL with an F3 of 32Hz, F10 of 26Hz, and Fb of 32Hz. Xovers were 900Hz and 3000Hz. I thought that the low frequency response was very good. The high frequencies, however, seemed a little rolled off to me, but maybe that was just where I happened to be sitting. I was in the 3rd row on the far right side of the room.
Yeah, I am OK. Thanks for asking! We had big problems at work all week and I ended up being on call for the weekend. I had to cancel my trip last minute
I sent Jill an email Friday morning. It looks like I missed hearing a bunch of fine speakers.
At least I can see some great photos
Good to hear that you are OK. Bummer you couldn't make it. Hope to see you at the next event.