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Iron Driver Discussion Thread
For a million reasons Iron Driver went buh-bye. I think a large one is loss of mission. If Iron Driver had a mission statement, it would go a lil' sumpthin' like this:
The Iron Driver design challenge will stretch the imagination and talents of participating designers. Iron Driver will achieve this by setting severe limitations in every aspect of a loudspeaker design, while all sharing one common driver.
Historically this has been a competition simply because it creates a more critical environment, however implementing such a challenge proved harder than initially thought because of people's semantics (yes, my own too). This in consideration, I am unsure the winners were winners in the sense of design (Except Dave Crewe's Saffron build), rather throwing together a loudspeaker that had the best performance for the demo tracks.
I think a re-centering of Iron Driver, if there is interest, is in order.
#1) Remove the competition. Nebulous on this, and I would still like some objective work and subjective scoring, however once entered in and totaled the results are delivered to the designers and they can publish their scored if they choose. I think removing the overall competition would make "judging" more friendly and have everyone focus on the merits of each design.
#2) The hard challenge is brought back. The driver is selected by a panel and cannot be some vanilla bean that can blend well with everything and is well behaved in all aspects....BUT it can be exceptional if used properly. This driver would be announced 9 weeks (to allow one week for ship-ins) before the design-off.
#3) all participants get a certificate of participation, with their speakers overall score on it. So it would have the Speaker, its name, designers name and "XX/100" on it to hang in the listening room.
#4)Create a form that has 4 or 5 categories (like the project gallery) that can be put next to each speaker during the walk-around after listening so everyone attending can read about the thoughts behind the design and why each designer did what they did.
#5) The demo tracks are non-announced, nor will be the genres of the tracks. Each speaker will be set to the same SPL and three, one-minuet exerts will be played, same for each.
#6) Waveguides, PR's, and active systems will all contribute to the cost of the speaker. PRs and Waveguides that are home-made will not contribute to the cost, but need to be well documented.
#7) This is a solo competition. No team work, no having cabinets made by others, etc. This is to test a designer's chops from start to finish.
#8) with PE's new super affordable coils, the budget is a strict $200 (not including cabinets/accessories) a bonus point for each dollar under $200.
#9) Speakers will be randomly checked to assure the crossovers are as on the BOM, and a complete document package will need to be submitted (I am considering making forms for all of this to standardize and make it easy for everyone).
#10) Speakers must fit comfortably on a 22"-24" stand
It is a lot of work in a short time. However that is the purpose. It is fun, extremely challenging and I think the community will win when it is flooded with new, great sounding, budget designs.
Obviously PETT has a collective of many designers, however with the new rules, IF the Iron driver is not of their own product, I am sure they will not be very happy about that. So I am open to how to get the word out.
I am also open to A LOT more thought and discussion on it and I am unsure if I even want to undertake it since it will be a bigger undertaking than it has been... However, enough interest I could be a sucker for it since I think it is really cool to see people challenge themselves and often necessity can generate some truly amazing results.
Let's discuss - any next steps will be what comes of this discussion.
The Iron Driver design challenge will stretch the imagination and talents of participating designers. Iron Driver will achieve this by setting severe limitations in every aspect of a loudspeaker design, while all sharing one common driver.
Historically this has been a competition simply because it creates a more critical environment, however implementing such a challenge proved harder than initially thought because of people's semantics (yes, my own too). This in consideration, I am unsure the winners were winners in the sense of design (Except Dave Crewe's Saffron build), rather throwing together a loudspeaker that had the best performance for the demo tracks.
I think a re-centering of Iron Driver, if there is interest, is in order.
#1) Remove the competition. Nebulous on this, and I would still like some objective work and subjective scoring, however once entered in and totaled the results are delivered to the designers and they can publish their scored if they choose. I think removing the overall competition would make "judging" more friendly and have everyone focus on the merits of each design.
#2) The hard challenge is brought back. The driver is selected by a panel and cannot be some vanilla bean that can blend well with everything and is well behaved in all aspects....BUT it can be exceptional if used properly. This driver would be announced 9 weeks (to allow one week for ship-ins) before the design-off.
#3) all participants get a certificate of participation, with their speakers overall score on it. So it would have the Speaker, its name, designers name and "XX/100" on it to hang in the listening room.
#4)Create a form that has 4 or 5 categories (like the project gallery) that can be put next to each speaker during the walk-around after listening so everyone attending can read about the thoughts behind the design and why each designer did what they did.
#5) The demo tracks are non-announced, nor will be the genres of the tracks. Each speaker will be set to the same SPL and three, one-minuet exerts will be played, same for each.
#6) Waveguides, PR's, and active systems will all contribute to the cost of the speaker. PRs and Waveguides that are home-made will not contribute to the cost, but need to be well documented.
#7) This is a solo competition. No team work, no having cabinets made by others, etc. This is to test a designer's chops from start to finish.
#8) with PE's new super affordable coils, the budget is a strict $200 (not including cabinets/accessories) a bonus point for each dollar under $200.
#9) Speakers will be randomly checked to assure the crossovers are as on the BOM, and a complete document package will need to be submitted (I am considering making forms for all of this to standardize and make it easy for everyone).
#10) Speakers must fit comfortably on a 22"-24" stand
It is a lot of work in a short time. However that is the purpose. It is fun, extremely challenging and I think the community will win when it is flooded with new, great sounding, budget designs.
Obviously PETT has a collective of many designers, however with the new rules, IF the Iron driver is not of their own product, I am sure they will not be very happy about that. So I am open to how to get the word out.
I am also open to A LOT more thought and discussion on it and I am unsure if I even want to undertake it since it will be a bigger undertaking than it has been... However, enough interest I could be a sucker for it since I think it is really cool to see people challenge themselves and often necessity can generate some truly amazing results.
Let's discuss - any next steps will be what comes of this discussion.
Comments
As far as Iron Driver considerations, check your PM here in a bit. I want to throw a couple ideas your way.
Not sure how to make this interesting for far off ppl or out of Townes. Flying will also restrict the box size to carry on limit....
Anybody have discounted shipping account that can be used, paid for and packed by the builder of course?
With secret feedback, how we non present participants get a feels of the different designs?
My $.02
Great feedback so far.
Lets address things one-by-one
1) JR - The more I chewed on this, the more you are correct. Feeback optional. Basically anyone who wants to rate them, can, and all sheets are collected at the end, feedback to the designers that want it and the rest recycled.
2) Ani- Shipping... That has historically been an issue and a large limiting factor. That is, too, why we keep it to speakers that can fit on 24" stands. Reagionaly it sucks being in New England. The DIY community here is small, though dedicated and awesome if I do say so myself. I have zero problem being the organizer from afar (and shipping in my entry) if someone wanted to be the "do-er" in the midwest where there is a higher concentration of potential participants. I would still make the certificates, and organize the paperwork and the like, so whoever "did" the event would just have to set up and hit play.
3) Ani - We always have disassociated speaker and designer. Giving them arbitrary monikers like "A3" and "9P" for this very reason.
4) Ani - having MAC as the home would be up to the hosts here
5) Kenny - Demo time would depend on the number of entries. I would like 5 min. as well if it could be swung.
6) S7910- The driver would be announced only after the participants are locked up. That way it is 100% fair all around.
I'm all for your proposed changes for how Iron Driver will work and how they return it to its roots.
I would be willing to help out again Mike in some way to help take a bit of the load off of you if you decide to go ahead with it.. I enjoyed working with Roman on the last event. Plus if the event doesn't happen until next year then I would be able to attended and not just my speakers
Derek
That coukd definately work. Where are you located?
I am thinking fall timeframe since there arw so many spring time events. Even then it would likely be a year from fall.
I am still hot and cold on it. I know the amount of work it takes. Also holding ut in tge East Coast is just hard since a majority of DIY-ers seem concentrated in the midwest.
It went bye because I decided not to do the leg work that's behind it any more. For the various other reasons as well . If someone wants to revive it and perform all tasks, ID will spring back to live like a Fenix from ashes.
The idea of a competition is to look at the listeners preferences and compare these with objective data not to cry about egos of the designers. That's what the competition is. "I won" in this instance, mean very little. It can for example mean that the designer decided to do a tried and true system with the over all more even coverage to score points but in retrospect of innovative use of the components or trying to capture audience with something refreshing, it's not cherry on the top.
I've had speakers shipped to me that basically were falling out from the boxes in a sea of peanuts.
By ZERO means it was not saying the last verson of ID was less than desirable! I my minds eye, it simply got too easy.
Like you said, everyone loves vanilla! That is why I think tight constraints are important. JR dropped a few driver sugguestions I liked, specially ones that have little measured data and are relitave unknowns.
I was watching chopped the other night and with a basket of crap (fennel pollen, really?!) They have to wor wonders. I think, perhaps from the go ID was too easy...Espically if it was ment as a DESIGN competition.
As far as ship-ins go. Yikes. We woukd need to clarify ship-ins need to be re-packable.
So, it opened up a lot of design options not limiting people to conventional 2 or 3 ways. And I think all ID events did very well in this respect.
Who here would be interested in having a go with ID with ths new format?