+1 had a good time but some of the recommended beverages made my head hurt this morning. It was nice to meet some of the new regulars. The room didn't seem to have any issues. Overall venue plus location was an upgrade imo. Nice to talk with Lowell and JR for a bit.
I had a very good time at the event. I thought at first that the room was going to be too small for everybody but it worked out nicely. The overall talent in the DIY community is amazing and it was great talking with so many people who share our passion.
My thanks to JR, Brian and Jason for putting this together and a huge thank you to all those who moved my speakers for me. I've had an iffy back for a long time and lately it's seems to be getting worse so it was a blessing not to have to lift them. (Don't ever get old)
I've put the pictures I took up on Google drive complete with the mug shots. I thoroughly enjoyed hearing and seeing some great stuff, snatching some good deals and chatting with the DIY crew.
I'm always late to this thread for some reason. Thanks to all the MAC guys for making this happen. I know how much work it is and I appreciate all that you do!
I'm pleased to hear the positive feedback about the room. I thought it was a lot closer to replicating a home environment than we've had in the past. DDIY has always been one of my favorite rooms to demo in and I think this room came close.
It was great to see and chat with everyone. I'm looking forward to next year!
Brian, can you get me some info on that digital front end?
@JasonP built that from scratch so he’s the man to talk to. The front end worked flawlessly, sounded great, integrated perfectly with the Samson pro amp and facilitated an efficient show.
The transition from project to project has never been smoother. As a bonus each exhibitor got to take their thumb drive home with them; packed with archived demos from the past several years of Iowa DIY shows.
Just one quick comment on our live streaming effort on Saturday. Luckily we had plenty of bandwidth from the hotel so we decided at the last minute to do Facebook streaming. It was a mess. Copyright this, copyright that. You’re in violation of this law and that law and yada yada. I’ll never use Facebook as our streaming platform again. This is just a small snippet of the constant notifications I received throughout the day on Saturday, not to mention the threatening emails. Sad... so sad. We are trying to educate folks and demo our DIY projects. IMO, if “your” song is utilized to facilitate such, you should be honored. Plus, we’re providing free promotion of your music. Insert angry emoji face here.
It was a great event & I had a blast! There were many top-notch speakers, some great tunes, and I came away with a little more knowledge and met some great people. Thanks Jason & Bryan for making this go so smoothly. Thanks to all who offered advice about my design - it is very much appreciated.
Another great time at IA DIY. It's been a couple of years so it was
especially nice seeing old friends and making new ones. The venue turned out great and I really
enjoyed the group dinners Friday and Saturday. Special thanks to the MAC team for all the
time, effort and money it takes to host the event. Kudos gents!
It was especially gratifying to me to see that the DIY
camaraderie and spirit remain intact. I
was worried it had been lost after all the recent negativism and plain bad
manners that have been on the forums lately. Guess I should go to more events!
Just one quick comment on our live streaming effort on Saturday. Luckily we had plenty of bandwidth from the hotel so we decided at the last minute to do Facebook streaming. It was a mess. Copyright this, copyright that. You’re in violation of this law and that law and yada yada. I’ll never use Facebook as our streaming platform again. This is just a small snippet of the constant notifications I received throughout the day on Saturday, not to mention the threatening emails. Sad... so sad. We are trying to educate folks and demo our DIY projects. IMO, if “your” song is utilized to facilitate such, you should be honored. Plus, we’re providing free promotion of your music. Insert angry emoji face here.
This is another example of the recording industry flexing their muscles. I understand the need to fight piracy, but I'm sure the artists will never even be notified of the "infractions". If those artists knew what we were all about, I'm sure they would gladly let us have access to their full catalogs. Heck, I bought 4 CDs last week, 3 based on previous DIY demos. Granted 2 CDs were used, so the artists won't get a dime from those sales. But I ready have those albums (or artists) in my Spotify playlists.
Re. the music, I am 100% certain a case for "fair use" could be made, but we would need to lawyer up for that and the RIAA is banking on us not doing so. The process of identifying copyrighted material is likely automated, and the process for disputing the various takedowns is certainly tedious with the odds stacked against us.
I wanted to jot down some thoughts on this event, and DIY in general - so here goes.
1. I know there are many members of our community who have made the claims that DIY simply cannot do what commercial, particularly the ultra high end, companies can do. Our very own Brad brought a couple pairs that utlized vacuum formed cabinets with absolutely perfect fit/finish, good drivers utilizing competent crossovers, etc. We are watching DIY compete head to head with the ultra high end - it is happening right in front of our eyes. His 3-way bookshelf would command $25,000 in the high end market. We are now there on a construction level (including materials) - and we have been there on an engineering level for ten years or more. The commercial fans will someday be forced to cede this point, but don't expect that to happen any time soon.
2. The room was lively but not overly resonant - probably similar to most of our home environments. The room is always the great equalizer, and listeners get used to it in a hurry. The best part of this room was its size - it was juuuuuust big enough for speakers, door prizes, swap meet, and listeners. People who wanted to chat left the room and that was that. In that regards, this was the best event I have been to. I advocate similar sized venues in the future.
3. The quality of the demo music improves with each event. Keep up the good work, there. I received several comments from people who have never been or have not been for a decade or more where they indicated they preferred the 50/50 house/personal blend.
4. JP is sitting on a $5,000 something, there. Not sure what to call it at this time, but it is something of a pre/pro on steroids. Another indicator that high end is absolutely attainable for a dedicated DIY'er. It streamlined the entire process, contains no moving parts in the signal chain, and is very well implemented.
5. To my knowledge, there was not a single kit/someone else's design present (with the exception of some actual commercial stuff). Whew. That made me smile internally to no end. It showed me that every one who registered to present - did so because they designed it themselves. This needs to continue - we all love it when someone builds one of our designs, but... I love it more when I see a new face with a new design show up to these.
6. Who the heck were half of these people? That was spectacular! I loved seeing so many new faces.
7. Brad and I identified each of the three crossover variations, and both of us indicated a preference for the Bagby version. Whether it was our position in the back of the room or what - but the off-the-shelf was very apparent, and there were (to him and I) some obvious midrange issues in the Matt version. I have enough of an ego that I was pleased I am still able to listen and identify these kinds of things.
8. Who the hell brings a $2000 boombox to one of these? Dave Ellis, that's who. I am glad I got meet him - lovely gentleman.
9. Speaking of the boombox, I think we all heard the possibilities of letting a computer do the work. Oofdah, that was well done considering it was taming woofers with a breakup. Really got me looking closer at my Dayton DSP box. I was at a pawnshop this morning and saw an Elan 12 channel amp and juuuuuuust about grabbed it. Maybe there is a potential for DIY to meet the commerical guys if someone is willing to write an automation script for the Dayton... Hmmm...
10. Javad convinced me to convince Nick that he and I need to collaborate on a design using his pair of the big Dayton AMT. That is a great sounding unit, wow.
11. All in all, I had a very good, relaxed time. I sold a ton of shit and brought home barely anything. That was pretty cool. I stopped at Berkely outlet store in Spirit Lake and bought a new reel. Weather was nice enough, and I overheard at least two significant others saying they would attend in the future provided it is not in a town like Grinnell. My vote is we move it permanently to a venue such as the one we just used, in a community such as Ankeny as well.
Brad can build some mean cabs! They remind me of Rockports.
Nick (ugly woofer)'s Jagged-PVC things turned out great looking!
Does anyone else have issues with pictures loading slow on this forum?
Food for thought- if Ankeny is the new home, that's an extra hour of driving for us east of there- and I'm already at about 8.5 to get there in Grinnell. I would doubt I'll attend in the future if it's further than it was before, but had aspirations for at least one more run out that way.
Yeah , I know , the sorry I couldnt make jive. The work schedule didnt allow for it , it wouldve been a late night drive. Looks like I missed out on a good time. I hope everyone found their way back home ok, and in one piece.
Brian, can you get me some info on that digital front end?
Ken, I'll outline the basic design and if have any questions fire away. It is a DAC/Preamp, each driven by it own discrete power supply. To be more flexible, the DAC out RCAs on the back are actually passed back in to the pre externally, so we can adapt and use just the DAC, or just the pre, as needed for exhibitors.
The DAC is a AKM4495 running in dual mode (one chip per channel), accepting up to 32-bit/192k and DSD over PCM (I still need to test that DoP as some point). There are DACs with better numbers, but to my ears this one still sounds the best of what I've heard.
The pre is uh, well it is a thing. It is actually the fourth pre in that box. I first built a custom discrete type I modified from a Rod Elliot design (I changed the audio pot to a digital pot) but I didn't like that at all. Then I built a monolithic PGA2311 and it sounded... ok? Tried a slightly different version with the PGA2310 and a different PS (much higher voltage) liked that better than the 2311 but still felt it was lacking somehow. For kicks and experimenting I installed a little CS3310 board from Yuan Jing and that sounded the best (can't say I was happy about that result @.@). Weird note: the PGA2311 was built to replace and upgrade the quality of the old CS3310 chip, but I think the older version sounded better. Could be implementation though, unsure right now. *whew* anyway, there we go.
= Howard Stark: "This is the key to the future. I'm limited by the technology of my time, but one day you'll figure this out."
I had a great time this year as always. Some of my thoughts (which agree with everyone else's):
- This room was very good. My speaker projects actually sounded the same as they do here in my family room.
- Everyone was very respectful and took their chit-chat out to the lobby. I really appreciated that.
- Overall the hotel was just perfect. A really nice room at a great rate. The free breakfasts were top notch. The workers there were very friendly. The listening room was separated from the guest rooms so we could listen late on both nights and not disturb other guests.
- The front end and change over between projects was the smoothest I've seen at a DIY event. Thanks JP for the thumb drive loaded with a metric ton of demos! Huge bonus!
- The door prizes were great. I think everyone in the room took something nice home.
- The finishes on these DIY projects just keep getting better and better. Like JR said high end commercial quality. Jake's veneer was perfect. Brad and Nick's paint jobs were top notch.
- I think the extra 30 minute drive was well worth it.
- Lots of new faces and of course it was great to see all of my friends again! It was nice to meet Andy from Chicagoland and hear his active dipole project. The OB woofers really impressed me. I walked around the room while they were playing and the bass was so consistant... really really smooth and detailed bass. I was so impressed that I started planning my next project using miniDSP and dipole woofers before the event was even over! Thanks John H. for always letting me bounce my ideas off you and giving me good advice. I hope your wife knows I was just kidding about it being your project
In conclusion a huge thank you to Jason, Bryan, and Johnny for all that you guys did to put on such a great event. Also please tell Jaun from Cross Spectrum Labs thanks again for buying all of us lunch. I look forward to Iowa next year and hope you guys can secure to same venue. Hat's off to MAC!
I agree with the comments so far - it was a well attended event with about 50 present. It's good to see DIY alive and well. There was an abundance of innovative, well executed designs by old and new faces. Brad and Nick displayed some crazy good cabinet work. I mentioned to Brad that I thought people might confuse my two ways with his visually, but no one seemed to have that problem.
I used the Rival woofer R176-KCB-8 in my two way design that played late on Saturday. We played it loud and I thought the woofer maintained its composure very well. Thanks to Leon for making those available to try for such a low price. The Seas T25's I paired them with complained a little, which I haven't had happen at home. The Tritium's handled the venue well, but I still need to get the bass alignment sorted out a little better before I publish.
Many contributed to making the event a success. Thanks to JR for covering the room, JP for the digital front end and handling all of the demo music. That was the smoothest I have ever seen a DIY event run. Bryan worked the volume during the event and battled with streaming. Thanks to Juan from Cross Spectrum Labs, who picked up lunch on Saturday. Many contributed very generous door prizes, including small vendors such as Rhythm Audio Design and Ellis Audio. I wound up with a pair of 5x8 woofers from Meniscus, which should be fun to work with. Jim Holtz found the venue in Ankeny when Grinnell fell through. Truly a team effort and a very good one at that. Many thanks to all for a great event. I can't really think of anything I would change.
Keep an open mind, but don't let your brain fall out.
I'm very pleased that everyone seemed to like the room. I was very pleased with how it turned out size and acoustically. I thought it was one of the best Iowa DIY's been held in.
How about locking it in for next year? They're eager for business.
I used the Rival woofer R176-KCB-8 in my two way design that played late on Saturday. We played it loud and I thought the woofer maintained its composure very well. Thanks to Leon for making those available to try for such a low price. The Seas T25's I paired them with complained a little, which I haven't had happen at home.
I didn't hear the tweeter complaining much, but that could have been because of how impressed I was with the volume the Rival was capable of putting out cleanly. Right before this speaker played, we had a bass-bin with an 8" Vifa NE cranking, and it was generating similar SPL.
In regards to the volume, don't put the SPL meter away and give me the volume control.
= Howard Stark: "This is the key to the future. I'm limited by the technology of my time, but one day you'll figure this out."
Ya the R176-KCB-8 is a pretty cool driver. I like that flat black look. I toyed around with them for a while with a pair of HDS tweeters that a friend has. That's a real good combo.
Today I received the sweet photo dvd from @4thtry. Thanks Bill!! You are not only a fantastic DIY audio guy but you provide professional photo shoots for almost all of the events we all frequent - and you do it for free. MAC cannot thank you enough for your contribution.
Archive page to be published soon and we will also have a post-DIY giveaway courtesy of our good friends at RAD @Gowa. Thanks Leon!
Comments
The transition from project to project has never been smoother. As a bonus each exhibitor got to take their thumb drive home with them; packed with archived demos from the past several years of Iowa DIY shows.
JP is a true innovator!!
Another great time at IA DIY. It's been a couple of years so it was especially nice seeing old friends and making new ones. The venue turned out great and I really enjoyed the group dinners Friday and Saturday. Special thanks to the MAC team for all the time, effort and money it takes to host the event. Kudos gents!
It was especially gratifying to me to see that the DIY camaraderie and spirit remain intact. I was worried it had been lost after all the recent negativism and plain bad manners that have been on the forums lately. Guess I should go to more events!
I wanted to jot down some thoughts on this event, and DIY in general - so here goes.
1. I know there are many members of our community who have made the claims that DIY simply cannot do what commercial, particularly the ultra high end, companies can do. Our very own Brad brought a couple pairs that utlized vacuum formed cabinets with absolutely perfect fit/finish, good drivers utilizing competent crossovers, etc. We are watching DIY compete head to head with the ultra high end - it is happening right in front of our eyes. His 3-way bookshelf would command $25,000 in the high end market. We are now there on a construction level (including materials) - and we have been there on an engineering level for ten years or more. The commercial fans will someday be forced to cede this point, but don't expect that to happen any time soon.
2. The room was lively but not overly resonant - probably similar to most of our home environments. The room is always the great equalizer, and listeners get used to it in a hurry. The best part of this room was its size - it was juuuuuust big enough for speakers, door prizes, swap meet, and listeners. People who wanted to chat left the room and that was that. In that regards, this was the best event I have been to. I advocate similar sized venues in the future.
3. The quality of the demo music improves with each event. Keep up the good work, there. I received several comments from people who have never been or have not been for a decade or more where they indicated they preferred the 50/50 house/personal blend.
4. JP is sitting on a $5,000 something, there. Not sure what to call it at this time, but it is something of a pre/pro on steroids. Another indicator that high end is absolutely attainable for a dedicated DIY'er. It streamlined the entire process, contains no moving parts in the signal chain, and is very well implemented.
5. To my knowledge, there was not a single kit/someone else's design present (with the exception of some actual commercial stuff). Whew. That made me smile internally to no end. It showed me that every one who registered to present - did so because they designed it themselves. This needs to continue - we all love it when someone builds one of our designs, but... I love it more when I see a new face with a new design show up to these.
6. Who the heck were half of these people? That was spectacular! I loved seeing so many new faces.
7. Brad and I identified each of the three crossover variations, and both of us indicated a preference for the Bagby version. Whether it was our position in the back of the room or what - but the off-the-shelf was very apparent, and there were (to him and I) some obvious midrange issues in the Matt version. I have enough of an ego that I was pleased I am still able to listen and identify these kinds of things.
8. Who the hell brings a $2000 boombox to one of these? Dave Ellis, that's who. I am glad I got meet him - lovely gentleman.
9. Speaking of the boombox, I think we all heard the possibilities of letting a computer do the work. Oofdah, that was well done considering it was taming woofers with a breakup. Really got me looking closer at my Dayton DSP box. I was at a pawnshop this morning and saw an Elan 12 channel amp and juuuuuuust about grabbed it. Maybe there is a potential for DIY to meet the commerical guys if someone is willing to write an automation script for the Dayton... Hmmm...
10. Javad convinced me to convince Nick that he and I need to collaborate on a design using his pair of the big Dayton AMT. That is a great sounding unit, wow.
11. All in all, I had a very good, relaxed time. I sold a ton of shit and brought home barely anything. That was pretty cool. I stopped at Berkely outlet store in Spirit Lake and bought a new reel. Weather was nice enough, and I overheard at least two significant others saying they would attend in the future provided it is not in a town like Grinnell. My vote is we move it permanently to a venue such as the one we just used, in a community such as Ankeny as well.
8-
Yep, I saw that, and as waiting for a synopsis...
Brad can build some mean cabs! They remind me of Rockports.
Nick (ugly woofer)'s Jagged-PVC things turned out great looking!
Does anyone else have issues with pictures loading slow on this forum?
Food for thought- if Ankeny is the new home, that's an extra hour of driving for us east of there- and I'm already at about 8.5 to get there in Grinnell. I would doubt I'll attend in the future if it's further than it was before, but had aspirations for at least one more run out that way.
InDIYana Event Website
InDIYana Event Website
- This room was very good. My speaker projects actually sounded the same as they do here in my family room.
- Everyone was very respectful and took their chit-chat out to the lobby. I really appreciated that.
- Overall the hotel was just perfect. A really nice room at a great rate. The free breakfasts were top notch. The workers there were very friendly. The listening room was separated from the guest rooms so we could listen late on both nights and not disturb other guests.
- The front end and change over between projects was the smoothest I've seen at a DIY event. Thanks JP for the thumb drive loaded with a metric ton of demos! Huge bonus!
- The door prizes were great. I think everyone in the room took something nice home.
- The finishes on these DIY projects just keep getting better and better. Like JR said high end commercial quality. Jake's veneer was perfect. Brad and Nick's paint jobs were top notch.
- I think the extra 30 minute drive was well worth it.
- Lots of new faces and of course it was great to see all of my friends again! It was nice to meet Andy from Chicagoland and hear his active dipole project. The OB woofers really impressed me. I walked around the room while they were playing and the bass was so consistant... really really smooth and detailed bass. I was so impressed that I started planning my next project using miniDSP and dipole woofers before the event was even over! Thanks John H. for always letting me bounce my ideas off you and giving me good advice. I hope your wife knows I was just kidding about it being your project
In conclusion a huge thank you to Jason, Bryan, and Johnny for all that you guys did to put on such a great event. Also please tell Jaun from Cross Spectrum Labs thanks again for buying all of us lunch. I look forward to Iowa next year and hope you guys can secure to same venue. Hat's off to MAC!
I came away with new ideas to give a try, some great suggetions for my current set-up, and I'm looking forward to the next one already.
And THX for all of the sponsors !
I used the Rival woofer R176-KCB-8 in my two way design that played late on Saturday. We played it loud and I thought the woofer maintained its composure very well. Thanks to Leon for making those available to try for such a low price. The Seas T25's I paired them with complained a little, which I haven't had happen at home. The Tritium's handled the venue well, but I still need to get the bass alignment sorted out a little better before I publish.
Many contributed to making the event a success. Thanks to JR for covering the room, JP for the digital front end and handling all of the demo music. That was the smoothest I have ever seen a DIY event run. Bryan worked the volume during the event and battled with streaming. Thanks to Juan from Cross Spectrum Labs, who picked up lunch on Saturday. Many contributed very generous door prizes, including small vendors such as Rhythm Audio Design and Ellis Audio. I wound up with a pair of 5x8 woofers from Meniscus, which should be fun to work with. Jim Holtz found the venue in Ankeny when Grinnell fell through. Truly a team effort and a very good one at that. Many thanks to all for a great event. I can't really think of anything I would change.
Sehlin Sound Solutions
Archive page to be published soon and we will also have a post-DIY giveaway courtesy of our good friends at RAD @Gowa. Thanks Leon!
Stay tuned.