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NY Blast 2000
Nothing bad, just different taste.... by Joerg Heyer The NY-Blast was a get together for exchanging ideas and listening to DIY fullrange speakers. Attending the meeting were Rick Schultz, Stephen Fretz, Jeremy Epstein, Joerg Heyer, Herbert Jeschke, Peter Boser, Eli Duttman and Gary Bronner. There was a serious amount of speakers, amps preamps, turntable and other stuff hauled into our apartment in the 2nd floor and it was well above 90F. Was it worth the schlepping.... Hang on. The general set up was a Theta Miles CD player or BIC960 turntable with an AT 331LP cartridge, AVA FET-Valve preamp (an ET Foreplay was used until the TT was setup) and Welborne 300B monoblocks. The format was adapted from NY-Noise. each speaker was shortly inroduced and the designer decided on 2-3 pieces of music to show off his speakers (unfortunately time was limited with 12 different speakers). Let the Show begin...I would like to refer you to the reports by Jeremy Epstein and Gary Bronner, which in its entirety truly reflects the events on this warm Saturday in the Bronx.
The first speakers introduced were a very interesting new development by Rick Schultz (left), who made the trip from Wisconsin. His Exolinear Jordan JX92 are huge speakers featuring a single Jordan driver. The Exolinear design idea is described by Rick at T-Line Speakers. They sounded full with a very surprising presence in the bass. A huge soundstage is presented on a large life-like scale. Very dynamic and very true to the music. After this presentation and all the schlepping stuff around it was time for a lunch break featuring Rick's Wisconsin style Bratwurst… Those alone were worth coming for. Meanwhile we switched the setup to Eli's preamp allowing for vinyl to be played. Stephen Fretz presented his Crowley 16 speakers. They feature a Diatone 610 driver in vented box. Music was just flowing with a nice and easy to listen to sound and very dynamic presentation. The lower octaves were present and well defined. This is an easy to live with speaker, which is not excelling in any area but does everything right. The cabinet was just beautiful. We then switched to Stephen's Crowley 30 speakers. These are an open baffle design with a single PHY-HP KM30 dual cone driver (below). The driver is very nicely build (it better be for the price). They were to big for the room, but nevertheless showed their potential for larger rooms. These speakers blasted us against the wall with their dynamics and were overloading the room with their bass. There was a little metallic sheen on the trebles, but this can very well disappear if your listening chair is more than 6 feet away from the speakers as you should be.
Jeremy's RS 40-1197 folded TQWP took on the task to follow the PHY's. It is still a work in progress version with one side clamped onto the speakers. The speakers also featured Advent tweeters (build in 1973). Well there was a difference in scale compared to the PHY's, but the 1197 drivers did not need to hide. The bass was very nice: deep, powerful and with texture. The music was presented with ease, nice soundstaging and focus. Jeremy used a notch filter to tame the peakiness of the 1197's, but I thought you could still detect a little of it (I prefer Dammar treatment, see below). The Advent tweeter also helped to add extension to the treble. I understand that Jeremy is still experimenting with tweeters. Well next came my 1197 vented box design featuring 2 driver per speaker. The lower driver is used to correct for the diffraction loss of the narrow baffle and rolled of at around 500 Hz). The stands are incoporated into the speaker so that the appearance is of a slim tower (designed for a high SOFA factor). It was obvious that they had to sound better than Jeremy's, because he bought his drivers for $8 on sale and I bought mine regular for $12 (probably the signature version hand selected by Mr. Shack). Well, I was up for a disappointment. Jeremy's TQWP horn had much better bass: more powerful, better defined and tuneful. It became clear that the tuning of the port can be improved. The towers imaged very nicely, had no dynamic constrains (neither had the TQWP's). The Dammar treatment helped for a easy presentation and evened their frequency response. Like Jeremy, I found the TQWP a better solution, also the vented design is easier to build. Further up in the ascent of RS drivers. Herbert Jeschke, who came to the Bronx from Philadelphia, presented two designs based on the RS 40-1354A drivers. First he presented the Hawaii speaker (below), as described in VALVE magazine. It immediately became clear that the 1354 driver is much more balanced than the 1197. The most apparent differences were the bass and the smoother and more extended frequency response. The Hawaii is a very nice little speaker to listen to.
Herbert's more serious attempt is visually a stunner. His Voigt pipe (left) with the extended baffle wings ....different (also very helpful in carrying the beasts). His design is described in Adventure with Voigt Pipes. When the music began to play a few jaws dropped. What a step up from the Hawaii speakers. The music was totally freed from the speakers. Very nice even tonally balanced. The bass was plentiful, deep and very articulate. The music just flowed, singer were present with us in the room. I am missing the words to describe the result of this "cheap" driver well implemented in a great cabinet. You got to hear this speakers. We then changed to Eli's bookshelf speakers. He used a 2-way ported design (MCM #551200 and #53570, L/F blocking cap 2.2 uF) tuned to 56 Hz, which had to fit into a given space in his bookshelf--job well done. It was amazing to listen to the huge sound space these little speakers produced. And a lot of bass for the size of the speaker. Very relaxed sound without being sluggish or dynamically restricted. We then switched to a Supravox design by Stephen Fretz. Those are a French 98 db/W/M drivers and obtaining them seems to be a task for the non French speaking community. The drivers were in a ported box very similar to his Diatone enclosure. They are very dynamic and well extended in both frequency extremes with emphasis on the top octaves. The very detailed presented music jumped at you and dragged you into the music. The result was certainly worth the trouble of obtaining them. With all the interesting designs from Stephen one can only hope that Crowley Acoustics (only recently I came to appreciate the name of the company) will be in business again. Stephen and Crowley Acoustics are providing a unique range of fullrange speakers. Last not least we were listening to two open baffle - Altec combinations. The first were Altec 755C from Peter Boser. They immediately grabbed our attention. They sounded lean, even with the wall reinforcement, but the potential was very obvious. A very detailed open sound kept us listening and listening..... The same baffle was then used for Jeremy's Altec 409-8C. They were very full sounding with a big sound. Rick hinted that wall mounting would be a good choice. The rich sound with a lot of bass for an open baffle was very pleasant. After all the speakers were presented we reinstalled Herbert's Voigt Pipes and listened to Jeremy' "free lunch/monkey" 2A3 amp, Herbert's 811-10 amp and Gary Bronner's Sun VT52 amp just for the fun of it. Herbert's VP's were well suited to convey all the differences of the amps. It was my first time to listen to sub 300B power amps and it was a great experience to hear one watt make Herbert's speakers sing. Interestingly every speaker presented let us enjoy the music. Each listeners might have a different favorite, but it sure is because of differences in taste. I was amazed by the fact that there was not one speaker I clearly disliked (something I expected to happen). One of the highlights of the meeting was to meet all the people with great minds. It was plain fun to chat, share ideas and discover new music. I find it very rewarding to share and discuss ideas about music and DIY (not technology-babble), rather than letting HI-FI become a solitary experience. I can only encourage you to build some fullrange speakers for yourself. There are drivers in every price range available that will sound great. Combined with cabinets designs available on the internet one will easily obtain results that will bring you very satisfactory results at any price range. Not to mention the fun while designing (grrrrrh: 3rd time I calculated this, with the 4th different result) and building (AHHHH why don't those 2 pieces fit?????). I would like to thank all of the participants for not only putting up with some serious traveling but also providing their speakers and gear. This made an unique experience of different DIY speaker designs possible. I also would like to thank James Melhuish for providing his website and Forum and for posting the meeting reports. Free Lunch at the Bronx Bashby Jeremy Epstein Well, a group including Joenetters Gary Bronner, Peter Boser (Peter, email me your surface mailing address) and Joerg Heyer, got to hear the new amp on some nice full-rangers yesterday. I welcome the comments of those in the room about the new amp, and there is no need to keep it private if it's not enthusiastic, my feelings won't be hurt. I will start the discussion by admitting that the Free Lunch did not smoke the Welborne Laurels, which pissed me off (the Laurels were running Sovtek 300B's, is that right, Joerg?) But it did sound pretty darn good. We also heard the Sun 10 amp kit courtesy of Gary, which was very very nice indeed. I'd like to hear a Darling with iron as nice as that, Gary, as long as we're talking milliwatts. The occasion was a full-range driver fest (The Bronx Bash) at Joerg's. I can state categorically that there is some good sound to be heard from a variety of full-range drivers properly implemented, or even the way I do it. Highlights were Stephen Fretz's Chevy Suburban Full Of Sound, out of which emerged about the most amazing series of loudspeakers it has been my pleasure to enjoy : Diatone and Supravox transmission-lines, and PHY coaxials on a big pair of folding baffles that were all just amazing, especially the PHY's. I pulled my speakers out after the PHY's and, though the price disparity was apparent (actually, my speakers *cabinets* were much nicer-looking than his, but then his are just a mock-up baffle right now) I feel safe in saying his speakers were not $$167$$ times better. Herbert Jeschke's tall Voigt pipes (right) using the Radio Shack 40-1354 were also a big highlight at a considerably lower price point - it was this speaker we used to compare amplifiers at the end of a long, hot day of listening. The impression I was left with as far as the two different cheap Radio Shack drivers was that the 40-1354 (with whizzer cone) is more of a true full-ranger than the 40-1197, and has a more even tonal balance. I have tamed mine somewhat with a filter that works pretty well. Joerg used Dammer varnish on his 40-1197's and I think that was a smart move, they sounded less peaky and did not seem to need to be rebalanced nearly as much as mine had before I put the filter in. He was using two 40-1197's in a smaller ported cabinet, with one driver rolled off above 500Hz, in an effort to up the efficiency and compensate for diffraction losses - I thought, since the cabinet ended up the same size as my TQWP anyway (he built it as an integral stand/speaker combo) you might as well do the pipe, the pipe gave fuller bass. It makes me wonder what the TQWP with two drivers would sound like, too. (Blackness, you listening?) We listened to a nice pair of sorta-TL, sorta-not speakers (also with the stand integrated into the box) using a Jordan JX92 driver that sounded really nice except for the last octave or so of bass. (Rick Schultz, their designer, was pretty insistent that the design was not quite a TL, I don't know enough about speakers to tell. Rick came out from Milwaukee, with these beasts travelling via UPS! Nice effort!) Rick uses an interesting construction trick : he braces the driver against the back corners of the box, so each mounting screw goes into a buttress that extends back to the rear corner. I think this is a very slick idea. Peter Boser brought a pair of ALTEC drivers (755? is that right?) on a simple 2' x 2' plywood baffle which sounded phenomenal pushed close to the side walls to give some bass reinforcement. Encouraged by this, I put a pair of ALTEC 409-8C coaxials I had brought, into the same baffle, and was again shocked by the sound quality. We listened to every speaker using the Laurels first, then set up Herbert's pipes and started trying amps.
To me the Free Lunch amp sounded more "lush" than the 300B, which was stiffer, more transparent perhaps, and I think a little faster. Tonal balance into the Voigt pipe's load was maybe a little rounder in my amp, (low-midrange, I guess?) and I don't think my amp played quite as much at the high end. There was a glassy quality to the Laurel that I'm not certain I'd prefer over the long haul, however, I can categorically state that everything sounded very good, with the common factor being the Laurel and Eli Duttman's AVA FET-Valve preamp (Eli also brought some nice two-way mini monitors which were surprisingly good in such fast company!) so the conclusion I drew was that the Laurel was pretty hot shit. Eli was also kind enough to bring a turntable, nothing fancy, a BIC with an AT cartridge, which nevertheless managed to sound very good indeed. I drew the conclusion that the FET-valve had a pretty nice phono stage in it. By the time we got Herbert's 811 amp and Gary's 10 amp in, I can't say I was really able to listen too critically anymore, but I liked what I heard. Herbert was demonstrating three different bias schemes for the 811, which he described as choosing between more power and more musical, but I actually thought the more-power connection was also more musical to my ears. It was pretty late by then, though, so I may not have been hearing what he was hearing. I realize I sound like Pollyanna here, everything sounded good, yadda yadda yadda, but you had to be there - everything DID sound good. Eli pointed out that what we had assembled was a high-end dealer's worst nightmare, lots of cheap DIY gear that kicked serious butt. I guess on the JoeNet that doesn't really count as news, though. Bronx Bash 2000by Gary Bronner Jeremy, Nice write up. By the way, I think your amp (the free lunch 2A3 amp) sounded really good. I agree with your assessment that the Laurels, on balance, were slightly better. They seemed to match synergistically with Herbert's Voigt pipes giving a very musical sound and a nice presence. Your amps sounded almost as good. They had great transparency and got all of the subtle musical details right. They didn't have quite the presence or soundstage of the Laurels which I suspect could be related to low end response. I've found that whenever I add a subwoofer to a system it makes the system give you more information about the space of the recording and seems to improve the soundstage. I wonder if your output transformers might be rolling off the low end a bit more than the Laurels thus losing some of that information. That would be my guess anyway. Except for that, I think your amps were as good as if not better than the Laurels. In fact I'm impressed enough to think about building a pair. About my 10 amp, it sounded good but it did run out of steam on some material. With a bit more than 1 watt, there are limits to what you can do. Here is my take the speakers we heard: As I said, there some magic going on with the Laurel amps and the Voigt pipes with the inexpensive radio shack driver. I could listen to that for a long time. I also liked the Diatones much more than I expected. I thought they sounded really good. The Supravox was not my cup of tea. The PHY-HP drivers sounded promising but simply overwhelmed the small room we were in. It was hard to make a judgment about them, but they certainly showed promise. I thought your speakers (Jeremy's) sounded good, but I think Joerg is on the right track with the damar coating. I think that and a better tweeter would make your speakers really sing. You are right that the Altec 755Cs on the baffle against the wall sounded amazing. I can't wait to hear these in a better enclosure. I've got a pair of these and some 2 cu ft boxes almost finished, so this has me motivated to hurry that project along. Anyway, a fun time was had by all and all of the speakers and amps were worth listening to. Thanks to Joerg Heyer for opening his house for this event. Top
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