crappyjones123

holy shit thats awesome. great for offices.

happy birthday dinny.

if you are going to build a pair of floorstanders then go for a pair of bib's (if you want to go cheap) or a big ass complex horn (curvy chang or dallas 2 etc but that will cost a lot more money).

hmm...an array of enabled 127e's... thanks for the link colin. reading starts.

pardon my ignorance in the matter, but besides efficiency gain what are arrays of speakers good for? wouldnt it be better to just have 1 "good" driver vs 15 "not so good" drivers? or perhaps how would 15 of those "good" drivers differ from using just 1 of them?

how the hell do you get your wiring so neat inspiring work as always nate.

happy birthday sir.

i didnt get the joke either. now i do. ha ha.

where are the monoblocks? am i missing part of the picture or part of the joke?

those look fantastic dusty

SACThailand came across them while researching the gm70 tube. some of the amps look very well done.

fonken vs metronome shootout can certainly be arranged anytime after dec 9th as long as you have time. if i can make it to mikes meet i can bring them with me. you can just take them with you and i can come by after the 9th or sometime to have a little mini meet and take them with me after we decide which speaker wins i wish i had some time these days to do the casework on the decware amp. the only things that remains are the panel mounted components. i still need to order the volume knob, speaker posts and rca sockets. hopefully i get some time over the next few days to finish that so i can have it at the meet. if you can, please bring that little 10watt amp you had with the metronomes when i came over. the decware doesnt have enough grunt in stereo to power both fonkens. in mono it sounds excellent.

oddly enough i agree with dan on this one. the classes ive had to teach, have mostly been largish undergraduate classes (~130 students) and only 3 grad courses (~10 students). the grad courses people just came to class without any issue or requirement for attendance. complete nightmare with the undergrads. people who were there to cause trouble only distracted the students who actually wanted to be there. it was better to have them just stay at home. 86% of the students who attended got a B or higher. 13% of those who didnt got a B or higher. take that however you like. personally, id rather have students who care to learn in my class.

i have an exam on that friday that i am trying to get out of and you cant miss class. wtf man, wtf?

vicki stands made out of plywood, same as mine can be made for ~$35-$40. only bad part is you cant change the height. if its something you would like to do just let me know what height stands you would like and i can ask the guys who did my speakers to do the stands.

woo is always nice to look at. and listen to.

J2 jumper is there.

turned it on again, no more opt noise. however, voltages for A and B are out of spec

yes. i checked all the resistors with a dmm. correct values. reflowed solder to all joints.

yes there is a bolt there. should i remove it? edit: nut removed.

email that i sent to steve deckert (owner of decware) "I have the whole amp wired up right now just to test everything and have a few problems. 1. The output transformers or one of them is making a high pitched noise. Its continuous. 2. There was a burning smell about 30 seconds after I turned on the amp. I turned it off immediately. I haven’t turned it on still. The voltages are as follows, A – 343.5V B – 300.1V C – 8.64V D – 3.061V Attached are pictures of the amp currently. Any ideas would be appreciated. " all voltages are within spec.

or this there are smaller versions of the fonkens as well. ] ps. mike those things are 95db and the miniwatt doesnt drive them too loud? with the t amp and 90db efficient drivers i can get to uncomfortable levels about 40% of the volume knob on the amp...wonder if its the amp. nice looking speakers though

parts required for this project were as follows. 3/4" plywood. he let me have the regular cheap stuff for free so i used that. usually baltic birch is suggested. mdf can be used but the designers suggest baltic birch. 1 sheet is more than enough. a 1'x1' piece of 3/8" solid wood for the spacers. 2 drivers (fostex 127e). the cabinet was designed using the enabled 127e in mind however the stock drivers can be used as well. 4 binding posts - 2 red + 2 black 4' speaker cable to wire the driver to the binding posts. some kind of padding. i had access to dacron padding for free so i used it. its not ideal but if you get something for free it will be very hard to hear the difference between it and something that costs a heck of a lot more. the designers suggested i use 1/2" recycled blue jean cotton fiber. assortment of screws to mount the driver onto the baffle and screw the back panel in. make sure you have a way to get inside the cabinet if you ever have to change the binding posts or the wire or change how much padding is inside the box. the driver, posts and wire can all be ordered from madisound.com. great guys with excellent service. if you would like to use the modded drivers then look on audiogon/diyaudio/audioasylum for a used pair. they dont come up that often but i got my pair used so its not impossible. if you would like to buy them new email dave or chris at planet10-hifi.com. dave's email is on there somewhere. my personal suggestion would be to stick with the design that uses 1/2" plywood instead of the 3/4" because quite a few fonkens have been built using 1/2" plywood. i am a beta tester for the 3/4" design so received the cut plans for free but the dimensions for the back panel, front baffle and top panel were wrong by 2" at worst. a few other things need to be fixed as well so just stick with the design that has been out for quite a few months and a lot of people have already built the boxes with it without problems. there are a few other tips that came as a result of improvisations that had to be made in the absence of the correct hardware and tools. given the incorrect dimensions of the panels some on the stop decisions had to be made which fixed the immediate problem but caused others later in the build stages. i dont want to write them all out however if you want to build a pair then i will put them down as i have time. i dont mind sharing my mistakes or speed bumps but only if you are actually going to build them as it would be a time consuming task to write them all up. from my limited time with them i do have one observation to make. they like to turned up. they sound good at low volumes but they come to life with higher volumes. however i am using a t amp right now that was kindly loaned to me by tyrion. perhaps with a better amp that problem at low volumes gets resolved. they seem to be more resolving at higher volumes than at lower ones. as far as my involvement with the project goes, i basically was taught what all the tools in the shop were and how they were used correctly. then i cut up the panels for one speaker after watching one the gentleman do it. i cut out the holes in the front panel and beveled the back of the speaker mount to give the driver some breathing room (very important). cut up all the spacers. stained the spacers and the insides of the side panels so they didnt stick out as raw wood when the veneer was applied. once the veneer was applied i stained it and applied 3 coats of lacquer and one of clear coating. i think i would like to use some furniture wax for a few coats to make them real shiny but perhaps not. they look nice in an understated kind of way. and finally did all the soldering which isnt really much. the rest of the building process was done by Vincent (Vince) Conners (owner) and Julio (affectionately called 'huli', the carpenter). their business is called Creations Unlimited. 134 NW 2nd Street, Boca Raton, FL 33432 [email protected] 561-362-8833 if any established members would like vince's cell phone number please ask me via pm or post here. i received the dacron padding from a shop behind vince's shop called Boca Canvas Inc. they mostly do canvasing for boats and had older dacron padding lying around. for this pair i used a 2'x1' piece and still have a lot left over. i went and called around 9 shops and received quotes of over $100 for a 12"x10" piece of mdf with a 4" hole cut out in the center so i could make some open baffles for the drivers. when i called vince he asked me to just come over and that he could just let me have his scrap pieces for free. i went over and had a 4 hour conversation about speakers and different crazy designs for horns and what not. at the end of 4 hours he agreed to build me a pair of fonkens for a price that actually made me speechless. i am not exaggerating here. i actually couldnt believe the number he quoted me. the price for the speakers for any other pairs that he does is up to him so i wouldnt be surprised if he quotes $50-$100 over what i paid as it did take roughly 14 hours of work to get them from a sheet of wood to something that played music. i dont want it to sound like an advertisement but i dont really care if it comes across as one. they are both genuinely nice guys and the prices are about as fair as they can get. building your own pair of speakers is a shitload of fun and i wish i didnt have school everyday or i would have been at the shop helping those guys do whatever they were doing but if you dont have access to tools or the space to tackle such a project, then i would definitely suggest giving vince a call and finding out your options with him. (i speak highly of them because they are great guys and excellent woodworkers, not because of any kind of deal that might be struck between a customer and a service provider to give a glowing review of the product or the services rendered in return for a lower price. no such deal was struck. i just have nothing but respect and praise for both of them. the schematics are available here - planet_10 hifi far too many plans there to even discuss. pick your driver and go with any design. hard to go wrong with any of them.

solder is on both sides of the board. will post pictures of it later. i was doing what george at tubelab suggested. put the board between two books and let gravity do its job with the solder so the component is held in place. lead free solder was used. and i did solder at supposedly low temperatures (600F) as i was scared i might damage the board/parts by setting it too high. now it has come to my attention that 600F is a little low. +1 for luvdunhill

thanks both. the stands need to be shortened by about 1.5". the drivers are around the top of my ears. a little over infact. the imaging is fantastic. i just moved them about 6" apart and now they image even better. no shrill top end. clean to about 45hz. usable low frequency is probably around 60-65hz perhaps. but has no problems reproducing a 45hz test tone at -6db.