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Austin Audiophile DIY Horn & Large Speaker System - Great listening

Flint

Prodigal Son
Superstar
Today I spent nearly three hours seriously listening to an amazing DIY system built by a guy here in Austin which was very enjoyable.

His speaker were a great two way system with two 1970s era 15" Altec-Lansing woofers and an amazing Western Electric Horn from the 1940s mated to a TAD compression driver.

Lee_DIY_Horns_20190324_155959.jpg

The cabinets are the size of refrigerators and in listening the bass extended well into the 30-40Hz range. Overall the speakers were very dynamic, had great stereo imaging, with high SPLs and decent clarity. On the downside they lacked a the resolution and detail of my main speakers and became quite congested in the midrange around the 500Hz to 2,000Hz range. Also, certain bass notes below 50Hz completely resonated and rang for too long.

Overall the listening experience was extremely pleasant. The overall frequency balance (timber) was pleasing and the upward dynamics were very good. The downward dynamic (sustain) were less accurate and lacking.

The system consisted of all custom designed and built gear - the CD transport was also the streaming player running a custom version of Linux focused on audio and relatively early to use. He built his own DAC using some very intriguing technology which has no buffering or internal clocking resulting in a close match tuned to the source component. The sound was good from the source, but I noticed a strange start / stop of a background hiss between audio tracks on my CDs. It was short, but very audible.

The preamp was also custom designed and built. It was very simple, as you'd expect, and the volume control was a remote controlled pot which used a remote to activate the motor on the potentiometer - a clean design.

The amp are custom designed tube amps, the tweeters have a SET amp which puts out approximately 8 watts per channel. The other amp is for the woofers and is a push/pull tube amp which is capable of about 20 watts per channel. They were enough power, it seemed to me, but I cannot determine from my listening session if the congestion, mussiness and congestion was from the amp generating audible distortion, or the speakers' limitations.

One very odd thing - I listen with my glasses off with my eyes closed. I found with this system my head was coerced to turn leftward where my nose was aimed somewhere between center and the left speaker at which point the stereo image seemed most ideal. I mentioned that to the owner, and he acknowledged it was something he also noticed. He even when so far was to swap all of the drivers, amp channels, preamp channels, and so on, while trying to find the root cause of the issue - but nothing worked. Strange.

In general, I enjoyed the system as it was voiced to my liking and could produce the sorts of dynamics I prefer. It wasn't perfection and Nirvana wasn't achievable.

I enjoyed my time with this guy.

He was also very fun to hang with when we weren't just listening to music, We disagree on the priorities of what causes a system to sound good or bad, but we are closer than most folk. For instance, he was agree that everything that matters in a cable can be measures with LCR (Inductance, Capacitance, and Resistance), but then will talk about the magic of OFC cable. He'll admit that acoustics are critical, but them claim the amp is vastly more important. It is a fun conversation - and he is willing to have the conversation without being offended or demanding I agree with him. I like that.

Anyway. I thought I'd share.
 
So when does he come over to listen to your speakers?

He came over a few weeks ago. He openly admitted he's never heard any level of detail and dynamic accuracy like he's heard from my system. In fact, he admitted nothing has come close to what he heard in my listening room. He also told me my "Rocketman" speakers are easily as good as any speaker he's heard selling for less than $15,000. So, I am batting 1000 with this guy. Maybe that's why he is so nice to me.

I will add.... this is one of those who listened to my system at about 10dB SPL lower levels than I prefer. I find that intriguing. On his system I listened at my preferred levels. He was there and never expressed concern.
 
I really enjoy hearing about other folks with the know how to put a system like that together. Sounds like it was a good time and you met a pretty nice guy. Thanks for sharing.
 
I didn't mention it to the owner, but there was a clearly audible 60Hz hum and noise floor hiss which was clearly audible in the quiet passages of my auditioning tracks and blatantly obvious between tracks. Given the dedication to detail, his profession as a EE working in communications and sensors, and his proclivity to focus on thing like which Delta Sigma PCM tuning he chose for his DAc, I was surprised he had a noise floor and hum issue.
 
Those horns are very unforgiving when it comes to noise. Perhaps as admirable as his efforts were, and I for sure applaud him for that he may have traveled a bit too far down a very complex road. Issues he very well maybe well aware of and will look to remeady in the future.
 
He is planning all new speakers in the near future. Right now he is building what looks to become an amazing listening roo., much larger, in a big out building on his property. He both wantems a better room and somewhere more people can gather.
 
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