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.
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.
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.
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.
