MiniDSP chassis done, at last

Not strictly related to the speakers themselves, but as the miniDSP is a core component in driving the speakers I’ve noted this in the “beyond-econowave” posts:
For a long time the miniDSP was sitting bolted to a lump of wood, the “temporary” test chassis, with a cardboard box sitting on top of it to cover it. But this test chassis was quite noisy.

I’ve made a simple pine enclosure that makes up in solidity what it lacks in sophistication. It still containes the miniDSP and 2 simple OPA2134 based pre-amps to give me a bit of gain over the quiet miniDSP output, but I’ve got a 4 channel stepped attenuator (actually two stereo stepped attenuators ganged together) as a master volume, plus the software volume control as a fine volume pot.

There’s also a switch to switch over to the analogue input for “guest devices” .e.g. mates dropping over with DJ mixers or synths – so the sockets are on the front for easy access.
Made with bits of pine from the local hardware warehouse, and painted with leftover stain/varnish from my big speakers so it matches.
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ZOG low budget battery powered party blaster system

This system was started off cobbling together assorted spare parts that were in the garage gathering dust, to create a small battery powered (and partially solar) system that can fit in the boot of the car and be moved on a small trolley. But of course then I added some extra bits as well to get it how I liked it, so it’s not really assembled from “junk” any more, but it is all inexpensive low power use.

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addition of wooden compression driver stands that hide the protection circuit.

With the woofer enclosures now looking pretty good it was time to tidy up how the compression driver is supported, and tidy away the LPAD and protection circuitry.
I got some small pine boxes of the right size (from ETSY seller HIPROGRESS. I stained this the same colour as the speaker boxes, and got some self adhesive 4.5mm neoprene sheet from Clark Rubber to act as vibration damping, and protect the finish. This acts as a nice firm bed for the compression driver.

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some experimentations with ACD (ActiveCrossoverDesigner) & MiniDSP

Both before and after I went overseas I’ve been experimenting with the most excellent Active Crossover Designer spreadsheets by Charlie Laub, with a lot of input and information from the Stereo.net.Au forum users, especially henry218. It’s a lot of fun to upload some measurements and get some crossover configs and ideas from helpful people and find they work! Later I’ve gotten to grips myself with cutting and pasting miniDSP biquad settings. There is quite a bit of info posted in the relevant thread, but this remains a work in progress while I improve the measurements needed to get the best results.

Also I’m quite curious to see the improved ACD that Charli Laub has in development that will include heatmap graph capability for evaluating directivity.

bass reflex enclosures for the Lorantz woofers now underway

After a very long delay I’ve finally gotten around to working on better cabinets for the Lorantz woofers that will unleash their full potential. Having adequate enclosures so I could be lazy and use the speakers as is no doubt contributed to the delay, but also some non audio related stuff got in the way as well, as happens.


boards assembled to check but not glued yet
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low cost simple John Linsley Hood 1969 class A amp kit build

A simple build of one of the basic JLH 1969 Class A kits into a dumpster dived old amp chassis.

JLH 1969 found object chassis

Used a 120W SMPS after reading in the DIYaudio forums lots of people getting positive results combining this older “classic” DIY design with modern quality switched mode power supplies.

I decided to build this to dabble further with Class A amplifiers after being quite impressed with a very well made DIY S.E.T. Class A valve amp I got to loan. One of the few gear changes my wife has made unsolicited positive comments about the sound.

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