JR, JP, Byran,
Thanks for another great event. It was great catching up with everyone.
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Minor correction, those were 10” Dayton RS passive radiators. One 75 g weight per PR, tuning somewhere in the mid 30s (allegedly), but I need to measure final impedance still to see where it finally landed.
Big thank you to everyone for putting on the show, I got a lot of great feedback on the design and some good questions I’ll need to think about for future builds. Also big thank you to the night crew - I was up til 0330 Friday and 0200 Saturday jamming out and chatting. If they weren’t broken in before, my Crescendos are definitely broken in after Saturday night!
Two questions though. First, what is the search term for the Scorpion song? I need that in my life and can’t seem to locate it on the Youtubes. Second, did anyone look at the SPL meter when playing the Scorpion song? Curious how loud we went.
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Thanks Danny, corrected above!
Thanks to Jason, JR, & Bryan for hosting another great DIY event. Good to see everyone again. Many very good sounding speakers, as usual. JR’s two raw particle board creations sounded amazing and sold off quickly. Danny’s huge towers were impressive; I had to move back two rows when listening to keep the SPL levels in check. After Ron got the polarity bugs worked out, his active DSP two-ways sounded excellent. For my speakers (MGU), I forgot to connect one of the two subwoofers when setting up, but they seemed to sound just fine. Too many good speakers to mention them all, but I’ll try to post some pics and descriptions of the ones not mentioned or posted so far.
Thanks also to Brad, Ron, Craig, and Mark S. for the “free table” additions to my classic test bench. Brad gave me an AudioSource EQ100 graphic equalizer that he said was just gathering dust and needed a good home. Ron gave me a Sabronics 8100 frequency counter that he built from a kit back in the 70’s/80’s era. Said it was just gathering dust and needed a good home. Craig gave me a Heathkit AG-7 audio generator that Mark S. had originally put on the free table at Indy. Said he had so many projects on deck that there was no way he was going to be able to do it justice. So he wanted me to take it to perform the restoration. Thanks much, guys! I’ll start a thread detailing the process. 
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I couldn’t agree more - another great event. It was nice to catch up with everyone, talk speaker stuff, and non-speaker related stuff. I heard some amazing designs and learned a few more things thanks to some of you guys giving me some more pointers.
I echo what Bill said about JR’s latest Cabrini design. You expect that type of sound out of pricier drivers, but it’s shocking to hear that from a budget GRS woofer and the Dayton Silky. I’m going to recommend them on AudioKarma. They totally embarrass so many of the vintage speakers those guys covet.
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Great event. Was good to meet/catch up with everyone. Optimum amount of great speakers too - overall a very nice and relaxed event. Plenty of time to listen to all speakers. Was also good to see a few active/hybrid speakers too
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I might sound like a broken record but thank you JR, JP, and BK. I had a great time just like every Iowa. The number of attendees and projects that demo’d was just perfect! Plenty of diverse things to listen to but it was never rushed and people could take their time to explain their design choices and field as many questions as we asked. It was nice to meet a couple of new people and it’s always fun catching up with the regulars. My mind was already day dreaming about my next project on my 4+ hour drive home.
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Thanks again to the MAC managers for another great DIYowa event! I enjoyed my abbreviated visit with everyone and appreciate your feedback on the OHM Model 5s.
Marvin
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It’s been several years since I last saw everyone. It was really nice catching up with everyone.
Bryan, Jason Jr, thank you for organizing the event. The GSP (gas station pizza) was quite good!
It was the perfect amount of builds and attendees. There was a lot of throwback drivers in these builds!
Seems like the active DSP products and designs are improving. It be interested in seeing more details about Ani’s setup with the Rasberry pie products. It looked like you could control it all from your phone? Also, Ani thank your daughter for offering to make me a name tag I think her penmanship is better than mine.
It was awesome staying up and chatting Friday night about voicing and preferences etc, playing random tracks! Hopefully this all motivates me to try and build something next year.
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I’d like to echo the thanks to Bryan, JR and Jason for building and maintaining this empire. Things ran as slick as ever and I’m so glad I was able to join in. A few thoughts:
*Many well thought out and gorgeous designs yet again, but JR’s GRS/Silkie creation was the revelation of the day. Incredible.
*It was mildly disappointing that no MAC drivers made an appearance. WTF guys?
This was probably my last go round pretending to be DIY, unless I can find a creative way to go active with my remaining leftovers. Nonetheless, I would not want to miss the opportunity to inject another 10 minutes of brainworms into my repertoire, even if I have to walk to get there. Which is still doable. Thanks to all who took part.
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Hey guys, a couple of USB flash drives were abandoned at the event, so I grabbed them. Let me know in a private message if they are yours and you would like them mailed back to you:
- An EMTEC 32 drive labeled VENTOY with random stuff such as OS images, PDFs, etc.
- A Marvel 2 GB drive with a bunch of .wdr design files and an InDIYana 2015 demo.
As always, is it our pleasure to put this together for you guys. All three of us had a great time mixing it up, listening to tunes, and just enjoying the overall experience.
Thank you for the kind words on that GRS/Dayton build. Details are found here: OK, time for another Cabrini iteration... — MAC/DIY
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Also, Mrs JR as always felt welcomed.
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I’ll start out with pictures not posted by Tom or Craig so far.
First up, we have the “Tuby” speakers by John H. Drivers were the SB29 neo tweeter and Faital pro 6FE100 woofer. I missed the xover frequency. John said he designed these for use up against a wall connected to a vacuum tube amplifier. Only about 3dB of BSC applied. So they may sound a little thin when positioned well out into the room.
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“XTentia 8” speakers designed and built by Tom S. Per Tom, the name was a suggestion by ChatGPT. Drivers were the Peerless 830869 8" HDS woofers and Peerless XT25 tweeter mounted in a shallow waveguide (I missed the specific model number of the waveguide). Crossover was 2400Hz. Per Tom, the waveguide was doing the XT25 “no favors.” He said it was “not offensive” but that they simply “don’t mate.”
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“WK-5” speakers. Brought by Mark S. Per Mark, these were an unpublished SB Acoustics kit. Completely designed and built by SB Acoustics. WK-5 stands for “Wharfdale killer 5.” Drivers are the SB Acoustics SB13PFC25-4 woofer and SB26SG tweeter.
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“Gormacho’s” designed and built by Craig S. @PWRRYD Drivers are the Fountek Neo CD1.0 tweeter, Cam 558 midrange, and Usher 8945A woofer. Crossovers are 900Hz and 4500-5000Hz LR4. Craig said that these have been his daily driver living room TV speakers for the past 10 years or so. Beautiful cabinet work and veneer. They sounded just as good as they looked.
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“Maidin Mhaith” speaker designed by JR. Cabinets were PE’s .375 cu.ft curved knock down units. Drivers: Madisound Wavcor $28 buyout tweeter. Newark MultiComp pro $28 woofer that looks like a RS150 clone, but the phase plug is actually a dusk cap. Crossover was 1900Hz. Amazing sound quality from relatively inexpensive drivers. JR seems to have a really good ear for voicing his speakers. High frequencies sounded very natural with a good sense of soundstage depth.
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“No Name” speaker designed by JR. Drivers: Usher woofer and NLA Usher version of the Dayton RS28 tweeter. This speaker was built as a retro type “throw-back” to yesteryear using the same design methods that he would have used 20 years ago. For instance, he used 1/2" roundovers, offset the tweeter to one side of the baffle, and used a 4th order 1800Hz LR crossover. Voicing, however, was according to modern standards. From where I was sitting, the high frequencies blended very well with the woofer. There was also a very good sense of soundstage depth. And the high’s were light and “airy” with no sense of harshness.
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