Electronics! Falling into the geek rabbit hole.

The Klipsch are nice, I've had a chance to listen to a real nice set of heresy's, there's a reason they go for big bucks.

The phase link is a little complicated, but basically it is a three way system, but where the tweeter and mid crossover, the response drops totally, no overlap, something to do with when you do the mid tweet xover, if you cross them over to get complete frequency coverage, the xover values result in a phase shift for the tweeters. So they end up out of phase. This results in either a bump or drop in response around the xover point. So they build the crossover with values that keep the tweeters in phase, but result in a gap in frequency response. So a separate bandpassed driver fills that gap and allows all drivers to operate in phase. So the 4" driver recieves a narrow bandpass filter and just plays a very narrow range, in phase, and the result is all 4 drivers, and the entire frequency range is kept in phase. This link does a better job explaining it. Lots of crazy math involved.

https://www.tonmeister.ca/wordpress/...0two%20drivers.

sent from Utah.

When I found my Khorns they ended my search for speakers, I was using DQ-20's with a Velodyne HGS-18 and was very happy with them but the Khorns sound better I think. The Dahlquists aren't going anywhere though, I moved them to the HT system because I felt bad seeing them unused. I have a set of B&O S-75's I'm using as garage speakers (or a set of Pioneer 12" woofers with EV horns), and a set of S-45-2's in the bedroom that I set on top of AR-5's in custom cabinets and they stayed, they sound pretty nice.
AR-5 nightstands
Attachment 336988
sealed up since new
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^^ those AR-5s look nice!!

and if i had the room shape for k-horns i would totally love to try a pair. unfortunately, very few truly rectangular rooms in this house. but i feel the same way about my scala's - went thru 5-10 different speaker sets before landing on them, and as soon as i hooked them up to a good amp i thought - "this is home".

Those cabinets are cool!

sent from Utah.

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Originally Posted by basinbeater

The Klipsch are nice, I've had a chance to listen to a real nice set of heresy's, there's a reason they go for big bucks.

The phase link is a little complicated, but basically it is a three way system, but where the tweeter and mid crossover, the response drops totally, no overlap, something to do with when you do the mid tweet xover, if you cross them over to get complete frequency coverage, the xover values result in a phase shift for the tweeters. So they end up out of phase. This results in either a bump or drop in response around the xover point. So they build the crossover with values that keep the tweeters in phase, but result in a gap in frequency response. So a separate bandpassed driver fills that gap and allows all drivers to operate in phase. So the 4" driver recieves a narrow bandpass filter and just plays a very narrow range, in phase, and the result is all 4 drivers, and the entire frequency range is kept in phase. This link does a better job explaining it. Lots of crazy math involved.

https://www.tonmeister.ca/wordpress/...0two%20drivers.

sent from Utah.

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huh, thanks for the education BB. sounds cool.

also if any UT mags ever wanted to listen to records n drink whiskey n shit i'm always game. but maybe not when there's a goddamn plague. maybe after the plague ends.

looked up the honey badger amp, looks killer - 150wpc is enough to do serious damage to our masonry though. i've wanted to do a 300b kit for a while now, but i'm a little dumb and a lot clumsy.

Mine should be maxin out around 180wpc. [emoji16]

Stereo geeks unite. When the covids is over, I'm down to get around and listen to some fancy systems and killer tunes.

Next project is a gb150 amp.

sent from Utah.

I've been happy with 160wpc from my Sansui G-8700DB for 40 years, I've thought about selling it a few times, glad I didn't

Denon short stack. Nice, but not as nice as the homebrew honey badger. Did some a b testing with the Denon preamp vs the Sony digital preamp feeding the honey badger, and I'm going to stick with the Sony. Big fan of the Sony ta e1000esd. I have two of them, and as long as you send it a digital signal, it is fantastic. If any SLC locals want a big power matched set, this Denon will make a nice addition to the living room. Looks cool to boot. Kind of like the evil robot Maximilian in the black hole. Attachment 337143Attachment 337144

sent from Utah.

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Originally Posted by basinbeater

Denon short stack. Nice, but not as nice as the homebrew honey badger. Did some a b testing with the Denon preamp vs the Sony digital preamp feeding the honey badger, and I'm going to stick with the Sony. Big fan of the Sony ta e1000esd. I have two of them, and as long as you send it a digital signal, it is fantastic. If any SLC locals want a big power matched set, this Denon will make a nice addition to the living room. Looks cool to boot. Kind of like the evil robot Maximilian in the black hole. Attachment 337143Attachment 337144

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Attachment 337154

I'm sorry, Dave. I'm afraid I can't do that.

So Viva has exceptional taste in women as we all know, but his fine taste extends to stereo equipment as well. He sent over a nakamichi sr3a for a quick tune up. The nakamichi Sr receivers are fantastic units. Very nice build quality, and exceptional sound quality thanks to a Nelson pass designed stasis amplifier. I hooked it up, and it played out both channels, but didn't sound great, like I know it should, and one channel was cutting in and out. I popped her open to see what was going on. I gave all the knobs and switches a thorough bath of deoxit and worked them all in and out and side to side like 100 times. I checked the bias, and it had drifted. It was down in the low teens for both channels, and ought to be 20mv on each side. A little deoxit on the pot, some workin back and forth, and then blew it out with some compressed air. Checked for dry solder joints, and found a couple on the ac power board that feeds the power switch. Reflowed the whole board. Let it dry for a bit, and fired it back up. Checked bias adjustment, and got them both set to 22mv. Then I hit all the scratches and scuffs with a black paint marker to make them disappear. Looks a ok. It's been playing for about an hour now, not too hot, and the leftover salmon sounds great. These are great units. Did I mention? The nakamichi receivers are the shit.
I'll let it play the rest of the evening, and if all ends well, it's headed back to ya Viva. I want to make sure your tunes sound good as you do your research for the Friday padded room thread.
Attachment 337750Attachment 337751Attachment 337752Attachment 337753

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^^^I approve the above post. My plan for this receiver is to use it in Le Garage, hooked up to some vintage ADS 690s. Will probably use the CAL Ikon in this system, too.

What the hell's a "spark killer"?

Supposed to prevent arcing at relay contacts, thus preventing the relay contacts from burning and developing carbon on the contacts and losing their ability to conduct.

Should be a nice little garage system.

sent from Utah.

a nice garage system?? that's a nicer unit that 95% of the people i know who have audio in their home! fucking hell, viva truly is a man of "broad" tastes.

well done, BB, this is seriously some impressive shit

No doubt. I can't say it enough, those old Nakamichi Sr receivers (and the ta ones from what I understand) are seriously good shit. If you like stereos, and come across an older Nakamichi stasis unit... Grab it.

sent from Utah.

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Originally Posted by basinbeater

No doubt. I can't say it enough, those old Nakamichi Sr receivers (and the ta ones from what I understand) are seriously good shit. If you like stereos, and come across an older Nakamichi stasis unit... Grab it.

sent from Utah.

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Is there any Nak component we don’t like? I still have two of the cassette players. Bombproof and beautiful sound.

I think once they got into the car stuff that the slide downhill was underway. But yeah, their tape players are regarded as some of the best of all time. I've never had one, but then the only tapes I have are a bunch old scratchy Phish shows. I had a CD player that was very nice for a while, but I was worried it would break, and some key pieces are unobtainium.
Always have my eyes out for nakamichi amps, but others have their eyes out as well. I missed a couple of pa7 amps a while back for $400. Someone beat me to them, kept one, and put the other up for $800, and it sold immediately.

sent from Utah.

Well, the current honey badger diy amp sounds so much better than any of the commercial offerings I have owned, that I am going to butcher my big Denon poa2200. The HB is just more dynamic, more detailed, superior. So I yanked the amp board and heat sinks out, and will be replacing the amp boards with honey badger boards. Did some drilling and tapping last night, and will do some more again tonight. Not my favorite part of the process, but I seem to be getting better at it. The Denon has a great power supply where after the transformer, it is essentially an entirely separate power supply for each channel. 40,000uf of filter capacitance for each channel, just what the HB calls for. This one should be a beast with +-72v rails. Should have tons of power for 6 to 8 ohm speakers.
The boy did a bunch of the soldering on this set of boards. I'm excited for this one... Calling it the D-Badger.Attachment 339236Attachment 339237Attachment 339238Attachment 339239

sent from Utah.

Ripping a Denon apart to make it better is next level.

Coming together. One side is alive and functional. Hope to have the other side installed tonight. By the way, drilling and tapping holes on this thing was no where near as much fun as drilling and tapping holes in college. 28 of em. So similar counts at least.... Hehe.
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sent from Utah.

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Originally Posted by basinbeater

By the way, drilling and tapping holes on this thing was no where near as much fun as drilling and tapping holes in college.

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Oh Hell yeah! I did my share of "drilling and tapping" in college; good times indeed!

Looking forward to seeing how this build turns out.

The Denon poa2200 is no longer. Now it is a Honey Badger. Wrapped up the transformation into the D-Badger a little while ago. Played some tom petty in the garage for a while for testing. All original diagnostic features still work, as well as DC speaker protection, thermal protection, transformer soft start, and speaker impedance check.
Gonna hook it up in the living room tomorrow and have a honey badger shootout. Yeehaw!
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sent from Utah.

Geez BB, this is one of the cooler things I've seen on TGR. Well done!!

If it wasn't for COVID I'd say you should have a mag meetup to show us your work and play some jams. Really cool shit here!

What's your audio source feeding the amp?

Sent from my Pixel 4 using Tapatalk

I still can't get Boogie Nights out if my head. All DIY stereo projects need a TK-421 case badge. Oh, you need all that bass.

Ha, thanks tgapp. One day this will be behind us and we can do it. I'm glad a few of you like these posts. It's funny, I got all my old cars working and decided this would be the next thing to learn, and I think I like working on this stuff more than the old cars.
I keep having ideas that I would like to make my own circuit and figure out how to make a run of like 50 to sell. But there is SO MUCH to learn to get to that point. So who knows ...
But I digress....
The rest of the system right now, I use a Sony ta-e1000esd. It is a 100% digital preamp, and being older, it doesn't do great with analog signals as it converts them to digital and then back to analog. But the dac is a very good one, so it makes a great preamp for digital sources like the optical signal from the tv, or a cd player with digital out. It has all the dsp stuff that can easily get one lost and actually sound worse, but I've got it to where it really works very well, and I have different presets for watching movies, playing music, etc. I recapped the whole thing, and put opamp sockets in, and tried several different opamps before settling in what I use now. Biggest improvement was switching the opamp that converts the dac current out to voltage (known as the I/v converter) to one with higher slew rate. It really came alive with that mod. I also yanked the video board out since it is pretty much useless with newer tvs and video sources. I liked it enough that I bought another one, and I use that one in my garage as a source to my garage amp, and for testing amps I fix or build.
I use a Sony es CD changer that I also like a lot. It had issues when I got it and I repaired it. I use a Yamaha t1020 tuner. So basically the whole system has been built or repaired by me. The speakers are early 80s top of the line bang and olufsen. Was their biggest baddest speaker ever at the time, and they kick ass. 10" subwoofers, 8" woofers, 4" mid phase links, and tweeters. All seas drivers. I refoamed them and rebuilt the crossovers, and reattached the coils to the 4" domes.
My wife tolerates it, but wishes the speakers were smaller and that there were no wires. She is happy with a tiny bose bluetooth speaker.
Here is the system currently with the two honey badgers sitting on top of each other.
Attachment 339676Attachment 339678

sent from Utah.

The arcam honey badger got some add ons and a refinish on the faceplate. Filled sanded and painted the faceplate, then mounted up some Vu meters from an old tape player, and finally wired up the power light indicator. Back in the saddle.



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sent from Utah.

Nice system BB. The girls will never appreciate real systems. I know I am a little hard of hearing but jeezuz, all I ever hear is "Can you turn it down"? I like it when she goes out, I tell the animals to go hide in the back of the house and I get to listen to mine cranked up. The bass rumbles the house through the Klipsch Forte's. I mean you can really feel it and it sounds sooooo good.

Snagged some more stuff yesterday. For cheap. A phase linear 200 amp for $10, that looked like hell, but cleaned up very nicely and sounds great. Someone else has already made a repair on the meter board. It works fine and sounds very nice paired with my other score, a NAD 1155, also $10. This is my first NAD piece, and it needed a little work. I had to repair the rca terminals on the back, and while I was in there I replaced a bunch of electrolytic capacitors.
I listened to the amp today for a while with the Denon pra1500 preamp (which I like) I had hooked up in the basement. But when I hooked the NAD up, it is another level. Incredible soundstage from this combo. Very impressed. I'm going to give the NAD a shot at the main living room with the big honey badger and the big b and o speakers. Very nice little preamp.
I'm sure the kids appreciate the basement sound system. Attachment 340844Attachment 340845Attachment 340846

sent from Utah.

It's important to crank it up when the other half is out of the house. I've got rattles in a couple places in the living room that need attention when the bass is rockin.

sent from Utah.

Latest amp project continues to move forward. Ordered the last of the transistors I need. This amplifier uses mosfets in the output stage. Power supply is sorted, amplifier and mounting to heat sinks is sorted, get those last transistors in, and mount it back in the case, and wire it up. Test.
This amp will use the rotel case, rotel transformer, heat sinks. It will use capacitors and rectifier from the arcam unit I turned into a honey badger. So 40,000uf of capacitance. The amp is capable of 150 watt per channel, but the rotel receiver it came out of was rated at 100 per channel, so I may modify the negative feedback circuitry to reduce the closed loop gain of the amp. I plan on installing an attenuator to the amp as well, but this only attenuates the input voltage to the amp, and does not affect the overall gain of the amplifier. I would prefer to use full strength signal voltage, and reduce overall gain and run the source wide open.
Attenuators introduce other issues. A dual gang potentiometer has issues with balance. The more resistance applied to the potentiometer, the worse the side to side balance issue becomes. Attachment 342159

sent from Utah.

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Originally Posted by basinbeater

Latest amp project continues to move forward. Ordered the last of the transistors I need. This amplifier uses mosfets in the output stage. Power supply is sorted, amplifier and mounting to heat sinks is sorted, get those last transistors in, and mount it back in the case, and wire it up. Test.
This amp will use the rotel case, rotel transformer, heat sinks. It will use capacitors and rectifier from the arcam unit I turned into a honey badger. So 40,000uf of capacitance. The amp is capable of 150 watt per channel, but the rotel receiver it came out of was rated at 100 per channel, so I may modify the negative feedback circuitry to reduce the closed loop gain of the amp. I plan on installing an attenuator to the amp as well, but this only attenuates the input voltage to the amp, and does not affect the overall gain of the amplifier. I would prefer to use full strength signal voltage, and reduce overall gain and run the source wide open.
Attenuators introduce other issues. A dual gang potentiometer has issues with balance. The more resistance applied to the potentiometer, the worse the side to side balance issue becomes. Attachment 342159

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I dont recall if I asked, because I know I have asked you questions, but what was your field of study in school, if you went? Im just a sys admin, this stuff is crazy to me..

I was an international studies and spanish double major. I didn't like school, and when they said you would have to take an extra year of math to go in engineering, I sort of thought, fuck that. Took the easy way out. Poor choice in retrospect. But I do like politics. Or I used to.
I am working on my math again now, and learning how to apply it to this stuff. This stuff is way more fun that what I do for work.

sent from Utah.

You seem to be curious about this stuff, and it really is not that hard to get started on it if you wanted to. And there is a lot you can do with basic knowledge. If you want pointers on how to get started, happy to chat and give some pointers on where to start.

sent from Utah.

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Originally Posted by basinbeater

You seem to be curious about this stuff, and it really is not that hard to get started on it if you wanted to. And there is a lot you can do with basic knowledge. If you want pointers on how to get started, happy to chat and give some pointers on where to start.

sent from Utah.

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+100 for pointers!

i think i am just going to buy a kit amp and try that first. something relatively basic.

Post up what you are looking at. Also, search for diyaudio.com and first to try and build (or something along those lines).

sent from Utah.

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Originally Posted by basinbeater

Poor choice in retrospect.
...
This stuff is way more fun that what I do for work.

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I used to tinker with all sorts of random crap. Now I work as an engineer and hardly tinker at all in my off time, so maybe you made the better choice than I did. I definitely think there's something to the concept of not ruining your hobbies by turning it into a job.

Those white box cassettes generally had pretty crappy sound..

Yeah, not a lot of cassettes. Mostly a few of my parents old ones laying around, and of course, I found a box of phish tapes that were poorly copied in college. So, tape player doesn't get much use. Jackson browne is in there right now. Doesn't sound terrible.

sent from Utah.

More progress last night on the rotel/gb150d.

Unit, that's probably right. If I had to do it everyday for work and have deadlines to meet and all that other stuff, it'd be more of a drag. I do try to make sure my car and audio hobbies pay for themselves. So far so good there. I think I'm in the black a bout $1500 over the course of messing around with stereos. And am up thousands when it comes to cars. So fun hobbies that pay for themselves. Makes it tougher for the wife to complain.Attachment 342231

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random question i wonder if anyone would have some help for; got an old stanton digital turntable, after a bit its developed a scraping sound, i guess the turntable is powered by a magnet which is loose, scratching the computer board below. Could i just use super glue or something to refix the magnet? cant seem to find a way to get it to stick, does not scew off

I would think gluing a magnet back on would require a stronger glue than regular cyanoacrylate glue aka super glue. It often dries brittle, and if there is some vibration because it is not perfect, (and nothing is ever perfect) eventually it will fail again. I would try something like e6000. I like that stuff for random gotta glue it jobs. Sand a little bit to scuff up the mating surfaces. Post a pic of what you are dealing and maybe we can come up with a solution.

sent from Utah.