And so the next major audiophile engineering challenge is, err, well what?

[Marco]

It's this 'D.I.Y' lingo malarkey, Ali forgets he's not on the WD or audio talk forum

Marco.

[shane]

Description here:

http://www.bonavolta.ch/hobby/en/audio/tqwt.htm

and a lovely variant here built by SteveTheShadow:

http://web.mac.com/scress1958/iWeb/S...e-Speaker.html

[Marco]

Lovely looking system (in the last link) but how do you get decent bass out of those tiny little drivers?

Marco.

[Labarum]

I have often hankered after some do it yourself open baffles - my woodworking skills might be up to that.

There must be some plans on-line. And where in UK would I buy suitable drivers? Don't they have to have stiffer suspensions, 'cos there's no confined air to stiffen them up?

[Ali Tait]

Hi Folks,

Just catching up here,sorry for the jargon,you're right I do forget some may not know what I'm burbling on about! As for Nick's open-baffles,the full-rangers are Fostex Fe 127 (I think?) and the bass drivers are Eminence Beta 15's which can be bought from Maplins.TQWT stands for tapered quarter-wave tube.Lots of good info here on DIY speakers- http://fullrangedriver.com/forum/

[Spectral Morn]

Hi Guys

The thing I would like to see dealt with is the need for kit to be warmed up, have to be run in for weeks or left on all the time to sound its best. I know some of this is controversial. Heck I was nearly put to death on another forum for suggesting(and only what I have heard ) that some kit needs to be left on for long periods of time. In this case it was Wadia, Marantz, Moon and Amr, but other kit exists which has this issue.

I would like to know why this happens ? I have never come across a sensible explanation. Either you get, its not real and its in your head or it happens and we don't know why. In a world were the cost of power is rising and excessive use is bad for the environment (lets not get into green issues, global warming etc) but good stewardship of our limited resources is something we should all aim for. So making kit which has long warm up is not a good thing.

So I would like to see kit that does not need ridiculous warm up. Also kit that can be upgraded. It makes sense to do this as it keeps resale value high and pride of ownership and keeps customers with your company but its also another good thing for the environment. I am strugling to remember the name of the company(guys who took over Audiolab) they did this, I know they failed but it was not for this reason.

Anyway thats what I would like, consistent performance got with no long warm up.

Surely someone has done research into this ? I have heard this, heck some of the kit I own suffers from this. I wish it didn't. I suppose being out of work now means that you become more conscious of the cost of things like electricity. It also means you don't have some kit left on because of the cost of doing so. Heck I wish this was not real.

Regards D S D L

[Mike]

It's this 'D.I.Y' lingo malarkey, Ali forgets he's not on the WD or audio talk forum

Marco.

Not so!.... There has been plenty of commercial TQWT loudspeakers produced. Castle for instance.

[pure sound]

Lovely looking system (in the last link) but how do you get decent bass out of those tiny little drivers?

Marco.

He doesn't. It suggests he uses a sub beneath 80 Hz.

[The Grand Wazoo]

The challenge that visitors to Stereonow would like to see solved above all others is a method whereby automatically, as the volume is altered, the bass, mid and treble stays precisely in line. In fact the sort of thing that loudness controls tried to solve and rarely came close to doing.

In my experience, and in line with the experiences of so many others, loudness controls if ever they were ‘right’ were only right at one specific SPL (sound pressure level) and made the sound balance incomparably worse at SPLs either side of that pivotal point.

Howard,
It's interesting that I stumble across this comment just a week after I bought something on Ebay that purports to do just as you describe.

I've got a bit of a thing for old receivers and bought a Yamaha CR-1020 last week for £52. Someone must have been really proud of this thing when they bought it new in 1977 or so. It's actually a rather lovely bit of kit.

It has a 10 position loudness control with No. 10 being a flat setting for normal listening, where you just use the volume control. Then when you need the loudness function, you dial in the level you want. I've not had a chance to listen carefully for whether it alters the tonal balance yet, but after a brief listen, it seems to do what it says it should.

[nat8808]

I second that - I often listen at low levels and feel I'm missing some of the frequency range when there's no loudness control.

This could be incorporated into a room correction device (set-up could take a while! unless it was automatic, left playing through a frequency sweep CD whilst in-line and attenuating at different steps from full volume).

Tandberg also made big claims about their loudness controls on the 3002 and 3008 pre-amps. Meridian's 601 had a digital version too (didn't use it much because it kept making the digital level go into clipping which bugged me, even if it didn't make a sonic difference). I wonder how close they got.

The Tandberg one certainly sounded good.