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Post by Chris on May 4, 2018 16:04:13 GMT
Yip,whole system looks lovely. Nice and neat.
Seeing posts like this just makes me wish I had the ability to make stuff like that. If you don't mind me asking what were the rough costs involved?
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steve
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Post by steve on May 4, 2018 16:23:09 GMT
Yip,whole system looks lovely. Nice and neat. Seeing posts like this just makes me wish I had the ability to make stuff like that. If you don't mind me asking what were the rough costs involved? The speakers were about £350 in materials costs to build, when you factor in the drivers, 18mm soft plywood, valnut veneer, Danish oil, tapered legs, wood glue, dowels etc. Overall spend for the amp and speakers together, was around the £500 mark without my own labour. For what you get for that outlay, the system is an absolute steal.
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Post by MartinT on May 4, 2018 18:09:14 GMT
So, back to simplicity.
- Passive preamp - Simple power amp circuit with non-complex power supply - Single-driver speakers
Anything else that you attribute to simplicity?
I can attest to the latter, my PC speakers use a single Fostex driver. There is a certain coherence and ease to the musical flow.
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steve
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Post by steve on May 4, 2018 19:57:23 GMT
It's all about putting as little as possible in the way of the signal: nothing more. I learned this only recently, it works and like Karatestu, I have had to consciously unlearn most of what I thought I knew about building a successful sound system. This utter simplicity in terms of power amplification and speakers has produced the biggest amount of music I've had........ever!
I was never a fan of full range drivers of the Fostex or Lowther variety. Too peaky, producing nasality and ear-bending shout on the majority of music. Yes it was superficially immediate and exciting but ultimately tiring to listen to for any length of time.
BUT...these new Fane 12 inch triple cone drivers and if the guys on the DIYAudio forum are to be believed the 15 inch version, have - at a stroke - removed those persistent problems. What you are left with is music, pure and simple. The speakers I built, have a wonderful "live" feel. They are enduringly musical and above all great fun to listen to.
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Post by steveeb on May 4, 2018 20:38:16 GMT
Very impressive what you've done with the aesthetics of the speakers, Steve.
I'm with you on simplicity
# Rule number 1: Do no harm
I've come to consider that the musical connection is like the unconditional love of a child; you get 100% to start with and can only act to maintain it or reduce it, you can't create it.
If you take that position, and that everything you put in the way may have a positive effect on the presentation but a negative effect on the musical message, it can be enlightening as to why so much 'music making' equipment becomes frustrating dragon chasing.
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Post by Chris on May 4, 2018 21:24:05 GMT
Glad you're so happy with it. The speakers are lovely and as I've said it's really neat and tidy.
Agreed - good value and an excellent example of what can be done with a bit skill and effort.
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steve
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Post by steve on May 4, 2018 21:24:19 GMT
steveeb Cheers Steve, I grew up in the 60s and have a love for that late 50s/early 60s "G Plan" aesthetic. It just looks so classy, providing you keep your cool and don't go all kitsch with it. Yes, it is certainly true in my case that the more complex the gear got, the higher the 'fi" went, but the music itself disappeared somewhere. The big problem is that until you hear/recognise the difference between hi-fi and music, then you just won't "get it" and will continue to chase your tail forever. Eventually I realised what was happening and was empowered, by outside forces, to put a stop to it. It's nice to be liberated from the hi-fi treadmill and enjoying the music instead.
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steve
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Post by steve on May 4, 2018 21:36:44 GMT
Glad you're so happy with it. The speakers are lovely and as I've said it's really neat and tidy. Agreed - good value and an excellent example of what can be done with a bit skill and effort. Cheers Chris, The tidiness of the system comes as a direct result of the minimalist simplicity ethic I've taken on board. It naturally leads to clean equipment, both inside, in terms of short signal paths and the minimum of componentry and outside, with the clean, bling free lines of the devices themselves. It is an honest, functional aesthetic in the best Bauhaus tradition.
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Post by Firebottle on May 5, 2018 7:23:40 GMT
The idea was to knock up a pair of simple sealed boxes in cheap softwood ply and take the speakers to Owston to demonstrate with. I was not expecting a lot, so built the pair of ply boxes, with a single brace just under the driver to reinforce the cabinet and prevent the worst of the vibrations. The boxes were relatively easy to build and in a couple of days I had them finished. WAF was missing in action, but when I fired up the system and cued up a piece of big band music, my jaw hit the floor again. WAF was missing in action, I love it. Never seen a triple cone speaker before, the finished article sure looks good Steve, excellent result all round.
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Post by MartinT on May 5, 2018 8:27:15 GMT
That Fane driver must be a bit special. What is it designed for, PA? How is the colouration?
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steve
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Post by steve on May 5, 2018 10:57:06 GMT
The driver is meant for PA use and is "ideal for house of worship installations" according to the spec sheet. So praise the Lord sisters and brothers, and lemme hear you say YEAH! Coloration is an interesting concept and I used to worry about it all the time, but once you build a system where music as opposed to sound, is the driver, then coloration becomes irrelevant. Now I've unlearned the behaviours that led to hi-fi uber alles, I honestly don't hear it. But for those interested, here is a third-octave pink noise spectrum analysis I took of the speakers, in my room, at 1m and 30 degrees off axis. Placement of the cabs was as you've seen in the pictures and the analysis is equivalent to listening with the speakers pointing straight down the room, rather than being toed in. Straight down the room is how they are aligned at home.
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steve
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Post by steve on May 5, 2018 11:00:10 GMT
The near-to-wall placement keeps the bottom end up and there is useful HF output up to 16KHz. Fane claim 17KHz, so I would say they have it about right. It's a lovely full range driver: one that actually is full range rather than merely wide range. No helper tweeter is necessary, so no crossover, meaning nothing between the amp output and the music except a bit of wire and the air in the room.
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Post by Mr Whippy on May 5, 2018 12:07:09 GMT
Is this it?: Should I stop arsing about with shagged out amplifiers and just get an NVA? But I like me DIY.
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steve
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Post by steve on May 5, 2018 13:10:15 GMT
Yes, but they are a damned sight cheaper here: www.bluearan.co.uk/index.php?id=FANSOV12-250TC&browsemode=manufacturerYou'll have to order them, as it seems now that everybody is after them. They had eight in stock last week! Should've kept our gobs shut. The price'll probably double now. It's not really a question of getting an NVA amp, though Richard has been pursuing the music ideal for years and the A20 is very very good introduction to his philosophy. It's more of an attitude and a way of thinking, than buying something off a specific manufacturer. My Pink SET amp plays music too, and as a DIY'er you have to try to stop thinking about sound and evaluate what you are doing in terms of melody, harmony, instrumental tone, timbre, attack sustain, decay, and can you follow all of the instruments all the time? The quality of my own DIY efforts has increased dramatically since I started (prodded along by Richard) to think about equipment in musical terms. Do percussive instruments have a body/tone to them or are they just the welter of leading edges beloved of the hi-fi brigade and often mistaken for detail? Is there a human being behind the voice, someone that breathes, has a soul? Once you start to think like that, more the bits start to fall into place and the less you start to care about hi-fi, spikes, stands, fancy mains cables etc. You get to use your sound system for the right reasons. You break free of the BS.
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Post by MartinT on May 5, 2018 13:25:36 GMT
Coloration is an interesting concept and I used to worry about it all the time, but once you build a system where music as opposed to sound, is the driver, then coloration becomes irrelevant. I don't agree. By colouration (which is an old term but quite relevant), I mean the kind of cuppy or honky sound that some single drivers I've heard can do, and of course it can hit right in the midrange vocal area where it has the worst effect. If a female voice or choir sounds like they are cupping their hands while singing, it takes away from musical enjoyment because they no longer sound life-like. I'm not saying for one moment that the Fane does it, but where I have heard that kind of colouration in the past, I have dismissed those speakers as not being for me. Vocal quality is paramount as I want to hear the beauty of the voice, all it's inflections, as the microphone caught it and not as if it was sung down a tube. Just an observation.
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steve
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Post by steve on May 5, 2018 13:30:28 GMT
If you have your singers singing down a tube, then your speakers can't reproduce music and you need to fix that part of it, not start thinking "I need to sort the upper mids out" If you change your speakers to ones that play music, then "cupped hands " coloration is not an issue. Big picture is the word. Homing in on one issue is tail chasing and will only bring other issues to the fore, then the cycle repeats.
Point to Think about.
If I said the Fane's play music, would you assume that despite that statment there had to be "cupped hands" coloration, because that's what full range drivers do?
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Post by MartinT on May 5, 2018 14:35:46 GMT
If you have your singers singing down a tube, then your speakers can't reproduce music and you need to fix that part of it Agreed - I wouldn't even try to fix it, I would dismiss those speakers immediately. I'm pleased that we both agree about colouration, even if the terminology used can be different. If I said the Fane's play music, would you assume that despite that statment there had to be "cupped hands" coloration, because that's what full range drivers do? No, and it's not what I said. I merely asked the question as some two-way single drivers I've heard do it badly. Never having heard a three-way, I asked the question.
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steve
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Post by steve on May 5, 2018 14:38:44 GMT
The triple cone driver appears to have solved the honky vocals problem that has plagued these things since the year dot.
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Post by MartinT on May 5, 2018 14:40:59 GMT
In which case, you've made a fantastic discovery with the Fane! Do you have build photos of your speakers so we can see what went into them?
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steve
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Post by steve on May 5, 2018 15:19:05 GMT
I wouldn't say it's a fantastic discovery, It was just a bit of judicious reading of the opinions of the pro users that the driver is aimed at. Nobody had a bad thing to say about the vocal performance of the drivers.
Somebody at Fane International decided to take on the task of making a full ranger that genuinely did work properly and someone did a bit of lateral thinking and produced the twin whizzer driver. Cupped hands coloration is all about bits missing from the response curve and bits missing from the dispersion characteristics, and the twin whizzers solve the missing bits problem. The drivers are outwardly basic, but to make things simple is not a simple task and these guys deserve huge praise for their efforts.
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