[tomekk]

I think multi BA in diy is waste money. It's better to buy a $400 chifi than lose $200 for drivers without a background in either schematics or tuning. It's hard to tune, let assemble a project with 10 drivers, it's not worth it without years of reverse engineering. All BIG companies and their multi ba iems are based on a long reverse engineering, years of reshell service etc.

 

[Wgibson]

Ok, the right side is all glued up, still working on the left. Needs sanding, lacquer, and more circuit design. Very promising frequency response so far.

Soundlink 3d printed shell, 13mm dynamic with small orifice as a low pass, 10mm planar, knowles fed-26859 (ferrofluid and type 3 internal damped) no other dampers. Well, the shell has a hole for a knowles damper as a shell vent. I put it next to the planar to see if I can get a more open sound by adjusting damper values.

External 4 pin crossover, I can adjust FED high and sub low pass with capacitors. There is a bit more flexibility, but those are the main things.

Anyway, a few pics:

Spoiler

Edit: 3 bore, hand made planar adapter with heat shrink tube and bondic... yeah I need to start 3d printing.

And some frequency response options, with my single planar in there as a reference.

 

[dhruvmeena96]

I think multi BA in diy is waste money. It's better to buy a $400 chifi than lose $200 for drivers without a background in either schematics or tuning. It's hard to tune, let assemble a project with 10 drivers, it's not worth it without years of reverse engineering. All BIG companies and their multi ba iems are based on a long reverse engineering, years of reshell service etc.

And all those companies come out from here lmao

Designing iem is not hard if you have proper tools and right direction of designing
Soldering skill needs work though

 

[Wgibson]

I still have to assemble the left side, havent listened at all yet, but what do you think about these curves? New project is blue and/or purple, green is my old single planar.

Blue seems like a flatter harmon, purple I don't know what it will sound like, but looks very interesting. Brain rattling sub bass but if you look 100hz and above, typical v shape without any nasty peaks.

 

[ForceMajeure]

I still have to assemble the left side, havent listened at all yet, but what do you think about these curves? New project is blue and/or purple, green is my old single planar.

Blue seems like a flatter harmon, purple I don't know what it will sound like, but looks very interesting. Brain rattling sub bass but if you look 100hz and above, typical v shape without any nasty peaks.

Purple sure looks brain rattling like you said
Blue might be slightly too scooped in the lower mids
Also it's hard to judge since you use the dayton mic and I am not sure if you've applied some kind of compensation for the pinna and up

What were those black IC you used up there on the fp?
How do you find the consistency between planar units thus far?

 

[musmecca]

I still have to assemble the left side, havent listened at all yet, but what do you think about these curves? New project is blue and/or purple, green is my old single planar.

Blue seems like a flatter harmon, purple I don't know what it will sound like, but looks very interesting. Brain rattling sub bass but if you look 100hz and above, typical v shape without any nasty peaks.

Your work is brilliant!

 

[Xymordos]

Purple sure looks brain rattling like you said
Blue might be slightly too scooped in the lower mids
Also it's hard to judge since you use the dayton mic and I am not sure if you've applied some kind of compensation for the pinna and up

What were those black IC you used up there on the fp?
How do you find the consistency between planar units thus far?

I'd like to know too actually, I found the planar matching to be pretty terrible.

 

[Wgibson]

I am not looking forward to matching the left side frequency response... I'll make more planar adapters until they match close enough. Then I will finally realize that I should be 3D printing already.

But the FED-26859 takes care of pinna very consistently, and actually a lot of the treble. I don't mind some variance 10k and up (questionable accuracy with imm6 anyway, but it is very repeatable so relative measurements do have value.) I think I've posted measurements of some common chifi stuff in the past, if anyone really wants to get the flavor of my current measurement setup, but it looks good enough so far. Need an iec711 pretty bad.

The black thing on top is a 4 pin, 1.27mm connector, crossover circuits are built externally. 2 caps and a resistor covers a wide range, but I can get as complex as I want with the circuit. Complete control would need the jack and all drivers pinned out directly, 8 pins. But I have more than adequate control with just 4 pins.

 

[Wgibson]

No surprise, channel imbalance. Need to finish this project and move on, so it's all glued together now, physical tuning is done (except for shell vent.)

I need to measure each driver separately and figure out how to compensate with circuit design.

Needs some sanding and a coat of lacquer, then we'll see how they look.

Edit: to address the comment about curve correction above 10k, no, this was as measured. I was using a really inefficient circuit to get that response from the FED-26859 and planar. Well, technically that response was always there, everything else was just a lot louder.

That is too sensitive to stick with for now, so I'm starting over on circuit design. First I build will be pretty flat, 100hz or so bass shelf, with a lot of treble rolloff above 6k or so. This will also be one of the most efficient circuits, so good starting point for a first impression when listening, finally... next day or so.

 

[Wgibson]

Ok. I am listening like this (see curve at the end.) It is temporary, my motivation ran low and I needed to start listening to these things. I have not troubleshot drivers yet, that takes more patience than I have at the moment.

The crossover circuit is, in a word, "elegant." This is just a 1uf cap as 26859 high pass. Didn't even measure them, but I think adjusting the exact cap value I can channel match better, for now.

Curve and pic:

 

[Xymordos]

Ok. I am listening like this (see curve at the end.) It is temporary, my motivation ran low and I needed to start listening to these things. I have not troubleshot drivers yet, that takes more patience than I have at the moment.

The crossover circuit is, in a word, "elegant." This is just a 1uf cap as 26859 high pass. Didn't even measure them, but I think adjusting the exact cap value I can channel match better, for now.

Curve and pic:

You stuffed a 13mm DD in there?! Woah

Is that measurement from a 711? The treble seems to roll off super early.

 

[Wgibson]

Look closer imm6 in the photo. No dampers, it sounds brighter than I expected but I am also listening a little too loud, because it is easy to do. I would say that's a good sign.

And yes, I did. I can honestly tell you, there is only one way to fit those 3 drivers in that shell.



Edit: to the treble rolloff, yes. This is a temporary "easiest functional circuit." The previous curves were taken at the same volume, you can roughly see the db difference between them. Start at 20hz and just keep lowering db of everything else (except like 6k+ , the idea was to adjust to this level, which would be comparable to my single planar.)

So far I can say that bass shelf rising to about 15hz and not much less at 10hz, seems to have a lot of directional information. Some songs feel like your head is inside the drum set, but at the same time it is subtle... hard to describe, and makes me think some of my other curves would be insane.

Take a close look at the graph scale, this is pretty flat overall.

Dark but clean, I can hear really high cymbal details clearly, they're in the right locations but just not loud, comes out more at high volumes. It doesn't match reality, but does sound natural in a "comfortable to listen" way.

 

[swtnate]

ALRIGHT! Im ready to move on from brushing on these lacquers. The absolute BEST performing wise has been the clear shellac from luxaprint. Man!!! No bubbles and resists attracting dust and dander. Only thing, pretty dang expensive. Twice the cost in some cases. Also, I wish it built up more to offer a much tighter seal. ANYWAY, Im ready to go the air brush route. I have my air brush and my compressor.

What are some tricks to get consistency correct, not create dry spray or orange peel, and getting lacquer into the nooks and crannies?

 

[Aldo40]

The lacquer should smooth itself like lake3 I imagine

 

[swtnate]

The lacquer should smooth itself like lake3 I imagine

The issue is viscosity of the coating. Most people end up doing some sort of solvent reduction. With each lacquer/ shellac, that solvent can vary. Also, recommended air pressure settings to prevent dry spray, etc. I'm very familiar with Lack3. For what its worth, I loathe 99% of Dreve products.

Anyway, AIR BRUSH ANYONE?? lol