[CAPT Deadpool]

Funny you should bring that up, and that I should read it today.

My ISP has been down since Friday and my land line is the only working contact with civilization. Tech support for the ISP is treating it very lacksadasically and are all, yeah, whatever, maybe Wednesday (very short version).

That include IP phones they sold many of my neighbors who now rely on them for 911 service.

I type this from a cramped position in my car, connected to a mobile hotspot from my phone, "in town" -- 25 miles from my home.

When Tuesday rolls around, I'm going to come back into town to call the Public Utilities Commission about our involuntary disconnection for 5 days from 911.

Yes, I am livid.

Ars Technica has the best coverage of the FCC that I’ve seen. Many of our rural members suffer due to the deregulation of the telcos. We have “competition” really only in urban areas. My last two homes have both had Fios. Oddly enough their costs for just internet keep going up it seems. If I wanted to pay for it Gigabit is available. I also have xfinity available (but it is very inferior) Many folks though only have one choice for broadband.

Sometimes I wonder if we would have been better with AT&T aka Ma Bell. We could mandated service levels and ran the internet like the utility it is. Also Bell labs used to be one of the most innovative sources of new technology. For instance while pioneering microwave radios for communications they detected/discovered the cosmic microwave background CMB (interference).

More on topic. I finished my second coaster tonight. It sounds better than the first IMO. Unfortunately I have now gone upstairs and I’m now listening to my Mimby, Jotunhiem, and EL-8s balanced. To put it mildly Schiit is not going to have to worry about the coasters canibalizing their other product sales. The difference is night and day. But they are still a step up from just my iPhone headphone jack for sure. I plan on making 3 or so more and giving them to my brothers and a couple of friends for Christmas.

Sorry my “work table” is not so neat.

Now I’ve got to figure out how to enclose them. Im initially going to see what I can do with wood. I wish it were possible to make a Schiit style alUminum enclosure and volume knob. Maybe with the tubes vertical, but since they don’t glow or get hot it is not a real necessity.

 

[Rensek]

Ars Technica has the best coverage of the FCC that I’ve seen. Many of our rural members suffer due to the deregulation of the telcos. We have “competition” really only in urban areas. My last two homes have both had Fios. Oddly enough their costs for just internet keep going up it seems. If I wanted to pay for it Gigabit is available. I also have xfinity available (but it is very inferior) Many folks though only have one choice for broadband.

Sometimes I wonder if we would have been better with AT&T aka Ma Bell. We could mandated service levels and ran the internet like the utility it is. Also Bell labs used to be one of the most innovative sources of new technology. For instance while pioneering microwave radios for communications they detected/discovered the cosmic microwave background CMB (interference).

More on topic. I finished my second coaster tonight. It sounds better than the first IMO. Unfortunately I have now gone upstairs and I’m now listening to my Mimby, Jotunhiem, and EL-8s balanced. To put it mildly Schiit is not going to have to worry about the coasters canibalizing their other product sales. The difference is night and day. But they are still a step up from just my iPhone headphone jack for sure. I plan on making 3 or so more and giving them to my brothers and a couple of friends for Christmas.

Sorry my “work table” is not so neat.

Now I’ve got to figure out how to enclose them. Im initially going to see what I can do with wood. I wish it were possible to make a Schiit style alUminum enclosure and volume knob. Maybe with the tubes vertical, but since they don’t glow or get hot it is not a real necessity.

Looks great! Someone (Ableza maybe) posted a link once to a website that made containers of pretty much any size or shape imaginable. I saved the site, pasted below.

https://www.okwenclosures.com/en/Aluminum-enclosures/Synergy.htm

Edit - the Schiit style finish is more common then you think. Ordered some iPad/phone/switch stands off Amazon and they match my Schiit stack perfectly.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B01M0A7EAE?psc=1&ref=yo_pop_mb_pd_title

 

[Th3Drizzl3]

(I also walked to school, in the snow, uphill, both ways.)

some of us got to ride on the back of a dinosaur we lived in luxury

 

[jimmers]

@Ableza

Question regarding your speaker design, is that a 4 way crossover? I see you have two tweeters, one looks to be a dynamic, one a ribbon design?...

My guess would have been two mids (upper bass and full range?) rather than two tweeters.

 

[Rensek]

My guess would have been two mids rather than two tweeters.

Guess we will find out in the morning!

 

[Rowethren]

Funny you should bring that up, and that I should read it today.

My ISP has been down since Friday and my land line is the only working contact with civilization. Tech support for the ISP is treating it very lacksadasically and are all, yeah, whatever, maybe Wednesday (very short version).

That include IP phones they sold many of my neighbors who now rely on them for 911 service.

I type this from a cramped position in my car, connected to a mobile hotspot from my phone, "in town" -- 25 miles from my home.

When Tuesday rolls around, I'm going to come back into town to call the Public Utilities Commission about our involuntary disconnection for 5 days from 911.

Yes, I am livid.

I have had similar, although not so bad, issues with Virgin Media in the UK. We had an intermittent issue where our phone line would just stop working and it took them about 3 weeks to send an engineer around to fix it because they kept insisting it looked fine on their end. Turned out the connection in the road had corroded and all they needed was to change the plug. I only live 15 miles outside London as well so remoteness wasn't an excuse.

Generally I feel ISPs pretty much have a licence to print money and can really do anything they fancy with no consequences in the name of profit. They have put prices up 3 times this year already with no service improvement for example...

Very OT but rant over

 

[Derrick Swart]

I used to really be into DIY and have in fact designed quite a few DIY kit projects for people - loudspeakers mostly, as deigning passive Xovers has been my thing in audio since 1973. I use a DIY amplifier of my own design (with a PassDIY preamp) in my office and my HT loudspeaker system is all my own DIY design. Please don't any one take offense at this but in my not so humble opinion there is DIY and then there is kit building. Building a kit designed by someone else is a type of DIY but really it's about assembly skills. Nothing wrong with that, and it can be fun, but it's really not the same as doing it yourself from scratch. Designing something from the grounds up because you have an idea or you want to create your version of someone else's idea is what I consider genuine DIY.

I'm all for people slinging soldering irons and stuffing PCBs and creating something from a box of parts, especially as it can be an important part of the learning process. But unless you design it yourself it's really just sort of a paint-by-numbers exercise, isn't it?

Here's a photo of one of my HT DIY open-baffle mains. Just because I like it.

did you build the drivers also yourself?

 

[jimmers]

did you build the drivers also yourself?

Already asked I think...

I have to ask, did you design & manufacturer the speaker drivers, and associated components, from the raw materials? ...

Some DIYers make their own electrostatics and exotics, but I don't think many, if any, make their own voice coil type drivers, in fact many commercial speaker manufacturers buy in their drivers from specialist producers.
I don't think anyone would suggest a DIYer (or most commercial amp manufacturers) would need to make their own semiconductors, valves, resistors, capacitors, inductors ...
for it to be an original creation.

Here's a photo of one of my HT DIY open-baffle mains. Just because I like it.

 

[cricket]

I don't think anyone would suggest a DIYer (or most commercial amp manufacturers) would need to make their own semiconductors, valves, resistors, capacitors, inductors ... for it to be an original creation.

Even Jason and Mike use off the shelf components and we hold them in high regard.

 

[Paladin79]

I do believe the boards are pre-stuffed and they do final assembly and testing. At least it is done in the states.

https://www.psaudio.com/askpaul/open-baffle-vs-closed-box/

Here is Paul McGowan talking open baffle vs closed. I have heard some open baffle through the years and they are not for me but audio is subjective, whatever floats your boat.

There are some 30 watt, tube type speaker amps being hand built in Virginia right now that I hope to check out soon, lifetime transferable warranty. The gentleman building them was influenced by his dad's Eico amp. This is another kit manufacturer from the fifties and sixties that is no longer around. They were before my time but I did build some Dynaco, prior to that I built an FM radio and an oscilloscope. Later on I built an ESR meter that is still in my shop somewhere.

 

[Paladin79]

Capt Deadpool said:
Now I’ve got to figure out how to enclose them. Im initially going to see what I can do with wood. I wish it were possible to make a Schiit style alUminum enclosure and volume knob. Maybe with the tubes vertical, but since they don’t glow or get hot it is not a real necessity.

I have some extra tobacco tins if you need me to send a couple your way. The magic 8 ball requires a bit of work to get it open but the fit is pretty much perfect.

 

[FLTWS]

I do believe the boards are pre-stuffed and they do final assembly and testing. At least it is done in the states.

https://www.psaudio.com/askpaul/open-baffle-vs-closed-box/

Here is Paul McGowan talking open baffle vs closed. I have heard some open baffle through the years and they are not for me but audio is subjective, whatever floats your boat.

There are some 30 watt, tube type speaker amps being hand built in Virginia right now that I hope to check out soon, lifetime transferable warranty. The gentleman building them was influenced by his dad's Eico amp. This is another kit manufacturer from the fifties and sixties that is no longer around. They were before my time but I did build some Dynaco, prior to that I built an FM radio and an oscilloscope. Later on I built an ESR meter that is still in my shop somewhere.

Forgot about Eico, think I may have put together something of theirs but for the life of me I can't remember what.

 

[Paladin79]

I can recall seeing Eico test equipment many years ago. At one point in my life I was helping an auctioneer by repairing any electronics that came through his auction house, I did the same for a pawn shop. In doing so I ended up purchasing lots of older equipment just to see how it was made. I still have an old RCA VTVM that is quite functional but much of that equipment has gone by the wayside, I only have room for so much. I am down to four oscilloscopes.

 

[CAPT Deadpool]

On the subject of DIY. I also am working to train my 9yo son with a Elenco Snap Circuits kit. I might also be learning a few things myself.

 

[Paladin79]

On the subject of DIY. I also am working to train my 9yo son with a Elenco Snap Circuits kit. I might also be learning a few things myself.

Very cool indeed. I started teaching my son at about age four. I had friends who bought and sold new and used test equipment in the Augusta area and they would send me things that they bought multiples of that most likely came from the military. One was a switch mode power supply in a case that allowed you to disable it through a series of switches. The next person would trouble shoot it and then it could be reset with a different problem. Those of you who got your electronics in the military may have seen such devices.

By the time my son was in the cub scouts he built an infrared transmitter and receiver. By his teens he was helping me and making $50 an hour. I spent much of my career behind a desk in management rolls but I always did some electronics at home. In electronics, products like CD players, VCR's, DVD players,computers, computer monitors, whatever started out going for a lot of money but those things change so you have to adapt. I worry less about such things now but I was always ready to adapt and move on.

I may be contacting you later CAPT, time to explore the Raspberry PI!