Mr Inc.
I have your permission to Jack Away? LOL
Before I post the photos I want to make a point to Jrod. In the future it would not be a good idea to doubt me, I am not privy to flights of fancy and if I tell you something, you can bank on it being a factual statement.
Ok about the Line Arrays...
Back when I was a very active member or The Home Theater Forums, I spent most of my time in the DIY section hanging out with other audiophiles who would just as soon build it, rather than buy it. That's where I met John Janowitz formerly Stryke Audio now Acoustic Elegance (had to change the name because Rockford Fosgate decided to threaten a lawsuit, even though John had the name long before RF even came up with their junk azz "Strike Audio" K-Mart line of car audio garbage.
I met John when he was running a group buy on his AV12 sub woofer. John does not believe in hype, he publishes cold hard numbers. His MK1 AV12's are capable of 23mm linear one way X-Max and are very over built. I have one of these AV12's in a critically over dampened sealed enclosure fed off a Bob Carver Sunfire TDC amp with a Likowitz-Riley Transform Circuit.
I wanted to do a DIY speaker project but the simple Mid - Tweet - Mid or simple 2 way, point source was not for me. I wanted big, accurate, distortion free sound from small power (tube amp power).
I approached John about designing a large Far Field Line Array for home use. He came up with what you see below. There are 12 7" SilverFlute woven kevlar midranges in each cabinet and 12 SilverFlute Kapton Film, Neodymium Ribbon Tweeters per cabinet.
The LA's can be done sealed or ported, with varying roll off slopes depending on design. We originally came up with a passive crossover network consisting of all 1% tolerance components, Solen foilized polyprolene Capacitors, Perfect Lay 16awg air wound inductors and Mills Resistors.
I have all the components to do these passive, and even using passive XO networks the anechoic response of the LA's is quite SUPERB! There is some comb filtering in the midband range as would be expected. Distortion is nearly immeasurable since each driver does 1/12th the amount of work. Also these are extremely efficient, they will go LOUD off small amounts of power.
My typical listening taste is 75/80DB and my 25 watt Push/Pull tube amps will drive them with ease.
I have not started on the rest of the cabinet work nor have I decided on a finish. I was originally going to lay-up the baffles in tight weave pre-preg carbon fiber and shoot the cabinets in piano black with thick marble bases. I think I may veneer them in some rare wood or I still may just spray them base coat/ clear coat.
I did decide I would rather go active on the XO networks with adjustable time delays (pro sound equipment) and Bi-Wire the setup which means I can drive the planar ribbons off the tubes and use heavy solid state power for the mids (which means I can actually use them without subs, they output cleanly down into the 20's ported and about 37hz sealed.
Cost wise, I have around $1400.00 in "components" I still need some materials to finish, figure 2K finished.. Honestly, nothing from the likes of Vandersteen, Mark Levinson, Dynadio ect, are going to compete and they are much, much more expensive (100 times more expensive).
"Wannnt photozzzzzz"
Linear Mode
