# Iowa DIY2010



## southworth (Oct 7, 2006)

Just in case anyone's interested in attending, the event will be held in Grinnell,IA this upcoming Saturday morning. Infromation on the event is available on the PE's site................


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## bambino (Feb 21, 2010)

I did a search on there site and came up empty. Do you have a link or can you point me in the right direction for more info?:T


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## southworth (Oct 7, 2006)

Here you go......................

http://dpeterson.home.mchsi.com/


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## bambino (Feb 21, 2010)

Thanks southworth.:T


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## evilskillit (Oct 7, 2008)

I will be there with my Zaph Waveguide TMMs as well. Should be a blast.


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## Zilch (May 18, 2010)

Two waveguides in a field of two dozen builds. 

How did yours (and that other guy's  ) do there? :huh:

http://s413.photobucket.com/albums/pp216/arlis/iowa diy 2010/


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## evilskillit (Oct 7, 2008)

DIY Iowa is a blast, if anybody wants me to link some pics I can.

Any reason you're asking here and not on PE, zilch? 

There were no ratings and its hard to tell how everyone feels because everybody is overly polite to each other.

First the workmanship on Ed's e-waves were awesome. He put his best waveguide face forward in that category. I thought they sounded quite good, they were noticeably more directional than the other speakers, I'm used to that from my waveguide build. They made prosound drivers sound better than I thought possible. Depending on the WAF quotient from your particular spouse I think they would make incredible living room speakers and HT mains. As for reference level music listening, its hard to say in an auditorium with acoustics you're not used to listening to material you're not familiar with, but I'll say they sound very nice and I'll probably have to try one of the cheaper e-wave versions sometime myself.

As for mine I asked people's honest opinions and other than the guys who were just like "Yeah man good job." everybody who answered honestly said "They're great but..." and the buts included "shouty" "forward in the mids" "too much content in the 2k range" and "they sound like someone cupping their hands around their mouth when they talk."

Incidentally I got em measured and they're flat. Something like +/- 1db almost all the way up to 10khz where there is a bump on the very top end.

Thats about as much info as I can give you, hopefully its useful .


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## TypeA (Aug 14, 2010)

evilskillit said:


> DIY Iowa is a blast, if anybody wants me to link some pics I can.
> 
> Any reason you're asking here and not on PE, zilch?
> 
> ...


Id love to see pics, component list of what you used would be appreciated too. Any ideas on what will make them better?


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## evilskillit (Oct 7, 2008)

Well the waveguides are not my design. I'm not yet a designer I built them per zaph's instructions.

http://www.zaphaudio.com/Waveguidetmm.html

So I don't know what you could improve. I used the perfectionist model of the crossover, measured all components with my LCR meter to make sure they're all within better than 1% and built the cabinets and braced them well. I don't know how to improve them, tho I'm sure if you know what you're doing you could make them different. I like them quite a bit, being flat FR wise does seem to make the mids seem a bit pronounced but I think that comes from the human hearing being more sensitive in the mid range and a lifetime of listening to audio products that have a dip in the mid range or a raised top and bottom end.

I wonder if people could hear them but not see them if they'd still think they sounded "shouty".

If you want to see build pics, they're all right here.
http://picasaweb.google.com/evilskillit/MyZaphWaveguideTMMBuild#


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## Zilch (May 18, 2010)

evilskillit said:


> Any reason you're asking here and not on PE, zilch?


Just steerin' it up. 




evilskillit said:


> ... they were noticeably more directional than the other speakers, I'm used to that from my waveguide build.


Yes, constant directivity is a distinguishing feature of the design. The speaker is in control of power response.




evilskillit said:


> ... being flat FR wise does seem to make the mids seem a bit pronounced but I think that comes from the human hearing being more sensitive in the mid range and a lifetime of listening to audio products that have a dip in the mid range or a raised top and bottom end.


It's ironic that in the context of BBC dip and smiley-face EQ, accurate response should be an acquired taste....


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## southworth (Oct 7, 2006)

evilskillit,
Nice talking with you over dinner....


Overall, I liked you design even though I was sitting off to the left side of the sweet spot. The only thing I would say is that the mids were less apparent to my ears. The venue definitely added some emphasis to the bass of all the enrties so I would surmise that it probably affected the overall presentation of yours. I bet that they sound a bit different in your room.


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## evilskillit (Oct 7, 2008)

Ditto, its always fun getting to meet fellow forum members in person and share ideas and stories. Too bad we all didn't have more time to talk and hang out, but I guess being forced to listen to great speakers instead of converse all day isn't all bad.

Thanks, yeah the room did change their sound. I have the bass tuned way up for at home so they blend well with subs. The ports are tuned to like 50 or 60hz. I could have easily run them with port tuning down to 40hz there which would have made the bass more even and lean and less punchy, which probably made everything else a bit weak by comparison. But at least everybody got to hear em. The Zaph Waveguides are a rare critter in the wild so now 30+ people can say they saw and heard em, and that they'll probably skip on their own pair. Heh.

Most people I know say that they're very strong in the mid range, its possible with the venue over-emphasizing the bass that the mids were over shadowed, or maybe you were too far off axis and there was a dip for you, either way most people consider that to be their strong, sometimes too strong point. 

Unfortunately I didn't get to hear what any of you heard because I was front row and center rocking out. I wonder how loud they were for everybody else and compared to everyone else. To me they were very loud, but after the fact I realized I was about 5-7db down on the receiver from where most other people were playing their designs. I know mine are slightly higher than average sensitivity at 90db but I wonder if maybe they just weren't loud enough compared to some of the other designs as well. I didn't want to step on anybody's toes by playing too loud. I'm sure just having to listen to my taste in music was bad enough.


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