bragging, or suggestion hunting

I don't know whether this is bragging or if I am looking for suggestions... :P I'll post it as either, and take what I get, I guess. :)

A short history. I really dislike PC speaker systems. Really. Flat, flabby, blabbly, boomy, awful sounding speaker systems. This makes Dave think "Build your own!" So here I am, designing my own "Ultimate PC Speaker System"

Starting with the home brew power supply, I have a 16 pound, 800 watt toroid power transformer. Four secondary windings - 20V@10A each. Individually full-wave rectified these four windings provide me with 28VDC@10A, parallel connected to 3/4" square copper bus bars to charge the four parallel-connected 47,000uF filter/storage caps. 28VDC@40A, with 200,000uF of filter. HELL-o! Cost: $86.00 for the transformer, $4.00 for the bridges, $24.00 for the caps, and $22.00 for the bus bar. Running total: $136.00

Now, this 28VDC is dead between the 26VDC marked on the Sure Electronics 4X100 watt Tri-Path powered amplifier modules, and the 30VDC maximum that the Class T chips are designed to handle, per the Tri-Path datasheet. Two of these modules, for a total of 8 channels at 100 watts; $104.00. (They are now available at Parts Express for $44.00 each, but my understanding is that the 2X100 modules are much better sounding, with extensive mods around the interwebz for a real kick-in-the-pants boost in sound quality. Look into a pair of those instead of the 4X100. I may be swapping shortly.)Running total: $240.00

Speakers are all hand picked. The subwoofer is a Tymphany LAT700, removed from my car (I had two of them in there... insufficient airspace, and in this case less WILL be more) in 6 cubic feet with an 6" X 54" vent. F3? 17Hz! 100 watts per driver end, plenty of output. $205.00 Running total: $445.00

Woofer/mids are an interesting find. A cheapie little Aurasound 6" woofer with an underhung neo ring motor system, purchased from Parts Express for a mere $9.00 per copy. 91dB efficient, and an Fs of 55Hz, two per channel will give me all the loudness I could EVER need, especially at (about) 35W per driver RMS, and should mate quite nicely with the sub. 1.2 cubes per side, with a 4"x6" vent gets me all the way to a 37 cycle F3. $36.00. Running total: $481.00

Tweeters are a Dayton Reference 1.125" silk-dome tweeter. 4-ohms for the amp to drive at 65WRMS, these were 50.00 each. Running total: $581.00

As this is to be an all active system, you might be asking "Where's the crossovers, Dave?" Well, I bought one of those too... The Behringer UltraDrive Pro. Up to 48dB per octave crossover slopes, with TD, EQ, and three different crossover slope characteristics, PC controlled, balanced in/out. A VERY nice piece, and recommended to me by name by one of my REAL audiophile friends at Harman in Northridge. Crossover points are at this moment slated as 80Hz, and 1500Hz. $326.00 Running total: $897.00

Nine hundred dollars, and I haven't even bought cabinet material, yet. For a PC speaker system. OK, y'all... Let me have it! TELL me I'm just a little insane...

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It all reminds me of something that Molière once said to Guy de Maupassant at a café in Vienna: "That's nice. You should write it down."

You're a little insane.  :)  But I understand.  My PC sound system is a Grant Fidelity tube DAC driving a home made Tripath amp using the Monica board from DIY Audio and a passive preamp/buffer from Nelson Pass.  Instead of a big linear P/S I built a switching job for fun.  It's driving a set of speaks using Exodus Anarchy woofers and prototype ADI dome tweets designed by Wiggins with XBL2 motors and a Dave Yohn passive Xover.  I copped out on the enclosures and used Parts Express ready-mades, but it sounds pretty darn sweet if I do say so myself.

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Take some pictures of all these parts and your progress. I would like to see it all come together!

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Kevin Pierson

ive read this post over a few times, an slowly gettin it, alotta info there

an you are out there!!! but so are the most of us sum just a lil further than others

p.s. i have nuthin to add for suggestions u got it all covered, it would be ignored anyways

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1000 watts of lp, now need sum hp an mids

Update...

Might not be using the Daytons. KEEPING the Daytons, but just alloting them to a different project - sometime in the future.

Nope... I've been GIVEN a pair of aluminum dome tweeters from a set of (most likely) Thiel CS2 from the late 90's. Marked as Vifa D26AG tweeters, they're VERY most likely to be not a stocker system. Modified probably. :) Anyways. Those will be the new tweeters. Replacement voice coils are twice the money I paid for the Daytons! :)

Updates as they occur, kids!

Pics on the way, as well!

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It all reminds me of something that Molière once said to Guy de Maupassant at a café in Vienna: "That's nice. You should write it down."