https://www.htguide.com/forum/ HTGuide Forums en Wed, 01 Jul 2026 21:54:29 GMT vBulletin 60 https://www.htguide.com/forum/images/misc/rss.png https://www.htguide.com/forum/ https://www.htguide.com/forum/mission-possible-diy/build-stories/961036-a-gift-for-many-the-mechano23 Wed, 01 Jul 2026 18:31:23 GMT
Xmachinik Website
AudioScienceReview Post
AudioScienceReview Review by Amir

This speaker uses the affordably priced Scan Speak H2606/920000 tweeter ($47.80 at the time of this writing) and the even more affordably priced SB Acoustics SB13PFCR25-04 midwoofer ($36.80) in a roughly 8 liter box. Just under $170 USD (plus tax and such) is pretty darn solid for drivers these days, and with all the positive reviews from the various websites and users it was hard for me to ignore. I had originally pushed this project off with a reminder to look at it closer toward Christmas, but I came across a project on Makerworld that reminded me of it a bit sooner than expected.

Mechano-23-CS on Markerworld

This project was posted by user_1168315211 (no other identifier that I could find, but I wanted to be sure to call out their work) and appears to be intended for experienced builders and those new to DIY. The model is split into several parts: the woofer portion, tweeter portion, crossover boards, and port (which could be modified for various tuning). This was also seemingly intended for a variety of 3D printers with the woofer and tweeter portions split as they were. There was some effort to stiffen up the sides of the cabinet by adding some vertical ribs as well, though this is also a function of the infill density and wall loops, among other things that can be adjusted within the slicer software. I went ahead and printed one cabinet to see how it looked.






I noticed a few things about the build that I felt required a little attention, the most obvious one (to me) being the portions that would be adhered to each other could have a means of holding everything aligned during that process, but there were a few other small details I felt I could help with. I reached out to the original CAD / Slicer model but didn't receive a response, so I decided to recreate it myself. I'm not sure I'll share the files on Makerworld, but we'll see. I'm also not sure I'll 'only' make the Mechano23 with a printer but I figured I'd give it a go.

I had a few goals with this design.

1. First, the largest dimension is only 290mm, meaning it'll fit on my printer - I won't need to do a split cabinet design. However, there will still be a few separate pieces by necessity. The seams should be more natural though.
2. I want to minimize to the maximum extent possible the number of supports that need to be printed. I'm just not a fan of them and they can often be engineered out in designs such as this.
3. Glue should not be necessary.
4. Baffle and rear will be printed separately and bolted on.
5. The outer cabinet (sides and top) will be printed in one piece. The major downside here is the print time could be several days and use two or more rolls of filament per side. That's a long time for something to go wrong. Hard to avoid this.
6. Threaded heatset inserts will be used extensively.
7. Gaskets will also be printed from TPU (or, perhaps, cut from neoprene using the printer)
8. Braces will be integral to the design (and also printed).

Gotta run more to come...
​]]> Build stories technodanvan https://www.htguide.com/forum/mission-possible-diy/build-stories/961036-a-gift-for-many-the-mechano23 https://www.htguide.com/forum/primetime-a-v/digital-audio/960990-fidelia-2-0-is-a-most-unexpected-but-satisfying-surprise Sat, 20 Jun 2026 02:45:47 GMT This will be of interest only to a small number of music lovers, but was a most pleasant surprise to discover today, as regards the impact for my own listening in environments with a modern MacOS computer... Some upgrades come very slowly... especially from firms whose main focus is relatively... This will be of interest only to a small number of music lovers, but was a most pleasant surprise to discover today, as regards the impact for my own listening in environments with a modern MacOS computer...

Some upgrades come very slowly... especially from firms whose main focus is relatively high end specialty tools for recording studio work... in this case, I am talking about AudioFile Engineering, and FIDELIA, their digital music player, introduced many years ago for MacOS. This is not a streaming app emulating source like ROOT or Spotify. This is just a very high fidelity player, seemingly designed to even higher standards and with surprising new capabilities, though perhaps not in light of the general market this company serves, professional audio studio work.

To this end, a number of techniques are employed to achieve bit perfect playback using exclusive mode, bypassing the normal MacOS audio mixer with a signal path that prevents interference from other audio devices, and maintains bit perfect performance with advanced sample rate following or conversion, and processing modules for Headphone processing with frequency-dependent cross-feed modeled on real head acoustics, sample-rate conversion, and final-stage dither sit in the listening path. Needless to say, nearly any digital format you may have heard of is supported, including AIFF, ALAC, FLAC, DSF/DSD, APE, and the standard formats used in the Apple Music Library. Support is provided for setting up a Library of local and remote files under the FIDELIA LIB heading, but the local existing Apple Music Library is also available as a separate choice.

No DAW or outboard processing required to shape the chain, resulting in an experience not like the sonics of a good PC or Mac, but that of boutique Hi-Fi components- my first reaction was to wonder how it could be possible they could have incorporated the equivalent of a Brainstorm DCD-8 with external Rubidium reference oscillator in the signal path...

Furthermore, those doing mastering review and typically using 3rd Party DSP solutions will find that this player has "slots" to support adding these professional tools in for professional tasks, or... just because.

Every organization these days seems capable of producing luridly optimistic prose to promote their products, but from the opening bars of Animal Logic (Stanley Clarke, Steward Copeland, Deborah Holland) "There's a Spy (in the house of love), my first reaction was who upgraded my speakers while I was installing this software? Tonal purity and transient definition mirrored what I would expect were a Brainstorm DCD-8 clocking system with an accessory rubidium oscillator in the digital signal path. Startling, not subtle.

A number of cuts from Eric Johnson confirmed the perplexing phenomenon- including the recent favorite of Jon and Steve, "Texas". Superb transient and tonal resolution... Eric Johnson "Gem" fully lives up to the title...

The monitor speakers used for this evaluation are Tuk Kantos, which do incorporate an air motion transformer treble unit and a carefully designed ported enclosure with a woofer that looks suspiciously like one of the inverted dome cone Peerless drivers... with the built in USB amplification which accepts a wide range of sample rates.


https://audiofile.engineering/fidelia/




Of interesting note for some, an iPhone based remote control application is available.

THE FORCE AWAKENS....
]]> Digital Audio Evil Twin https://www.htguide.com/forum/primetime-a-v/digital-audio/960990-fidelia-2-0-is-a-most-unexpected-but-satisfying-surprise https://www.htguide.com/forum/mission-possible-diy/build-stories/960956-smj-s-modula-is-combined-with-a-phenolic-cabinet Wed, 17 Jun 2026 02:28:47 GMT Hello, After having been a rather silent reader or only built speakers, now I would like to try my hand at a small project. I have built myself and share the progress with you guys, I would be very happy to receive feedback and help welcome The adenture to build a new loudspeaker began with a... After having been a rather silent reader or only built speakers, now I would like to try my hand at a small project. I have built myself and share the progress with you guys, I would be very happy to receive feedback and help welcome
The adenture to build a new loudspeaker began with a clear targets:
1. Based on SMJ's Modula design for the MW19P and DA25TX, the cabinet was redesigned into a rectangular box, primarily to reduce the speaker's depth to better fit my family's living room.


2. I've always felt the front panel of the DA25TX is flimsy and not very sturdy, so I plan to modify it. The goal is to reduce the diameter while maintaining the front panel shape; and increase the thickness of the screw mounting area.

3. Creating a rigid, resonance-free cabinet that would let the drivers perform at their best. The initial concept centered on using Phenonlic for the enclosure walls, chosen specifically for its exceptional stiffness and inherent damping properties to significantly reduce unwanted cabinet vibrations and coloration.
Inside the enclosure, an elaborate network of strategically placed internal partitions and braces was designed to improve the dynamic performance while maintaining proper volume for the bass alignment.




Below are pictures of the speaker cabinet design. One detail not shown in the drawing is the placement of the port. Since my living room isn't ideal, it's small. To solve that problem, I need to reduce the distance between the speakers and the back wall while still having good bass. So my idea for the speaker enclosure is a reflex type with the port located at the bottom.
I admit that I referenced the idea from the Purifi SPK16 DIY Kits. The drawings were created for a local CNC service provider to execute. The phenolic panels have been purchased; I will update the progress in the next few days.]]> Build stories letiennam https://www.htguide.com/forum/mission-possible-diy/build-stories/960956-smj-s-modula-is-combined-with-a-phenolic-cabinet https://www.htguide.com/forum/forum/mission-possible-diy/960950-parts-express-clearance-sale Tue, 16 Jun 2026 13:54:36 GMT
Peerless by Tymphany NE85W-04 2-1/2" Full Range Woofer
Peerless by Tymphany NE123W-04 4" Paper Cone NE Woofer 4 Ohm
Peerless by Tymphany NE149W-08 5-1/4" Fiber Cone Woofer Speaker 8 Ohm
Peerless by Tymphany XXLS-P835037 10" Paper Cone Subwoofer 4 Ohm​
Peerless by Tymphany XT25BG60-04 1" Dual Ring Radiator Tweeter​

JonMarsh Have you looked at the subwoofer? It has a decently high response (allegedly) but distortion is unknown to me. Curious about it, might grab a pair.]]> Mission Possible DIY technodanvan https://www.htguide.com/forum/forum/mission-possible-diy/960950-parts-express-clearance-sale https://www.htguide.com/forum/forum/mission-possible-diy/960830-mystery-3-5-inch-subwoofer-shenanigans Fri, 05 Jun 2026 13:13:10 GMT


Fs at around 108 Hz. Not very subwoofery, but given the cone is like an inch and a half I suppose we can accept that. I also have never done anything with drivers this small before so I don't have a real comparison. The Kartesian Sub120 is listed as having an Fs of 47 Hz, but that's a bit larger. Anyway, after the test I straight up played some music on it without a box and just resting on a neoprene sheet. Surprisingly, it actually sounded pretty good! Or perhaps this is actually unsurprising, there are dome mids that have significantly more cone area than this thing, heck some cone tweeters from back in the day probably do too. It's small size is probably a benefit for vocals and such. It is, however, extremely inefficient, especially with only one voice coil connected. Unibox says something around 74 dB/1m and I believe it.

Speaking of Unibox, I modeled the driver using the DATS data and a wild guess of xmax at 8mm. I'm not too happy with the closed box and ported was a challenge. I decided to try tuning the box well below the Fs of the driver. We're talking around 70 Hz or so. This is the best I could come up with.



Because of the aforementioned garage situation making a box to actually measure this little guy is a bit of a challenge. Except I'm not really limited to manufacturing outdoors anymore - at least for cute little drivers like this.



​

​

Took maybe an hour of modeling. If this were a serious speaker I'd probably use PETG-CF (I hear the carbon fiber has some benefit to the stiffness of the walls) but for this test sample I'm just using black PLA as I have a fair amount of it and it's inexpensive - it'll be done in 12 hours. This is my first time using a high flow nozzle and higher print speeds so we'll see what kind of quality we get. The baffle I haven't decided on yet, I may print it but I also might try to find an hour or two to make one out of a scrap of plywood. If I print it, I'll use 'wood-like' PLA, probably rosewood. We shall see.]]> Mission Possible DIY technodanvan https://www.htguide.com/forum/forum/mission-possible-diy/960830-mystery-3-5-inch-subwoofer-shenanigans