New apartment setup + finished speakers

[Gir]

So my roommates and I just recently moved into our new apartment in State College and got all our speakers finished and setup (except for the center - still bare MDF). The mains are Mark K's RS225/RS28A on my DIY stands. Those speakers just have a PE vinyl on them as (perhaps) a temporary finish. The center is Dennis' WMTW CC design, and the rears are Modula MT's using the piano black PE cabinets on PE stands (which are also on top of cinder blocks since the couch is a wee bit high). The sub uses a Mach5 IXL-18.4 in a sonotube with effective volume of about 340l tuned to about 16.5Hz. Also, the flexi rack uses red maple veneered plywood with a red mahogany stain and 5/8" rods.

As far as the equipment goes, we have two servers (one frontend and one backend for mythTV), a series 3 tivo, a Yamaha RX-V661 receiver with an ep2500 amp for the sub, an airport express for streaming music wirelessly, an apple airport extreme (which is "temporarily" replaced with a hacked linksys WRTG54 due to stability issues with the apple crap), a Wii, and of course our 42" Sharp Aquos HDTV.

Overall I'm very pleased with the system. The room is quite lively, so I'm thinking of building some base traps one of these days. I used the YPAO calibrator with the receiver and it did make a pretty good difference. Later this year I plan on purchasing some measuring equipment and properly calibrating the system. Even with the room conditions, the movies are amazing! We just had a party this past weekend and everyone kept asking what the the big tube in the corner was... their reactions were quite funny

Enough of my boring jabber, here's some pics!





These pics were taken after we setup for the party, so some of the furniture was moved out of the room. But right here is where we're starting the decorations for the entire wall :T


Oh, and this we found in a dumpster!

[joecarrow]

Very nice! I wish I'd had any sort of a budget for that when I was in school. It's got to be vastly better sound than the majority of the parties I went to, though we mostly used cheap pro gear so it might not be as loud :twisted:

On the other hand, we didn't have a sonotube!

[Gir]

Heh, well it gets plenty loud. The party was pretty awesome, but we don't really want it playing loud. It's not that we're afraid of cops coming (no one cares in our complex), but we'd like to actually hear conversations They're (somewhat) "civil" parties... :twisted:

Also, a lot of that stuff is split between my roommate and I. The mains, the subs, the stands, the rack, the Wii, one server, and all the audio equipment is mine. The center, rears, one server, the apple crap (although I do like the airport express), the tivo, and the TV are all my other roommates. Believe it or not, all this was spent with our own money and not our parents! I've been working since I was 14 to afford this kind of extra stuff (and my mother still freaks out about it :roll: )!

Anyways, I really look forward to some future projects. I'm taking a seminar in loudspeaker design up here at PSU, mainly for kicks and giggles and also some networking. We happen to have one of the nations leading acoustical engineering graduate programs up here, plus a very active acoustical engineers society (AES), which I'll probably start going to meetings for. I've already met some good amp designers up here and I'm hoping to start designing my own amp this year or next. And if that doesn't happen, you didn't read this 8O

[Mazeroth]

I MUST have that Walker photo on the wall! Any certain program you used to make that work? I was watching the best of Walker clips from Conan just yesterday on Youtube. Here's my favorite:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=9NMwEPf63js

:B



Oh....nice setup!

[Gir]

I MUST have that Walker photo on the wall! Any certain program you used to make that work? I was watching the best of Walker clips from Conan just yesterday on Youtube. Here's my favorite:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=9NMwEPf63js

:B



Oh....nice setup!

Rasterbator! Remember, keep on rasterbating... :T

Next goal is to get Jean Claude Van Damme on the right of that wall, and then above the sliding glass door get a nice wide shot of Steven Segal! How awesome would that be!? :B



BTW, thanks for the kind words!

[Hdale85]

Hmm State College PA? If so thats not far from me Well a few hours lol. Didn't realize you were that close.

[Gir]

Hmm State College PA? If so thats not far from me Well a few hours lol. Didn't realize you were that close.

If you ever want to stop by, I always love giving demos!

[Hdale85]

Hah I don't get out that far ever really . But wish I could hear it.

[JonP]

Damn nice stuff compared to what I had in college... congrats. Just don't get yourself evicted with that Sonotube!!

Wondering about your stands... Is that a piece of ABS pipe in the center? And, is that why you have the four posts around it? Interested in your materials and impressions of...

I put together a pair of stands for my long dragging on wedding present Modula MT's, (at least the speakers are done now) and found that 3" ABS was just a bit too bendy for >25lb speakers. Went thru hell trying to find someone selling 3" PVC in less than full 20' pieces... finally Osh Hardware came thru for me.

Tomorrow I find out if that will be stiff enough for the job...

[wkhanna]

Nice work, Gir!

[joecarrow]

Damn nice stuff compared to what I had in college... congrats. Just don't get yourself evicted with that Sonotube!!

Wondering about your stands... Is that a piece of ABS pipe in the center? And, is that why you have the four posts around it? Interested in your materials and impressions of...

I put together a pair of stands for my long dragging on wedding present Modula MT's, (at least the speakers are done now) and found that 3" ABS was just a bit too bendy for >25lb speakers. Went thru hell trying to find someone selling 3" PVC in less than full 20' pieces... finally Osh Hardware came thru for me.

Tomorrow I find out if that will be stiff enough for the job...

Can you go up in diameter at all? I got some 6" ABS pipe from OSH that is probably rigid enough to mount an actual chair on. Stiffness goes up proportional to the radius raised to the fourth power, so a bit thicker of a pipe will help you out.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buckling

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Area_moment_of_inertia

[Gir]

The stands use 4" PVC with 4 1" oak dowels. I didn't get the chance to do this yet, but I'm going to fill the first 1/4 or 1/3 of the PVC with sand. I'll just drill a small hole, get a funnel and pour the sand in, and then fill up the hole with whatever is convenient. Even without the sand, the stands are really sturdy and made a big difference in comparison with the chairs the speakers were on before ^_^

[JonP]

Can you go up in diameter at all? I got some 6" ABS pipe from OSH that is probably rigid enough to mount an actual chair on. Stiffness goes up proportional to the radius raised to the fourth power, so a bit thicker of a pipe will help you out.

That would work, but I'd have to scrap most of the already built platforms so I'm going ahead with the Sched. 40 PVC, and we'll see. I'm trying another experiment, wrapping them in veneer... got that done, and am starting finishing, (oxymoron?) so I haven't assembled them yet to compare stiffness. Just in handling they seem much stiffer than the original ABS pieces.

I kind of like the proportions of the 3", so I'm hoping that it should be sufficent. The ABS nearly was, I'd guess they'll be good. I'll let you all know!

Gir - on the sand, I'd reccomend buying a bag, (silica sand would be cleaner) and on a dry day, pour it out on/in something in a thin layer to let evaporate whatever water might be in it. Some of the stuff gets kind of moist. Any water in there will slowly soak into your end pieces... so it's probably worth the effort to dehydrate it some. Might be an idea to have a tiny vent hole up high or in the top. And 1/4 full? Fill those suckers up!! :T
Having more mass higher will damp the speaker's vibrations better... it's not just for making them more bottom heavy. Then you'll proudly have "high mass stands" bragging rights. You'll be glad you did. Uh, untill you move. Remember to use your legs when lifting... :B

[joecarrow]

I'll tell you what, if PVC still doesn't do it, three inch steel pipe would be plenty stiff :twisted:

[Gir]

Gir - on the sand, I'd reccomend buying a bag, (silica sand would be cleaner) and on a dry day, pour it out on/in something in a thin layer to let evaporate whatever water might be in it. Some of the stuff gets kind of moist. Any water in there will slowly soak into your end pieces... so it's probably worth the effort to dehydrate it some. Might be an idea to have a tiny vent hole up high or in the top. And 1/4 full? Fill those suckers up!!
Having more mass higher will damp the speaker's vibrations better... it's not just for making them more bottom heavy. Then you'll proudly have "high mass stands" bragging rights. You'll be glad you did. Uh, untill you move. Remember to use your legs when lifting...

As for the dryness, already took that into consideration. Cement mix! That way if any moisture does get into it, it absorbs it! Or at least in theory... either way the stuff is completely dry out of the bag. Maybe some lead shots would do it too...

I wanted to fill it up on part way because I was worried about some drunk idiot hitting them and knocking them over, but after the last party we had I'm not too worried about it. Perhaps I will fill them up all the way. Oh, and trust me, I know all too well about lifting from the legs...


As for the stability of everything, it's rock solid. All holes were the same depth and all the rods were the same length, so everything fit beautifully after a few wacks with the rubber mallet (nice tight fitting holes). Getting the grove for the PVC was the hardest, and I just ended up routing it by hand. The mistakes that I did make doing that are practically invisible once the pipe is squeezed in.

BTW, I was thinking of adding some cable hooks underneath the top and down the back of the pipe so you don't see anything. If you notice in the pictures I made some DIY speaker cables and didn't want to drop the cash on some techflex sleeving, so hiding them a bit better wouldn't be a bad idea. Any thoughts on what kind of hooks to use?