Charivari's new speakers...

Well geeze folks, this thread seems to have gotten a bit entertaining. Consoles? Have two (third at a friend's house) and can't do that anymore. I do need room to sleep and stuff and all these speakers and consoles and such are hindering that prospect. The current plan is to have consoles with speakers stacked on top and then the dodecas hanging from the ceiling. 'Course there'd be no room to even enter my apartment let alone listen to music, but hey, it's a small sacrifice for the hobby.

Hey now, being remembered for racooning woogers seems like a great thing; it's classy and timeless. A far cry from being associated with these:

Keep dreamin' folks, them's mine and I ain't letting ya getyer grubby hands on 'em.

Now Bose mentioners, don't make me hurt you. 901s just use a bunch of the same drivers, the D-12s are 3.5 ways (three ways, but two slightly different types of tweeters).

- JP

AK History 101

wualta, would that I could lay claim to that timeless expression, but, alas, I cannot. I must be true to the Truth. The story has three parts.

WOOGERS

This term derives from a post, the first usage of 'woogers', here, where our own Strawman perpetrates a typo, which will live in perpetuity. He suffers from the same affliction that I do, CTWAS, namely, Can't Type Worth A ****. This led to the serendipitous coining of the immortal, "woogers".

RACOONED

The first known usage of the term, "racooned', on AK, was posted by Inspiribomb, quoting an eBay auction for L300's.

Now we have both pieces of the puzzle. All that remains is to combine them, into the phrase that so tickles your funnybone. "Racoon those woogers" came from none other than Kelly, kfa888, in this thread, post #27.

And now, the connection is complete. "Racoon Those Woogers" belongs to kfa888, and holds its rightful place as his custom user title.

Kudos to Kelly!

Class Dismissed!

Charivari, those things look like something from Buck Rogers. They get at least 10 points for originality as far as I can tell. Have you disclosed your listening impressions? They are real aren't they?

mac

Charivari said:

Why is it that whenever some ugly monstrosity of a speaker is dredged up from the depths of the internet, my name is mentioned? This a disturbing precedence. Is everyone just jealous of my bright blue dodecahedrons?

- JP

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I was going to suggest that the two of you get a farking room, but if it's unrequited.....maybe a restraining order.

macaltec said:

Charivari, those things look like something from Buck Rogers. They get at least 10 points for originality as far as I can tell. Have you disclosed your listening impressions? They are real aren't they?

mac

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Yep, they're real speakers and the flagship speaker model put out by a start-up California company Design Acoustics back in 1973. I've a thread on them floating around here somewhere, though the rest of the pictures've been lost as all others. My listening impressions are very basic so far as I've yet to refoam the woofers, sorry, woogers. However, I did briefly stuff some woofers out of my Design Acoustics D-6s (same woofer) to give them a run. My impressions are that they're a bit top heavy, not in extreme treble, but just the overall balance. But that's largely due to positioning. With true omnis like these, you end up listening more to your room than to the speakers and my room is not as dark as I'd like. With proper positioning (and these really need it more than others), they could sound very good -- the upper midrange is already quite smooth unlike many speakers I've encountered and don't incur a harshness of female vocals, as I all too commonly encounter with speakers.

What's fun about these, though, is that because of the omni pattern, you simply cannot locate the speakers. The soundstage and imaging is there (though not as sharp as it could be), but you can walk around the room or right up to a speaker and it doesn't collapse. Rather, you'll be standing next to one and would swear that it's not playing, the sound field is so distributed.

I still remember fondly when I found them a the local Goodwill. I kept trying to pass them up, but they were so ugly, I had to drag them home. Come to think of it, I also remember the ride home with these in the back of my truck -- everyone along the route stared at them as I drove through town. Must've been an odd sight.

For what it's worth, I have the Stereo Review of these and other Design Acoustics speakers at my DA Yahoo! group, as found in my sig.

- JP

Everytime I see those things JP, I can't help thinking; The Force is strong in this one!

Charivari said:

I still remember fondly when I found them a the local Goodwill. I kept trying to pass them up, but they were so ugly, I had to drag them home. Come to think of it, I also remember the ride home with these in the back of my truck -- everyone along the route stared at them as I drove through town. Must've been an odd sight.

- JP

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How big are they that they would eliict stares when in the back of your p/u?

Manitoulin said:

Mark, you are right.

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I don't think so. I'm sarcastic.

Manitoulin said:

These speakers are another "sucker born every minute" item.

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YOU sir, are right. - Mark

Manitoulin said:

How big are they that they would eliict stares when in the back of your p/u?

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Just around 2', but I had to strap them down on top of a hard fiberglass tonneau cover (broken, so it had to be this way). Come on, this is a farming community of 13000 when the students are in, 4500 when the students are out of college. Seeing a beat up old S-10 pickup, four colors on its own, driving through town with a pair of big blue balls on the back will elicit a lot of stares.


Fotno, I agree! In fact, it's my hope to run these with my Kenwood KR-1000 Galaxy Commander when I fix it up. Should be quite the combination, but not necessarily in a good way.

(VintageStereo's KR-1000)

- JP

I like blue.

JP, I think these would go great in between the Decos and the consoles.

What you could do is buy a Crate of them, get a nice tree to plant and hang the suckers all over it. It would ofcourse be called a "GOURDIOUS TREE" and right in keeping with the rest!

Gary

A Whirlwind Semester at AK U.

luvvinvinyl said:

And now, the connection is complete. "Racoon Those Woogers" belongs to kfa888, and holds its rightful place as his custom user title.

Kudos to Kelly!

Class Dismissed!

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[plays Elgar's P&C]Thanks! I feel enlightened and slightly sore from all the giggling. I think Packrat deserves some extra credit for hearing one of the early bits and running with it in a bold and "crassy" way.

Chari: As for the Bose reference, it's legit: both Dr. Amar Bose and Mr. D. Sign O'Coustics were after flat power response in a real room from 20-20kHz, something that hadn't been done at the time (1968 and 1973) in a commercial product. They went about it in different ways-- Bose also wanted to eliminate the crossover and decrease undriven cone area and DA didn't care-- but the main idea, to drive the room and create an enveloping soundfield rather than just a sweet spot (which is more akin to nearfield monitoring or headphone listening), was the same.

The woogers in the D-12 haven't been racooned yet? Good. Get in there and re-cap the crossover. That just might get rid of the brightish balance.

Actually, I did recap the crossovers -- when I swapped in the D-6 woogers for testing purposes -- and that led to a brighter sounding speaker, though smoother on the upper end. You're right, though, that these certainly do end up driving the room, and I'm not fond of how my room sounds. So, I'll probably stick with my DCs to better simulate a nearfield listening setup. However, when I finally rent/buy a house and have a room available just for audio (if at all possible), I'll treat it properly and give the DAs the proper room and listen they deserve. 'Course, my other speakers will sound much better as well, so they may remain as a fun curiosity.

- JP