New DIY speakers - a stripe of any other color . . .

I recently was awarded a pair of custom Jarve-Falk speakers at an AK GTG in Virginia, MN and wanted to share my impressions of them.

For the back story including the design and cabinet construction see this thread:

http://www.audiokarma.org/forums/showthread.php?t=234038

For more info on the get together in northern Minnesota read this thread:

http://www.audiokarma.org/forums/showthread.php?t=245422

Luckily, I found enough room in my CAMRY to bring these cool, custom speakers home with me. Bob Falk and Mike Jarve nicknamed them "the COMPACTS" because they are the smallest speaker they have built so far, but I think a more appropriate model name is "STRIPE". (They can sneak up and surprise you - kind of like the gremlin named "Stripe" from the movie "GREMLINS".)

First pic is me setting out my recycling for the week -- oops, don't want to leave the speakers at the curb just yet . . .

Next photo is my living room setup "before STRIPE". You can see my PANASONIC plasma TV, NHT Classic speakers and my beloved KLIPSCH FORTE IIs.

The last three photos are of the new STRIPE speakers in place - using my KLIPSCH as speaker stands. :scratch2: (Is that sacrilegious?)

I've been playing a narrow variety of tunes so far to gain my first impressions: Joe Sample's "Rainbow Seeker", Henry Mancini "Collection", Diana Krall's "The Girl in the Other Room", Weather Report's "Heavy Weather" and the soundtrack from the film "The Italian Job".

Initially I set them up last night with the tweeters "high and outside", but changed them today after viewing the build thread.

With the tweeters set on the inside as you see in the photos, the imaging is fair - although I believe it might be even better in a larger venue than my humble living room (approx. 11 by 20 feet). These speakers managed to fill the Presbyterian Church in Virginia last Saturday very nicely.

The deep bass lines and funky high frequency "clicks" found on "The Italian Job" soundtrack were both reproduced with equal aplomb. I wished I had brought this CD to the church - would love to hear some of these tracks in a larger room with the proper amplification.

Various incidental noises on the Diana Krall recording caught me off guard. I was in the kitchen adjacent to the living room during one track when I heard non-musical noises that made me think there were real people in my living room. I'll have to play through that CD again so I can figure out which track it was (and what the noises were).

The Joe Sample recording is one of the first jazz recordings I know from 30 years ago. I have a CD version that I picked up used. Compared to the more recent recording by Diana Krall it sounded a bit light in the bass dept so I felt I had to adjust the tone controls a bit to compensate. I'm also playing with the "contour" switch on my pre-amp - usually something I don't touch with my FORTEs.

For being merely a "two and a half way" speaker (according to MJarve) they are a surprisingly good sounding compact speaker. And I really dig the walnut stripe. :tresbon:

The cabinet dimensions are:

18.5" high / 17" wide / about 12" deep (as pictured below)

Each cabinet weighs about 35 pounds!

More thoughts as I try other types of music through them. :thmbsp: :thmbsp: (two thumbs up)

Those are sweet. May I have them? :scratch2:

I love the veneer job, and I like the "non standard" dimensions. :thmbsp:

I'm glad you like them, or at least are kindly humoring us. I have to say that when I heard them in the church the night Bob and I setup, I was pretty well surprised at what had been accomplished.

Also, if you have not already noticed, the tweeters can swivel a little bit, to get better imaging. I experimented with that in my own listening room during the tuning phase. I had the speakers positioned similarly to how you have them now- I found that, with a slight toe-in of the speaker as a whole, but adjusting just the tweeter to point "straight", provided the widest sound-stage while still maintaining proper imaging and "size".

If, as Bob is toying with, we do this again next year, you will certainly have to bring up that Italian Job OST.

Hey Bob it looks like Peter got the stripe in the correct position!

I loved how these sounded in the church. I'll have to see when you have some free time so I can come up and give them a listen.

Congrats! I was wishing I would have won them but they went to someone that probably needs them more than I.

Denny

M Jarve said:

Also, if you have not already noticed, the tweeters can swivel a little bit, to get better imaging. I experimented with that in my own listening room during the tuning phase. I had the speakers positioned similarly to how you have them now- I found that, with a slight toe-in of the speaker as a whole, but adjusting just the tweeter to point "straight", provided the widest sound-stage while still maintaining proper imaging and "size".

Click to expand...

Thanks for the tip, Mike. I had no idea the tweets could swivel. I'll have to go back and listen some more now that they are pointing straight ahead.

hypertone said:

Those are sweet. May I have them? :scratch2:

Click to expand...

Sorry, hypertone, I'm not ready to give them up just yet.

DENNYDOG said:

I loved how these sounded in the church. I'll have to see when you have some free time so I can come up and give them a listen.

Click to expand...

That could probably be arranged.

DENNYDOG said:

Congrats! I was wishing I would have won them but they went to someone that probably needs them more than I.

Click to expand...

Do you really think any of us at the church on Saturday NEED more speakers at home?

1koolcat said:

Sorry, hypertone, I'm not ready to give them up just yet.
=

Click to expand...

If that day ever comes I'd like to see them stay in the AK community; they can be like the town... bicycle; ya the town bicycle.

--Bobfalk

I couldn't leave well enough alone . . .

I decided to give my own little "tweak" to these fine DIY speakers today.

I had given M_Jarve a hard time about the silver screws on the tweeters last week (before I won the speakers in the drawing) and decided to seek out some black screws instead. (pic 1 - left)

While I was at the hardware store I also looked for a slightly classier black headed screw for the woofer driver next to the tweeters. Found some black cabinet screws - #6 by 1.5". They have a smaller head and are a deeper black than the originals. (pic 1 - right)

While I was at it I removed the excess gray sealer material that was peeking out from behind the tweeters. (see pic 2)

I think the end result is visually cleaner, yet subtle. (pic 3, 4 and 5)

I also picked up some new 14 gauge speaker wire to drive the STRIPES and will bring the DCM QEDs back into the living room soon for another comparison.

I'm still loving 'em guys. :thmbsp:

Looks great, actually, and beats my permanent marker idea. And I love that new avvi! :thmbsp:

So, I pulled my FORTEs out of rotation this weekend to give them a finish refresh and needed a different way to get the "STRIPE" speakers off the floor.

Here's what I came up with - the metal tables from my patio. I noticed on some tracks the speakers are now rattling a nearby window, so this is definitely not the final configuration for these. (Since I was cleaning up my REVOX R2R at the time I included it in the photo.) The tweeters are a little lower than optimum, but they still provide a nice soundstage on better recordings.

I continue to be impressed with these speakers. Today I demonstrated them for a friend who hadn't heard them yet. He was impressed with their low end, but said he prefers the style of my NHT speakers better. (To each his own )

In the second photo I've moved the left and right channel HT speakers further out from the center channel for better audio separation while watching movies on the TV.

Speaker break-in period?

So I've been playing these speakers steadily since Labor Day weekend and loving 'em more and more.

I have a question for builders of DIY speakers:

Is there a break-in period where you need to tweak the volume knob higher to get the right decibel volume?

The reason I ask is I seem to be liking these with the volume knob set around 9 o'clock now, but it took a higher setting to get the same decibel level when I first got them. (I think the knob setting was more like 10:30 or 11.)

Anyone else have a similar experience with homemade speakers?