I would like to pass some observations about my MiniMe progress. At this point it is obvious that the MiniMe project will be a success, even despite the pain of the ass with multi-amping and some other setbacks. The MiniMe will turn out to be a good speaker, well-worth to serve the purpose it meant to serve.

Still, expressing all positive adjectives about the intimidate MiniMe result I would like do not lose a perspective about the absolute quality of the MiniMe accomplishment. So, how really good the MiniMe is from a critical perspective that the readers of my site are accustom to hear from me? Well, the MiniMe is certainly is not seize performer and if I go into somebody’s home and hear the sound of MiniMe caliber I would comment the it is basically a crap. It is not that MiniMe’s Sound is bad but it is very much at the scale of the small-medium size ported speaker. It does not has a LOT of what I would like to have (I can bring a long list) and the only advantage that MiniMe has over other similar speakers is that it is the size that I chose and the characters of imperfections that I can manage up to the point. I would love to tell you and the most important to myself that MiniMe battles the limitation of own class but it not the case – what MiniMe does sonically I’ve heard from many speaker, I also think heard better speakers of the same size (well a bit larger). Perhaps when I make the second channel and tune the ports I will be able to say more but I doubt and I am not taking about specific but about the whole picture.

That all bring to a very educational question to myself. The MiniMe cost around 7K and a few weeks of labor that I do not enjoy even I found it is away pleasant. So, would it make more sense for me in very beginning do not construct the MiniMe myself but to find ready to do off the shelf monitor, something Dunlavy SC-3, Coincident class?  I would say that it might be very much so. Initially I thought that I will be able to build MiniMe in the Macondo frame and that would defiantly lead to my custom work. What then when I decided that MiniMe would be a stand-alone narrow tower I had to stop and look for an off the self solution, perhaps customizing it.

Anyhow, it is too late for me but others might find if worth to consider.

Running MiniMe in bi-amping, even though I get better result by simplistic means, I realized that it is hardly how I would like to end this project. Ideally the whole MiniMe shell be driven by one good SS amp running in A/B. If someone know any small-size, more or less palatably sounding, 50-150W and cool-running such an amp then let me know and I will give it a try.  It is it really good then I would not mind to spend money if it able to care sound well. The WAC amps? I know they did a lot of tube amps, and in fact I like their small and chip ingrate amps but I do not think they do SS things.

Paul S wrote:

Have you ever heard a class D amp that was worth using?  I haven't.  You could probably save time by just sticking with PP, maybe save $ by getting a used one.  Some of those VACs are OK, for instance.

This returns us to the class D amps. I would certainly not even consider to us them foe MF channels but they might be OK for bass, in context of MiniMe-level bass.  I can’t say that heard a class D amp that was worth using. The few that I heard were jokes, but I did not invest a lot of time to dig into the subject deeper. I did consulted with the people and was explained why the properly operating class D amp might not be built even theoretically, at least today. It was convincing and very believable. Those limited Class D exposure that I hear were good proofs of that believe.

What however very much distract me in an idea to consider the class D amp for a full-range use are the users who use them and who claim that they are good. I am not stating that anyone who use class D amp a full-range are idiot but I have to testify that I do not know quite a number of audio-idiots and they surprisingly have tendencies for a full-range class D amplification. The story with full-range “yellow” drivers, not to mention the horizontal–wave propagation drivers keep repeating itself. According to Gödel it is always possible to bring a coordinate system of reference points where even a fart of a World's smallest monkey would be condensed as a musical even worth intellectualizing and reproducing. Pay attention who borough the subject about the wonderful sounding class D amps to this site? It was “angeloitacare” who was not a person but a freaking diagnose. The guys who make class D amp posted on their site links to my site targeting the angeloitacare’s idiotic comments about class D amps. I was forced to delete those posts as I did not what to have idiots to visit my site. So, audio out there is an army of fucking angeloitacare’s, some of them do Audio for years and some of them even publish magazines and run websites. If you know that the person is an idiot and if you know that s/he vigorously advocates a thing then there is a high probability that the thigh to be a crap and it is most likely that your expectation are not very far from what it is. If it walks like a duck and looks like a duck… then it will sound like a quack.

Looking at what's currently easily available, I was reminded once again how desparate the SS amp situation has become.  Of the offerings I saw, I might consider (in no order of "preference") Halcro, Herron, Edge, Ayre, Lamm, or the Pass Aleph, although I think the latter might not have enough grunt for your application.  Anyway, a particular selection from one of these guys might at least give you something to start working with.  The early Sony Japan-made "Esprit" amps are very nice; but also hard to find, and might need some work.  And yes, the VACs are all tubed; sorry.  I thought any old PP would do as long as it "worked" out of the box and sounded OK FR...

I really would not know where to start with most of the crap out there, since most commercial SS sounds like it makes "music" by inhaling it.  But I've heard "acceptable" units from those listed, albeit in some poor environments in some cases.

Best regards,
Paul S

Paul S wrote:

I really would not know where to start with most of the crap out there, since most commercial SS sounds like it makes "music" by inhaling it.  But I've heard "acceptable" units from those listed, albeit in some poor environments in some cases.

What I was thinking is not about specific amps but about the class of the amp. It might be some kind of high-end amp. There is an army to select from if only to know where to stat. Among what I heard and remember… I was thinking about the Eduardo de Lima’s little amp that I heard and liked but it looks like it is tube design. There is a small company in St. Louis - Herron Audio that makes ugly little components but I heard them and they left very pleasant feeling. They have SS amp but it looks like it is available only as monoblocks, good for somebody, bad for me.  Alternately it might be some kind of vintage commercial amp like some Threshold type of amps that were very not bad. Also, it might be some consumer amp from past like Sansui 919 and alike. 

It really funny, there are so many amps out there but I really do not have criteria to select them. It is possible also that I will not be able to found a SS PP A/B amp that will be able REASONABLY to replace a 6E5P-2A3 SET for upper channels of MiniMe. Well, any new post is an opportunity to bitch about something, this one is not exception…

Somebody flowed this there and informed me that I need do not take out of my attention the chip amp around LM3886 chip that reportedly sound very good and would be perfect for my all-time-on,  cool-running amp to power the MiniMe. I do not know how they sound and I do not know if the current characteristics of chip amp will be able to handle the voltage sink when my MiniMe’s port kicks in but it might be interesting to try. I have seen that there are already build Gainclone kits available out there for $200. I do not wants to build anything is and I need a ready to plug in black box. Is anybody use those chip amps and can recommend among many supplies somebody who do better job? Do anybody heard the HLLY amps?

http://www.hllyelectronics.com/html/fm_transmitter_1_102.html

jessie.dazzle wrote:

I feel a driver needs to be somewhat hard-mounted to the enclosure. Cork gives the right sort of balance between hard-mounting and floating, while still sealing, however it would be a pain to cut that many gaskets from cork sheet.

It was ridiculously simple.

I bought a 1M sheet of 1.6mm cork. Then I discovered that my Cat’s tuna cans have the same diameter as my bass drivers in MiniMe. I took a fine blade and is a few minutes I had gaskets, cut to have slightly larger external diameter. Then I mounted driver with the new gaskets and cut with the blades the excess of the cork sticking outside of the mounted diver. It was extremely simple, fast and a fine fade cut cork like batter. Very cool!

It was ridiculously effective.

Now not of the divers touch the baffle and any resonances are absolutely gone. I driver the speaker all the way up and down at max volume and it has no buzzing of any kind.

It was ridiculously surprising.

What was surprising is not that buzzing noises were gone but the general quality of bass increased in incredibly positive direction.  That was what I did not expect. In fact I am truly astonished how much more interesting bass became.

It was ridiculously stupid.

Yep, I am not pleased to admit but I am an idiot. Chasing the buzzing noise I was driving the MiniMe from Lavry 924 full output and 100W amp with 26 dB gain.  I drove Lavry DAC from Lavry AD122 generator at -6dB digital and ran it from ULF to 400Hz. Well, it looks like I have burned the bass drivers and they apparently have no power handling at the levels that I fed to them. They still sound well and DCR did not change but when I give MiniMe bass section some volume then the speaker smells like  somebody fries a chicken in it. Sucks, now I need 6 more of those drivers…. How not to call myself an idiot!!!

Ok, I have both channels up and running and it looks like it is almost it. It left only re-measure everything , properly calibrate and tune up the port. So, how is it?

The project is success, it sound very pleasant and not anion for non-critical lighting. It has surprisingly pleasant bass with sensible balance all together. For slightly more demanding playback it is falling apart. That is what I call “great for jazz speakers”. It is very much not Macondo and frankly speaking listening the MiniMe I got more respect to what Macondo does. Still, the MiniMe has a cute non-annoying sound. That non- annoying status is something that I was targeting and I think I did it. BTW, placed in the stands and use as speared LF tower it hides itself within the Macondo very nicely and take no space. The MiniMe LF section has dimension to be attached exactly to the Macondo frame behind the tweeter (on a side) and between upper bass and injection channels. I do not think that I will be doing it as I like it as is. Perhaps a better amp then my current SS will do it to sound better. This weekend I will try my 6E5P-2A3 on it. I have reconnected the bass drivers in series-parallel configuration and now they have 6 dB more sensitively, so 2A3 might do it better then before…

OK, MiniMe now is up and running. It does what it does and I wonder if it can do better then what it does. The LF sections need to have ports fine-tuned but I do not particularly care about bass now. What I do care is MiniMe to have a certain quality of MF timbre at different dynamic ranges and how to let the MiniMe’s MF to engage room in the proper format.

MiniMe’s MF are very clean but not sophisticated. I was listening last night the Brahms’s Second Symphony live from BSO under Levine and I let the last movement to be cared by MiniMe. The MiniMe butchered it. The tweeters does fine but the upper range of MF driver I feel the screw the things up. I think it is time to look into it more diligently.

The MiniMe (monitor section) and room intersection is another very interesting subject. I do not have easy movable speaker for 9 years and I am not use to do it so simply but with MiniMe it is fun to “play the room” and it is incredible how much might be impacted in the presentation of speakers by just moving them for a few inches. I am not talking about DPoLF but about a simple lower MF’s knee shaping by catching the “Imbedded Macro-Positioning”, that for LF cut off of the MiniMe Monitor's is very narrow.

Marchand doe crossovers not EQ and his crossovers are not so good sonically BTW, but I do not like even the idea of active crossovers anyhow. It is obvious that 2105/LE5 is not so simple driver to begin with but searching for “straighter” driver is exactly what I would like to avoid for MiniMe. My relationship with my ego is in such a format that I have no problem to declare a defeat from JBL 2105/LE5 and cash it out by other means. This is a second system and I do not want to invest efforts to cure the 2105/LE5 with something like this.

http://www.troelsgravesen.dk/JBL_L100.htm

There is one more thing that I did not mention but it very much worth to mention – that G10 drives me absolutely nuts. With all those positive qualities of this material I have developed a very mean allergy to the G10's dust. So, each time I open up the box and play with filter or drivers I curse the damn moment I touched the G10. If I need I would take the measures froe beginning bit now it is too late already.

I still feel that JBL 2105/LE5 is a wonderful driver but as many drivers it is very much not linear up to the point of contemporary high quality home reproductions. It needs a lot of work to become as good as it might be and I do not want to be involved into this work for the …second system.

Romy the Cat wrote:

Actually it turned out that LE5-2/2105 are much more complicated driver and to sound right it need way more complex crossover then juts a band-pass the I initially unused. I spend some time with it today but did not find a configuration the I feel comfortable. I do not know if I want to be involved in a full-tile fight with this driver- this is a MiniMe system and it shell not be really good – it I want good I might tuner Macondo up. I am kind of thinking if it does make sense for me to get a digital corrector and to “fix” all LE5-2/2105 problems via a digital correction system. It will sound like crap but it will not be better if I put zobels and resonators into my MF circuit. After all the MiniMe will be diver by a cheap gainclone amp and will not be targeted foe intense listening. So, it might make since to run it from a D-correction system.

This is my second trip into the DEQ world. First time I was trying to adopt the similar units 8 years back with my driver’s evaluation for Macondo. Funny I thought that that for MiniMe it would not be so critical but as soon I plugged the DEQ-2496 in MiniMe pass I have heard that depersonalized DEQ sound.

Anyhow, this is another type of Behringer, formerly I had EQ + crossover and this one EQ +RTA. I will be playing with it and will see where it brings me in. What was impressive that it was $220 and free overnight delivery. (UPS Ground from NY to Boston gets delivered overnight). Anyhow, I do have a feeling that this DEQ will work for MiniMe I just need to figure out what “logic” shall be handled  by MiniMe’s own crossover and what will be supplemented by DEQ.

Romy the Cat wrote:

Funny I thought that that for MiniMe it would not be so critical but as soon I plugged the DEQ-2496 in MiniMe pass I have heard that depersonalized DEQ sound.

I did not have a lot of time to ply with my new DEQ options. From what I have seen it turned out to much worst then I remember it.  This think make soul-dead sound and I do not think that it shell be used for any purpose. I still have some thoughts about the DEQ as a tool and I might pass them what I have time in the DEQ dedicated thread.

The perspective of MiniMe bothered me more and I was contemplating if I need to start working with JBL LE5 driver more seriously. I have different way of thinking about drivers as I usually recognize the natural driver’s beast capacities and then just let them to be as they are. I do not like drivers, EQ, zobeling, impedance normalization and all the tricks with electrical resonators sitting between driver and amp. They all make the sound hollow – the acoustic pressure is there but useful sound is not. So, I was considering the time I might spend to it I decided do not and to go for another driver.

After some deliberation I make a move toward to Fostex 120A. I have to admit that I do not like Fostex generally. They have no “absolutely tone” and they are all overly glitzy and overly presumptuous. I never hear any harmonically-interesting sounding Fostex driver. From another side I do not look from MiniMe to get “interesting” sound but rather “none annoying” sound.  The Fostex 120A might fill need.

The Fostex 120A has look like similar mounting dimensions as my JBL:

http://www.madisound.com/catalog/product_info.php?products_id=264

and I was proposed what I might do with my smallish MF box to optimize it to use with Fostex 120A. The driver will use with Bud’s patterns and the specials measures will be taken to comfort the mean aluminum dust cap. I outsourced all Fostex 120A drivers cooking ceremony to David from

http://www.planet10-hifi.com/

he looks like have a lot of experience with all trios things, let see how it turn out.

James, why shall I hit you? The Lowthers do fine MF drivers if not to stress them into full range. I actually thought about Lowther but what I was looking at them I did not see any interesting 5” contestants.  The new DX65 is 6.5-7 drivers and this is a whole new world with many possible 6.5” and 8” contestants. I am in 4.5-5” universe that surprisingly different drivers all together. It might not be a bad idea to go there and to use 8” driver but it is not how MiniMe was thought out to begin with.