jessie.dazzle wrote:

Forgive me for being so forward, but I have been holding it in for some time, and am right now, at this very moment, ripe for saying that I see this MiniMe thing as being analogous to an affair with a capricious little mistress bitch on the side. One with whom I think you are destined to become bored and frustrated. She is from another generation; you will simply offend yourself by attempting any interaction beyond the first-degree, the primal and the physical. While admiring your youthful persistence, I feel the time is right to have that wronchy one-nighter and "get her out of your System". Yes I too have something on the side; a pair of dirty-little-cheap-whore computer speakers, for which, given their humble origins, I can muster some respect. Apologies; emotions getting the best of me here! Not to be take too seriously.

There is no need to ask forgiveness – being overly forward is the only one way to communicate that makes sense for me.  I partially agree with you and in some instances I do feel disappointment with the direction where MiniMe have gone. However, I have some retinal that I sell to myself and that makes my actions semi- lucid.

You see, I have no other playbacks in my home besides Macondo. To power up Macondo I need 12 amplifiers, juts think about it. I have a habit to keep Macondo powered all time. Sometimes I keep the Macondo up from Friday afternoon to Sunday night, in many instance I leave home for a couple hours and do not turn amps down. It is hard to explain but when the amps up and Macondo is ready to play then it set some strange feel of comfort and calm in my room. You see, I listen a lot of FM, in many instances I have no idea what will be next and I like the ability of playback to be always on. It is not only music. I am a huge NPR fan and we have heard 2 stations that do NPR broadcasting. You know that feeling of “can’t get out of driveway NPR programming”? I catch it very frequently and I like to keep my playback all time up. Funny, but besides all considerations of perspective use of DHT tube for MF that might not be suitable for all-time-on-type of operation there is a consideration of electricity cost – it is actually tangible.

So, the ides to have a cheap and not demanding substitute for Macondo does not sound too pointless to me. I did bring up some alternative solution but they sounded very annoying even for listening the BBS news, I am not kidding. So, initially the MiniMe was conceived as not-annoying, all time on, alternative amp-driven speaker that will be literally all time on.

Here is where the plot got thicker. I am a bit lost balance where to stop. I thought to make MiniMe imbedded into Macondo’s frame but I realized that I might do better. At that moment I had to abandon any DIY attempts and get a commercial mini monitors. I did not. I think that was a mistake.  However, for the time and the money I have spent on the MiniMe I do not feel comfortable to "get her out of my System" not to mention that I would still need some kind of “all time on pilot system”.

So, in one way of other I will finish the MiniMe and will make it “none-annoyingly” sounding. Was it the best way to go and would I be able to make it by other means – unquestionably there are better ways.  However here is where I am and I need to get beast from the situation I found myself in.

The wonderful think about having an affair with a capricious little bitch on the side is to return back to your THE Woman and to realize how magnificent and how valuable for you your “the woman” is, if she is.  It sound strange but you would be surprise how much I learn about Macondo playing with MiniMe. It is not that I did not know the things about MiniMe – I very much know what I am doing with sound in my room, but I to my surprise realize that that to have a good quality but smallish mini-monitor with it’s mini-monitor in the Macondo’s listening environment is useful for some many perspective.

So, I would like the MiniMe to be finished and operations. I would like the MiniMe’s prose was outsourced all together from beginning but I did not go this way. My mistake but it is what it is.

el`Ol wrote:

Romy, I find the Veravox 5 drivers are strong contenders when searching for elevated sensitivity 5" drivers. I heard the Veravox 5X in combination with Shindo SET electronics and found it very natural-sounding. Both 5ers have ceramic magnets, however (the X-version a double one, back to back). The 5S can be got from Solen, the 5X currently seems to be sold out (also in Europe).

http://www.lautsprechershop.de/hifi/index_en.htm?/hifi/cantare_en.htm

I never heard any Cantare drivers. I might herd them in fact but I never care too much about drivers if there were not mounted in horn and if I heard Veravox in any of box speakers before then I might just did not pay attention to them. I do not know a lot about the box speaker as what the time of my audio Age of Enlightenment came I was in the horn universe. I went of Foxtex not because I like them - in fact I do not – but because it might be a “safe bid”. In addition the 120A model will be different from all Foxtex that I heard and the custom cone treatment that will be implemented on my drivers will make them to sound very different than what I know. I have to note that what I said in the previous sentence all is allegations and promises from other people - I have no idea if it would be accurate but it might be “acceptable” in context of MiniMe restricted demands. I had a few interning 5” drivers in my aim but I figure out that Foxtex would be the safest bid and the easiest bid. Let see how wrong I was…

BTW, if I have an easy option to try the 11cm Gorlich drivers then I would gladly do it but to pay $1.4K juts for “trying”, without anybody underwire the result, is too much

I am glad that you mention your use of 120A. I never heard it (consciously) and I bought it juts due to advice of 3 people, one of them was the guy who sold them. I have no idea what to expect from them but I think they shall not be too bad. I asked people about the 120A’s ability to care the ”absolute tone” about the ability to play loud but they do not comprehended what really I was asking. Well, the only think to get the right answers is figure out myself, I will. It looks like the Budanization treatment shall emptive further the 120A’s sound. I have no personal experience but I think it might work out. The guy from planet10-hifi looks like has a lot of experience with those drivers and he knows what he does. I do not know what his definition of “good sound” and where his reference points are but I do not think that whatever he does with the d rivers would hurt them. He claims a lot of different advancement after his treatment – will why not, it is high possible that he is correct.

My thoughts about the 120A are following. It most likely will be linear but with so typical for those drivers mechanic-like transients with some sense of hyper-resolution. I think that I might trey to battle it witch putting the RAAL driver in the game at HF and unloading the HF from the Fostex dome. It might work or might not – the Fostex might have a self sufficient HF, at least good-enough for the MiniMe objectives.

I do not think that Fostex 120A will play loud and it will most likely compress above 90dB as any other bad drivers. I think the compression will be due to soft cone exertion where the bend of the drivers will minimize the operational surface. People drive it all the way down but I will not and I will cross it relatively high, let say 500Hz and use a smallish box. By thin I will extend the power handling and possible ennoble it to play a bit louder.

Those are all speculation, let see how it goes. Floobydust, if you feel to express any critiques of the direction that I am planning to go with 120A then please do so. The driver will be her in a month or so…

Well, the points you bring up are valid but as anything else it all highlight problems with people not with equipment. I am not sure that I am glad with my decisiveness and sanity in MiniMe projects. I was trying to rationalize the MiniMe idea in the post above:

http://www.romythecat.com/GetPost.aspx?PostID=9744

… and did it and it sound sensible to me but my clear reasoning of MineMe concept did not bring yet any clear sense of accomplishment or even direction.

When I started the project I was under impression that whatever I will do will work or at least it I will be able to recognize as an acceptable for the given objective. However, if you look at the chain of mini-monitors that I in one way of another used over the few years for “all time all playback” then you see rather a chain of frustrations. The biggest problem is that even most of them are OK from hi-fi perspective but as soon they play classical repertoire (99% of my casual listening) then they begin to throw all imaginable nastiness that annoys me tremendously.  Then there is Macondo that is always a switch away…

If to call any of small speakers that I had in my room as MiniMe then it always well observable difference between Macondo and Macondo’s MiniMe. In trims of association I would call the difference is in perception of love. The Macondo has the perception of Florentino from “Love in the Time of Cholera”. It is idealistic but capable and faithful. The MiniMes are more in the line with Richard Sherman from “The Seven Year Itch” – it is self-delusional, malpracticing, contradictive and destructive. It is very indicative to have them side by side. The idea with my custom MiniMe projects is trying to leverage that sense self- destructiveness by letting MiniMe do not do anything specifically good but at the same time setting a base where MiniMe would not be doing the bad things. Well, it turn out that it is easier to say then to do.

Now I moved to another uncharted territory with F120A driver that would most like force me to use another enclosure for MF section (the bass section will remind as it is very good). I have no idea what I will be getting from F120A and this made me to plug the Planet10 guys into the game. From my experience with JBL LE8 I remember that the aluminum cone needed a lot of work, why do not let somebody else to deal with it who reportedly has this experience? About the “enable” – I do not know. I personally do not have experience, people swear that it helps and I also receive some warning from people that it also hurts. I have no idea how to intermit all of it, not to mention that I never heard anything TOGETHER with the people who support of deny the benefits of “enable” treatment. We can run out mouths on internet for year but until two people are sitting in the same room, demonstrating to each other the witnessable results and correlate own reference points about the heard then it is very difficult to find and subjective common denominator for sound assessments.

As far as I can see it the main benefit to have the Planet10 involve into the F120A’s saga is to have somebody to blame if the drivers will sound like crap. What do you expect – I need to preserve my ego.

Anyhow, let see how F120A will work in band-path. It is possible that it might be good enough (for MiniMe objective) without any tweeter – I will be only welcoming this news. I suspect that I would need to kill the F120A’s “resolution” with a very mind inductor but they are juts speculations at this point. Obviously I will listen to them before adding the RAAL. I wonder how low F120A goes without filter in open baffle or in open box that you proposed? It is can do 3250Hz-300Hz then 600Hz-700Hz might be a good crossover point trying to dive it hard.  The specks for his drive show very low response but I have no idea in which enclosure then measured it.

Perhaps on a given planet it might make sense to use a Tannoy DMT 10 or Sterling HE as the Oops channel AND the Always On Channel, just by swapping or switching the cables, per function?  I mention it because these are two potentially-inoffensive (mid-field) monitors that can actually put out some Music, too (given enough power, of course).  Totally ignoring all efforts and expense in other directions to date, this just might take care of the space issues and the sound concerns simultaneously?  (And perhaps the Smithsonian would be interested in the exotic leftovers...)

Best regards,
Paul S

Paul S wrote:

Probably not news, but: http://www.supravox.fr/anglais/haut_parleurs/135_LB.htm Another one that at least looks the part.

Romy the Cat wrote:

Anyhow, let see how F120A will work in band-path. It is possible that it might be good enough (for MiniMe objective) without any tweeter – I will be only welcoming this news.

Hm, this is interesting.

I have my 2 shitty temporary monitors in Hamster position sublimated with a par of LF sections from MiniMe. They are not perfectly set up but quite listenable in it’s ad-hoc configuration driver by consumer PP SS amp. Here is what I found interesting. During the last 2 weeks I turned the big Macondo just 4.5 times.

First time it was 2 weeks back during broadcasting Bernard Haitink conducting LIVE Bruckner: Symphony No. 8 with Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra. I turned Macondo an hour early and warmed it up. After the concert I shut the Melquiades down.

Second time it was during the same week during Osmo Vänskä conducting LIVE San Francisco Symphony with Emanuel Ax played Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 22. I started to listen it with my MiniMeed Hamster, like what I heard from San Francisco and turned the Macondo’s help

The half time was during the MET LIVE broadcast of Dvorak’s Rusalka. I was driving, liked the performance in car radio, got home, turned the Macondo/Milqs up but the MET’s sound was so disgusting that I shut down the Milqs and went back to the Hamster listening

The third time was this week during the LIVE broadcast of Hans Vonk lead Rotterdam Philharmonic with Mikhail Pletnev crashing through the Grieg’s Piano Concerto. I was listing it on the Hamsters but in the middle of the concerto I realized that after the Grieg Rotterdam will play Holsts’ The Planets. I turned the Milq on and tune the cooling fans off – speeding the Milq got hotter. I was shooting to listen the Neptune movement with it corals decay to darkness with full-bloomed Macondo and the fully-heated Milqs. It was a perfect timing and it sounded spectacular.

The last time it was yesterday when I was trying to prove to myself one more time my feelings that Stravinsky was not good conductors. A friend of my argued that Stravinsky was and proposed me to listed his “…Du Soldat” from 1961 with Israel Baker. I was playing the Colombia 6272 LP and of come for that evaluation I need the full Macondo’s authority.

That was it. All the rest time I was listening my “bad” speakers and I did not have a temptation to change anything – it was enough for me.  I played a lot of music those days and there were some other very good programs, including some LIVE programs but the Hamsters were enough. This brings an interesting forecast how much Macondo I might be using after I finch the MiniMe project with F120A driver. If the MiniMe will be fully balanced and calibrated then will it leave me with one or two deserving sessions per week what I will be encouraged to turn my playback at it full force? Well, whatever it will be but it certainly permit me to use those “hard to get” DHT tubes in less spearing way.

Anyhow, I am trying to evaluate what would be my listening pattern with main system and MiniMe after they will be fully running. I never had a sufficiently good “pilot system” and if you have an experience of prolong living with second playback then can you share what your listening hobbit are from the perspective of main vs. pilot playback?

I got today the Fostex F120A with all latest and greatest modifications on it. I put is in a temp .7 cu feet box with pretty much open back to see what the Fostex will be all about. I drive it from a bad consumer SS, composite-chip Hitachi amp from 80s – bad sound but great huge analog meters.

OK, I admit that the amplification is crap but the sound that I got from Fostex F120A not good even with this amp. The initial connecting of the driver actually made me laugh – it was beyond all expectations bad. Surprisingly the driver was changing it sound right in front my eyes – I never see it like this and in ~60 minutes it was more or less stable in sound (It was burned-in by Planet10). However the sound is not what I necessary too toiled off. It has a strong effect of “paper cone sound” – something that I really hate in all of those drivers. The commentator of WGHB sound like he had his lips covered with thick motor oil – very unpleasant.  In the upper range it has sound like it talks inside of  2 gallon plastic contender with it’s walls covered with aluminum foil – very unpleasantly freaky feeling. The effect is greatly depends from how far I am from the driver axis. The effect is gone is I am 7 feet away and the drivers are turned in other side. Then the dynamics - it is a nightmare. I wonder what the people who comment positively about F120A ever heard that they commented positively about this driver. I do feel that only because the dynamic characteristics that the driver demonstrated so far it shall be absolutely disqualified from used. It is 87dB sensitive but it feels like it is 72dB sensitive… Usually to drive the speakers in this case with very powerful class A SS amp might help a bit (where is my Lamm M1.1) but with 10W of power handling and with my objective to have all time all playback it will not be a chance.

I do not know. These drivers need a lot of ignorance or a lot of imagination to call it “acceptable”.  It kind of even and smooth in a way, it has no good “absolute tone” even up to level of JBL5, but it looks like it  has no specific tonal preferences. I think that this Fi-Hi fairness was something that attracted people to Fostex F120A but it is too small in my coordinate system of judgment. Well, I would not say that the F120A annoys me – it does not and probably any other driver right off the box and in a random box would annoy me more.  Probably I need to give to F120A more time and see where it will be in a week, I need add to it bass channels, to high-pass F120A and see where it will lend.  My only hope that if I high-pass F120A high enough then it might pick up some dynamics. So, far I am not impressed, in fact disappointed.  The way I am playing it now it is the way in which all Fostex users use their drivers – a full-range only they also add a back loaded bass garbage disposal. Probably I need to learn from them now what kind of “single-driver institutionalized sound” they consider as a reasonable Sound….

I was running the F120A for a whole day and now I can’t stress more than I did it in the subject of this post this - driver is ultimate nightmare. In full range it was just too brutal to list it and it sounded sometimes like mechanically distorted. So, was crossing it at 100Hz, at 200Hz and at 400Hz. At 650Hz it looks like the auditable paper colorations got substantially subdued. I was trying to listen it – better but still it is possible to listen it only if to remember how much I paid for this crap. The driver, regardless of the price has truly bad sound due to not even a compression but some kind of effect of “Dynamics black whole”. The damn F120A plays all sound at the same dynamics level and I would say that in the same tonal color as I see absolute impotency in color contrasts. How the hell they do it? How the hell the people who use this driver claim that it is an acceptable driver? Is anybody would like to take this piece of shit from my hands? I will got o garbage can and to find the F120A boxes if not too late and to get rid of it. I afraid to keep it in my room as more listening of it and I will take a blowtorch and will vandalize this piece of the “audiophile glory”.