Latest Update: October 16, 2011
January, 2022
Google is moving all the old web sites to this new format. So far I've simply pressed the "move" button , I haven't had a chance to really do anything here.
December 31, 2020
This site isn't dead yet. Life got in the way and put everything on hold, but I'm getting things sorted out and I( hope to have something to write about soon.
I'm working on some speaker designs I hope to publish here in the next year or two and here's a mini update on my HTPCs I've written about here.
The server based tuner farm set-up with Beyond TV was killed back in about 2016 when COX scrambled all of their digital cable channels and quit broadcasting analog signals. This forced me to Silicon Dust Cable Card tuners, but Beyond TV was still working!
Not too long after that, about 2018, COX put DRM on everything but the local channels which did finally kill Beyond TV. Only Windows Media Center can handle DRM, and I have to watch on the TV where the show was recorded, but WMC, on Windows 7 HTPCs and two HD Home Runs with Cable Card tuners is still functioning to this day.
COX is trying to displace all hardware in their user's houses with its own. I won't allow it and I will be switching to a WEB based streaming service in the next few months. Live local TV and 1 or 2 streaming services should keep me going just fine for about half of what COX thinks I'll pay.
I built my first speakers as a senior project back in high school and I've been in love with stereos and speaker building ever since. I've loved the the image of the Maxell Man since I first saw it. I built my first speakers big and efficient with junk crossovers (what can I say, I was 17). I've spent my spare time for the last several years going back and learning the basics of analog audio circuits and speaker design at a level I wasn't capable of back in high school. I'm fairly technical, enjoy math, and I like learning about the analog side of audio. (Thiele, Small, Bohdan, Elliott; what is it about Australia?)
The links to my projects are in chronological order (except the computer adventures). I've done this to indicate the level of my experience when I attempted the project. The first project listed (Minimus 77) was completed in April, 2008.
I've documented my projects in documents (imagine that) because I needed to get my thoughts organized and saved before I had access to a web site. The write-ups of the first few projects contain most of the pictures, drawings, and information about the project. If you don't see a lot of info, look for a PDF at the bottom of the page, you'll have everything about a project once you download it.
Try to decide how deep you want to go into speaker design/speaker building before you start. If you want a pair of speakers in the next month or two, build someone's established design. Check out Paul Carmody's site (or any of the others listed in the Links page). Build the design following the instructions exactly. Listen to the fruits of your labor for a week or two, then if you want to experiment with the design, give it a try. It's nice to have a high quality baseline for comparison before you start experimenting.
If you want to start with some drivers on your bench and go from there, you'll need measurement tools and crossover modeling software. Get Vance Dickason's Loudspeaker Cookbook and Joe D'Appolito's Testing Loudspeakers before you start. If these books are useful and interesting to you jump on in. If they intimidate you, start looking for good designs that interest you and build those instead. For a quick taste of woofer enclosure design, try Bob Bullock's Bullock On Boxes, it's about $10 and a good look at the application of Thiele/Small parameters to enclosure design.
As usual, the mistakes are mine, the correct stuff came from those who have already traveled this path.
Jay R. Taylor
02/21/2010