My Listening Room

Yes! You know the way your pupils get smaller to control the amount of light entering the eye? Little known fact: somoething similar happens in the ears. Bright lights cause the ears to close up!


ok, ok, I admit it: that is absolute rubbish, and I just made it up. Or is it? Psychologically, I think there is something that works like that. I hate auditoriums with bright, dazzling lights as much as hate the ones with bad sound.

Dim lights, relax, listen. Sounds good to me :)

Bright light means brain is sending signals to eye muscles to shrink the pupils. We should always try to keep our brains least occupied in other tasks than focussing on music thereby removing any perception jitters. Let us talk digital.
 
Have heard so much about the vintage Altecs (but yet to hear them). Congratulations on your dedicated listening room! It looks quite nice.

Are the OBs your final build or do you plan other cabinets for your Altecs?

Would you also mind sharing your entire chain, please?

Thanks,
Arun
 
Have heard so much about the vintage Altecs (but yet to hear them). Congratulations on your dedicated listening room! It looks quite nice.

Are the OBs your final build or do you plan other cabinets for your Altecs?

Would you also mind sharing your entire chain, please?

Thanks,
Arun

Arun, Once you have heard the Altec sound there is no going back. I am very happy with the OBs and believe they bring out the best in these drivers. No plans for cabinets, but these OBs were made by me at home. Wanted to vent out some frustration at work, so picked up the jig saw and cut away at the plywood. SUBTEXT: the lines are not straight, everything has an unfinished look and measurements are not perfect to the mm. The plan is to hire a carpenter and get the OBs done properly to spec. at the moment considering if they should be done of hard wood or just good quality ply, or make them sand filled. Definitely OBs though no change in that.

There are couple of points to be noted about my chain, first I am bi-amping, one amp per driver. One of the amplifiers the GM70 is an integrated amp, which was slightly modified and the pre and power stages were split.

The chain in order of flow

Source
Logitech SQB Touch
Technics SL D3 with Shure MX97e MM Cart
Dual 1229 with Grado Prestige Blue MM Cart

Phono
Cambridge Audio 640p

Pre-Amp
Lyrita GM70 Pre Stage

Crossover
SAE 4000

Power Stages
Lyrita GM70 Power Stage --> Altec 416 --> 8 Ohms
Lyrita 2A3 Power Amp --> Altec 288K --> 8 Ohms

B Rgds,
Raj.
 
hi rajagopal

it's a real pleasure to see a room stuffed with books, movies and, above all, music! and the stacks of LPs on the floor was the icing on the cake :)

i've been away from my music for the past 4 months as my apartment is under renovation. needless to say, it's been a depressing time. seeing your pix has really perked up my spirits! thanks for sharing and happy listening :)
 
In Daylight!

Made more pictures in daylight. I am just settling in for a relaxed afternoon, with some miles davis. Thought I will make some pictures and post here. The open baffles are a lot more clearer to see in these pictures than the previous ones.

IMG_20140402_132228.jpg


With the French windows opened up, there is very good definition to the bass notes without loss in tightness.

IMG_20140402_132238.jpg


Open baffle from the front, still WIP need to do finish!

IMG_20140402_132350.jpg


From Rear showing the LF and HF mounting. Good use for the books, but need to make a stand for the HF soon

IMG_20140402_132403.jpg


The Famous Altec 288s, these are the Ks (Ferrite) though not the Cs (Alnico)

IMG_20140402_132414.jpg


Temporary, Chinese made fibre glass JBL 60:40 spread horn

IMG_20140402_132426.jpg


My room from the speakers, Chennai heat can't sit on leather!

IMG_20140402_132505.jpg


Finally getting ready for a nice afternoon!

IMG_20140402_132636.jpg
 
Being new to this stuff, I was amazed, when visiting Rajiv a few days ago, by those mid/high drivers. Without the horn, I don't think I would have even recognised them as speakers, with no obvious visible cone, dome, etc.

Then there's the weight! Good grief, there must be whole floorstanders (well, Book-shelves, at least) that weigh less than those units!
 
Last edited:
Thad,

Rajiv uses the 288G which is just slightly smaller than the 288K which I am using.

The open baffles have a very different sound. You are most welcome if you want to listen to them on OBs.
 
Re: In Daylight!

Made more pictures in daylight. I am just settling in for a relaxed afternoon, with some miles davis. Thought I will make some pictures and post here. The open baffles are a lot more clearer to see in these pictures than the previous ones.

IMG_20140402_132228.jpg


With the French windows opened up, there is very good definition to the bass notes without loss in tightness.

IMG_20140402_132238.jpg


Open baffle from the front, still WIP need to do finish!

IMG_20140402_132350.jpg


From Rear showing the LF and HF mounting. Good use for the books, but need to make a stand for the HF soon

IMG_20140402_132403.jpg


The Famous Altec 288s, these are the Ks (Ferrite) though not the Cs (Alnico)

IMG_20140402_132414.jpg


Temporary, Chinese made fibre glass JBL 60:40 spread horn

IMG_20140402_132426.jpg


My room from the speakers, Chennai heat can't sit on leather!

IMG_20140402_132505.jpg


Finally getting ready for a nice afternoon!

IMG_20140402_132636.jpg

Congrats Raj
The rooms looks great.The vintage speakers and tube amps whose design matches the same era , seem to provide an element of ''WEIGHT" and "SCALE" to the music which modern day high resolution systems may struggle to achieve.
cheers.
 
Would love to sample the goodness

Nice way of putting it... and I was lucky enough to do just that on Wednesday afternoon --- which somehow soon became Wednesday evening too :).

The biggest thing to envy :D is the space itself, that Raj has been able to build. A famous female British Author, Virginia Wolf, said something like, the first thing a woman needs to be able to write, is a room of her own --- I guess she was might have acknowledged that a music lover, male or female, needs such a thing too! Well, Raj got me thinking about what might, sometime in the future, be posiible at reasonable cost if one minimises the cost of decorating, flooring, window frames, etc. Mrs G wants a meditation room; I want a music room, and our biological clocks mean that even if it is a shared space we wouldn't often fight over it :lol:

The OB just has to be the most simple speaker build ever. Just four pieces of wood, with zero woodwork of the cabinet-making sort. A novice (ie me :o) might think that there is no more to it, but yes, the dimensions and proportions do matter; they matter a lot --- but that doesn't take away from the essential simplicity of the build, with its complete absence of internal structure. Because it hasn't got an internal.

It is a very cleverly set-up system. The planning and setup is the bit which is not at all simple, and Raj has put a lot of necessary work into that, and does not consider it a finished job yet.
 
Yup, love the complete setup, the sound system, books, music and single malts. You can't improve that space much. :D But, I can see how much of thought, planning and effort would have gone into realising that space...
 
Raj, I am quite inspired by your work with the open baffles. Have a question, I've noticed personally that the speaker has to be driven more if used in such an arrangement, compared to a full baffle (either bass reflex, acoustic suspension or horn). Is this true?
 
Another dumb question, as I have never used a horn tweeter before. Does the metal horn assembly actually do the job or a speaker cone or does it just direct the sound? Asking as I have seen some designs where a paper cone or dome tweeter is used behind a horn shaped assembly for making the high frequencies directional.
 
There is a massive mechanism behind that horn. Just try to pick it up: you will need both hands! Looking at a yet-unused one at Rajiv's place, I would not even recognise it as a speaker, with no cone or dome easily visible. It looks like some part from a heavy-weight industrial machine!

It seems that it is called a compression driver, but I'll leave further explanation to the experts, as I wouldn't have a clue.
 
Reuben,
Its always the horn + driver (woofer/tweeter/compression driver). Driver creates the sound, horn directs it.
 
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