DIY talk

Would love to hear a sample of the mic

 

He has a soundcloud where he recorded some ambient sounds but no dialogue. As soon as I get an interface I’ll post a sample

 

Looking for someone with the skills, inclination and interest in building an autoformer preamp with balanced and SE inputs and outputs and a remote, sound like a fun project to anyone?
best,
Josh

 

Is an autoformer really balanced? I feel like TVC is the only way to really go balanced.

That being said there’s still advantages using XLR differential input over RCA

 

I decided to buy the iCon 4 pro from england so do not need help with a build
best,
Josh

 

One leg of the autoformer is grounded and there's no isolation.

In theory you could float it and have it "balanced", but it still wouldn't be isolated.

 

So I recently became a first time home owner. There’s a shed in back that the previous owner used as a dedicated wood shop and it rules. They left behind this kickass french work bench and the electrical wiring even has 3-phase power if I ever want professional equipment with a brushless motor



I might start a more dedicated thread because I got a lot of ideas for projects.

I also want to setup a place for electronics, but it’s probably not a good idea to do it in the same space where there’s going to be a lot of sawdust.

 

This is true freedom.

 

Dim the lights a bit, add some halloween decor, that's a scene right out of a horror movie...

 

Acoustically speaking, it's very well insulated...

 

Merchant: so what kind of absorption panels are you looking to buy today?
Cspirou: I'm not sure, what frequency range does human screaming fall into?
Merchant: What?
Cspirou: What?
Merchant: ...
Cspirou: uhhh... human feelings. Yeah, lots of... loud feelings.

 

I should probably make this a thread i its own right but at this point it is merely repeating what others have done as proof of principle.

I stumbled on a maker thread where the person was using PCB fab houses to print flexible PCBs for a planar driver and it got me thinking that this might work for a fun headphone project :



so i went about and ordered up some flexible PCBs and printed frames to hold the magnets









Once I have them assembled, I will measure them and see what can be done.

dB

 

Flexible PCBs???? I had no idea such a thing existed. I guess I'm now making planars as well lmao.

 

I’ve seen flex PCBs before but never thought about them for a planar. I assumed they could only be done with really light films, but PCB tech had advanced in ways I wasn’t aware of

 

it might be a little heavy but only one way to find out - if you go back to the start with the original vintage planars - they had about the same thickness films. Talking original Mylar Fostex or Wharfedale ID1 etc - no comparison to the "sneeze and tear me" modern planars ..dB

( and it cost me < $20 for 5 PCBs shipped = high fun to cost ratio )

 

If it turns out to be too heavy for full range - oportunity to mess around with 2-way design.
To my thought planar is dumb for highs anyways. Great for bass (in headphone) and mids.

 

Why so?

 

I do wonder why multiple drivers are common for speakers and IEMs but never really took off for full size headphones. I guess it’s at a sweet-spot for both bass and highs?

 

I've been ruined by good tweeters and solid bass performance from speaker world.
To me even the best full size headphones have significant limitations in their ability to produce one or the other end of the spectrum, in most cases both ends.
(Consider my thoughts with a caveat as I dislike every speaker widebander I have heard so far, even the most expensive ones - they are to me less coherent than merely good multi way and the highs suck.)

The size used in headphones as widebander drivers are good for mids - perhaps bass as well.
A tiny version of either could do highs of course. A large one could do bass.

The first issue is the driver is too large - it is not a point source in highs. I am no headphone wizard - and the engineering inside the cup is nothing like for a speaker - nevertheless I think point source has to be better if there is choice.
Second issue - since it is a compromise the bass performance suffers to be able to produce any highs.

Good woofers have some significant moving mass. Good mids and tweeters have very little.
Woofers need large volume displacement (area times x), mids require a little, tweeters almost not at all.

A widebander is not a coherent point source - it will have breakups and beaming.

There are two obvious downsides - or let's better call them engineering challenges - with multiple drivers, both speakers and headphones need filters and the driver geometrical spacing. In speaker concept other than extreme nearfields I don't see the point of making concentric driver - the upsides do not appear to outweigh the downsides. For headphones it might make a lot of sense.

It is similar argument as making an 8 inch widebander to do it all in a speaker. It is not going to happen.

 

The critical piece for a tweeter is the speed of the driver. Can it move 20K times a second without significant distortion? The critical piece for low frequencies is can the driver move a sufficient volume of air without significant distortion? The mids are in between.

A planar is technically better suited to highs than a dynamic driver due to the weight of the driver (the planar diaphragm is usually lighter). Lighter = faster. Excursion doesn't matter because high frequencies don't require a large volume of air so the xmax of a dynamic driver has no benefit.

For the lows you need large driver surface area and large excursion. Dynamic drivers have an edge in excursion but planars are often much larger in surface area (see HFM for a blatant example). Since in a headphone the driver only has to move the air between itself and the ear, you don't need a sub. It's not moving the volume of air in a room.

Comparing a headphone to a speaker is a mistake in understanding of physics.

Point source does not mean "a super tiny speaker" (a tweeter). It means all the sound is coming from a single driver. Multiple drivers reproducing the same frequencies is NOT a point source (yes they are crossed over but there's a ton of overlap).

Crossovers add distortion and phase shifts between drivers.

It makes exactly zero sense making a multi-driver headphone. Especially with the state of technology we have. The few that do are either incompetent or relying on advertising that consumers don't understand and think "wow it has 95 speaker drivers! 95 is moar than 1 so it must be better".