Ot -- hi-fi and tubes

From: Mike Ford <mikeford_at_socal.rr.com>
Date: Tue Nov 19 19:00:01 2002

> >The tinker gene is alive, but tinkering is indeed getting harder to do. Kit
> >building and ground up projects are very much alive in audio, especially
> >speakers. If you visit www.headwise.com you will see close to a dozen
> >different headphone amp projects.
>
>Hey Mike, you did not answer my last question: are you planning
>to build a contrabass?


Sigh, not making much progress, but yes I am still working on it. I have
the drivers and inerds except motor, and I am looking into buying a box.
Unfortunately with my Fatherinlaw passing away the precision of some of the
box construction is beyond my skill and tools.

What held up my answer is that I wanted to make a complete reply to the
questions of motor stiction and fidelity of the contrabass. Ya know,
something both elegant and informative. The short answer is that yes the
brush motor does need some minimum signal to get it moving, and as a result
distortion at very low levels is worse than a typical voicecoil driver.
Some controller designs actively kickstart motor, most though just ignore
it since low level bass is fairly inaudible anyway. Once the level gets
more interesting the universal opinion is that the bass of the Contrabass
is as good as it gets and pretty much better than anything else (Sorry
John, even those McCauly woofers). The secret is the genius of Tom Danley,
who invented the contrabass and patented the design, the guy just really
understands bass and sound reproduction.
Received on Tue Nov 19 2002 - 19:00:01 GMT