John Heisz - Speakers and Audio Projects @[email protected]
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Welcoem to posts!!
in the future - u will be able to do some more stuff here,,,!! like pat catgirl- i mean um yeah... for now u can only see others's posts :c
A while ago I posted a video about the "super tweeters" I added to my system to boost the high frequency so that I won't have to wear my hearing aids while in my listening room. I decided to make that solution more permanent by replacing the tweeters in my main speakers with those compression drivers. Luckily, my main speakers have horns already - ones I cut from black walnut for the dome tweeters I used.
I designed and 3D printed the throat adapter. It bolts to the face of the compression driver and then screws on the baffle in place of the old tweeter, using the same screw holes.
There are two benefits from doing this: first, it gets that high output tweeter closer to the midrange so it integrates better and there's less chance of comb filtering. The second upside is that I can now mount the old tweeter so that it's firing backwards, making the speakers true dipoles.
And I did it all without spending $10,000 on cables :)
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I built a small 2 channel amp to drive the super tweeters I added to my system. The amps are LM3886 based and put out about 40 watts per channel.
What makes this out of the ordinary is the way I made the case for the amp, and there will be a video on that coming soon.
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Coming at the hearing assist from another angle, I built two of these to test. These are 105db (1w/1m) compression drivers mounted on quick and dirty stands.
The 8" horns are designed by me and 3D printed.
I painted them this metallic grey on the front to fancy them up (audio perfection is 30% SQ and 70% aesthetics, don't you know).
They are driven by a cobbled together 2 channel amp that's being fed from my miniDSP 4x10 used as the crossover and delay.
last post i showed the mini speakers mounted on my chair and while those worked great, they put the singer's voice inside my head. Not a terrible effect, but a bit distracting. These fix that AND are not attached to the chair.
I still have some tweaking to do, but I'm quite happy with the results so far.
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A better hearing aid system for my listening room, these are tiny fullrange speakers that are mounted on 3D printed gooseneck to make their position adjustable.
Yes, I know this looks insane... and couldn't possibly be "audiophile" ranked gear... but they work MUCH better than the proper hearing aids I have.
The magic part is that these don't work like a hearing aid. Instead that are fed the stereo output from my system, but delayed slightly to time align them with my main speakers. And they are only operating in the range my hearing needs a boost - from 1500Hz to 10kHz.
I adjusted the levels of each independently (my right ear is deafer than my left) just enough to fill in the missing content.
I know they look odd, but I forget they are even there after I've sat down.
To make this happen I pressed the miniDSP 4X10 back into service, mainly for its ability to accurately delay the output to these. Of course it also made it easy to limit the frequency range for the output and adjust the levels.
They are attached crudely to the chair, so they go with the back of the chair when I recline.
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Posted the PCB holder I made yesterday, and this is the board it was holding. It's yet another (number 4, I think) redesign of my hearing aid circuit. This one is pretty close to perfect, so it'll be the last (for now...).
And I designed and 3D printed a very spiffy enclosure to put it in. The power supply for it is separate and will be in another 3D printed enclose.
I can run this from batteries (2 - 9volt ones) but decided to make a plug-in power supply instead.
More details on this, including the measurements, in a video I'll be recording tomorrow.
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What's the expression, when you have a hammer, everything looks like a nail? Well, John's got a 3D printer and now everything is looking like green plastic :)
Neat PCB holder I whipped up this morning. designed, printed and already starting to take on that seniority attitude that your well used tools have. You know, where they start to feel like they are indispensable and act like it, too.
Can hold a board up to 6" long and 5" wide and still rotate fully. The uprights can be turned around to give it another 2" of length capacity. Best part is everything locks quickly and securely with cams.
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First time using surface mount resistors... and I'm hooked!
The change came when I ran out of some key values of through hole resistors and was going to buy replacements. The SMD versions were a fraction of the cost of the TH ones.
And you don't need to drill holes!
Yes, they are tiny, but I think they are faster to solder than the TH ones because it all happens on the top - you don't have to flip the board, solder and then cut the leads.
While I was at it, I surface mounted most of the other through hole components.
Okay, that's fine, but what is this, you ask? It's an active amplifier (4th order highpass, 2nd order low pass) to boost the frequencies my hearing is down at. In other words, a hearing aid.
One that's not portable, but will live down in my listening room and be used when I'm down there.
Advantages are that I can fine tune the response to work precisely with my hearing, and it's analog, so no latency.
I've already ran some tests on a quick and dirty mockup to see how well the idea works and this is the final version.
I'll need two of these, one for each ear.
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Logo cut into the front panel. Thinking I should fill it with walnut to match the knobs, what do you think?
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Designed and started building the front panel for the preamp / control box. Solid maple with some very pretty tiger striping and black walnut knobs and buttons.
The backside of the panel will be lit up with amber LEDs and that will show up around each knob and through the hole drilled in each knob. The drilled holes will have some clear epoxy in them to let the light out.
The corners of the panel will be rounded over and the roundover continues on the side panels as well (also solid maple).
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Preamp with tone control and balance finished and tested.
Pic 1 shows the test conditions - unshielded wires going everywhere and the board sitting open on my kitchen island / workbench ( :) ).
Pic 2 shows the effect of the bass and treble controls from all the way down to all the way up. Also shows with the tone controls all the way up with the defeat button pushed (to turn off the tone controls). Still has a smidge of a boost (or cut), but nothing that should be discernable.
Pic 3 is the noise and distortion with the tone pots all the way up. Distortion is below the noise floor and I expect the noise (which is already very low) will drop lower when the unit is fully assembled in a metal box and tidier wiring.
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Speaker builds and other audio related projects.
As always, take the content of these videos primarily as entertainment and a source of inspiration. These are not comprehensive tutorials and not all of the pertinent details or safety procedures will be shown (or followed).