was HYPEX amps cheap surround system

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JR.
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Re: HYPEX amps

Post by JR. »

I used to have live bands in my living room with full acoustic drum kits and even vocal PA ( speakers on a stick)... I'm not going to bother them with my TV...

I'll check out the links to the sub amp. thanx

I like the sex appeal of a full out hypex system (Bruno is a design hero), but not $700 worth just for sub assemblies.

The dollar should get stronger when the fed raises interest rates (maybe 10% cheaper). :lol:

JR
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Re: HYPEX amps

Post by Gold »

ricardo wrote: After ooing & aaing etc. I concluded it would be simplest & cheapest to buy some old AV receivers.

That's what I thought. A few Adcom or NAD amps. There are probably multichannel ones too. I love a good project but Buy It Now on the ol' bay is tempting.
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Re: HYPEX amps

Post by JR. »

mediatechnology wrote:I think your neighbors would prefer the 40W/CH amps.

MCM have some great low-cost amp modules for subwoofers. http://www.mcmelectronics.com/product/50-6269

I'd look at Parts Express too: http://www.parts-express.com/cat/subwoo ... ifiers/332
Interesting... I hadn't thought of plate amps but that is getting to be a mature market too..

thanx

JR
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Re: HYPEX amps

Post by mediatechnology »

A couple of other power amp module resources:

http://www.ampslab.com/products.htm
http://www.connexelectronic.com/

I like this one based on the LME49810: http://connexelectronic.com/product_inf ... ucts_id/78
PDF: http://connexelectronic.com/redirect.ph ... Module.pdf

LME49810 Product Page: http://www.ti.com/product/LME49810
I used to have live bands in my living room with full acoustic drum kits and even vocal PA ( speakers on a stick)...
What time is Happy Hour? :lol:
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JR.
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Re: HYPEX amps

Post by JR. »

Nice I like the SMPS solutions too. No need to reinvent any wheels.
======
regarding what time was happy hour, back when I was throwing my parties, a lot of my friends were working musicians so couldn't attend my party at night. I would start serving cold beer and chili at noon, for my musician friends who had gigs. They could party before they had to leave for work.. I had one regular house band that I scheduled around, but there would always be jam sessions with parts of several other local bands in attendance.

After having live bands in my living room my hifi system got used less and less.

JR
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Re: HYPEX amps

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I am getting weary of hearing audible artifacts from my Tv sound system (repurposed computer speaker system 4 channel + sub). It sounds sooo much better than the stock speakers in the thin TV monitor I have never been able to EQ adequately, but after months of living with the computer speaker I am hearing artifacts in the low bass like maybe they are doing some gimmicky bass processing.

I have spent many hours on the bench designing dynamic processors so I am sensitive to such perturbations. I do not know for a fact the sound from Direct TV and old movies is that good, but I am prepared to find out.

I just purchased a cheap 5.1 surround decoder and 3 small stereo amps. It was annoying to parse out true power specs. the 2x120W amps I bought are more like 10W @ 8 ohms 1%. :oops:

I doubt 10W will work for the sub but this will get me started and help me figure out if the old computer speaker system was introducing the burbles and gurgles... At least one old movie had a throbbing low bass rumble behind it. It handles music better than old movie soundtracks which makes me think a flawed dynamic processor in the powered sub.

If this works OK I can upgrade to higher power later (as needed... if needed.).

JR
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Re: HYPEX amps

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I think I am figuring out what it is that is bothering me... sounds reasonable on music but I hear unnatural stuff during movies. It appears to be an over-aggressive bass processor. If I set the bass tone control to full cut the extra burbles are pretty much gone.

Got my amps today but still waiting for the surround decoder. Soon... :D

JR

[edit] I watched a couple movies with one amp and an old pair of studio monitors. The roughly 10W @ 8 ohms won't make my ears bleed, but adequate for my quiet living room. No bass funny business but less perceived very low frequency output. Clearly the computer speaker sub was adding bass distortion (for effect).

Looking forward to adding 4 more channels. Today I need to recone my 6" 2-ways to use for rear channels.

I have a good (big) sub, and one odd old AR4 speaker from the 60's i can use for the dialog speaker. The other AR4 from that pair was stolen from my parents house in the '70s.

[/edit]

[edit2] replaced the surrounds on my 6' 2-ways and they even make good sounds now. \

I expect the decoder any day now so i'll be up with what passes for surround these days momentarily.

I ordered a kit of replacement surrounds for the 8" 3-way since their surrounds are in the later stages of deterioration. I replaced the woofers once already before I left Peavey (free friends and family plan)

Not sure If I like the 8" 3 way or the 6" 2way better... the 6" 2 way is an old friend I haven't listened to for over 20 years. I know the engineer who designed them (Bruce Zayde) and they don't suck (great vocals)... Hopefully in the surround arrangement none of them will be called on to make low bass so the differences between the 8" and 6' woofer will be less noticeable.

I am a little nervous about the orphan AR4x I plan to use for dialog... A little WWW search suggests it has a cloth surround so may be in better shape than the foam surrounds that last 10-15 years if lucky. I found kits for the AR4x so I can repair it too if needed. I bought it in the 60's so more than half a century.

The woofer has the accordion paper surround that looks in decent shape, it's probably 20+ YO too...

My house was a grave yard for old speakers. This should be in my entropy thread, I am slowly undoing decades of speaker decay.

BTW it's really nice listening without all the bogus tricked up bass....

JR
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Re: was HYPEX amps cheap surround system

Post by JR. »

After a weekend of listening with real speakers and NO funny bass processing I like it. :D

Yesterday I replaced the foam surround for a pair of 6" 2-way speakers from the 1980s. These were my main hifi speakers back in the day but the foam surround has been gone for a couple decades. The 6" driver was an odd ball special with unusually heavy magnet structure and who knows what else. Not an off the shelf driver I could buy to replace. These speakers were branded Fourier, a small company backed by Peter Aczel the publisher of Audio Critic (one of those audio-phool rags). I knew the design engineer, Bruce Zayde from when he worked for Bozak while I was a consultant designing their electronic delay products. Before Bozak Bruce designed some book shelf speakers for Ohm, but Ohm was better known for their Walsh driver speakers (drivers looked a like a dunce cap and one transducer covered entire audio frequency range).

Bruce was a smart guy, and I talked with him about offering a speaker kit through my kit company. At the time the hot new thing for speaker design was time-alignment, and I am sure he would have helped me develop a credible offering, but I eventually bailed on the project because of the potential for ending up with huge piles of expensive slow moving inventory after the kit had its 15 minutes of success from the popular electronics cover article publicity.

Getting back to these Fouriers that Bruce designed. I traded Peter Aczel one of my MC phono preamps (he and Bruce were both fans), for a pair of their speakers. Now that I have them back in service thanks to replacing the surrounds yesterday it is like being reacquainted with an old friend. :D :D These speakers really sound good. They don't go down as low as my AMR 8" 3-way studio monitors, but the midrange is very tight and accurate. The classic problem for 3-ways is getting the midrange right and the 2-way is audibly better (to my ears) than the 3-way (which was highly regarded in at least one published magazine shoot-out).

I was happy with the 8" 3-way studio monitors, but frankly didn't spend much time just listening to music... now I am listening again.

I am looking forward to getting my cheap digital surround decoder (any day now)... I am almost tempted to fire up my old kit surround decoder. It was only 5 outputs L(dry), R(dry), C (L+R dry), and two (L-R + delay). I bet it still sounds good, but I expect in the several decades since it was done modern digital technology should be better... If not I will dust off the old school approach, but i like the idea of a separate dedicated sub feed and dedicated center dialog vocal feed.

JR

PS: Last night while watching an old movie from the 30"s I heard some low level artifacts in the low bass. With the more accurate speakers I can even hear record ticks sometimes (early movies used records for the sound track so some audio flaws were likely still found in the modern sound transfer). My previous heavy bass enhancement processing took those minor LF artifacts and hyped them to annoying levels.
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Re: was HYPEX amps cheap surround system

Post by mediatechnology »

Now that I have them back in service thanks to replacing the surrounds yesterday it is like being reacquainted with an old friend. :D :D
When I recently moved all of the stuff out of the storage warehouse I had I moved 2 pair of beaten-to-death JBL 4312s.
It had only been about 6-9 months since I moved my JBL 4411s out of storage and had them re-foamed.
I had 3 pair of large JBLs in storage...

The 4312s looked like hell with what I thought was white latex paint splatters, scratches, gouges etc.
One had a small insignificant amount of water damage and the grill frame was distorted.
The 4312s LF drivers have pleated surrounds and survived the 120 degree heat though some of the glue/goo oozed to the bottom of the cone.
No VC rubs though.
The cone mids and tweets were OK too.
I knew the pots were going to be dirty but probably OK maxed out.

What I didn't know is that with some Fornby's furniture cleaner and Howards furniture restorer that these things would actually clean up to become furniture again.
I was blown away how well they cleaned up.
And they sound good too - better than the 4411s with titanium drivers.
Previously I had considered selling their drivers and trashing the cabinets.
Glad I didn't.

I now enjoy low frequencies in two more rooms and replaced two pair of Minimus 7's.
The question is why did I store these things forever?
It was like rediscovering an old friend.

You need to dust off that King Crimson party disc John...
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Re: was HYPEX amps cheap surround system

Post by JR. »

I'd love to get a live band in my living room again, but my old house band is spread across the country now. I don't party like it 1999 because it isn't 1999. :lol:

I have one studio sub with a 15" driver in a huge sealed box (another old AMR studio box). I hope(?) the modern surround decoder scrapes the low bass from the sundry surround channels and feeds it all into the sub output. This will make my 10W @ 8ohm channels go a lot further. 6x 10W should be better than 2x 10W. I may need to add power to the sub channel before the surrounds need more.

I haven't fired up my record player since last century but who knows. The music channels on the satellite are OK but after a while listening to one genre they start repeating themselves. Luckily I like a lot of genres... except for rap. :roll:

JR
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