Re: Re: car audio
 
>    Dynaudio drivers are excellent quality. Myself, I prefer Focal and 
Eaton, 
> although these can be very expensive. If you plan on pursuing speaker 
buildin
> and design as a serious hobby or job I would strongly suggest the purchase 
of
>                The Loudspeaker Design Cookbook, by Vance Dickason. It 
should 
> be in its' 4th or 5th edition by now and runs about $30. I have a 
collection 
> of about 20 books on speaker design and building sitting on the shelf. 
> Whenever a question arises, I go immediately to it.
>    I would subscribe to Speaker Builders Magazine. I cannot say enough good 
> about it. They print the good with the bad. If a person makes a mistake and 
> screws up their project...they follow it and print it...telling where the 
> mistake is. No matter what your level of expertise there is something in 
ever
> issue for you. It runs about $25 per year and is well worth it
Thaks for the reply, John! 
I just received a catalog of Focal, Seas, Morel, Polydax/Audax, and Cabasse
drivers. The Focal and Cabasse lines are impressive! Also Accuton tweeters
and midrange units look like choice items, once you recover from the sticker
shock. :-(
I've seen ads for the Loudspeaker Design Cookbook, and will order a copy
soon. Does it go into any good detail on Bandpass and Transmission Line
designs? I've been looking for formulas for these with little success, most
books seem to gloss over them briefly without giving enough detail to even
begin to design anything. I've tried 'reverse engineering' a bandpass from a
couple of published plans, but can't really figure out the relationships on
my own. 
You are right about Speaker Builder, it is great! I've picked up a couple of
issues from a bookstore; will be subscribing this month, and ordering some
back numbers. Found a lot of good supply sources already from this mag. 
As to level of expertise, I've been an electronics tech for many years, have 
a 
strong woodworking/cabinetmaking background, have built composite structures
for aircraft and boats, and have done a lot of R&D work building
electrical/electronic prototypes for industrial equipment. I've always had a
passion for great audio, and building speakers is the best way I know of to
get some real satisfaction from my efforts. It is technically challenging,
requires unique skills, and the blend of art and science is hard to resist.
On the software side, do you have any experience with Top Box? Can you
reccomend anything else that is good? I've tried Speaker Workshop (basic, but
solid), SDES (total crippleware, can't even evaluate it properly), Bandbox
(doesn't even RUN), and LED (looks OK, but memory hungry and awkward to
navigate, requires a spreadsheet). Still haven't found what works for me.
LEAP is a distant dream, of course!
Glenn
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