I've been interested in audio since my late teens, and even "built" a pair of KEF Concerto-like speakers, KEFKit 3s, from a kit when I was about 17/18. Maybe I should do this myself...
I bought the design/build plans from SL online, and joined the OPLUG forum, the Orion/Pluto User Group. O & P were his previous designs, now superseded by the LXMini and LX521. Hurray! They don't seem TOO complicated... But the main structural components, although easily available and ridiculously cheap in the U.S., are not available or horribly expensive in the UK. Bugger. Was there an easier alternative?
It turns out that Dr. Frank, a Lufthansa airline pilot and audiophile, markets complete kits with all the right stuff, ready to build, at www.magiclx521.com for €600. Nice. That would save me lots of effort and concern about having the correct components.
Of course, Dr. F also sells the speakers fully assembled, in which case they are €2130!! Not really competitive with a Quad rebuild.
Since Dec 2015 then, I've been deliberating between the DIY vs. Kit alternatives. It wasn't until the last couple of weeks that I've really worked at sourcing the materials for myself, and pricing them up. So far, I'm at about £400 all found, for the loudspeakers themselves. It's been quite a slog, primarily because of the need to balance cost and accuracy of specification - the US-style pipes are available, but can be very expensive.
And there's the issue of amplification and DSP. Did I mention that these are "active" speakers, in that each individual chassis speaker has its own amplifier, feeding it an appropriately tailored signal? Since these are 2-way loudspeakers (in the first instance, maybe 3-way later...), that means 4 channels of amplification. Should I build or acquire these amps? I looked at "chip amps", base on the LM3886 series, I looked at used 6-way hifi amps like the Nad 906 on ebay, I looked at AV amps used in combination with the HDMI Out of a RaspberryPi (see below)...
And the signal tailoring requires Digital Signal Processing, which can be done by the SL-recommended MiniDSP 2x4 or any other means, including RaspberryPi, Linux box or even MacBook Pro! Choices, choices...
And all with very different cost profiles, complexity and length of build etc. Argh! All this deliberation on top of the DIY vs. Kit choice - no wonder it's been a year in the planning.
I bought the design/build plans from SL online, and joined the OPLUG forum, the Orion/Pluto User Group. O & P were his previous designs, now superseded by the LXMini and LX521. Hurray! They don't seem TOO complicated... But the main structural components, although easily available and ridiculously cheap in the U.S., are not available or horribly expensive in the UK. Bugger. Was there an easier alternative?
It turns out that Dr. Frank, a Lufthansa airline pilot and audiophile, markets complete kits with all the right stuff, ready to build, at www.magiclx521.com for €600. Nice. That would save me lots of effort and concern about having the correct components.
Of course, Dr. F also sells the speakers fully assembled, in which case they are €2130!! Not really competitive with a Quad rebuild.
Since Dec 2015 then, I've been deliberating between the DIY vs. Kit alternatives. It wasn't until the last couple of weeks that I've really worked at sourcing the materials for myself, and pricing them up. So far, I'm at about £400 all found, for the loudspeakers themselves. It's been quite a slog, primarily because of the need to balance cost and accuracy of specification - the US-style pipes are available, but can be very expensive.
And there's the issue of amplification and DSP. Did I mention that these are "active" speakers, in that each individual chassis speaker has its own amplifier, feeding it an appropriately tailored signal? Since these are 2-way loudspeakers (in the first instance, maybe 3-way later...), that means 4 channels of amplification. Should I build or acquire these amps? I looked at "chip amps", base on the LM3886 series, I looked at used 6-way hifi amps like the Nad 906 on ebay, I looked at AV amps used in combination with the HDMI Out of a RaspberryPi (see below)...
And the signal tailoring requires Digital Signal Processing, which can be done by the SL-recommended MiniDSP 2x4 or any other means, including RaspberryPi, Linux box or even MacBook Pro! Choices, choices...
And all with very different cost profiles, complexity and length of build etc. Argh! All this deliberation on top of the DIY vs. Kit choice - no wonder it's been a year in the planning.
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