Done!! Well, almost

It's Sunday, and very wet outside, so what else would you do, if not finish up the build?

First job is to assemble the second speaker, like the first. Trickier - the hole for the woofer tube was a much tighter fit, and took some serious clouting with the rubber hammer!

Then the wiring completion, basically 

• Cut to length, leaving plenty inside the woofer tube to enable removal of the speaker units at some future date
• Check the polarity and wiring with a 1.5v battery
• Fit the crimped on tag connectors
• Push them onto the Speakon terminals
• Screw the Speakons into the bases

Speakon connector in place

I also cut the 2x5m Speakon connector cables - one 10m length with a plug on each end, now cut into two, and prepared the ends, bare wire being required for connection to the Sony output terminals. I also plugged the connectors into the speakers and re-checked the wiring and polarity with the 1.5v battery. Success!

All done, in the front room for a team picture

The initial setup and so on was quite fraught - I haven't used the Sony amp much, and various bits seemed not to work, but eventually I checked all the wiring, connections, input settings and so on and - bingo!! The Kraken wakes!

Speakers in initial operation

And here they are. They are in front of my Quad ESL63s and existing amps/sources. The Sony amp and miniDSP are on the floor between them.

What do they sound like? Good! At least, not utter shyte, which was always possible. Good bass, more punchy than the Quads. Top end seems ok. They don't sound like boxes as I perceive them (result). Jen and I listened to lots of music, and got very aurally tired! Do they replace the Quads, the original design brief? I'm not sure yet, but it's possible... It's conceivable that a better DSP/Amp setup could add a lot, but let's see how it goes. The subwoofer would also improve the bass and free up the current woofer to do a better lower midrange job.

Almost done? Yes, well, I haven't checked for air least yet with a 10Hz signal - I had to get them connected to the amp to check that, and then got carried away listening! Tomorrow??

I have also had a fiddle with the gain structure again. I suspect the miniDSP is about 16db hotter than the Sony inputs can handle, but it doesn't seem to be a problem. I've looked at the Sony circuit diagrams to work out where the input attenuation takes place, if it's in the right place then just turning it down is sufficient to prevent distortion, but it's not obvious to me. Otherwise, the miniDSP input meters show that most material appears to be getting near the 0dB level, which is pretty scary. I re-ran the tests with the HiFi News signals off a CD and the REW signal generator, and the miniDSP levels appear fairly close to accurate, which is pleasing. At least I can ensure that the miniDSP doesn't clip, as it's ADCing the input - that would be dull! I guess I could get a miniDSP miniDigi and strap it onto the miniDSP so that I skip a DAC/ADC step. Another time...