Electrical background

[Gerhard]

Hello Everyone,

I am brand new to this forum. Thanks to Gert who directed me this way from the SoundEasy newsgroup.

For my first post I thought I'd share with you this very helpful website I found that gives quite a thorough overview of things electrical and electronic. I.t.o. speaker building you'll probably find the Analog section quite helpful - that is if you're interested in the physics behind speakers and what many of the terms thrown around in the literature actually mean.

Here's the link:  http://www.ibiblio.org/kuphaldt/electricCircuits/

Maybe this will help someone.

Cheers,

Gerhard

[kay]

Welcome to the forum and I hope you enjoy it

That is an awesome link - pretty damn comprehensive, I'd say! Straight to the bookmarks.

[skinnyfat]

Welcome to the forum and I hope you enjoy it

That is an awesome link - pretty damn comprehensive, I'd say! Straight to the bookmarks.

Ditto and Ditto Welcome

[Shonver]

Welcome, Gerhard

Did you sort out your SE problems?

[Gerhard]

Thank you all for the warm welcome!

Shaun, well yes and no. I have resigned myself to the fact that I won't be able to run SE on my big machine. I couldn't get the Rockey driver to detect the dongle via the PCI add-on parallel card (my Asus P5B Deluxe mobo doesn't have a onboard parallel port). Fortunately I have a second dual core PC which does have a parallel port and all works fine on it - so I am using it for SE.

I.t.o the measurements of the T/S parameters of my Seas H149 drivers, I couldn't get them even close to the published specs. I have done a preliminary design based on my SE measurements and have built the test boxes. Now I "just" need to get a proper sound card to test them using SE's digital filter. I haven't managed to convince myself to go buy it yet but I will soon . I think my hesitation stems from the fact that I am not sure what to do i.t.o a test mic & preamp. I have built Rod Elliott's measurement mic, phantom power supply and mic preamp using his PCB's but I have no way of calibrating it all. The SABS can't do it anymore and I don't know where else to go. So I was thinking I should sommer buy the Behringer ECM8000 mic with the Eurorack UB1202 desk. In doing this I'm pretty sure I would get trustworthy measurements - even with using calibration files from the Internet. But the stuff I built could be just as good and it'll be such a waste to let all that stuff just sit there. Maybe I should ask the guys at Soundz (http://www.soundz.co.za/) if I could bring my stuff to their shop and test it against an ECM8000/UB1202 setup - just to get a reference. What to do, what to do

I saw that SE V14 has been released and I asked Bohdan for the price of an upgrade from V13 to V14. I am still waiting... I wonder if upgrading would be worth the trouble though?

[GearSlave]

Well Gerhard,

I'll be taking the plunge to V14 now. Not because of the features, but because I'm getting a USB dongle for my laptop. He managed to give me a pretty reasonable deal for another license, so now I can have SE on my big PC and have it on my laptop. At least, that's the idea. The next thing I want to get is a M-Audio FireWire card that I can use on my laptop or my PC, but that'll have to wait a little. For the time being I'll use that DCX2496 as the XO simulator with my laptop.

Anyway, if you only going to ever make one project I can agree that buying the Berry mic might be a waste, but you went and got SE and I'm sure you wont just use THAT on only one project. If you determined to compare performance of your home brew Mic with a Berry you can borrow mine for a weekend if you need to. But I strongly suggest you get a mic as the price of that is not worth the effort trying to get a homebrew circuit working. BTW, my audio interface has phantom power on it, so I didn't get the mixer.

Cheers

Gert

[Gerhard]

Hi Gert,

You are probably right. In fact I knew that for myself - I just needed to hear it from someone else. I'll see if I could negotiate a better deal from Soundz - I would be buying 3 items of more than R4k in total after all!. Do you know of another place that sell Behringer kit that could maybe give me a better deal? I think Toms also keep M-Audio sound cards, but I don't know about the Behringer stuff.

Are you confident about a FireWire card? It seems the guys are having issues with laptops and FireWire cards. I know you don't really have any other choice with a laptop that's why I'd rather just lug my PC next door (fortunately I have an LCD monitor). Where would you be buying from?

Thank you for offering to lend me your mic! I won't be needing it after all .

Gerhard

[GearSlave]

I got my mic from Soundz, so I don't really have any other suggestions. I tried my contact at Tedelex, but they can only discount the mainline stuff and it's not a favour I want to call in if I don't need to.

I was under the impression that the guys were having problems with the USB cards, not Firewire. The Firewire stuff is actually suggested by Bohdan for laptops, so I think I'll be OK. It's just a pity that the Firewire stuff is always much more expensive...

For M-Audio give Tuerk a go (I'm not sure they do M-Audio though). Their prices are usually better than Toms for electronics. They all hate the Berry stuff, so you stuck a bit I guess...

[Gerhard]

Maybe I am mistaken that it is the firewire sound cards that give problems. Anyway, you're right, the firewire cards are very expensive.

I called Toms today, and their prices are a bit higher than Soundz's. So I'll just get all my stuff from Soundz.

Go well,

Gerhard