Rerurn to Romy the Cat's Site

Romy the Cat wrote:

I changed the new flash at my site to “Ok, the midbass horn project is successfully over. Over 3 months, over 400 posts, over 180 pictures… all publicly available…” The project started physically on July 16, 2010, ended on October 28, 2010. The preparation for the project took much longer - I would say that it was the last 8 years… The cost of materials in my rough estimate is around $5000. I will not disclose the cost of labor, it is a lot but frankly it is still lower then I initially expect. During the project… The major fuckup was just one - the difficulties with accessing of the right size of back chamber. The major worry - the upper positioning of the midbass would too much localize the midbass direction.  The major success – an existence of a properly made, 42Hz midbass horn that is in time-aligned but invisible and doesn’t ruin the room décor. The major discovery - if horn has no reflections then it linearizes driver impedance. The major coincidence – the efficiency of midbass horns driven by Milq’s bass channel is identical to the Macondo’s MF reference efficiency. The major funny story – me telling to a person who inquired what I was building, informing him the I am building a “God’s Voice machine” Now is the most interesting question: was it worth it? I do not know. I pretty much wasted a summer on this project but from another point of view EVERYTHING that we do is waste of time in one way of another. This midbass horn is something that I wanted, so I got it and I guess it made it worth and valuable to me. Would I do it again? I do not know. I did it because THIS listening room did inspire me to have this THIS type of horn. If I move out of this room then I would need to get another inspiration. I am thankful that I did this project in my mid 40s it would be much more difficult for me to do it in 10 or 20 years… I kept the whole project open and available for public, sharing my success and failures, blinders and brilliance, stupidity and cleverness. If nothing else, then I feel that my project extends knowledge base about midbass horns and create opportunity for the installations of others to sound better. So, in the way the torch of the horn-loading idea is still lit and now is passed to whoever have interest in it.

I forgot to drops a few thanks to the folks who helped me with my midbass project.

The biggest thank you goes to Sergey Konovlev – my carpenter who reconstructed the attic, measured the spaces, developed AutoCAD plans, constructed horns, lifted them up, installed them, built supports and followed up with finishing the walls. He also, was a sole listener of my bitching and my assessment that he does something wrong.  In the end of the project before hosting the horns, when we were guessing if the horn will fit the narrow hole inside with less than an inch clearing I decided to make the process interesting and promised $1000 bonus if the horns fit. I will tell you that you never saw a Jew boy who was so happy to give away $1000 as I was after the horns did fit perfectly.

I would like to thanks Pablo Cheline, my local guy, who moved the horns around and helped with insulation work. A thank you goes to Bruce Edgar with whom I consulted a few times during the project and from whos experience I took some inspirations. A thanks goes also to Jeffrey Jackson who it the beginning of the projects consulted me about the materials, glues and assembling techniques. And of course the special thank goes to John Hasquin with whom I consulted during initial planning stage. Despite that John was not engaged while the project was in progress but his upperbass horn very much save the midbass, not to mention that I always have a warm feeling about John’s judgments.

There is something that is not visible besides all those posts, picture and public thought – the level of anxiety that the project brought in my regularly quite habitual life. The last crumple days before the raise the horns I got it a bit personal and was in way very psychotic.   The last 3-4 days I did not go anything besides working on the horns and did not think about anything else beside “what else my horns need”. The very last night before the hoisting the horns I did not sleep and I cough myself at 4AM on the morning waling across my listening room, patting the horns and telling them that “everything will be all right”.  Despite of that binding experience and certifiable behavior I have no particular feeling about the midbass horn now. They are in the wall, they do what they need to do and they do not bother me. I think that this type of “out sight -out of mind” approach works very good for loudspeakers….

Rerurn to Romy the Cat's Site