The CONstitution.

I am now officially a sci-fi convention (or "CON") vendor. As a vendor, I now have several rules that I request those persuing my wares to consider.

1. Do not take up all of the poor booth-person's time. You may be very interesting, and they may not be allowed to move, but the poor guy behind the table really needs to be able to sell stuff to other people, which this makes difficult. Furthermore, while we are required to be nice to you, we often would rather be running and screaming.

2. My stuff is not a place to put your food, drinks, etc. etc. etc. I do not care at all if you "won't knock it over" or if I'm "being silly;" I do not want your Frappuchino introduced to the insides of my $300 projector that I need to sell very badly.

3. When I get out of the dealers' room, I bloody well want to do something fun. While I am always happy to talk money, just because I'm here to buisness does not mean I am absolutely exhausted and need a break. In fact, it means I need to have a break a lot more, because, unlike you, I am here for profit.

4. If you do not think my prices are reasonable, I will, in fact, negotiate. Probbably a bad standpoint, but hey, I'm flexible. This is not a complaint - just a statement.

5. If you are a webcomic artist in the vendor's room, you had better be ready to deal with fanboys. By "Fanboys," I mean "Me." I could be described as a webcomic whore. On the plus side, I am at least a helpful fanboy, and try to buy something if I can.

6. I have a tradition of fixing something every year. Last year, I fixed someone's Xbox. This year, I fixed someone's Wacom tablet stylus. Hopefully, I will continue this in the future.

7. I am a lazy dolt. I apologize for not having buisness cards. Please do not hate me!


After three hours of sleep and severe fuzzy-mouth from a lack of teethbrushage, and general grogginess (need...diet...Jolt...Cola....), I am nonetheless pleased. The fact that I now have $380 in my pocket (up from $85 when I walked through the door) might have something to do with this.

A tube amp kit worth the money.

Not all tube amps are created equal - and, for the price, many compare poorly to well-built solid-state equipment.. However, if you're willing to forego some of the nicities, there are a few kits that, thanks to a combination of low cost and high performance, can compare very well to similarly priced solid state amplifiers with the "tube sound" people love. While I would not reccomend these to most over a solid-state amplifier, if you really want a tube amp, these are hard to beat.


One of the best of these is S-5 Electronics' K12G, availible for only $156 for a full stereo kit, or $100 for a mono kit, should you desire to build one. It's a classic push-pull amplifier with a solid, low-distortion design. Though the output power is a paltry 8 watts per channel, this all-inclusive design requires no external preamp, and makes a fine match for a pair of high-efficiency speakers and an iPod.


Another useful kit, should you require a tube preamp for the vintage amplifier of your choice, is the 12AX7 preamp from Silicon Chip magazine. While I can't find where to buy the kit for the life of me, the design is both solid - featuring a low distortion 12AX7 tube with frequency response compensation - and cheap, thanks to a simple yet high-efficiency switched-mode power supply running off a 17v wall-wart.



If you want to create the preamp yourself (it's simple, and you can just use a transformer instead of the switched-mode supply if you want), take a look at Mark Houston's excellent build guide. It's a great site, and also contains information on the K12 mentioned above.

And I'm back!

I'm currently at OddCon in Madison, WI. Anyone who wants to meet me, feel free to show up. (I'm the sorry SOB with the computer parts in the dealer's room.)

Anywho, this means two things:

1. I will be bored stiff;
2. I will be writing a lot.

And now, because I can't !@#$@!$ sleep, I'm doing a quickie article on a very decent deal : Madisound's Vifa 2-way car audio kit.

Link


This is a pretty dang ordinary system. It features two tweeters - Vifa's D26NC05 - and two Vifa autosound woofers. Included to make them work is a good, old-fashioned passive crossover.

The fact of the matter is, these are good, solid drivers, and a well-designed crossover. While not flashy or impressive, the performance should be very good indeed; Vifa OEMs parts for many middle-of-the-line audio brands including Paradigm, and the D26 is known for above-average performance in dozens of designs.

In addition, you can mount the tweeters on your dashboard with the included mounts. While not exacly pretty, it does make mounting easy for those of us who are less hardware-minded.

Just be sure to add a subwoofer - those 5.5" Vifas are not going to cut it!

In an attempt to make my blog less dull, I'm now featuring Cool Stuff Tuesdays™. As everyone knows, Mondays are not as awful as Tuesdays - on Mondays, the shock and horror of the work week has yet to set in. While certianly exciting, most of the stuff featured will most assuredly be of the type which we mortals simply cannot afford.

This week: Speakers.

1. B&W Nautilus

Photo courtsey of Bowers & Wilkins

Made by famous British speaker manufacturer Bowers & Wilkins, the Nautilus line is a great speaker continuing a great line of other great speakers. Originally starting as a supply house for DIY enthusiasts, their reputation for quality quickly forwarded them to making high-end studio monitors for the BBC.

Today, B&W makes studio monitors for several major record labels, in addition to a wide array of fantastic home-audio products. They have a reputation for top quality and advanced design, often featuring their signature yellow kevlar-coned woofers. They were amongst the first to utilize computers in design in the early 70s, and have not ceased, with designs nearly unrivalled in their precision. Quality has improved with technology, and today's B&W's are the best yet.

Instead of ordinary boxes and miniature chambers behind the tweeters, B&W instead used an elaborate series of several transmission lines, one for each individual driver. While hideously complex and difficult to build, the seperate enclosures allow for carefully optimized loading of each individual driver.

Bowers and Wilkins builds the speakers used to master the music, and these are an improvement upon them. They have a decades-long reputation for quality, and are well known for terrific and reliable sound. And, not surprisingly, they don't come cheap - they cost $60,000 a pair, not including the multiple high-end amplifiers necessarily to properly drive them.

2. Magneplanar 20.1s

Photo courtsey of magnepan.com. Lady in spiffy suit not included.

Most speakers have bits of metal or textile moved by a magnet and coil. They trade off size for frequency response and resonances, and at less than ideal frequencies will "store energy" - keep producing a sound even after the signal is removed.

Of course, others came up with different solutions - ribbons and electrostatic panels. The former is usable only at high frequencies by nature, and while electrostatic panels are very nice, the spectacularly thin mylar used for the diaphragm is rather fragile - and the high voltages both attract dust and hurt a LOT.

Of course, Magnepan simply combined them to solve the problem. The Magneplanar transducer, Magnepan's signature product, consists of thin strips of metal over a stretched diapgragm similar to electrostatic transducers. However, unlike electrostatics, the magneplanar uses the strips of metal as a voice coil, moving the diaphragm between magnets on opposite sides.

The added mass does, however, slightly damp treble response - and, as a result, Magnepan added a large, high-quality ribbon tweeter next to it. While standard as far as most ribbon tweeters go, that's like saying it's average for a ferrari - ribbon tweeters are expensive to build, and their popularity is not a coincidence.

Magnepan has been making their signature flat speakers for years, and the 20.1 - as the lady's attire in the photo will suggest - are not the newest of designs. However, that's not a coincidence - despite problems with off-axis response and poor low bass, they've sold extremely well, and many feel that the $12,000 a pair pricetag is worth it.

3. Wilson Audio Alexandria X-II

Photo courtsey of wilsonaudio.com


$135,000. The price of a house. Or a pair of speakers.

Wilson Audio has a long reputation for impressive - if hideously expensive - loudspeakers. Originally custom-designed as monitors for the Wilson audio labels, the speakers soon after became sold commercially to great acclaim. Some people find their less expensive speakers, the Watt Puppies, not worthy of their $22,000 pricetag - but few cannot be awestruck by the Alexandrias.

To put it simply, the Alexandrias are the furthest extension of ordinary loudspeaker design. They consist of ordinary woofers, mids, and tweeters, all in ordinary - if seperate boxes. However, each and every part of the speaker has been extended to the extreme.

Those glossy boxes are'nt just for show - the speakers are made out of a phenolic resin through and through, far stiffer and acoustically dead than any wood product. Each cabinet is carefully braced, and resonance is reduced to a minimum.

The drivers themselves, however, are now slouches - the tweeters are the best ring-radiators that scan-speak has to offer, and the mids and woofers are no slouches either. Distortion is as low as modern technology allows for, and though I have no info on the crossover itself, it's undoubtedly just as intricate.

Of course, excellent design is not cheap - and it's arguable that there are few that would argue that any loudspeakers, regardless of quality, are truly worth $135,000. However, regardless of price, these are some of the best speakers ever made.

My System - Pt. 1

While posting about the intricacies of stereo components is all very fun, I feel that I should take this opprotunity to do something that all audiophiles are prone to: a little bragging.

My system, as it's shaping up right now, will be:

Source IBM X40 or other PC
DAC: Edirol USB ADC/DAC
Alternate CD player: Denon DCD-695
Amplifier: MyRef.A amplifier w/ passive preamp
Speakers: Modula MTs (not done yet)

Total cost:

Speakers - est. $200
Amplifier - est. $100
DAC - $8 at a garage sale
PC - I already own it.
CD player: $7 at thrift store.

Total: About $325.

This should beat the pants off of $1,000 factory-made systems, if half of what I hear about the Modula MTs is true.

What amplifier is best for you? (pt.1)

Tube amplifiers are traditional, and many audiophiles feel that tube monoblocks are the best amplifiers around. However, the price for good quality tube gear is high - with the exception of some cheap Chinese-made amplifiers, a full tube setup can cost hundreds and hundreds of dollars. Is the extra cost worth it?

In a word - no.

Tube amplifiers are inherently superior to transistor amplifiers by nature, but with the exception of some really high-end tube amplifiers, the number of compromises that must be made generally results in poorer quality sound for the dollar. Furthermore, many faults of transistor amplifiers can be overcome by simple good design.

For starters, tube amplifiers run at high voltages - often 300v or more - and are very inefficient. This means that power supplies are expensive, and the output power is generally very low. The price of a tube is also far greater than that of a transistor, while due to the complexity, the tolerances are also far more loose.

Furthermore, because they're power hogs and expensive, less of them are used. A tube amplifier often has only one or two stages for the pre-amp and power amplifier, making compensating for the non-linearity of tubes - which is often very high - a difficult task.

However, the #1 problem with tube amplifiers is in the output transformer - the device that allows the high-voltage low-current output of a tube amplifier to drive an average pair of high-current low-voltage speakers. These devices work like any other voltage-to-current transformer, but they must work equally well at both very low and very high frequencies - a difficult task indeed.

While it is possible to build a transformer that will work at frequencies from 20hz to 20khz without distortion, most tube amplifiers make compromises to cut costs - such high-end transformers can be hundreds of dollars apiece. Many transformers do not function properly at lower frequencies, or have internal inductances that eliminate higher frequencies.


As a result, most tube amplifiers - I.E., those that cost less than $500 after including the preamp and phono stage - simply can't compare to a well-made solid state amplifier for the same price. Distortion is higher, power output is lower, and several other annoying characteristics, like warm-up time, make a good solid state amp a better choice.

On the other hand, tube amplifiers do have their own merits. When a tube amplifier attempts to go above its maximum voltage output and "clips off" the top of the sine wave such as may happen during a loud cymbal crash, the distortion is far lower and less unpleasant than that of a solid-state amplifier. In addition, tube amplifiers - especially "single-ended", or class-A, tube amplifiers - have far less of the crossover distortion found in most solid-state amplifiers.

While there are plenty of stellar tube amps out there, most people simply cannot afford them. Of course, there are plenty of problems with solid-state amplifiers, which I'll go into tomorrow.

Headphones Made Slightly Less Complex

Headphones - sometimes also called cans - seem simple. You plug them into a jack, put them on your head, and listen to music.

If only they were.

In reality, there are many varieties of headphones, and just like speakers, they're all slightly different. While they both fit on your noggin and make sound, the difference between a pair of Sure E3Cs and some Stax electrostatic headphones is huge.

Thankfully, there are a few things that can make deciding the right headphones easier. There are really only four types, and variations upon them: open-back, closed-back, in-ear (earbuds), and electrostatic. In addition, they all have several varying characteristics which much be taken into account.

The standard-issue pair of headphones is "Dynamic" - it has a magnet and a cone and a little coil, and works just like a tiny speaker. This single driver produces a full range of sound - hopefully, from 20hz to 20khz, at least in theory. However, much like any other speaker, different headphones have different frequency response - some have a far better range than others.

However,because they're so close to your ear, headphones don't need to make nearly as much sound, and use a tiny amount of power. As a result, a pair of headphones' impeadance is usually much higher than that of normal speakers - usually between sixty and six hundred ohms. Headphone impeadance and sensitivity are both important factors in deciding the right headphones for your application - a pair of 600 ohm headphones simply won't be as loud as a pair of far more sensitive 60 ohm headphones on the tiny voltage output of an iPod.

Of the four types of headphones, closed-back are generally the most common. They have a small chamber on the other side of the driver from your ear, and hence do a very good job of eliminating outside noise. Though small headphones do exist, the lack of a good seal around your ear generally results in much poorer sound quality, and as a result, most high-end headphones are very large with big cups that fit over your ear. Some popular examples of these include Beyerdynamic, AKG, and Sennheiser.

Another, somewhat less common, type are open-back headphones, which lack the outer chamber. While this can help eliminate back resonance and, as some claim, distortion, the lack of a rear chamber results in a lot more outside sound getting through. Popular examples of these are the Grado SR60's and SR80's, which have won a variety of accolades for high-quality sound at a low pricetag over the years.

Of course, a good pair of cans is an inherently bulky object. Earbuds work slightly differently, vibrating a small "plug" that is sealed in your ear. (As a rule of thumb, proper earbuds will work much better than pseudo-earbuds that only fit loosely in the ear.) Because they fit snugly in the ear, well-made earbuds can block more noise than any other kind of headphones. Excellent earbuds can be had from Etymotic Research, Sure, and several other manufacturers.

Finally, there are electrostatic headphones. With the exception of oddball electrostatic-hybrid headphones like the AKG-340s, these headphones require high-voltage sources - also called "energizers" - to create the electrostatic charge necessary for them to function. In addition, they're also highly inefficient, requiring far more power than any other type of headphones.

On the other hand, electrostatic headphones can have far better high-frequency response than any other type of headphones, and can dodge many problems with resonance or energy storage found in most dynamic headphones. While not portable, electrostatic headphones are regarded by their owners as far superior to most loudspeakers - then again, there are many others who disagree with them.