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Ben Gibbard and company performed last night in Mesa and quite literally rocked the stage for almost 2 hours straight. They played a total of 22 songs all of which sounded fast, loud and rockin’. They put their studio versions of each song to shame. Even the mellower, slower songs just rock when they play them live. They need to release a live CD. They’ve just got so much energy. After the first couple of songs, Ben and Chris commented on how hot it was. Yes, it’s hot in Arizona. Yesterday it was 109°F at 5:00 P.M. and by the time Death Cab came on it was still 103°F (though other weather reports say it was a few degrees hotter than that). Ben said “it’s like a microwave…in about 45 minutes…I’ll be delicious.” Chris said it was more like a “macrowave”. Ah, but it’s a dry heat guys. Nothing like Virginia this time of year. I was impressed though, even in the heat, they didn’t miss a beat.

There were very little breaks between songs, it was just one great tune after another all blended together into one great show. They played a good mix of old stuff and new stuff, the favorites and the classics. They put on such a great show that it was hard to believe it was already 10:00 P.M. by the time they played their last tune and said good night. I really just wanted them to keep going until they’d exhausted every tune off of every album. They kept the between-song chitter chatter at a minimum, but the best thing Gibbard said was in the middle of Follow You Into the Dark, there were a few people waving lighters in the air, and he says, “I like you guys keeping it real with the lighters, it makes a band feel they’re Bon Jovi.” Ben rocks. It was an awesome show, one that won’t be forgotten any time soon.

Here’s what they played in order - Mesa Amphitheater, June 19th, 2008. This playlist is going on the iPod right now.

Bixby Canyon Bridge
The New Year
Why You’d Want to Live Here
Photobooth
Crooked Teeth
Long Division
Grapevine Fires
A Movie Script Ending
Company Calls
Title Track
Soul Meets Body
I Will Follow You Into the Dark
I Will Possess Your Heart
Cath
Sound of Settling
Marching Bands of Manhattan
—Encore—
Your Bruise
Title and Registration
No Sunlight
Styrofoam Plates
Tiny Vessels
Transatlanticism

I didn’t bring my camera to the show, but here’s some video that some other dude shot. Enjoy!

Last weekend the inevitable happened - I crashed my Brio 10. Though overall the plane flew quite nicely, its bad tendency to snap with elevator input finally got the best of me and it went into the ground. I had about 30 flights on it, and no matter how docile I was with it, it always felt like it had a mind of its own. Though repairable, I decided to pull all the electronics out and drop it into a new plane. And what better plane than the E-Flite Mini Showtime 4D. It’s a direct fit for the Park 480 1020 kv motor, S75 servos, 40A ESC, and 3S TP 2200 V2 battery. What sold me on this plane was a single sentence of a review over at RCGroups.com where they stated that the plane had “no tendency to snap out” no matter how much elevator input they gave it, and above all things, that’s what I wanted. Not to mention the super-large wind area as compared to mt Brio 10. This plane is more geared for 3D and not so much of a pattern flyer like the Brio 10 was. It should be able to stay afloat at much lower air speeds and hopefully won’t be dropping a wing every time I bank around a turn at half throttle.

The build went together with only a few minor hiccups. The major two issues I had were the lack of necessary parts to complete the plane. They shorted me two of the CF rods for the rear stab as well as the little 1/2″ spacer for the spinner. I managed to fabricate a spacer (out of an old 5×5 prop) to get the spinner to work properly and I stole a couple of CF rods from my Great Planes Extra. But still, no one likes having to fabricate their own parts with a Dremel or steal parts from other kits to get a new plane up and running. This seems to be common complaint with E-Flite planes on these very two issues. You think they would have figured it out by now? Maybe I got an older kit? Either way, E-Flite should fix the problem. (I never did get the spinner to work on my Brio for the same reason).

Other than that, the plane was a lot of fun to put together and was accomplished in just a few hours over a 2 day period. The other reason I picked this plane is it just looks so stinking awesome. I love the color scheme, much cooler than the Extra 260 (which was the other plane I debated). The clear undercoat really adds to the planes looks too. It’s got a massive rudder that sits out far behind the elevator and has a steerable tailwheel so taxing around should be a breeze.

While setting up my radio and getting all the control surfaces adjusted, I noticed my S75 servo on the elevator was clicking at max deflection. I turned down the EPA a bit as it was just barely on the edge of pushing the elevator beyond its physical max deflection capability. I think I am going to replace just that one servo with a Hitec HS-65HB servo mainly because I did kind of a crappy job installing the elevator into the stab and it’s pretty stiff going up and down. The servo appears to be having a harder time moving it. I shouldn’t have glued those hinges so tight, but oh well, not much I can do about it now. I think the S75 may work fine, and for the rudder and ailerons they should be fine. Those hinges all worked out really well and move super smoothly and freely. Just that stinking elevator I made too tight. So an HS-65HB has 25 in.oz. of torque which only weighs 4.1 grams more should do the trick. I could use the tail weight anyway, since it’s nose heavy right now. CG is about 3.75″ instead of the recommended 4.5″. I really worry about the elevator servo more than the others, because if that one fails, I’m pretty sure the plane would be toast, but any of the others go, I feel like I could still bring it down in one piece. So if I have to have one servo not fail for sure, it’s the elevator. And $25 seems like a small investment to make on what could potentially be a fatal first flight.

For the prop I’m starting out with an APC 12×6E and we’ll see how she flies and go from there. I know I’m looking for something that will allow the plane to fly a little slower than the 11×7E I was flying with my Brio 10. After running some static tests I can say that little Park 480 motor can move some air! Swinging a massive 12″ prop it has no problems just cranking it out. I really need to get a power meter to see what kind of power I’m really getting, but I’ll just stick with the recommended prop settings for now and hope for the best.

Here’s a few pics of the build. Maiden will probably come next week. Until then…oh and one other thing, Happy Father’s Day!

I’ve been a big fan of TC Sounds drivers for almost 10 years. They manufacture some of the beefiest high-excursion drivers and passive radiators on the market. I was shocked to learn that they’ve filed for bankruptcy in spite of having such a great reputation for amazing drivers not only among the DIY crowd but as an OEM as well. I’m not exactly sure what happened behind the scenes that would put them in such a situation. Their last push was developing the Audiopulse brand which isn’t available from too many places except one for now - Parts Express.

When I finally got around to thinking about building a sub for my home theater, I checked out the specs on the EPIC 12″ dual 4-ohm driver, the only one PE was carrying at the time, and decided it would be a perfect fit for my small HT. Quick specs include 600W RMS power handling, 22mm xmax one-way (over 2″ pk-pk mech. travel), voice coil leads stitched into the linear spiders, 140 oz. magnet, and a sweet black anodized single dish alloy cone. T/S parameters make this sub suitable for either a vented or sealed enclosure. The fairly high Vas (97 L) requires a large 4th order enclosure to achieve a nominally flat response. I didn’t have room to make the box as big as the driver would like, but ended up with a 95 L box that when tuned to 22 Hz would yield only a slight +0.8 dB hump and and f3 of 21 Hz. Which is only slightly worse than if the box were nearly 1.5 times that size.

The biggest compromise I made was choosing to use a single 4″ diameter port. Below 30 Hz, the port air speed arises well above the socially acceptable level, but I just was not physically able to fit two 4″ ports in the box when each one needed to be 38″ long to tune it to 22 Hz. And the volume that the ports took up inside the box, took up precious volume I was trying to conserve in order to reach the lowest extension possible with this design. I knew the port noise would be audible, but I wasn’t too worried about it. In practical terms, if the bass is thumping loud enough to make the air chuffing out of the port super noisy, then chances are the rest of the speakers are also loud enough to cover it up. While doing sine sweeps, the air noise is quite apparent, but while actually watching a movie, I didn’t hear it near as much. Though if I had more room, I would have definitely opted for dual 4″ ports or a single 6″ port.

For now I’m powering the sub with an old Techniques stereo receiver I’ve had since I was 15. It pushes a modest 80W per channel into 8 ohms. Since this is a dual coil 4 ohm sub I had the option to either run one very conservative channel into 8 ohms with the coils wired in series, or push the amp beyond its rated capability and run one channel to each 4 ohm coil. So what do you think I did? Well, I added a fan to the amp, and then I wired both channels to each coil to get the most power possible out of this amp/driver combo. I’m not too worried about cooking this 20 year-old antique, I’ve already replaced the one big IC that makes up the entire amp from frying it, so if something happens, I can always replace it again. I don’t know what the amp is capable of pushing into 4 ohms, but it’s probably not much more than 100W per channel, so I figure the sub is seeing around 200W total. Nowhere near the 600W it can handle. A Behringer A500 is in the plans for the near future.

I ran some tests the other night with REW and did some in-room FR plots. I was very happy, after building so many sealed subs recently, to see the response nearly dead flat from 70 Hz all the way down to 20 Hz, before it began rolling off, was very exciting. And wow, that thing plays deep, even better than what it modeled like. The f3 was suppose to be around 21 Hz, instead it’s more like 18 Hz in-room. Which for me and my modest family room is plenty. I haven’t done any max SPL tests, I’ve been hesitant to do those kinds of tests ever since I cooked a brand new TC sounds driver years ago. But after watching the into to Toy Story II (my favorite test DVD) this sub just shakes, rattles and rolls the whole house. Even at only 200W. I can’t imagine what this thing could sound like with 3x that much power. Well, mathematically, it should only sound 4.77 dB louder, but that is still substantial amount of volume, and would certainly be noticeable.

So check out some of the pictures of the build for this sub. Even though it’s a somewhat compromised design as far as cubic volume and port area go, it sounds absolutely fantastic and does not take up any room in my family room, as it’s completely integrated into the entertainment center. And I know what you’re thinking, doesn’t the whole entertainment center just rattle? Well, if I hadn’t build that whole entertainment center out of 3/4″ MDF and glued and screwed every piece together, I might say yes, but the entertainment center is as beefy as the sub is. So it’s quite solid and doesn’t rattle at all. The best part is this sub gets a 10/10 for the Wife Acceptance Factor (WAF). My wife is very happy that the sub is hidden into the furniture and is barely noticeable. I have to agree, though I don’t mind big huge subs as much as she does (wait till you see my sewer pipe sub I’m building next), I still tend to shy away from anything that is overly cumbersome for the room. And this sub is definitely not that. But it definitely knows how to fill the room with lots of great-sounding, heart-pumping, movie-crunching bass.

EPIC Bookcase Subwoofer Specs:

Audiopulse EPIC 12″ Subwoofer w/dual 4 ohm coils
95L Enclosure tuned to 22 Hz
4″ PVC port 17.5″ long with 6″ flare
Flush-mounted driver with 1.5″ thick front baffle
Made from 3/4″ MDF
20-3/8″ x 26-5/8″x 15″ (WxHxD)
Flat in-room response to 20 Hz
-3 dB point 18 Hz
600W RMS capability
Painted in Linen White to match entertainment center

Check out the slideshow below for more pictures.

Entertainment centers aren’t cheap. And in most cases, they aren’t exactly what you want either. They’re either too big or too small, the wrong color, wrong style, or they just don’t fit your TV exactly right. Oh and did I mention, they aren’t cheap? About two years ago we were visiting my brother in Utah and he had this super-nice entertainment center, but he didn’t buy it, his wife built it from scratch. That’s what started the idea brewing in my head. We needed an entertainment center, and one like the one she built would be perfect. I asked her a bunch of questions, and she basically explained exactly how she made it. I checked it out inside and out to see how she made each piece and then started making a plan of my own.

The style we were shooting for is commonly referred to as French Country. It’s a simple style with clean lines, bead board paneling, and has sort of an antique look with its off-white color. The design is made of 3 pieces - a center console for the TV and stereo and then two bookcases that sit on either side. This is also pretty typical of what you find in most stores and catalogs. It’s more of a wall console than just an entertainment center, mainly because of the bookcases which add room for plants, pictures, books, and other non-entertainment related items. That and it takes up pretty much the entire wall. With a design in place, I made a cut sheet plan, to see just how much wood and materials I would need. Here’s the list of items below.

Materials Needed

(5) 4′ x 8′ sheets of 3/4″ MDF
(2) 4′ x 8′ sheets of 3/8″ bead board
(10) 1″ x 3″ Pine by 8′
(2) 1″ x 2″ Pine by 8′
(1) box of 2″ drywall screws
(1) box of 1-3/8″ drywall screws
(1) 16 oz. bottle Titebond wood glue
(1) tube Liquid Nails
(1) gallon Behr paint Linen White in satin finish
(1) satin quart polycrylic
(2) 8′ pieces of rounded base board 2-1/4″ tall (for doors)
(1) 8′ pieces of base board 2-1/4″ tall
(1) 5′ piece of base board 2-1/4″ tall
(1) 8′ piece of crown molding 3-1/4″
(2) 5′ pieces of crown molding 3-1/4″
(2) 1/4″ hardwood panel 2′ x 4′
Hinges and knobs

This is a basic list of tools I used for this job:

Cordless Drill
Various drill bits (1/8″ - 3/8″)
Countersink bit (or 3/8″ drill bit)
Phillips bit for drill
Circular Saw or table saw with ripping blade
Electric palm/orbital sander
Router and bits
150 grit and 220 grit sand paper
2″ and 4″ Paint brushes
(4) 1/4″ nap paint rollers
4″ foam brush

I followed the cut sheet I had drawn up and made all the cuts for the sides, tops, bottoms and shelves for the center console and bookcases. With all the pieces cut, I assembled the bookcases by measuring out where each shelf was to go and then screwing each shelf into place on just one side of the bookcase. Then I went through and glued and screwed on the other side. What I had at this point was just a simple 4-sided box with a bunch of shelves evenly spaced tying the sides together. The bottom shelf is mounted 4″ from the bottom, so the actual underside that sits against the floor is mostly open.

The next thing that went was the bead board. This is just measured and cut to fit on the back of the book case. This part is key to making the book case strong and sturdy. Without the bead board backing, the whole book case would most likely break and fall apart the first time you tried to move it. The bead board is just screwed on the back so that it can be removed later if needed (like when I add my sub).

The 1×3 pine is the facing which covers the front of all the MDF pieces and makes for a clean, finished look. It’s basically a frame that is glued and nailed onto the front of each bookcase. I routered the interior and exterior edges just to take off the harsh, sharp edge, and then hand sanded down the rest. The facing is cut about 1/4″ wider than the bookshelf itself, which leaves about 1/8″ left that hangs over the outside edges.

I added the crown molding for the top and base board for the bottom to finish off the look and hide all the edges for a nice antique look and feel. The bookcases sit back 3″ from the center console and the base board makes one, nearly-seamless line around the entire bottom of each piece. I added four 20W under-cabinet halogen lights from Home Depot and put them on a 3-way touch dimmer. They add just enough light to the top portion of each cabinet and really look quite nice. The lowest dimmer setting can be left on while watching movies, and makes the 3LCD HDTV appear to have just a little bit more contrast and some better-looking black detail. I cut two 8 foot pieces of baseboard into frames for the doors to cover the equipment under the TV and glued it to a 1/4″ piece of MDF hardboard. I installed them with 4 self-closing hinges and finished them off with a pair of matching black knobs. With the equipment hidden from view, the whole entertainment center does a very nice job of framing the TV, stereo and speakers without making it seem like the focal point. Then my wife has been going through and adding decorative elements to each shelf to give it that nice, homey feeling. It’s got a few more nicknacks to go.

And that’s it in a nutshell. I didn’t take near as many pictures as I should have. But the whole time I was building this thing, I kept looking at it and thinking, this thing is never going to work and it just looks like a bunch of wood slapped together. But in the end, I am really happy with how it turned out (not to mention it looks a million time better than what we had before - see the pictures below). I’m sure the way I built it isn’t the way a real furniture builder would do it, but given the tools I had and my limited knowledge of furniture building, I don’t think it turned out half bad. And I can definitely recommend to anyone thinking of getting an big entertainment center/wall console like this, if you even have just an ounce of carpentry in your blood, then you should think about building one yourself. More than anything I just love sitting down to watch a TV show or movie, and know that I built that huge ‘ole thing. Though I certainly wouldn’t want to do it again any time soon.

Oh yeah, I almost forgot, in order to get the stereo/DVR/DVD to work with the doors closed, I bought a Xantech 291-KIT/RP Hidden Link IR Kit which works awesome. It sits on top of the center channel and feeds all the IR to each component hidden below. Never again will the doors need to be open all the time to be able to fast forward through all the commercials of my favorite show.

The much anticipated new Death Cab For Cutie CD Narrow Stairs was released yesterday. My wife grabbed a copy from Target for only $9.98. My first reaction is that this is a great overall album. After a couple more listens, I’m beginning to think this is an awesome album. And with each listen, it seems to get better and better. I’m resisting the temptation to start figuring out how to play each song. There’s something mysterious and enjoyable about listening to a new song and just taking in the melodies, the chords, and the riffs, and not being so obsessed with how it’s played. I’m sometimes let down to discover that a song I always thought sounded so cool, so unique, was actually just the same three chords found in every other song. Besides, there isn’t just one all-guitar/piano song that really stands out as a great figure-out-and-play-along song, such as Follow You Into the Dark from Plans or Passenger Seat. The guitar is bit more distorted and bit more raw. And aside from a few notes in I Will Possess Your Heart, I haven’t heard much piano in there either.

But I won’t attempt to write an actual review, I never seem to be able to write how music sounds to me into plain old words. But so far I really enjoy it, and the more I listen to it, the more it grows on me. I’m looking forward to spending some time listening to it, and maybe I will get around to figuring out a song or two. We were up watching The Late Show and just before turning it off to go to bed, Letterman announces that the musical guest would be DCFC. So I recorded it and cut an .mp3 of it that you can download here. My dumb DVR cut off the last 30 seconds, but I got most of the whole song. I figure someone else will put the whole thing up on YouTube, but until then, you can at least throw this shorter, live version on your iPod.

I Will Possess Your Heart - The Late Show with David Letterman (mp3, 3.8mb)

I finally finished a new pair of 2-way bookshelf speakers for my home theater, a project that started over two years ago. It was back in March of 2006 that I bought a pair of Dayton RS-150S-8 6″ Reference Series woofers and RS-28A-4 tweeters. The plan was to refinish an old pair of speakers that had some old MCM speakers in them that weren’t worth the time I spent on the nice enclosures that housed them. They never sounded very good, and the tweeters somehow got completely destroyed, in spite of the plastic shield that was suppose to protect them. So I picked the new speakers to drop in to the old cabinets in hopes of doing it with little modifications.

Then the summer passed and I never got to them, winter came and went, then last summer came and went and the speakers still sat in their original boxes. I at least had plenty of time to stew over the crossover, which I would do from time to time, tweaking and modifying each value until I finally came up with something that looked really good and used a minimal amount of components. After settling on a crossover design and having the boxes pretty much complete and getting ready to make this speaker happen, wouldn’t you know that Parts Express showcased a brand new two-way speaker in their projects section designed by none other than speaker guru Darren Kuzma, which used the exact two drivers I had sitting on my shelf. And they called it Encore.

I read through his whole design and was happy to read that he was very pleased with how the speakers sounded. I compared my crossover design to his and modeled both using PCD and compared the two plots. The FR plots looked nothing alike, not surprising since the designs were very different. I don’t claim to be a great crossover designer by any means, I just don’t have some of the better tools and software to model them up properly, so it’s a lot of trial and error for me. I considered buying the parts for his crossover and mine and comparing them to see which one I liked better. Then when it came down to actually buying the parts, I ended up just buying all the crossover parts for the Encores, since it was cheaper than trying to buy both, it accounted for baffle step compensation (mine didn’t) and it’s basically a proven design, even if only in one other speaker system. So what was once going to be a killer two-way speaker that I designed, turned into just a remake of these great Encore speakers. Which is fine with me, it’s only a slight hit to my speaker-building ego. They look great, though my typical paint job is pretty lousy. I think black paint is the hardest color to paint. Fortunately they sound a lot better than look. (Except for the drivers, they alone do look amazing).

I do plan to change up the box a bit and do a 4th order vented enclosure as soon as I get around to buying some new ports from PE. The total net volume is about 8L which is a bit small for a ported box and this 6″ driver, but it models well, slight 2 dB hump, and should give me some extra extension over the same volume sealed box. But for now, they are sealed and filled 100% with polyfil. They certainly need a sub to hit any of the low notes at all. But the bass isn’t bad considering the size.

The match to my center channel is just a little bit off. I want to redo the crossover in my center channel, it’s a bit too bright for the mains. The last time I did a sweep on the center channel with REW, the response was somewhat erratic and showed a gradual rise from just a few hundred Hz up to 20 kHz. I would like to rebuild the center with the same drivers, but part of me just hates to tear apart a perfectly good speaker, just for the sonic aesthetics of having the exact same sound coming from the three front speakers. They sound close enough now, and with a slight tweak on the center’s crossover, I think I can get them to all sound similar enough to be satisfying. We watched a movie last night and my wife thought everything sounded great. Which I don’t disagree, the whole setup does sound great, but the match to the center needs to be better. Today I popped on a little Harry Connick Jr. for just some 2-channel listening and was completely blown away. The detail and clarity were astonishing. Harry’s voice sounded deep and rich, the piano sounded true, the high-hat was crisp, the sax so breathy and the big band brass just filled the living room. I couldn’t believe such impressive and filling sound could come from such little speakers. I am ecstatic with their performance.

Check out some of the pictures below to see just how I took an old pair of bookshelf speakers and made them brand new again. Just wanted to say thanks to Darren for the great crossover design! The speakers sound awesome. And thanks to Parts Express for their exceptional products and continued support for the DIY community. I definitely recommend this speaker project to anyone looking for a great HT/music bookshelf speaker that offers exceptional sound in a compact and affordable package.

In addition to everything from the Encore’s Part’s List (minus the cabinets) here’s what else I bought:

095-280 - 1/4″ (16-14) Female Disconnect 50 Pcs.
081-440 - #6 x 1″ Deep Thread Pan Head Screws Black (for tweeters)
081-425 - #8 x 1″ Deep Thread Pan Head Screws Black (for woofers)
100-020 - Dayton SKRL-14-50 14 AWG OFC Speaker Wire
260-311 - Gold Speaker Cup Terminal Round
Black Suede Behr Indoor Paint in Semi-gloss from Home Depot
100% Polyester Fill from JoAnne’s

Click on the thumbnails below for full-res pictures of the complete makeover.

I tackled the daunting task of installing a pair of surround sound speakers in my family room theater this morning. This is actually the second set of surround sound speakers I’ve put in our family room. Reason being, shortly after installing the first set, we decided to flip the room around 180 degrees and put the couch where the TV was and the TV where the couch was. The surround sound speakers ended up at the front of the room and we never used them again. Even without any pre-wire for surround sound, this is a fairly easy job to accomplish. And here’s how I did it.

This is a quick list of some of the items and tools I used to install my in-ceiling surround sound speakers:

Dayton ES65C 6-1/2″ Coaxial Ceiling Speaker Pair
16 AWG speaker wire
Binding post wall plate
Wall saw
Pencil
Stud finder
Polyline (string)
Phillips screwdriver
Wire strippers
Flashlight
Ladder

I bought the Dayton ES65C 6-1/2″ Coaxial Ceiling Speakers because they were a good price, and not the cheapest (nor the best) pair of speakers available but offer some great specs, a swivel 1″ dome tweeter and should be perfect for surround sound. I counted seven components on the crossover, though I didn’t try and figure out exactly what was doing what, it appears to at least be a 12dB/octave filter on the tweeter with some padding and either a 12dB on the woofer or a 6 dB plus a Zobel network. I compared them against some other in-wall speakers I have and they sounded great, even up there with a much more expensive set of Polk Audio speakers. Lots of nice highs and a clean, smooth midrange and is not harsh at all. I wouldn’t hesitate to buy a full set of these for a whole house audio setup. For surround sound, they should be perfect.

I marked a spot on the ceiling at each of the desired locations about 12″ from the rear wall and directly over the furthest edge of each side of my sectional. They are about 12 feet apart mounted in a 9-foot ceiling. I used a stud finder (and my knuckles) to find a clear spot in the ceiling between joists and cut two holes with a saw. I’ve got blown-in insulation, which as soon as I stuck my hand through the new openings to make room for the speaker, a ton of that stuff fell onto my head. I gathered it up and stuck it in a bag to throw back up into the attic later.

I bought a set of those speaker protector bags that PE sells to go behind the speakers and keep blown-in insulation from getting into the driver. They worked great. I cut a small 16″ x 16″ piece of regular R-11 insulation and put that inside the bag to create a nice “enclosure” for the speakers to keep most of the sound from simply echoing throughout the entire attic.

The trickiest part of any surround sound install is getting the wire from the back of the room to the front. If you’ve got an attic it’s not too bad. All you need is some string, or Polyline, and a rock. You take the Polyline, tie it to the rock, stick your arm up in the hole and throw the rock as far over to the other side of the room as you can get it. I’ve got a pitched roof that gave me only about 8″ of clearance above each of the holes (and making it impossible to physically get to from the attic), so getting a good throw was tough. But I managed to get it far enough so that I didn’t have to climb too far into the attic to retrieve it. With the string coming out of the ceiling on one end, and also sitting up in the attic above the stereo equipment on the far wall, I was ready to pull the wire. With a couple knots and some tape, I had the wire run.

The next part is getting the wire down the wall and back into the room. Since this was an interior wall in my house, it is not insulated, I just drilled a 1″ hole in the top plate next to a bunch of other cables I had run previously and ran the wire down the wall. I cut a hole down below where the stereo gear is and felt around for the wires till I found them both. I stripped the ends and installed the binding post wall plate. A single gang low-voltage box really helps make the wall plate installation a breeze and can be found at any hardware store, or I recently just discovered that even Parts Express carries them. What don’t those guys carry?

The last thing I did was actually install both the speakers. Most in-wall/in-ceiling speakers have the same dog-ear style flip-around locking mechanism which makes them a piece of cake to install. Here’s a quick tip on getting those flip-around ears to work properly - loosen them up before tightening them down to ensure that they flip around before you stick them in the ceiling. Sometimes they are pretty tight, and they catch on the post before flipping around. So just a few turns of the screwdriver to loosen them up, helps them flip around easily and then they tighten all the way down and onto the ceiling nice and easy. I stripped the wires, connected the speakers, and screwed them into place. I swiveled the tweeters towards the center of the couch just to direct some of the sound more towards the listeners, and then installed the grill covers. And that’s about it, how to have great surround sound in just a couple of hours and with minimal tools and effort.

I’ve only watched one movie so far (it was Stardust, which BTW is an awesome movie, great visual effects, great score, overall great movie) and I have to say that the new surrounds sounded really good. I was very impressed. It’s nice to have the cool surround sound effects back that have been missing from my HT for the last couple of years. Next thing on the list is a pair of bookshelf speakers (Dayton Reference Series design) and of course, the sweet Audiopulse subwoofer. Should be fun!

So I’ve started another sub project. My home theater has been without a sub ever since we moved a few years ago. I debated several ideas for the new house, everything from a small 8″ sub to a larger 12″ end table sub to a monstrous multi-15″ driver IB sub in the attic. After building up a 15″ TC Sounds sealed sub for a friend and getting a feel for some pretty hefty bass, I knew the 8″ sub project would only disappoint. Yet there just wasn’t money in the budget for a sub that size (or anything bigger), nor was there space in my room. So I decided on something in between, the Audiopulse 12″ Epic driver from TC Sounds. Parts Express is now an authorized reseller of the entire Audiopulse lineup, so I quickly snatched one up last week and finally got a chance to open it up tonight.

What’s really nice about the Audio Pulse drivers is they come with the Thiele/Small parameters of your driver tested and serialized with a data sheet right in the box. My driver came in with a slightly lower Fs (22.4 vs. 23 Hz) and much higher Vas (107L vs. 45L) and most of the other parameters were right around the published numbers. I was happy the Fs was bit lower, but the Vas threw me for a loop. The reason for the discrepancy in Vas is that numbers on PE’s web site are wrong. Those were the numbers I had originally run when determining my driver selection since it modeled really well in small ported box. I should have checked AudioPulse.com before, where the real Vas is actually 97L. Turns out this box likes a much larger vented enclosure, with good reason, the Vas is more than double what I had originally simulated. That parameter alone heavily drives enclosure volume.

Unfortunately I don’t have the luxury of just making the box bigger, since the box size was actually designed around the new entertainment center I’m building. The entertainment center has been on the to-do for nearly two years now, but I just haven’t been able to muster up the energy to design it, cut it, build it, paint it etc. That and the fact that I am not a carpenter by any means. Making speaker boxes is one thing, making furniture is something entirely different. But I had to take a stab at it, since the entertainment centers we were looking at are super expensive and none of them had the exact style we liked, or were the exact right size. That and I was set on building the sub into the entertainment center to save on space and make for a nice, integrated look.

The sub was designed to fit into the lower 1/3 of the the left bookcase on the entertainment center and allows for about a 90L enclosure with a 1.5″ baffle and plenty of bracing. After running some new numbers, it looks like I will still be able to use the 90L box, although it’s a compromised 4th order design compared against a QB3 alignment which needs 156L. So I think I am going to do a dual ported/sealed design (plug-the-port kind of design) and see what happens. A 90L sealed enclosure is slightly large resulting in a system Q of 0.63, which is a bit overdamped, but still should result is great sound, albeit somewhat less efficient and have a higher f3 (36.6 Hz) over the same volume box that’s ported (f3 ~22 Hz). Tuning frequencies from 20 to 25 Hz model well and don’t result in vents that are too long. Well, at least with only one 4″ port they aren’t too long. Port air speed is beyond the recommendation for this design, but I just don’t have the room to add more ports which take up more internal space.

Enough talk, the design details will follow shortly. For now, here’s some pics of the driver and the bookcases I have been working on, as well as the design for the sub. My complete writeup on the entertainment center will have to come at another time, but it’s coming along well so far, thought it’s worn me out and taken up two Saturdays doing so. The design I stole from my sister-in-law who is quite handy with woodworking. It’s been a pain to work on but it should be well worth the effort, not to mention the mega bucks I saved by not buying one from the store or out of a catalog.

5-23-3008 - This sub is complete! Click here for the details..

A few months ago I started working on a sub for a friend at work. We got to talking one day and we discovered we both share an interest in audio and music and such and he said he was looking to get a new sub for his home theater, so I volunteered to help him out. I don’t like to pass up on an opportunity to build a sub of this caliber, especially when it’s been a few years since I’ve designed and built something this massive. Well 6 months later the project is almost complete, all with the exception of doing the actual staining and finishing of the box. It’s ready enough to listen to, so last night I popped in Toy Story II and watched the first 5 minutes. This is my favorite test movie to try out new subs with. I’ve tested a lot of subs to the intro of that movie, so it’s a good reference for me as to what it’s suppose to sound like or what it can sound like. Not to mention this one time several years ago I was in some really high-end audio/video store and they played that movie for us to audition the new Wilson Audio subwoofer that they were raving about. It’s got a pair of 12″ subs in a box about half size of a refrigerator and aside from looking awesome, it didn’t sound all too bad either. However I made a permanent mental reference of what a $21,000 commercial sub sounds like playing the first scene in that movie, and I’ve used it to this day to compare any sub I’ve built since. And the TC-3000 definitely stacks up. It rumbled and shook my entire house with pulsating, deep bass. I’m actually quite sad I have to give it up. Though it’s a bit on the big side for my living room, sitting at exactly a 21-1/4 inch cube. It yields a box that is about 100L net volume for that massive 15″ driver. And it think it’s quite happy there too. The entire sub weighs in at 146 pounds. I had to slide it from the living room to the family room to test it out, it was too heavy to lift by myself.

To read more about this sub, please click on this link to Audio Innovation, my dedicated site for all your DIY speaker building needs.

So I’ve been having a lot of fun flying my current set of planes, each one offers something the others don’t, so once I’m tired of flying the one, I swap my only receiver into another plane and fly that for a few days. A couple of weekends ago the weather was so nice I was able to take out the Brio, the 300S and the Stryker for a couple of flights each and had a blast. The Styker is great for just high-speed, high-flying, no-frills, no-worries flying. It’s also the best plane for those extra-windy days when my other planes are better off grounded. It’s definitely the loudest and fastest plane but also the least aerobatic. You can only do so many rolls, spins and loops before you start wanting to do knife edges and inverted harriers. It flies awesome since I got the new TP 2200 V2 battery pack. What a huge improvement over the 8-cell pack I was running as well as the old 8C 2100 PolyQuest pack I have. The motor and pack come down cool every time. I’m thinking about bumping up the prop from 6×4 to 6×5. People say the stock electronics and motor can handle it, just be a little conservative on the throttle. As it is, I never fly around at full throttle anyway, except for a few seconds. I think it’s the battery that limits the max prop with this plane, but with the 55A capability of the TP pack, it definitely is not the limiting factor. The fun thing about that plane is working on it - making it faster, making it better. I finally replaced the stock servos with a pair I pulled out of my old Losi Mini LST truck. I have no idea what the specs are but they are awesome, and work way better than the stock ones. Probably about the same speed but they have lots more torque and holding power. Anyway, so the Stryker is still fun to fly and is actually quite relaxing. I like taking it up about as high as I can still see it and then cut the throttle and just float all the way to ground seeing how long I can keep it up. It’s no 78″ wingspan glider, but manages to do pretty well. But when it gets close to the ground I just throw the throttle all the way and she whines back up into the sky.

I’ve probably been having the most fun with the Great Planes FlatOut Extra. That new KDA motor made a huge difference in performance. Running the 9×3.8 prop is perfect, it’s got plenty of power to pull out of almost any botched maneuver (of which I do a lot of). There’s definitely more coupling when doing knife edges, so much that I couldn’t even do them the first few times I flew it. The weight of the motor is so much higher and more up front than it was with the geared brushed motor. I kinda wish I had bought an inrunner BL instead, just for that. But with a little bit of elevator, I can maintain a pretty decent knife edge and then with some rudder I can pop the front up and get into a high-alpha flight and just hold it there while I go around in circles. It’s probably one of my favorite things to do. I’ve gotten a lot more confident with some maneuvers, like inverted harriers at only 6-8 feet off the ground (hey, that’s low for me). I did crash it the other day doing that though, but it didn’t do much damage, just cracked the foam fuse a bit near the wings. I glued it back together and she’s flying good as new. I like that I can fly the 300S without even leaving my backyard and it’s such a slow, floaty plane, that there isn’t a whole lot to worry about while flying it, probably because I don’t have a whole lot of money into it. And I’ve got a spare one in my garage just waiting to be built if (or, when) I total this one. But it’s just a relaxing plane to fly also and yet still poses a challenge to fly with all the tricks I like to think I can do. I think it’s time to get a simulator. I just can’t get that rolling harrier thing or a good solid hover to save my life. But still what a great return on investment, and just an overall great plane.

Lastly comes the Brio 10. This plane is about to become a hanger queen. I’ve got probably 30 or so flights on it and I am still not comfortable flying it. Either it’s just too much plane for me, or I simply cannot get over its bad tendency to snap on me at almost random times during flight. Every time I go out to fly I fully expect to bring it back in pieces. And almost have every time I’ve flown it. And it’s not for trying to do anything crazy at all. Quite the opposite, I don’t do anything crazy, I just fly it, nice and high and do some rolls, and snap rolls and whatever, because the second that plane starts the drop on me, and I give it some elevator up to pull out, it rolls, and drops, and rolls. The last time I flew it, it went into this dive roll that I nearly didn’t recover from. And the scary thing is that you feel completely out of control. The more you try and pull out, the worse it gets. I honestly don’t know how many more times I can risk throwing that thing in the air knowing full well that all it takes is one snap from too low and it will nose into the ground so hard that I might not salvage anything from the plane. And right now it’s my best-looking plane! Mostly because it’s the only one not made out of foam. I love the way it flies though, the way it handles and responds 90% of the time. It flies infinitely better than any of my other planes, but it’s also so unpredictable in that one regard. I should take it to a local flying field and get some expert advice on it. I don’t want to not fly it ever again, but man, the day it goes down will be a sad day indeed. This is definitely not my Sunday-afternoon-just-chill-out-and-fly plane. It’s more like my holy-crap-holy-crap-don’t-crash-don’t-crash-whoa-that-was-close plane. I did fly it again the the other day and really enjoyed it. It’s got the precision for sure and definitely keeps me on my toes.

Which brings me to the start of this blog, what’s next on the agenda for Dan? Right now I’ve got my eye on the E-Flite Tribute FX 3D. It’s got a vacuum-formed fuselage, so it’s intended to be the best of both worlds - light and floaty like a foamy, but rigid and precise like a balsa plane. It’s not too expensive either at about $65. All I would need to pick up is a motor, the rest of the parts I can steal from my other planes. Though I may buy a full set of HS-55’s anyway, swapping servos is much harder than swapping an ESC, a battery pack or a receiver. It looks like a really fun plane to fly and should be a step up from the FlatOut but not quite as much as the Brio. Also I should be able to fly it in my backyard instead of walking around the block to the undeveloped neighborhood nearby. I’d probably power it with a MicroDan 2510 “3D 970kv” BL motor that just about everyone who owns this plane just raves about how great it is. It’s a good-looking motor with some great specs and a price tag that makes it exactly the same cost as the plane itself. Which I think is fair. A $10 plane deserves ad $10 motor (i.e., FlatOut + UnitedHobby motor) and likewise a more expensive plane a more expensive motor. So we’ll see. I’ve been reading up about it over at RCGroups.com and though it’s not the most popular plane, those who have one love it. And it seems on par with my skill level. My birthday is coming up in a couple of weeks, now to drop a hint or two to the wife - if only I could just get her to read this blog….

Now as far as my ultimate wish list, or possibly what I might be looking at for a 6th plane later this year, would definitely be something from either the 3DHobbyShop.com guys or the Ausie team Precision Aerobatics. They are about to release a 48″ wingspan 955g Extra 260 that looks absolutely amazing. By far the best-looking, most feature-packed plane I have seen from any of the major manufacturers. I know it’s too much plane for me, but it’s just soooo good looking. I want to get one just to hang in my garage, even if I can’t afford to buy all the parts to her up in the air right away. The pics I see of it, the more I think I must have it. I must fight off the initial impulse urge to buy (fortunately it’s not on sale, yet) so maybe in a couple of weeks I won’t be as excited about it, or if I can somehow satisfy that urge with the Tribute 3D (not likely) I may just make it with my wallet intact. It’s those stinking tax returns that will be hard to hang on to in the next month or two.

Anyway, that’s what I’m been thinking about lately. On another note, I need to post some pictures of the 15″ TC Sounds 1,000W subwoofer I’ve been building for Joe, a colleague from work. This thing is an absolute beast and is going to knock his socks off and his walls down. It’s funny how different building a 200 lb. subwoofer compares to building a super-light balsa wood plane. They are at the opposite ends of the spectrum. At least I know the sub can’t be destroyed in the blink of an eye from dumb-thumbing the controls. It’s more likely to stay in one piece throughout its life. Which is nice to know, since the time and money that goes into designing and building a sub far exceeds the time and money put into any plane I’ve ever built.