Hi Troels,
Sharing my journey towards the The Loudspeaker 1 build.
My path into the music has probably started with listening my father’s Radiotechnica S-90 terribly placed into corners of the longer wall (not good at all). Felt fine enough at the time for tapes listening.
Radiotechnica S-90 (Internet)
Later he bought Pioneer XR-P640, which remained my main system for many years, until I was able to afford something myself.
Pioneer XR-P640 (Internet)
Moving forward, my audio systems were heavily leaning towards computer speakers, like SVEN and Edifier. Interestingly enough, I was always still coming back Pioneer XR-P640 and it fought all the battles pretty well. During the choice struggles, because of the student’s restrained budget, I started to understand and value more not the specific sound system and the fuss around materials, amplifiers, and amount of oxygen in the copper of course, but speaker placement on the table and the room acoustics. First lesson learned — sound is not what produced from speakers, but what you hear in your head.
After the graduation, when I became more financially independent, even more struggles arise because of the vastness of the options available and depths of audiophile superstitions. I was heavily investigating Hi-Fi audio, but then tried to get closer to how music is actually done — nearfield active studio monitors. After some fair digging, Yamaha HS7 landed on my desk. Right away I was more stunned not by constant humming noise coming from tweeters, but what after more digging it turned out to be “normal” to the most of people. Second lesson learned — don’t trust the masses.
Yamaha HS7 (Internet)
Small mouse once made a grain storage :) in my Yamaha’s I bought many years after for couch music listening, where hum is not a big deal.
They were immediately returned to the shop and after many more hours of internet search I’ve stopped on Adam A7X. They are still with me to this day and I love them. Very pure sound and acoustic pressure at least in the near field are amazing. Over the years I’ve started to build trust in my choice of decent USB audio interface (Focusrite Scarlett) and pure sound of Adam’s Class-D amplifiers.
Cat approves 50kHz ribbon tweeters!
Venting on my decisions I still think I did a great job — saved myself from spending thousands of dollars on some average bookshelf speakers, then upgrading it to some narrow floor standing towers, switching from one amplifier to another in a constant search of the better than before system. Funny enough, YouTube already has a lot of remorse videos of retired Hi-Fi gear salesman's with much more truth in their words than it was fifteen years ago in public.
However, I’ve never stopped dreaming of “far field” monitors, not literally, but figuratively. I’ve wanted the sound scene wrap not just myself into it, but at least one more person to share the joy of listening.
Again, I didn’t stop looking into Hi-Fi speakers, but my experience and gut feeling was telling me no average towers would bring me to another level. As I remember, during one of many audiophile grinding session I’ve discovered Wilson Audio. Not for my budget though. I’ve started looking into DIY projects and found Illumiator-5 and Troels Grevesen! Not without a doubt I’ve started to read almost every article and with a big relief understood that Troels is certainly not in the club of snake oil sales. DIY it is then! Which model? Not so tough choice honestly. I was in no need in smaller models. Illumiator-5 are quite a bit on the expensive side and too complex for the first build. The Loudspeaker 1! Especially that I have space for them.
Ordered parts from Jantzen-audio and started to CAD the project in FreeCAD with only one minor mistake as it turned out later. Long awaited kit has arrived. Customs offer was certainly surprised to see so much heavy stuff and huge capacitors, but he trusted me it’s not a DIY bomb kit and let it pass.
My father didn’t require any persuasion to jump into the project. He spent a lot of time in his youth with DIY acoustics, since back then there was almost no other choice. It was quite a ride I must say, almost three years in the making, with a feeling that all odds are against of us finishing it, but we did it!
Starting with side panels and braces.