Hi I am G. Short for Greg Gramig, a lot of G's so just "G".
My musical background started with clarinet at 3rd grade through 12. Was first chair till high school and started swimming with the big fish, learned a lot from the virtuoso's. My listening started early as my mother always had a transistor radio playing pop music as far back as I can remember from early 60s onward. My mother loved music, hence where it originated...
I started taking a keen interest in music when I was 12 and started experimenting with canibalizing radios for speakers wiring them up all around my roo with no knowledge of electronics, stereo channels and the like.
Continued on through till I went to a stereo store in early 70s and was totally blown aware by hifi.
I saved and scraped enough money to buy my first receiver, a Pioneer SX-450. I had no money left to by speakers as even the entry level were completely cost prohibitive given my paper boy budget. I knew this going into it and had received a Pioneer paperback on "How to build Speaker Enclosures from the late 60s.
My good friend was a serious audiofile and owned an SAE rack of components which he demonstrate with 4 drivers stacked and focused on an X taped to the floor, oh my gosh, let there be thunder in my chest.
My first foray into speakers was a 6" driver with neopreme surround and a paper tweeter, note could only afford one speaker for my receiver. I was so impressed with the sound from that single speaker a second speaker became the priority from that point forward. A month later I had saved enough for another driver, this time an 8" driver with neopreme surround and the same model paper tweeter. Note that I did not know about cross-overs and therefore direct wired both drivers. Still I was even more impressed with "stereophonic" sound. I have been hopelessly addicted ever since.
I built thoses enclosures both with scavenged plank lumber from new house building sites around my subdivision for the sides, front and back were constructed of 3/8" plywood. Again, I was not familiar with harmonics and as I recall do not remember reading anything about that topic in the Pioneer paperback although it was extremely technical, written by an engineer at Pioneer.
Since then I built larger ported speakers with horn tweeters and 12" paper woofer drivers, later upgrading to neopreme surround 12" drivers. Still no cross-over as I had not been exposed to the technology.
I began my career at AT&T Bell Labs working in engineering in the PBX area with focus on station, trunk, repeaters, card carriers and other parts of the PBX configurations. I remember reading and pouring over schematics of the systems, repeaters, amplification circuits and noise reduction/cancellation technology from scientists at Bell Labs. I was completely amazed at their discoveries and incredible work.
Little did I know that this would begin my technical introduction into stereo, amplification, noise elimination which later I would discover that Pioneer had also done their homework in solid state system design borrowing and improving upon much of the basic scientific research I was exposed to at Bell Labs.
I stopped building speakers and started buying them as I could then affort to purchase them. It was after a driver failed that I openned the box and discovered the cross-over technology around 1984.
It is somewhat interesting that I never built a full-on speaker with all this new found knowledge, I just kept buying it.
What was interesting is that I drifted away from deeper knowledge of what made "good" hifidelity sound from the receiver/amp/tuner and drivers forward although I read about the technology with great interest.
Bring me back to today and starting to watch Danny and GR Research which has re-ignited my desire for top end sound.
I packed that old 1974 Pioneer SX-450 away for many years and recently moved and openned the box. My interest was peaked and I pulled it out and plugged up everything and to my extreme pleasure, it pounded out sound like new out of the box. This lasted for 5 minutes and without any fanfare Left Channel of Bank A went silent without any indication of absolutely any issue.
Back into the box it went and I stewed on it for several weeks then Googled up the schematic and started looking it over for some insight into the problem at hand. After much study and no clue as to what might be the source of the issue I started in with my analytical skills and openned up the receiver.
Now keep in mind that I provided sound to all the parties in my day with that Pioneer SX-450 receiver and a phono. As a result of carelessness it went through outdoor rain storms, spilled beer into it and much much more.
First obvious thing was the incredible amount of filth build up over all the years of faithful performance. What a touch piece of solid state technology.
I proceeded to clear, very soft paintbrush bristling and vacuming and she began to show her luster again.
The circuitry was not immediately apparent but after a bit of sluthing over the unit I started to see familiar components. Upon looking at the underside of the board I discovered a stowaway, some kind of mud wasp (tiny) had build a nest right ontop of part of the left channel. Aha I thought, cleaned this up thinking it was the root cause and to my dismay upon powering up, silence on the A Bank Left Channel.
Now I don't back down from any technical challenge so I got back to business more closely physically examining every connection/solder point on the board. This is where after about four more hours of investigation I discovered a very difficult to see loose soldering. It looked soldered ok but the solder had actually lifted up about 0.5 mm from the printed circuit. I carefully heated my soldering iron and reattached it. Very intrecut work for this monster soldering iron, like taking a sledge hammer to a needle. Didn't think much of it but to my complete amazement when I powered her up, bang, beautiful sound once again.
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I also have a digital processor, Pioneer VSX-D509S 5.1 which at the moment is disconnected as my fascination at the moment is with the old Pioneer SX-450 powering two infinity drivers. I know those drivers leave a lot to be desired, poor highs, muddy mid ranges, you know the drill but hey, they work and keep me in a basic level of listening to sound.
So this brings me to today with renewed great interest in getting the best possble sound I can afford which sends me on a new trajectory.
My present interest is with the drivers and I may have settled on the X-LS Encore. The Ron's shows are impressive, really want to hear one before I build it but it sure sounds like a whole new level of listening, which I believe are on a magnitude of experience like when I bought my first receiver and built the drivers. So impressed at the early date in my experience timeline.
Not sure what X-LS Encores will sound like with such a low wattage Pioneer. I am sure this will inflame my desire to procure a new sound source, receiver likely, possibly components. I am tending the direction of a modern receiver as I also really appreciate great surround with my video/multimedia, what a whole new world.
Once I build a pair of drivers, I will be looking at a new sound source possibly a higher end receiver, the most I can afford.
Somewhere along that timeline I will be looking to build my own sub drivers but with such a high end mid-range driver as the X-LS, I believe I can stand to listen to those for some period of time although I really appreciate great low end sound. This is certainly a consideration when attempting to land on mid-range drivers such as the Encore kit.
My background is technical with the telephone company moving into all the data center/programming disciplines and finally with professional project management in development and IT/Network infrastructure. Now retired from the technical world, I enjoy myself working at Menard's in semi retirement.
I have also been very active in adventures of hiking, mountain climbing, all-season kayaking, running races from 10k to marathons/ultramarithons, all weather spelunking (coldest was swimming in a cave with outside temp of 11 degrees-just a wee nippy).Also previously active in rescue and recovery (not a nice business). My current intests are fishing, videography, fine home improvements and the like.
Now you know quite a bit of me, any feedback on "starting out" on these driver builds, am I focusing on the sweet spot or should I consider some additional configurations?
Your feedback is valuable and I look forward to hearing from you and the community.
Chiao
G 🤘
