[Moondogtn]

I’m hoping someone here can help with information. I stumbled across these little bookshelf speakers in a Hill Country thrift store. They weren’t complete but looked cool enough to grab. I decided they may be the parts express C note. Once I took a closer look, they are different. Google lens…pulled up a link from Lone Star Audiofest as Birdhouse by Manzanita audio solutions. The owner was John Bush and he has passed away. Seems his open baffle designs are widely known. I used the c note crossover and tweeter. They sound really nice upon initial impression but would definitely consider building original design if I am able to obtain schematic. First pic is how I found them. Second is as I finished with different tweeters. Here is link

https://noaudiophile.com/Lone_Star_2018/

[barryso]

Hi Moondogtn,

I remember the Birdhouse speakers.  John had them at the 2018 LSAF along with a very unfinished pair of the Widowmaker 3 floor standers.  It's hard to remember specifics about the sonics of the birdhouses but I do remember liking them quite a bit.  Congrats on the find.

After John died I had a chance to email Pano (from the DIYAudio forums) as he knew John pretty well.  He said John didn't leave behind any papers or books of notes regarding his designs.  It's been frustrating for Pano as he has a pair of 18" coax drivers that John had designed crossovers for but the crossovers are long gone and there are no written plans that would allow them to be rebuilt to John's specs.

John was a superb speaker designer.  If the birdhouses have their crossover in them you'll be able to make them sing.  Probably John's strongest speaker building talent was his magic with crossovers.  I called him the crossover Jedi.

The woofers look like the originals.  I seem to recall the birdhouse and Widowmaker 3 models used the same tweeter.  They sure look identical from the link you posted and it's only in my memory because John said something to that effect.

Anyway, the number on the Widowmaker tweeter:

Peerless H26TG45-06C

https://www.parts-express.com/Peerless-H26TG45-06-1-Silk-Dome-Tweeter-with-Waveguide-6-Oh-264-1386?quantity=1000

It's the same number that's on the tweeter that's on the right speaker in your photo.

Parts Express has a minimum order of 1000 but a Google search brings up several places in Europe and Asia that have them in stock.  One will likely be willing to ship them.

Good luck with the project.  Please post updates.

[Moondogtn]

Barryso, I appreciate that. Unfortunately, crossovers were not present. The woofers are original Dayton audio…sort of why I mistakenly thought they were C notes so built crossover using those plans as well as the Dayton audio tweeters.  It was only after I looked closer and noticed the mirrored tweeter vs the vertically aligned C note design.

I’d be more than happy to build per John’s specs (using originally intended drivers) but have had zero luck finding crossover info. That is truly the reason I signed up here. I can join the diy audio forum as well if you think someone there could help.  They sound really nice as is but you know how this goes. Curiosity keeps you searching. 

[panomaniac]

Hey Moondog.  Barry alerted me to your post, glad you got the speakers.  All of what Barry has said above is right on the money.  John was a prolific speaker builder, well known for his Open Baffle speakers - but he also did nice box speakers.  That's how I met John, over 20 years ago.  John helped me build a pair of big 2-way box speakers for use at work and from that a long friendship was born.

John was a talented speaker designer and builder, and yes - he as the crossover Jedi.  The only other person I've worked with how had that kind of crossover talent was Jean Hiraga in France.  Neither of them used fancy crossover parts, just good quality and the right values and topography.  It's a rare talent.  Although John was known for his OB speakers, he liked to design and build box speakers for friends and family and the birdhouses are one of those projects.  John liked a lot of the classic old box designs from the 60-70s.

But oh man, finding crossover documentation is going to be difficult. John built so many speakers and so many versions that it was hard to keep track of them while he was alive.  Now that he's gone, it's near impossible.  As Barry mentioned, even the 18" coaxes I can't seem to get as good as John did - and I helped with the original crossovers!    But I certainly will dig thru John's old emails to see what he said about the birdhouses.  Fingers crossed that he sent me the info.  If he did, I'll be happy to post the design here.

[panomaniac]

Alright, let's see what we can piece together from some old emails:

JB:

Gluing up my Iowa friends pair of Bird houses.  Modified PE C Notes.  See pics.  Even with the crappy inductors, don't see how PE can make a profit on them.  Can't get over how much time it takes just to assemble the enclosures.  Added a dowel which you can see.  Baffle plate will be custom 1" thick mdf.  Tweeters set off center, Left and Right.  Instead of the 20 ga. low pass air core inductor, upgrading to a 15 ga air core.  Measured and matched caps with 0.10 bypasses where needed.  Tune the port at 45 Hz, not the stock 42.  Then veneer sides, top.  All other exteriors are low (semi) gloss black.  Hope to be listening to them in a week.

JB

Here are some progress pics on the updated Bird House speaks (Modified C-Note).  Auditioned them for the first time for an hour or so last night.  Shirley was really impressed!  I continue to be surprised how far down this little box can play.  Solid test tones down to 30 Hz.  Now I know much of that is room gain down there. But they measure and sound flat into the mid 40's and will play surprisingly loud with 20 watts of Class A.  (EL34)  Quite pleased.  Need to adjust the tweeter pad to compensate for the larger than spec low pass inductor.  (14 ga vs 20 ga. air core) Almost one ohm of difference.

Other than that will leave well enough alone until some more play time.  Adding a resonance trap to the tweeter helps a lot.  Just for **** and giggles will add a woofer break up trap up around 8.5K and see if I can hear any improvement.  The next big challenge is getting what is now a large and complex crossover into the box.  Going to take some work, not looking forward to that task.

So these are John's version of the Dayton C-Note, with upgrades.  Here are photos of the crossovers in which you can see some of the values and the layout, but not everything.  Let us know if you need help with these.

[Moondogtn]

Pano!   Whoa!  That was fast!  I do truly appreciate this. I don’t think I can make out values. I’ll try to zoom in a bit further later. I used the crossover boards for the Cnote as it made it so much easier vs doing layout as well. So, based on pics, he used two boards. One section was for LF and the other for the HF?  I may shoot you a pm.

Bill

[panomaniac]

Looks like the forum resizes the photos, so I will work on some 100% crops for you.  Will post later today.

[barryso]

Moondogtn, how did you know they were John's birdhouses?  Was there a sticker on them?

Gotta say I was heartbroken that the Birdhouses didn't have their crossovers as that meant they were likely a lost cause.

Pano, I'm amazed you had info on them.  Not sure we'll be able to extract all the right values of the components but it's a lot more than expected.  Bravo!

The one oddity, to me, is that the crossover parts are mostly soldered together.  John used to use the little white Euro connectors on everything so he could swap components in and out.  There's one or two on those crossovers but everything else is soldered.  He must have been pretty happy with the circuit.

John was wildly enthusiastic about the c-notes.  Kept pushing me to buy a pair in spite of the fact there were already too many pairs of speakers in my place.  He wasn't often impressed by a lot of commercial designs, let along one that was so inexpensive, but he raved about them.

I never did buy a pair but a few of my friends did.

[Moondogtn]

I can’t be certain that they are but seems to align with the story I got when I bought them. I used google lens and they popped up. But based on the appearance, they seemed to be. I also have a pic of my enclosure with same bracing as pano showed. I’m just guessing but appears my ports may be a bit longer? Could be angle of pics.  I also noticed a difference. The little blocks in corner where the front attaches instead of the full cross piece that pano posted. It’s possible these are not the same exact build? 

[barryso]

Interesting.  I didn't know about Google lens.  Give it credit, it found the needle in the haystack.

They may be slightly different in construction than the ones in Pano's photos but I'd put money on them being John's speakers.  If you compare their look from the front to the look of the ones in the 2018 LSAF photos they look virtually identical.  They also have the exact same tweeter and what looks like the same woofer.  Tweeter offset on the front baffle is also the same.

It's kinda safe to assume they were John's.