Barry's HT3's

jsalk · « **on:** 15 Jun 2006, 01:09 pm »

Barry saw a picture of some HT3's I built a while back and wanted the same thing.

The English fiddleback sycamore veneer was no problem. But the American spalted sycamore (not related) front baffles where another story. The original baffles were fashioned from a very unusual bookmatched pair of boards I ran across and I had not seen any that nice since.

But I did have some sections of the original boards left over. The only question was whether or not they were long enough. Fortunately they were.

Here are the results:

Happy listening Barry!

- Jim

95bcwh · « **Reply #1 on:** 15 Jun 2006, 01:13 pm »

Quote from: jsalk

Barry saw a picture of some HT3's I built a while back and wanted the same thing.

The English fiddleback sycamore veneer was no problem. But the American spalted sycamore (not related) front baffles where another story. The original baffles were fashioned from a very unusual bookmatched pair of boards I ran across and I had not seen any that nice since.

But I did have some sections of the original boards left over. The only question was whether or not they were long enough. Fortunately they were ...

Thank you Jim, this is a dream comes true for me

JoshK · « **Reply #2 on:** 15 Jun 2006, 01:20 pm »

I really like the american spalted sycamore! Nice looking speakers!

Gordy · « **Reply #3 on:** 15 Jun 2006, 01:33 pm »

Congratulations Barry!

They look beautiful... the dream will really kick in once you've gotten those puppies installed in your system!!! What exactly does spalted mean? Did you have any of the upgrades installed?

sts9fan · « **Reply #4 on:** 15 Jun 2006, 02:01 pm »

I think spalted means the wood was infected with a fungus that causes the darkers patches.

jsalk · « **Reply #5 on:** 15 Jun 2006, 02:08 pm »

Gordy -

Quote from: Gordy

What exactly does spalted mean?

It means the wood was just starting to rot. If you catch it early, the results can be gorgeous (as they are in these pieces). If you catch it too late, the wood is too soft to use. So just catch it early and you have a great catch!

- Jim

95bcwh · « **Reply #6 on:** 15 Jun 2006, 02:14 pm »

Quote from: Gordy

Did you have any of the upgrades installed?

Oh yeah, I have the sonicap + the blackhole upgrade.. I think since March 2005, Jim has also made the bypass cap part of sonicap upgrade. Correct me if I'm wrong.

Gordy · « **Reply #7 on:** 15 Jun 2006, 03:12 pm »

Thanks Jim and sts! I thought maybe it had something to do with branching

Is all the darkening caused by the spalting or just the brown section below the driver ? (sorry- continuing ed. and all)

Primo Barry! You've made an excellent lifelong choice there

Enjoy

F-100 · « **Reply #8 on:** 15 Jun 2006, 04:38 pm »

Barry,
Congratulation on your new toy. Jim continues to amaze me with his talent. I got to get one of these speakers one of these day when I settle down permanently.

95bcwh · « **Reply #9 on:** 15 Jun 2006, 04:52 pm »

Quote from: F-100

Barry,
Congratulation on your new toy. Jim continues to amaze me with his talent. I got to get one of these speakers one of these day when I settle down permanently.

Yeah,..Jim is more than just a speaker designer, he's an artist.. you can probably ask him to make you a speaker that looks like F-100.

kyyuan · « **Reply #10 on:** 15 Jun 2006, 06:25 pm »

Great work, Jim. To me, these are my favorite ones to date.

texas steve · « **Reply #11 on:** 15 Jun 2006, 07:55 pm »

Look GREAT Barry. you ABSLOUTLEY will love them when you get them set up!!

95bcwh · « **Reply #12 on:** 15 Jun 2006, 08:03 pm »

Quote from: texas steve

Look GREAT Barry. you ABSLOUTLEY will love them when you get them set up!!

thank you Steve, this speakers shall keep me busy for the month to come...I shall take my time to find the best components to match the speakers.

Marbles · « **Reply #13 on:** 15 Jun 2006, 10:35 pm »

Quote from: 95bcwh

Quote from: texas steve
Look GREAT Barry. you ABSLOUTLEY will love them when you get them set up!!

thank you Steve, this speakers shall keep me busy for the month to come...I shall take my time to find the best components to match the speakers.

Start by making sure your room is up to snuff, as this will always be a limiting factor.

If I might make some suggestions after trying ungodly amounts of gear:

Use Greg Straley speaker cables.
Save your money and get a nice silent computer and a Steve Nugent (Empirical Audio) modded DAC with his I2s Off Ramp. This will cost a lot of $$$, but is worth every penny.
If you need a pre-amp, the Dodd Audio battery powered tube pre would be a great place to start.

Odyssey Audio or Van Alstine amps would be another great place to start looking.

Best of luck.

95bcwh · « **Reply #14 on:** 16 Jun 2006, 12:08 am »

Quote from: Marbles

Start by making sure your room is up to snuff, as this will always be a limiting factor.

Marbles, have you not seen the pictures of my room??!

I have 18 DIY acoustic panels in a small room of 10ft wide, 9ft height, 15ft long. Warner said it's not enough, so I'm going to add some more DIY bass trap built with R13 fiberglass rolls...

My initial system will looks like this:
RWA modded SB3 digital out-> Tact 2.0S -> Bryston 4B-SST -> HT3

I will get use to the sound first, then I will upgrade my Tact with Aberdeen's power supply, then I will get a few amps for home-trial and pick the best one, then I will upgrade my SB3.. that should keep me busy for a year at least

F-100 · « **Reply #15 on:** 16 Jun 2006, 12:16 am »

What are you using for your IC's and speaker cables?

jsalk · « **Reply #16 on:** 16 Jun 2006, 12:20 am »

Gordy -

Quote from: Gordy

Is all the darkening caused by the spalting or just the brown section below the driver ?

When wood begins to rot (just begins, mind you) some of it takes on a grey-ish color and some of the grain turns black.

There is some grey in these baffles and well as numerous black grain lines.

- Jim

Marbles · « **Reply #17 on:** 16 Jun 2006, 12:36 am »

Quote from: 95bcwh

I have 18 DIY acoustic panels in a small room of 10ft wide, 9ft height, 15ft long. Warner said it's not enough, so I'm going to add some more DIY bass trap built with R13 fiberglass rolls...

My initial system will looks like this:
RWA modded SB3 digital out-> Tact 2.0S -> Bryston 4B-SST -> HT3

I will get use to the sound first, then I will upgrade my Tact with Aberdeen's power supply, then I will get a few amps for home-trial an ...

I took a look at that room, but damn, I didn't look at that picture long....

That sounds like you will have a very nice system. Best of luck with it.

95bcwh · « **Reply #18 on:** 16 Jun 2006, 01:15 am »

Quote from: F-100

What are you using for your IC's and speaker cables?

F100,
I will first run my SB3 straight into the amp, using Zu Gede RCA IC. Then I will install the Tact 2.0S, probably use Gregg Stanley's XLR interconnect to start. I bought a coax SPDIF from bluejeans so I can run the digital out from the SB3 into the Tact with DAC. I bought silver-coated copper cables and RCA plugs from Knukonceptz for speaker cables.

Although I do believe that cables sound different from each other, the difference is not night and day and it will take a long long time to find the right now. I would sort out my amp and source first before I fix my cables.

AudioFanKJ · « **Reply #19 on:** 16 Jun 2006, 04:20 am »

Congrats Barry on your new pair! Great looking!

Very nice work from Jim, as always too!