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Sydney Audio Club Meeting - Sunday 13th October 2019 - Bill Louey's system


TomW

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For our October club meeting we are very pleased to have club member Bill Louey present his own highly modified home system including his DIY loudspeakers.  Bill last presented his system to the club back in April 2012 – much of it has now changed and improved.

 

Details of Bill’s system (details below were written by Bill)…

 

Loudspeakers

These are 3 way open baffle loudspeakers using dynamic drivers with active and passive hybrid crossovers. Open baffle loudspeakers have some unique advantages over conventional boxed speakers in that:

·        They don’t have an enclosed box so they have no box resonances hence no box colourations,

·        Their dipole radiation pattern reduces side reflections hence room interaction and increases the portion of direct sound over reflected sound in the room, and,

·        The first sound reflection from the wall comes from behind the speakers in the front instead of from behind the seat for conventional speakers, hence producing a more realistic, life-like sound. Open baffle loudspeakers are substantially harder to design due to sound wave cancellation, reduced efficiency and lobbing effects and usually require active crossover to shape frequency response and need multiple amplifiers to drive. Since open baffle speakers are much harder to sell manufacturers usually don’t make them, except with electrostatic loudspeakers. However, because of the greatest technical challenges and potentially the highest possible sonic result, open baffle speakers with dynamic drivers are the ultimate for loudspeaker DIY builders.

Bill designed the crossover networks and has been tweaking them for 10 years now. He has only lately been very happy with the results and concluded the 10 year loudspeaker DIY project.

 

CD/SACD/Blu Ray Source

The source is a modified Marantz UD7007 universal player that plays CD, SACD and Blu Ray. Bill has undergone multiple revisions of his own upgrade over the years and has replaced hundreds of parts to change the player to suit his needs. He also changed the player from a Class II player to a Class I player in order to reduce the noise from the switch mode power supply unit.

 

Preamp / Active Crossover

This is a custom built unit designed by Bill to house the active crossover also to serve as a preamp. All buffer stages use OPA627 driven by an extremely quiet shunt regulator.

 

Power Amplifiers

Bill originally bought a DIY amplifier kit with conventional 3 stages, class AB, fully complimentary design. He later completely redesigned the printed circuit boards and incorporated a very quiet capacitor multiplier into the amplifier’s first two stages. He also designed his own very quiet and muscular power supply for the amplifier. These are MOSFET amplifiers rated 160W.

 

 

The second half of the music sessions will be our popular BYO.  Members and guests are welcome to offer music to share with us all.  So bring along your favourite music on CD/SACD/Bluray (sorry, no vinyl this month).  All we ask is that the music and recordings be interesting. We'll ask you to tell us a little about the artist/recording before it is played. Tracks over 6 minutes will be faded out, to give everyone a fair go. 

Whether you are a novice or a seasoned veteran, you will have the opportunity to listen, learn and share your experiences with others.  Feel free to come and hear the capabilities of the system, or to just share the experience with like-minded music lovers in a friendly and relaxed atmosphere. 

 

Guests are welcome – we are a very friendly club so you don't need to know anyone to join us for an afternoon of fine music and sound.


Venue:  Epping Creative Centre, Dence Park
Address:  26 Stanley Road, Epping


When:  Sunday 13th October 2019

 

Doors open 1pm
Meeting starts at 2pm

 

Tom Waters

President

Sydney Audio Club

W: http://www.sydneyaudioclub.org/

FB: https://www.facebook.com/sydneyaudioclub

E:  tomwaters@sydneyaudioclub.org.au

 

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  • 2 weeks later...

Attendance at our October club meeting was very good … DIY always attracts a lot of interest.  Our presenter for the day, club member Bill Louey, brought in his entire system for us to hear.  Bill first brought his system into the club for us quite a few years ago.  Since then, he’s been working on improving pretty much everything – his efforts have certainly paid off.  All aspects of the sound were much improved. 

 

Just before the meeting Bill made some new longer speaker cables that he could use in our large room – he wanted to be able to space the speakers further apart.  Unfortunately their composition and lack of break in time may well have contributed to the slightly ‘bright’ sound at times.  And our room at the Community centre tends to muddle the midrange in an unnatural manner.  At home Bill doesn’t have an issue at all with brightness – the sound is quite neutral and natural. 

 

Here are some comments from the feedback forms…

 

 

“Nice system.  Would have been nice to hear an analog front-end.”

 

“Dedicated and admirable DIY project.  Impressive sound.”

 

“An excellent audio setup.  Very well done to the owner, Bill.  Very good clean sound - awesome!”

 

“Great chain.  Very impressive: tight bass, clean mids, crystalline treble.”

 

“Bill's presentation was very good.  The open baffle speakers were a revelation.  Very pleasing sound.  The sub-woofers made a big difference.”

 

“Too bright and harsh for my taste - nice mids.”

 

“Very good sound.”

 

“Great sound, quite bright.”

 

“A very enjoyable meeting.  Great DIY equipment.  Well done Bill.”

 

“Well organised and presented session.  Very professional setup.”

 

“Occasionally bright with vocals.  Brings out inner detail.”

 

“The system filled the room beautifully.”

 

“Jovial, great atmosphere!  Bill has built as exceptional system.  A bit bright at times but still very enjoyable.  Kudos to Bill.”

 

 

Thanks Bill..!!

 

Photos to follow….

 

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