MEADOWLARK AUDIO SHOP PICS

The normal configuration is upward firing with a solid top, disguised as an occasional table. This build was specified as front firing so, yeah, cosmetically much better to conceal the driver's so-so looking flange. Looks-wise this is much more in keeping with the mains.

That choice did yield the reassuring plus that we could capture the driver on both sides. You can't make 'em too strong.

More work, naturally, but that's pretty normal when you're trying to get it right.
 
Looking at the picture of the Kingfisher and Blackbird, I was struck by the sharp edges, rather than the rounded corners used in the earlier Meadowlarks and many current speakers to help minimize diffraction effects. Sharp edges seem like a move backwards. What’s current thinking on this issue?
 
Looking at the picture of the Kingfisher and Blackbird, I was struck by the sharp edges, rather than the rounded corners used in the earlier Meadowlarks and many current speakers to help minimize diffraction effects. Sharp edges seem like a move backwards. What’s current thinking on this issue?
That's an interesting question, interesting subject.

If you'd like a concise and lucid explanation of diffraction and wave propagation you might want to check this one out:

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That book is a rare gem by a guy who had both the knowledge and the ability to convey it.

The short answer is that you'll see a tiny notch(s) in a driver/box system's output at frequencies associated with the distance(s) to the edge. When you round that edge that notch gets smaller in amplitude but wider in band, but it's still there. Moving the problem below the passband by making a very large baffle just ain't gonna fly. So you try to spread out the frequencies. You'll notice that our baffles are gently chamfered away and angled in the vertical dimension, doing that job pretty nicely. The tweeter barely "sees" the outer vertical edges of the box. When we look at the tweeter output, it's beautiful.

The real question - to me anyway - is: how does all of this effect perception? In general, the problems in speakers having to do with their propagation issues show up in your perceptions of image focus and soundstaging (plus how evenly and smoothly the room is energized). On both counts I think we did quite well with our old designs, and are doing noticeably better.

Funny thing - we've made Harrier in a form factor quite alien to me, but for the fun of giving the old guard a little poke, and demonstrating, on their own turf, the superiority of Next Gen. Predictable edge effects and all, the darn thing focuses and stages with the best. Go figure. Visible on analyzer but not a hint in the perception.

I've fiddled with it in the the processor, which turned out to be a bad idea.

I'm gonna digress and maybe say the wrong thing. Back in the day we strongly needed to present product that met the expectations of customers, dealers and press. Diffraction was a negative buzz word, even though almost nobody understood it. So, yeah, I was happy to go that way, especially because I could design things that could be produced at a sensible cost and make them look nice.

We make Blackbird as an HT effects speaker, where diffraction is of almost no interest, but the angled direction of the output is. The Kingfisher Center Channel was a custom build to a customer's physical dimension specs. I think we came out great on both looks and function. When we sat down to align the filters, it was like rolling off a log, a few easy steps, it just wanted to sound great.
 
Had an early # Shearwater on the bench today for repair. They rarely fail, and it's typically run-o-the-mill overdrive. "You have a teenager in the house?"

This fella got the last of the foam donuts. I ran out of those twenty years ago then surprise, two turned up hiding in a stupid place.

Funny, aside from the vehicles, which don't really count, it's the first conventional system I've listened to, carefully, in a very long time.



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Had an early # Shearwater on the bench today for repair. They rarely fail, and it's typically run-o-the-mill overdrive. "You have a teenager in the house?"

This fella got the last of the foam donuts. I ran out of those twenty years ago then surprise, two turned up hiding in a stupid place.

Funny, aside from the vehicles, which don't really count, it's the first conventional system I've listened to, carefully, in a very long time.



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So how did it sound? :)
 
So how did it sound? :)
Especially since the onset of the pandemic we've been in our own little world, here. The last time I seriously evaluated a serious conventional rig was maybe 2017 when I visited one of the country's top retailers, a personal friend. I spent some time with his flagship rig and a few ref tracks.

Let's just say I knew right then that I was on the right track, had it whipped at a fraction of the price. Funny story: when I told him what we could do he said something like: "Now why would I want to turn a 200K sale into a 50K sale?". Yeah....he had me on that one; he was having no trouble selling tons of top level gear. A walk thru his warehouse was, well, breathtaking. He was definitely cranking it out.

His rig was doing the things it did well, extremely well. Wicked focus/staging, beautifully natural tonality in the vocal range, horns, piano, strings - check, check, check. Percussive texture - check. Emotion - oh yes, touching. So, yeah, very satisfying to listen to, no sins of commission, and I'm sure the guys who own it completely love it. Best I could tell, having not had a body of comparative references, I'd still say that, within the bounds of up-to-date conventional, the sum of his choices was outstanding. The guy's a real pro among pros.

But the differences between our systems - the ones that would jump right out, being not subtle - were: dynamics, bass texture and, of course, peak output. Less obvious to the casual listener would have been vocal believability, but a full notch there. To me, having been reoriented by what I had grown accustomed to listening to, his super sweet rig kinda laid there, needed some get-up-and-go, some pluck, some BANG. Everything was just a little bit compressed, softened.

Anyway, to answer your question: yeah, listening to Shearwater mildly reinforced that perception. Meagan, who, during her teen years blew up more than her share of Shearwaters - so she knows (knew) them well - just gave me a funny look.

Damn that kid would fry two at a time. But she could fix them, so I'd just throw the woofers at her to get even. ;)
 
Btw, if you ever find two more foam donuts in and odd place, I cal dibs on them. :)
You got it, but I'd be surprised.

Most guys are hand cutting new ones from a common industrial air filter foam. Here's one guy selling the stuff as speaker grille material:
 
Just returned from about a week away, installing a Nightingale / Pelican system, on the maiden voyage for the company's delivery system. If we build a large system for you, and you're within reasonable driving range, rather than face the perils of freight, this is how your rig will come wrapped:

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Ahhh, no, I'm not stupid enough to put the Meadowlark Audio logo on the truck.

On that subject: one of the guys who built amps in LA, back in the day, put a "John's Porta Potty" sign on his building.
 
Is that the same pic that appears at 2:27 in this vid?:chin:jump


Yeah. Designing those things was tricky. I'd build a pair of mules, each with one side removeable by screws, then jiggle the guts around, keeping one eye on a gated sine wave while sweeping the relevant freq's, alternating between that measurement and subjective methods. Sometimes it would snap right in, sometimes the process would go on and on and on. Sometimes a driver that looked like a good candidate would just not cooperate, so I'd have to trash the idea and move on. Some projects took more than one mule, if I discovered that the thing could be smaller or needed to be bigger. Some ideas would work nicely at low pressures, then gag when juiced.

I just didn't care how many stabs it took. The inside joke was something like: "Pat's filling the dumpster again."

I really wished, then, that I could evaluate subjectively in mono, that would have slowed the darn dumpster filling by half, but no. The stinkin' 3dB would confound my senses so I was forced to build pairs.

I think that's why you rarely see stuff like that coming from the corporate speaker houses. That designer can't risk looking like a bozo as his projects zigs and zags, maybe finishes, maybe not. He pretty much has to look 100% competent all of the time, so he's stuck with low risk attempts. It's funny how the non-technical guys seem to assume that you, as a designer, can completely predict the outcome of the sum of your design choices. Really, you have to explore and poke around at some different and funny ideas, if you're aiming for something out of the ordinary. Just often enough you learn something.

Notice that, on the later designs we had a flared terminus and a decreasing crossection leading away from the driver. That did a nice job of reducing the abrupt velocity changes that can be audible as little chirps. That can be trouble for conventional tube-ported designs where there can easily be two abrupt termini - the one you see and the one on the inside that can make noise you'll hear right thru the driver diaphragm (images sticking to the speakers? a trashiness at volume?).

>>>

All in all, I'm happy not to have to go thru that process anymore. Now I just dial in an optimally damped closed box - which is way, way, way easy by comparison - then add boost at the processor. So we get the best of both worlds: speedy damping and extension. You'd expect to raise the coil temperatures, yes, but we get significant mitigation of total current by high passing at the processor. And, of course, choosing drivers that are built to take it.

The cool thing is that, once we have a driver characterized by box volume, now we're free to cut-and-paste that system into our custom builds. If we need more pressure, we just multiply drivers. Simple.

You know, I really need a name for the new bass system alignment. The technical words are "critically damped subresonant alignment", but that just seems like word salad to the guy wearing the marketing hat.
 
Neighbors? Nope, chased them away years ago. And, um, the old girls reached henopause last spring, so now they're just pets.

Hey, a clean 60Hz sine wave, what's the problem? I figger that that 21 incher oughta take, say, 8A for a few days. I'll just watch for it getting too toasty. Wish I'd'a thought of that sooner!

Notice the 10 with the triple stack and the dandy SEAS 10? Makes 'em look tiny, no?

Hey - big news here yesterday: minidsp FINALLY announced that SHD has been Roon Certified. It works perfectly. Sounds phenomenal.
Now the app takes control of the hardware vol control. YAY, YAY, YAY. That'll make the whole idea much more solid to purvey.

So now our systems are not only fully integrated, but they're also Roon Certified. I'm recommending running a Small Green Computer Sonic Transporter as your Roon Core - and you're done, done, done: a 32 bit floating point processor shaking hands with an i5 core. No more fiddling with the head end. Treat yourself to the big iPad and relax, you're at max.

I don't really need a cause to throw a party on Friday, but this one's for breaking out the good stuff. The thing sounds so good it's making me cry.


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It's been a while since I've posted, having been taking a long, sleepy break inside the Blue Line where cell and net service are blessedly sparse. Hopefully always will be.

Last October I grabbed my veneer guy's lot of this stuff in anticipation of a Kingfisher order from a gent who seemed 100% settled in on his choices and ready to pull the trigger.

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Believe it or not the 500 buck upcharge screwed the deal up. Boy! I gotta say I'm happy it went that way in two ways - if you know what I mean? Just me, you have to be happy spending the dough or, you're right, don't.

Today we took a look at dressing Harriers in this with contrasting baffles in machine polished Corian, either Starry Night or Glacier White:


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Whaddya think? We can reserve judgement on the baffle choice until after the cabinets are coated. Either way: Zoot Suit.

Also rolled out some beautifully laid up Black Walnut that goes to a pair of Nightingales, next up. Kudos to Diversified Wood Products.

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