MEADOWLARK AUDIO SHOP PICS

Holiday weekend, so what else is there to do but hang around the shop?

I'm plumbing in a long-overdue air system upgrade. This endpoint will have two regulator/filters - one for high pressure and one with a desiccant drier for low pressure. Am replacing all of the hoses with Flexzilla, dandy stuff.

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While I'm at it, the router is busy with these square cross section spindles for the millwork biz that makes the speaker biz possible.

Stack 'n' squeeze. Profile by ball end mill. Tricky huh?

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Meagan has been fussing around for day after day on the pre-coating prep for these Harriers. C'mon, man!

Marching along behind them is a killer pair of Nightingales. I really cannot wait to see these puppies light up when I hose 'em down. coated.

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And one in a set of four historically accurate Victorian era screen doors. It took three sets of custom knives to get thru this, including one for the screen moulding - which had to be mahogany, not stained lumber yard stuff.

You don't even want to know what these things cost. ;)


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Almost forgot - here's a center channel stand with built in amp. The customer for this mis-spec'd the height, so it ended up eclipsing his screen by a couple of inches. To hit the revised spec we had to turn the amp sideways, not a problem. We laid out his room and listening position geometry, and dialed in the correct tilt angle. No charge, don't mention it, boo-boos happen, thank you very much.

This will be assembled post coating - what you see is a just loose stack.

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JoeThePop said:
Any idea what type of snake it is?
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No. Dark greyish with faint brownish diamond pattern. Common, but these two are large. I suspect that they're interested in the chipmunks who hang out around the shop because of Meagan's generosity with peanuts. Seems like a good year for both snakes and all manner of rodent. The beavers are busy.

The building has a man door for each compass point and a big roll up, in summer all kinds of things wander thru.
 
Now in stock: minidsp SHD Studio - the shortest path to streaming audio with Dirac.

32 bit processor. Four presets with independent PEQ, compression. SPDIF, AES, Toslink and LAN ins. AES and SPDIF outs. IR remote. Pleasant app with easy signal routing 4x4.

No analog nuthin'.

Our standard equipment. Just add network and tablet. It comes with the full featured version of Volumino - which is okay, works fine but not very sexy - best to skip right over it and run Roon.


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Drugolf said:
Wet sand polishing?
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Yep. Same process used to get a concourse finish on auto lacq.

400, 600, 800, 1000, 2000, 5000, machine polish, hand glaze.

You just have to be darn sure not to abrade thru the top coat to the base coat or worse, to the veneer - or it's back to square one.

Just me, it's kind of amazing that you can get to a dripping-wet gloss with abrasives.

The surface looks and feels like glass.

Wait 'till you see them inset into their walnut cabinets finished: DULL. Dual contrasts.

We`re shooting for conventional form factor with subtle cosmetic clues that are anything but.
 
Absolutely stunning.

Mr. McGinty, I have heard your speakers and it’s one of my few regrets, not picking up a pair when I had the opportunity. They were either Kestrel original HotRods or Shearwater HotRods at my friend’s shop, and I loved listening to them. Logistics of getting them moved prevented me adopting them. I think of them frequently.
 
Here's a sequence. Harrier's 1/2" thick outer baffle mates to the 1" thick subbaffle with a 1/6" layer of double sided durethane tape. The stuff is very well damped, so the outer baffle is nicely decoupled from the main cabinet. So it's much thicker and quieter than the baffles on the old-guard British imports that are in this design's crosshairs.

Peel on. Peel off:

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All involved surfaces are lacquered, so the grip is instant and way too strong - meaning we get ONE chance. Gulp! To constrain the placement we use spacers that establish the 1/16" spacing for a pretty black reveal, and that avoid the outer baffle touching the cabinet anywhere but thru the durethane.

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Done. Similarly damped rings will bring each driver up to the correct height to look flush to the baffle.

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Pat McGinty said:
A minidsp SHD Studio takes its place inside Harrier Classic's rear cubby. Glam shots to follow.

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Can't wait for the glam shots. When do we see those?

Such a great idea. Streaming and Dirac room correction all built in. So sweet. I suppose A digital phono preamp is needed if you want to play records.

Parks Audio, who I understand makes a sweetheart of a DSP based phono preamp, now offers a DIY mod that allows for a SPDIF out. Feed that into the SHD studio, and your stereo is a pair of speakers and a turntable! Cool.
 
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Glam pics hopefully in the next day or so. Am waiting for my partner who has been on an extended goof-off jag following on a grueling millwork build. When she gets it out of her system we'll do a Nightingale build and a couple of Pelican subsub builds along with a few HT custom jobbies.

Yesterday did the logo work and posted the barebones webpages for Harrier Classic and Pelican; will flesh out the details after we take the pics. And we cleaned up the Features Common to All Models page.

For vinyl - you can opt up to the std SHD which does have analog inputs and decent ADCs. It is a tad too big to fit in the cubby, but you''d just hide it somewhere and run SPDIF to the closest speaker. You could just run a phono pre sans vol control and use the IR remote or the front panel knob for vol control.

At first I didn't pay any attention to the Toslink inputs on the SHDs. But discovered that it's the perfect solution for running TV. Whatever source you're running into your TV, the audio comes out at the Toslink at 0dB. So you can eliminate any audio signal routing, so long as you have vol control downstream. The SHD autodetects its input, which is nice.
 
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