Curve one: the 3M self adhesive kinda-sus,,,,  Probably works great on pre-treated plastic surfaces, but ripped gaping holes in the polystyrene foam board.    Alternatives have proven worse, as they also ‘eat’ the PolyS,,,    

Curve two: Go big!!!    Current boards were cut 1’X2′ with the driver mounted off centers at 2 and 3/5ths of the board.    These proved TOO SMALL as the drivers are quite capable of driving bigger: Hence why they tore themselves loose.    If you decided that such a size is more your liking, I suggest going with a smaller driver; say 15w or so, not the 40w I linked.  

Other than that, still quite in love with the sounds these things are capable of making.   VERY Flat response for what they are, especially considering COST.    As a near feild they are spectactular, as room filling, they are quite adequate.   I could see making an array system from this set up with ground mounted subs and being able to use in a public system: say a moderate sized bar.    Or even as an onstage monitor system as sidefills. (less foot print since they could be mounted almost directly to a wall.)   The downside to them as an array is their projection of 165degrees; thats rather broad spread for an array, and whats off axis is quite tinny.  It could cause feedback issues.    More experimentation needed, and it won’t be anytime soon. 

———————————————————

IN THE REAL WORLD,,,,,,     Weather being what it is in Kentuck, we had flooding over the weekend with mid SIxties temps, and here it is four days later and we have about an inch of snow on the ground with sub freezing temps   It’t three in the afternoon and I am looking at outside temps in the mid-twenties.     KOLD!!!!

Youngest sis sent me a text asking if everything was OK on our end.  I know why.  Media driving up the flooding we recently had.   Honestly, yes, there were a few flood related deaths this year (last I heard was 9, probably higher now) but in this area, thats on the low side for this time of year.   Yeah, its sad that people died, but its not for lack of education: people KNOW that you don’t try to drive through rushing waters, and yet they still do it.    I’ve had to trek through some standing water a time or three myself , but I will NOT attempt it if I see current.  OR if I believe the water will go over an axle.   If I think its getting too deep, I back out and find an alternate route.  

Fact: February is our usual flash flood season.   More than a few Febz where I was off for a week or more because my shop was under FEET of water.  Any hype selling this as ‘Unusual’ is just that HYPE and fear mongering.     I read one comment where someone said that Trump doesn’t give a rats ass about Kentuck, but thats not true, its just this is NORMAL and his advisors KNOW IT.  We have a ton of hills that are capable of catching a lot of water and shedding it just as fast: that water has to go somewhere and the river basins can only handle so much before they start flowing over the banks.   NORMAL,,,,

Those that push the luck are the ones that might become the statistics that are used as fear mongering hype.

life goes on.

Anywhooz,,,,   I’m home today for a ‘snow day’.  Not complainin’: didn’t want to be out in that shit playin’round.    Its KOLD out there, and the fact that I have all three of the kittehs hiding in the house away from that cold,,,, Yeah, they know better.  Cold SUCKS.

Come On SUMMER!!!!

I did see sprouts of Easter lillies while taking the dumbdawg out for his bathroom break.   SO Spring is ready to spring out in all directions,,, This may be the last blast of winter (with some minor spots where its chilled,,,,).  Even Voo didn’t want to be out there any longer than needs dictated.   As soon as he did his squat, he was moving FAST back towards the house: ’nuff of this shit!’

just a few weeks longer,,,

Thats about all I have today, y’all take care out there, stay warm.

Live

Love

Laugh

Learn

LOAD

Burnout and I went in today and began the clean-up phase of the shop and Son of Bossmans basement.    Wasn’t near as bad as a couple years back, when we had to use shovels to clean out the muck.   Today was hoses and brooms.    Left the floor fans runnin’ to try and dry stuff out a bit between now and tomorrow when HOPEFULLY the rest of the crew shows up and they can help put the polish on things and get the business back up runnin’

Still lots of water that needs to go downstream yet.   it is receding, but these hills are still shedding copious amounts of water so the drop is slow.  Just runnin’ around, fingers crossed, that we don’t get any more monsoon type days between now and then.  It sure wouldn’t take much to bring the tables back up.

Now, for the educational side of things; My drivers and amplifier came in today.    I set the whole shebang up in a temporary fashion to play with it.   Mostly because I had no clue what to expect.    I set up the initial amp setup using my two sony studio monitors: I know those drivers and I wanted to see what the amp was capable of with known good sound outputs.   Not bad, could use the subwoofer IMO, but that dinky amplifier drove them just fine without distortion, even into the upper limits.

Now, its time for the DML’s.    I had a couple of peices 3/4″ insulation board, nothing I want to use as they are scrap, but they were big enough for my curious side.   Hung them from the bookshelf with care and slapped the ‘exciters’ (what Dayton calls these drivers) on and ran my wires to the amp.    hooked everything up and re-established bluetooth connection to the amp with the phone,,,,,

HOLEY FRACKIN’ SHIRT PILES OF DOG!!!!!

Oh MY DAWG are these things LOUD!!!!!   

The levels I had coming out of my sony’s was where I started.   Not even 40% amp load and these things were LOUD CLEAR and THUMPY!!!!    HoleySHeeeettttttsssssss!!!!!!

A solid subwoofer on the ground would be PERFECT (needs crossover and seperate amp for that, future project) BUT, I am telllin’ ya as they stand right now (hang actually) THEY NEED NOTHING but fine tuned.  Properly sized boards, properly hung and this set up is fillin’ the void of silence.   FILLING that void.   Simple 40w driver and what I was hearing reminded me of a 400w mid driver with a 1″ horn driver

I’m inclined right now, to install this thing at the shop so I have tunes for work.    I haven’t had a system at work in a couple of years and sorta miss it. and the sounds I was hearing today, they will fill the gap and cover the noises of shop perfectly.  

And I think I am going to do just that.   Spend a little more for a better amp with crossed over points built in so I can have that subwoofer/satellite set up, here at home.  

Anywhoooossss,,,, I am going to include some links for anyone that wants to play with these things.   If you love sound (I DO!) this is a stoopid cheap way of getting something really cool to play with.

Dayton Audio Surface exciter 32mm 40w@4ohm

Sunbuck 300w mini stereo amplifier with BT

Total expense for me was $70 and that included tax (and shipping was free for the amount of purchase)

The board can be pretty much anything,, but every one I have read or watched suggested steering clear of metal plate.   The suggested BEST material was Acoustic ceiling tiles, but I have seen balsa wood, bamboo tiles, glass, drywall and 1/4 laminates.     

Oh, And DO NOT mount the exciter dead center,,,, you want it off center, like 2/5ths x3/5ths.    And DO figure some solid ways of attaching your hanging system.   These points will be rattled around like you have no idea.    I’m considering running some bungee cord through them for mounting.   Sort of a pain to run a long hole that far through the foam, but I think the bungee will allow better response. (and I am fully accepting of being proven wrong,,, this is a learning curve thing.)

I’m tellin’ ya: if you are a Sound snob, these are gonna surprise you! 

Live

LEARN

Laugh

LOVE

LOAD

Update: no measured outputs, no analyzer, just rough descriptions from old sound dude.   Test songs: Shakira Me Enamoré, (pop beats) Rush Vital Signs(classic prog rock with killer drum and bass tracks) Billy Joel Vienna, Mozart Sonata 11, and the Real MacKenzies The Tempest (for those awesome bagpipes!!!!)

Response is all the way down in the basement around 100hZ and as far up as 7khZ (and seeing Kat response, way higher!!!)  VERY flat!!!!   Holding the panel,  Neil Pearts kick drum rattled my paw!!!!  I would say the actual response is lower,  but wont reliably ‘sound’ below that 100hZ

Near feild (@1m) levels at 50% are about 105dB(totally rough guess) and clear as a bell.

WOW!!!  I see some serious system building in my future.

(( I had forgotten, I have a tone generator app in my phone (tested a few systems in my time, even some since leaving that world.),,,,    I set everything back up, and did a freq sweep from 20-18K.   I could hear some low around 40hz, but picked up a resonate rattle right at 50 from one of the plates.   Could be a fault of the driver, could be a fault of the boards construction, could be install error, could be a bad signal in the amp.  its only on the one side.  I didn’t swap things around to see if it followed or stayed on channel, but I don’t see me driving into the 40hz range.   Usual for me is that Lo-D when I am getting into some grungy metal stuff.    Those are the days where I WILL have a subwoofer and the range will be limited to 90hz up with the sub pulling all the power for the low end. 

as for the top end stuff, I was able to track it (with my handicapped ears, no aids) up to 8500hz.    Further up around the 11K range, every single Kat in the house decided that outside was easier on the ears, so I know these units were outputting the bright stuff just fine.

I’m in love with sound again  LOL.

))

Gonna be a day or two before we see receding waters.

Typical February flooding herebouts

To Say yesterday was fun-n-interestin’ would be not so accurate.

Interestin’ CHECK

Fun,,, not so much

Long story, Started the day with water out the whazzooos,,,  Water from the sky, water off the ground, water in the winds, water water water,,,,

Three places in my drive where the water was crossing the road because it was faster than the culverts could handle.  

Me, sittin’ at home, occasionally checking the river gauge,,,,

Four-thirty-ish,, I get the call.

‘Um,  you at home?”

YUP

“can ya get ahold of Burnout and come in,,,”:

I’ll try, be there soonest.

Move the shop equipment to higher ground day..

Move Son Of BOSSMANS basement to higher ground.

Personally, I think they dodged a bullet this time, and that water wasn’t going to get as high as USGS was predicting.    BOssman goes by thier website (that uses predicitve models) where-as I use the river guages and watch national radar reports.     It was starting to taper off by 11pm last night and hadn’t entered the shop floors yet (the low spot on the property)

Anywhoos,,,, mad scrambles to clear gear to higher ground, move pallets of concrete mix to flatbed trailer and cover, move this, that, the other and its multiple twins of redundancy,,,,   

Finally made it home around 1am,,,, My back is killed,,,   Burnout and I were the only Emps to show up ,,,    

Did I mention my back is killed?       Yeah, its gonna be a rough couple of days as things get untwigged down there at the lower points.

Getting ready to head out and see what the river valley looks like under daylight.     I didn’t have a good view of it in the dark, creepin’ home on the RRrightofway.  Yeah, more than enough water that my usual road home is under water.

More later,  maybe pix,,,,

From way back in my time machine,

One of those great balladiers of the 70’s and 80’s .     I absolutely agree Mr Joel; 12 was enough,,,

So much good news this week.    More and more is coming out.   and ONE really big point that even Elon has came to: much of what is ‘active’ in our current Government is so archaic, even the DOGE teams are going to be hard pressed to find and fix.      Iron Mountain storage facility is still millions of reams of PAPER FILES,,,, Things that are not even all that old, time wise, but in hard format, not digital,,,,  It would take an ARMY of techs with scanners to upload all of that information,,,  Maybe the AI can cross ref it in record time,,,,,  

But thats just the start as one other person that was active in the system back in the 80’s wrote about.    How much of what is digitially archived is in COBOL or SQL, on digital tape or even those monstrous 8″ floppy discs (that have like ZERO memory in relation to our current tech)

Tulsi sworn in     AWESOME

RFKjr sworn in  AWESOME

a couple of the other cabinet picks made the cut and are sworn in, to include the new Education,    

Its time to observe, watch closely, and be ready to say ” Um,,,, THat AIN’T why we hired the boss, you need to get back on program” or be ready to cheer and whoop with abandon when they start firing up the chainsaws ,,,,,   

I think everyone agrees at this point, we had a miracle happen this year, but its on US to keep the ball rolling, and to keep those “hired” on the correct path, TO INCLUDE TRUMPED HIS-SELF.    SO far so good, but things could start to spin out a bit as the enemy starts getting their collective shit together instead of running around with their hair on fire.   They came close with the two judicial moves this week (THOUGH,,,,, I do believe the one was ‘scripted’ by insiders to set the stage for SCOTUS intervention and securing precedence)

Active observation, ready to fire up the clarion call to keep the kids in line if needed.    Thats our job now.     Yes, there are some things they are doing that I look at and scratch my head over, but things DO work a bit differently at that level.     And maybe some of those head scratchers are ‘deal making moves’ suggested by the boss.   Work ’em up then shut ’em down.      (lots going on in the Krainian theater that are giving me the heebie-jeebies, but there IS that upcoming meeting between Putin, Trump and The House of Saud,,,,,)

update on my status,,, getting better, slowly, still a slog even though I have beaten the bug.   It did a number on me.    Some good things to come out of it, but I will elaborate later in other posts on that.

cold frigid and wet weekend forthcoming and my plans are currently to stay put and little to nothing, other than some exercizing to stretch muscles and lung power.    No kayaking,,, too soon in my recovery, too cold.    Soon though,,,,

live

learn

laugh

love

LOAD

Damn!!! That Bug really did me in.   FYI,,, STAY HYDRATED!!!   That was my problem with my busted T-stat.   Got dehydrated and started going into hyporthermia.   Could NOT stay warm, even sitting in front of the woodstove.   Would start to feel warm and as soon as I moved off, COLD CHILLS kick back in.    Core temps were measured and 95.7 ain’t good,,, my usual is 96.8 (not the average of 98.6, go figure) but that extra degree drop off was precipitous,,,,   Cliff like!!!

WATER,,,,,

For good measure,  toss in a 1/2 cup of cider vinegar (per gallon) and 1/2 cup of honey.    Gets electrolytes up and actually quenches thirst, not just flushing the system.

It takes a couple of days for the bounceback to stabilize, and I have had up-down moments, but they are getting thinner and shorter.    Still have a hack, but its a productive one, and clear. The sinuses are clear, but I continue with the saline rinses (they frellin’ work!!!)

and I lost 10 pounds

Likely some of that is water weight,,,   But I haven’t really ate much in 5 days either: no appetite.              Da come up the hill, with something for me to try: the very smell of it caused my gag reflex to kick in.   Not that it was bad, but my body is sayin’ “FOOD? Ohh to the hell NO!,,,, “

Until this morning that is.   Growllies going on, and a hollow spot below my left ribcage that wants attention (and more than a damned cup-o-coffee dude!)

Been trying to keep up with things, but I am finding getting some information is harder.   Like trying to keep up with whos confirmed and who is still in hearings.    Utoob ain’t helping because the algorithm will show you the hearings and ONLY the streaming ones, and those are WEEEKS old in most cases.   Then a Giggles search will pull  up 2020 nominees or some such,,, ya gotta dig, and even then, the articles are from last week of January, and MIGHT be updated,,,,,

and with the preponderous amounts of energy at my disposal….   I manage about 3 minutes of that shit and I am exhausted,,,,

Been trying to sleep, A LOT,  and only in the last 24 hrs have I started seeing more than a few minutes at a stretch.  HIt a fulll two hours straight last night,    So The body is getting back in balance; still a bit more to go.    Later today, I am going to hit the park and just walk the perimeter, get the blood flowing and maybe help drive some more of this crap out of my chest with the effort.  

My camalbak is my friend again,,,,    Ain’t goin’ nowhere without lumpy on my shoulders right now.

I ain’t Twenty-sumpin anymore, despite what the brainium thinks,,,,,   

Live

LEARN

Laugh

Love

LOAD

PS: I know I Give Francis fits with my Grammer,,, a little background; I had a series of New England Grammer Teachers in my formative years, YES, I do know proper grammer,,,

I am also a contrarian, more south-western than Yank, and am surrounded by Southern’s that will look at you all side-eyed if you go correcting THEIR grammer (or lack of)  

Besides,,, when I apply the full grammer code in my writing , it always feels stilted and stiff and I prefer to leave it at the curb for reference only.

Thats my story and I am stickin’ too it.

Issues with MY operating system. Personal T-stat is wonky,

Need a reboot and a patch,,,

more then