Memorial Day WE And Before ~ Sat/Sun Lax Quarterfinals; Tue Golf @ PJ; Fri Drive & Dine; Sat F1 Qual & Bluegrass 24May24-25May24

Before Memorial Day kickoff to summer Kala and I caught the NCAA D1 men's lacrosse quarterfinal games and a nine @ Patty Jewitt. Kala's in the lead for the vaunted LaxBuddy '24 trophy but my bracket is busted as I took Lehigh but I can attest the M-43 is excellent and I haven't gotten rid of my short game error-ladden holes... we had fun.

Kala & I stole out to Summit Co on Fri AM early before the traffic ~ our newsfeeds suggested rental cars sales @ DIA were stronger than ever on Friday. We saw the weather forecast but what the heck... there would be a free bluegrass festival in Vail all weekend and Kala accepted the challenge. After a good southwest burger, onion soup, and "The Hazy" at Dillon Dam day 1 we caught up on "our shows" on the NestMT... Kala liked the updated system.

Saturday wasn't supposed to be a bluebird... but it was on our deck. After breakfast and some chores we jumped Vail Pass to Eagle Co for our first SpringFree Bluegrass Fest. Holy crap, we parked in the structure free!

While "I" came for the final 2 headliners on Saturday: Sierra Hull & The Infamous Stringdusters, there were to be four acts today and 1st and 2nd up were Colorado bands ~ awesome. We arrived just as Danger Mtn began. They are absolutely excellent and  hail from Eagle itself. There were a number of locals in the crowd and they matched the lead's garb. Tie dye was everywhere, including on my bod'. Too, Kala & I matched today, and matched the dobro player in green plaid flannel ~ ColoRADo.

The weather was awesome through the first act but as they closed a fierce wind and rain ripped through Vail Village. We high-tailed it to VBC for a hazy beer. We met a cool retiring to Green Bay couple there (the pic didn't render well) and had a fine talk inside as the storm passed.

We headed back out to hear 10th Mtn as the weather waned. Funk/blues/pop vibe and 115dB at the soundman. Weather was fine but we did not prefer 10th Mtn's full electric and indistinguishable vocals. They were fine individually on sound check but were not preferred during their set. We left for lunch after 2 songs and hit the good El Segundo Mex spot on the Gore. Tasty tacos and margs and an oddly ebullient waiter.

Back to our spot near the soundman for Sierra Hull, though separated initially (no friends on powder days); decent weather returned. And, very good music returned. Sierra Hull was awesome and as strong and in control of her band as I have ever seen her. Her set was excellent in all ways... we saw, we heard, we liked. She's a TN songwriter & strings artist whose been performing forever and signed since 13 yrs old! She's strong and her band of musicians of Nashville were great... including her friend on guitar whose 1st show with the band was this... he was excellent (expected, though noted, as she can hire whomever she wants).

Kala & I got together through the crowd (yep, to my spot) and absorbed the full Sierra Hull & band set... completely spectacular IMO... 3 awesome covers & many, even better, originals. The musicality was forward during every step and song. See though how the guitbox guy had an iPad throughout... I mentioned I thought he was new and Kala duble-taked on the announcement of same. Still, he was spectacular. And the sound tweaked by the guy with the band, was excellent.

Sierra Hull & band were absolutely great.  Kala rested her back while I reserved our spot for Infamous Stringdusters after her set. We reconnoitered @ 6pm for IS ~ as sleet and complete crushing wind & rain fell. Our mates in the 'hood said "I'm in" and we said "we're out" ~ as I read the Doppler ~ nothing good will happen hence. We missed 'em, if they played but NP, a great day in Vail Valley.

There are more concerts & festivals of which all should partake... go live when you can.

11 Mile Canyon ~ With Andy, Moose, Chinooks, And Trout 23May24

Andy & I headed out to 11 Mile Canyon for a nice but windy tail on the home tailwater. We parked at the last bridge and before starting we encountered 3 moose heading toward us ~ I've never seen moose here. Flows are down a smidge to 105cfs. We caught a number of fish and willows. I caught only cutbows, but Andy landed some browns too. We first hit the last bridge after passing 40 cars in the canyon. We were pretty early arriving at 9am but there were others with the same idea. Midges worked decently in the morning but we were skipping a number of good spots already occupied. NP, as intrepid fishermen do, we found fish between the occupied holes. The wind kept the hatch down significantly but mayflies were seen ~11am or noon and worked at that time. The bite was not on today but we caught plenty, most on the red-brown midges. It was a blast despite the wind.

I mentioned to Andy we might be buzzed and sure enough, a half doz Chinooks flew the canyon with one guy weaving low right over our heads... awesome. We had lunch ~1pm and then trundled up to the dam area ~ where the fish were obvious but the catching was not. After a smidge we headed down to the tunnels area for a run. Even this area was impacted with fishermen but we caught fish and bided our time before heading out ~4pm.

 

Of course we regaled at Red Leg before separating. Thanks for coming out Andy!

The Breaches On Blue River 15May24-16May24

I'm in Summit and seeking some pre-runoff fishing. The flows on many rivers have doubled in the last 3 days, so it's a bit iffy. The tailwaters are more controlled as Denver Water needs to manage the fill of rezs with the snowpack and the melt rate ~ serious hydro-geo-climate dynamics. Day One I hit the Blue in Dillon in the PM, after some house tasks. Flows are 300cfs from Dillon Dam.; fish food seemed like mysis, midges, and mayflies. I rigged thusly. I headed to the head on the west side of the river, past the rodeo spot, as it always seems less occupied. Knowing I'd need to flick many backhand casts from this side, it was worth it. I saw no one land a fish, including me. Yet, I "caught" a nice 18" cutbow but he fooled me on a rock and stole my entire bug rig. Witness was there... I think he took the Perdigon. No pics 'cause I suck.

Day Two I headed out Rt 6 to the 2nd breach of the Blue impoundments below Green Mtn rez. This is my first trip of the season to Jurassic Pk. I arrived @ 10am, dropped in with 5 cars in the lot, hiked in 1.5mi and did squat till noon when the meager mayfly hatch started. I was 2 hrs early for my target at this time of year I guess. I observed slight bug activity in the AM with midges and more when some BWOs popped at noon-1pm. Day was beautiful and flows are ~250cfs in Green Mtn canyon. I caught some nice fish from noon-2pm with all the mayfly imitations working: black ice Perdigon, MHFBPT, and Destiny's Child, with the later doing the most damage. I didn't really see spawning evidence, except for nicely colored fish. The fish are strong here.

Spring has truly sprung here ~ I came upon a goose family. I wielded the Rodfather Cutty 9' 4wt with the Diamond Blaze down ~ the extra 6" does help with mending I must say. It was a fun day with only modest wind.

May Music Appreciation ~ Americana & Reflecting New Concerts Dates 14May24

Kala's committed to 8 dates with me, including some GA SRO gigs. Wow, what an honor and commitment! In recognition I'll do part of this month's offers on the artists added to our summer concert calendar. The rest will come from an eclectic mix of Folk and Americana, wheelhouse stuff right now. Starting off though I'm going to Ireland... recently held there was a session in Ormond Castle, a heritage site in Tipperary on the Emerald Isle, and a number of great folk artists came together. I will start on Adrianne Lenker of the US, but just continue the tape through the Irish artist Muireann Bradley... both so good (and I'm shorting the opener Uly, who's awesome as well).

• 5 From Adrianne Lenker @ Ormond Castle, Tiperary, Ireland 10May24
• 7 From Muireann Bradley @ Ormond Castle, Tiperary, Ireland 10May24 ~ She's good and everywhere in Ireland there are great musicians, amazing part of the culture.
• Book Of Fools, Mipso @ Manifold Studio, NC and Elsewhere '23/'24 ~ I'm obsessed and pleased to score COS tix (vs needing to head out to Palisade).
• Twisted Pine After Midnight @ GMBR 21Jul23 or Come Along Jody (instrumental cover) from Jost van Dyke 24Feb23 ~ So versatile... bluegrass to so much more, and a flautist!
• Bonny Light Horseman @ Strictly Bluegrass '22 ~ Amazing supergroup; we are with you this year or listen to the original breakout The Roving ~ whatever, this trio reinterpreting American folk tunes is regularly spectacular.
  

Browns, 'Bows, and Breakage On My 1st Tunnels Pass 14Mat24

I set out late for Summit going the back way... I'm hoping the cold May weather has delayed the snow melt enough to give me pre-melt flows on the mountain streams for some fishing. On the way I stopped on the S Platte in 11 Mile canyon; flows are up a smidge to ~125cfs but perfect and the day was decent mid 40°s. I arrived a smidge late at 11:15am but right in the midst of a modest BWO hatch... emergers like RS2 and Distiny's Child worked well for a bit. I also hit the tunnels section for the 1st time this year - only two cars in the area. I caught a number of bows and browns like these but none big (I know many of the fish are smaller on this section a couple miles down from the top). The one which broke the Rodfather Diamond Blaze during landing wasn't big either... to be clear, I had ticked it with a tungsten bead on a cast not long before... I thought nothing of it really but I might've etched the tip. It'd only been 2hrs or less but I hiked back out and packed it in for Summit. I'll write the distributor but I don't know if tolerances are tight enough for them to just send a tip.

Last Runs Of The Season, Mom's Day Celebrations, & A Lot Of Lax 12May24-13May24

I started Saturday at Breck where Pk 6 & 7 had the last of the Summit Co runs open for alpine skiing this season. The forecast was still for a bit of snow but I still donned shorts (and fishing shirts) for my runs. The top of 6 was cold and crusty but 7 was soft. Anyway, I made my novelty runs and headed back to COS the back way, hoping I'd be able to stop on the S Platte for some fishing. Well, it was snowing on Hoosier and Wilkerson and raining hard through South Park; I did not stop. Probably a good thing as we got a surprise call from Matt & Elena who brought and cooked dinner. We had a fine night with them for dinner and games; even the dogs came in and were well-behaved (no pics).

The plan for Mother's Day was a round of golf and nosh after. Matt arrived JIT, and it was pretty cold and windy but we pursued it. There was a bit of spittle but only after 3 holes we were shedding layers in the sunshine. I wore a Lehigh lacrosse shirt for good luck. We didn't play our best golf but we did have a good time at our nice muni in The Springs. Afterward we dined at Il Vicinos for pizza and then hit Goat Patch for last toasts of the day.

Nice Mom's Day and really good weekend in total... except for the losses by all the PA teams in the NCAA D1 men's lacrosse post-season tourney (the sweeter 16). St Joe’s swirling tenacious ride kept them in it for a long time (Virginia was only clearing 1:5 through much of the 1st half), but the big athletes of the Wahoos ultimately took over. Then Lehigh played their slowdown well and had a 1 goal lead going in to the final quarter vs a very strong 3rd seeded Hopkins team, but they let 4 unanswered in the 4th dash hopes of a deeper run. Finally, the Nittany Lions were up 7-2 after a stellar first stanza but ultimately slowed terribly and lost to Georgetown. Grrr. Good news in lax is that DU looked excellent winning against Big10 champions, Michigan.

Nest Music Theater Part Thirty One ~ Pure Fostex EΣ Soundfield & Building Metronomes 01Apr24-08May24

I've kept going ~ I found another lightly used pair of Fostex FE108EΣs on eBay for $250 all up. This time I've invested more time on the cabinets (though not horn-level investment) and chose to build a pair of mass loaded quarter wave quadradic tapered transmission line cabinets called Metronomes (ML-QQWT). I'm using them in the surround spots in the Nest Music Theater, though they could easily be mains. I've rotated the miniOnkens previously there to the presence/height spots, and given the Tang Band Tri-Ports to Matt (he was somewhat enamored when hearing them initially), and he is just starting to build out his theater. I decided these Metronome towers took no more space than the miniOnkens on stands, and I had a chance to employ Fostex EΣ drivers throughout the NestMT. Plus, I'd never built a transmission line speaker before and the FE108EΣ (low volume but strong) is somewhat applicable in one.

Here are the drivers and Theil-Small parameters for it. I didn't remeasure these used drivers and it's likely some aspects have changed slightly with age ~ not enough to effect enclosure design though I believe. Performance will be more impacted by the amp to which I connect them and the room and their position in it.

Mass Loaded Quarter Wave Transmission Line... Quarter wave transmission lines are speakers where the cabinet's line length is 1/4 the wavelength of the driver's resonant frequency, Fs. So for my drivers with Fs=77Hz and converting to wavelength with speed of sound = 343m/s then the line should be about (1/4)*(343/7) = 1114mm. Such designs assure bass reproduction out the port, from the rear of the driver, is in phase with the front. Just basics; so far so good. Mass loading implies moving the air in the cabinet in total (in mass). Tapering pace & direction, driver placement on the line (stopped end vs ported end), port dimensions, and damping are a few other key factors. Many modern speaker engineers (Brines, King, Lindmen, Dlugos, Cresswell, and others) have worked a long time on transmission line attributes, modeling, experiments, and calculators. Many DIYers have trialed and perfected various full range and subwoofer TL designs as well. My hornresp modeling of the Metronome v1.1 showed it appropriate for my driver (good thing, it was made for it) and yes, hornresp works under Wine on macOS. Numbers in my drawing are actually a decimal off so actually 9/60/200/20 on the cross sections. The graph actually depicts the undamped bass response but I will line the entire interior. The offered design fit my needs and I adopted it directly. The Metronome was created by Cresswell and is an attractive version of a full range (non-folded) transmission line speaker for a 4" driver and it fits my surround locations perfectly.

Building The Metronomes With FE108EΣs... I bought a 5'x5' sheet of pretty 18mm Baltic birch. When I asked for it at the wood shop they asked for thickness in US inches in ratios... grrr. When I said 23/32nds they double-taked and I revised to 3/4", but it's not really. At Colorado Lumber it was $130. I could not fit the full sheet in the Crusher Too in one piece so I had them cut it in half to fit.

The trickiest part of the build is getting the correct angle cuts on the main cabinet pieces. Sure the fabrication would be pretty easy using just lapped joints, but there are tough angles on the rips. I got it set up fine clamping an aluminum level against the fixed fence to guide the pieces past the blade at just 3.84°.

05Apr24 ~ However, I had to abandon the rips. My home table saw was not up to the 18mm Baltic birch @ angles and popped the breakers twice. I packed it in, drew up cut sheets, and went to see Matt at Colorado Lumber for some precision cuts with the panel cutter and CNC machine (+$180). I've used him very successfully before.

02May24 ~ Once the pieces were cut, I believed assembly would be pretty straightforward. Matt finished cutting the cabinet sides today and I retrieved them. I will personally cut the tops and bottoms and do assembly. That's all in Summit Co, and will be attended by some final ski runs in the slush @ Breck.

06May24 ~ I double checked my design and then cut the tops and bottoms with angled edges with my table saw. I drilled 2 3/8" holes in the bottoms with a hole saw and fabricated the ports in them ~ I used simple 2" ID Sched 40 PVC and epoxy; OD is 2 3/8" for the hole saw.

After a couple of dry fits, including the tricky driver clearance and my top & bottom pieces, I began assembly. I attached front to sides with tops and bottoms dry in place. The back stays off to in the beginning as I need access to the inside to lay damping material. Lots of clamps along the transmission line length during drying.

I used $4 of 6mm carpet acrylic felt underlayment for damping (so much cheaper than the wool felt I've used prior); damping was secured by 3M 77 spray adhesive. Messy but cleanup is breezy with citrus cleaners. Proper shears/scissors are key as is using a straightedge to sharpie the cut lines.

I then added two heavy gold-plated binding posts to each of the lower backside ($35 for all), avoiding the driver location and bottom with port itself, which are too tight.

After wiring for the driver and adding carpet to the backs, I glued and clamped the backs in place. Fortunately my stuff is square and the driver clears the rear, and I'm ready to install the drivers.

08May24 ~ Once the glue dried I installed the drivers as usual with foam gasket tape and #8 1" black wood screws. My small Metronomes look pretty cool, even raw in Baltic birch; I'll wait for warmer weather to finish them in the NestMT satin true black scheme. I'm using grill covers for these since they are right at a height and somewhat in a position to be accidentally bumped.

I measured them naked in free space and again at my 2m listening distance angled against a wall in the surround spot. The sweep is pretty solid with the dip at 1KHz I notice in these drivers in other cabinets too. Still, they sound great and do not display a rising SPL really. One cannot buy this stuff ~ you have to make it. They sound contained, but awesome, to my ear. They'll kill as surrounds.

Fostex FE108EΣ Cabinet Bakeoffs... I even rolled them into a front wall/free spot as main L/R and listened and they were absolutely great on acoustic stuff. They aren't quite as open as the Fostex FE168EΣ BLHs but they image well and have a decent SPL sweep even without EQ. I then staged a listening and measuring bakeoff among the three pairs of FE108EΣ-based speakers I've built: new Metronomes, the MiniOnkens, and the DRC Onkens. I turned off the sub and the BLHs and just ran the 108s flat and unadulterated. All three were brilliant, primarily of course from the driver. All the mid-high behaviors were similar but the DRC Onkens were the most efficient and they also had the smoothest and deepest bass response. Metronomes were probably 2nd best in the lows but the MiniOnkens don't suck.

Back in their respective spots as shown in the very 1st pic above, the 5.1.2 (really 6.1.2 with two center channel speakers... but they get the same signal) soundfield is amazing and can really load your head with music and discrete soundtracks are phenomenal. I don't think I can take this any further... time to do final integration and simply enjoy.

NestMT 5.1.2 Final Integration... My first "final integration" task was to listen and take sweeps with and without the TV augmenting the DRC Onken center channel. I did the sweeps with all channels rolling, all EQ (front BLHs) and delays applied, and the sub "on." At the end of the day, while the Sony speaker array is awesome and it actually gets me some front field expanse, as well as some very high end frequency boost, it is more finicky (Sony doesn't have a specific delay setting feature) and variable than without it. So, I disabled this feature of the NestMT and will just listen with 9 speakers... all full range Fostex EΣs.

My 2nd task was to again check volume balance amongst the channels (done) and assure delays are appropriate. The latter required some impulse measurement assessment ~ I did so under several different DSP settings in the Yamaha (7 channel stereo, Dolby ProLogic/Digital+, and Yamahas MusicVideo). I then tweaked the delay for the ~27msec out and listened & measured again. Perfecto.

I swept the frequency range again with all channels going, all EQ applied, the sub "on," and delays used... so this SPL graph is the integrated sum of all drivers. The NestMT is stellar. 2 channel PCM audio is subtle from the surrounds when Dolby PLIIx is used and more pronounced when Yamaha MusicVid is used.

Finally, I added the DVD Player into to the remote control capability and added some features of the Yamaha AVR to be accessed directly in my integrated remote.