Up first were Mike's Voight Pipes. Mike has made removable baffle sections so you can swap different drivers in and out easily. The drivers being used when this pic was taken, were el cheapo Sony speakers that I believe were robbed from an old boombox. Sounded pretty darned decent for what they were. Need a tall ceiling for these babies for sure folks.

Here we see Maynard's wonderful creations. These won the budget class I believe, at the Iowa DIY event. At that time they had North Creek tweeters in them. For winning that class, he was awarded the Hiquphon units that now reside in the speakers. They also use the Dayton 7" aluminum drivers and the GR M130 as mids. These beauties sounded great. Very, very nice job Maynard.

These buggers here were built by Jim. He wasn't able to attend this year but sent them along with Robert. These are the 49 cent Pioneer drivers from Parts Express and the inexpensive Meiloon tweeter still available from Apex Jr I believe. He had them running with a passive sub and it's passive x-over to feed the satellites. The sound from these things definately outclassed their budget. Hopefully Jim will get to attend the next Gathering, we missed ya bro'.

A return project from the 2004 event. Robert brought these again this year, but they were finished this time. Last year, they were considered by most as the best of the group. They utilize the Seas P17RC midbass and the Seas 27TFFC tweeter.

Ok, here we have the 4.5" fullrange offering from Creative Sound Solutions. I built the cabinets at .25 cubes with a 1.5" port that was 4" in length. This is what Bob at CSS suggested so I went with it. The cabinets were built out of free .5" MDF I rescued from a Home Depot garbage can. I went ahead and threw a brace in there to help stiffen things up a bit. I will have construction pics up later this week. Overall, I think most were impressed with these speakers. I would have liked to have them for while longer to allow them to break in better and get the boxes tweaked to my likings. The paint on them was still tacky in spots and I assembled them while at the event. I never got around to adding some foam to them or anything. Hell, the input terminals were being held in place with clear masking tape. Adding a nice tweeter just to fill in the top end a bit would my next move if I were to keep them. CSS donated these drivers as door prizes and Carlos from Merrit Island won them. Carlos, any chance you want to sell them? Come on man, throw me a bone here!!!

Here we have John's rear effect speakers. He used Fountek JP3 tweeter crossed over to a Vifa M130 alnico midbass at 2800Hz, in a sealed cabinet. WHOLLY CRAP these things were heavy. Due to the enclosure design he wanted, ended up with 1.5" MDFfor every panel but the two sides. For a finish he stained the oak black, very nice indeed John. I think the overall response here was that they were a tad bit hot n the top end, but that was basically designed into the picture for being effects speakers. Once they plugged them into the tube stuff though, they sure sounded good overall. Thanks for coming John!!

With a driver selection from Morel, Robert brought these little lovelies for us to listen to. These speakers were designed to be used in a smaller room at Robert's house. The room we had at the hotel lent itself to be on the large side and kind of became overbearing on the smaller speakers such as these. I think as far as from a listening standpoint, everything but the very bottom end was covered very nicely, throw them in small room and I am betting they would be great. Robert came last year as well and I would like to thank him again for helping out yet another time.

Thanks to Mike for bringing the Krell cd player as well as other great stuff. I personally think that my Shinsonic sounds better then this Krell piece...MUA-HA-HA-HA-HA...yeah right. The tube amp was rescued my Mike and then revamped througout by Alan who was also here. These guys do nice work for sure people, very nice work.

Here we see the pre-amp and amp designed and built by Alan. They are tube hybrids with a feedback-free design. He had the cover for the pre-amp powder coated and it look excellent. Wonderful workmanship there Alan, very impressive.

Overall we had a great time this year again. Had a few folks from last year plus we met many new ones. My sister showed up this time around and I am pretty sure she was amazed by the group's knowledge, projects, and overall friendliness and willingness to share their info. We will be building her a pair of speakers inthe near future as Man, an attendee from Orlando gave her his door prize. Thanks again Man. I am certainly glad I didn't try this one at home folks, there is no way we could have done it comfortably. I would like to to thank everyone who came, everyone who donated door prizes, everyone who had input on the event for me, awww hell, just plain everyone...it was awesome!!! In fact, it was big enough and diverse enough this time that for the next, we are already in the process of coming up with a a game plan for structuring the next event. The last two have been kind of laid back and do as you please. But we are getting too big now and need some organization/structure I think to make things better for everyone involved. I would appreciate it if anyone who attended who took pics could send them to me so I can get them posted. On the same note, if I have your pic and info here and it is wrong or the likes, let me know so I can fix it. Welps, here are some pics of the group, we had Chuck, Mike, Robert, Alan, Frank, Man, Carlo, Kathy, Chris, Carlos, John, Mark, Thurman, Ed, Bill, and Maynard....right?

THANKS AGAIN FOLKS and SEE YOU NEXT TIME!!!