Interest check on speaker design from reputed US speaker guru

[GeorgeO]

Phil Bamberg of Bamberg Audio is a US speaker mfr and designer. He has considerable experience(20 years) and an excellent reputation for excellent products.

For more info see:

Bamberg Audio :: Speakers for Life

A review of one of his sytems:

bamberg

I've built a high end speaker system using his design, have bought drivers and crossover parts as well as a custom tweeter baffle plate, and the result is an excellent system which various FMs have listened to at my house.
Bamberg Audio :: Speakers for Life
Phil provided considerable support during the build since the design was a floor stander, unlike my earlier stand mounted monitors. I documented this build on a thread here. He and I have spoken, and exchanged emails both before, during and after my build and he also joined our forum under his name.

Phil asked asked me last week if there might be interest among our forum members in his designing a speaker system using locally available Peerless drivers. This would be a commercial project, with people paying him for the design.

What is a design? A design involves selecting drivers, optimising an enclosure for it and designing a crossover suited to the drivers and enclosure. It is not an easy task-though some people might think so. Phil does designs using both passive and active crossovers.

I have no commercial interest in this project, and with overseas travel and limited internet access at times, would like to see where this heads, rather than manage this thread.

Any thoughts, any interest? Inputs welcome.

 

[ranjeetrain]

Awesome George! Thanks for the initiative.

I always wanted to bring high-end music playback to India at real world prices. My thoughts were to form a group of like-minded individuals who would take individual responsibility in design, sourcing, branding, marketing, etc. But I didn't give it as much effort as it needed so it never gathered steam.

I would be in if there is a high-end design is under consideration. I have also thought of getting highest-end kits from Madisound/Parts express and getting someone to do the cabinet work, as personally I am not really good with those skills. Good to know something like this can be done. I am game if we can do something high-end.

 

[theironhorse]

this sounds intresting though noob in DIY in terms of speaker building but would love to have good sound at as mentioned " real world prices "

 

[GeorgeO]

Ranjeet
The idea of sourcing locally available Peerless drivers came from Phil, though neither he nor I am familiar with sourcing, pricing and availability. I know from some FMs that there is a dealer in Bombay,Jeetubhai(sp?) who deals in Peerless drivers but models and availability are critical.If he only deals in over runs from orders then it might pose a challenge. I used Scanspeaks which are not entry level or even mid priced products.

 

[john_k_antony]

George Sir,

I was also looking at DIY speaker a while back. I put it on hold because I was skeptical about the skill set of local carpenters in building the cabinets for the speakers. The one project I was planning to build was TL model and it needed very accurate enclosure and was wondering if I get that level of precision locally.

I would like to explore this option if we can get that kind of precision labor locally.

This was couple of project I always wanted to try

Jensen-1071


The Madisound Speaker Store

Thanks,
John.

 

[theironhorse]

Ranjeet
The idea of sourcing locally available Peerless drivers came from Phil, though neither he nor I am familiar with sourcing, pricing and availability. I know from some FMs that there is a dealer in Bombay,Jeetubhai(sp?) who deals in Peerless drivers but models and availability are critical.If he only deals in over runs from orders then it might pose a challenge. I used Scanspeaks which are not entry level or even mid priced products.

what estimated cost are we looking at for HIGH end DIY audio. as money is a deciding factor for many of us.

 

[GeorgeO]

I dont know and I am not going to give an estimate that is wrong. I think the cost may evolve as this progresses. I will invite Phil to join this thread and see where it goes, I think that is best.

One factor to keep in mind in a diy project of this type is that cabinet making skills, finishes and costs may vary quite considerably. We have seen that with the GR Research group buy last year.

 

[somakmaitra]

Hi George,
Norge is a dealer of wavecor drives .They are very good quality drivers . You can explore with mr Bajaj .
Regards
Somak

 

[jetlag]

Hi George
Great initiative. Jeetubhai is good. I can touch base with him. But first we need to know what we want.
Hi end design?...May I suggest we look for some highly efficient yet compact (as something that would fit Indian homes) designs?
Hmmm food for thought, eh? Need to work those grey cells

Later
Peace
Jetlag

 

[GeorgeO]

I am not familiar with Wavecor drivers, will do some research.

 

[captrajesh]

AFAIK, Peerless is located in SEZ and is basically an OEM supplier for overseas clients like GR Research etc.

I may be wrong but my guess is that they offload export surplus to Jeetubhai to be sold in the local markets as is the case with Cotton T Shirts from Tirupur though the difference is that Tirupur is not a SEZ.

If that is the case which I guess would be, we may not be able to get enough number of drivers to get a design going because it would be a waste of effort to make speakers for a limited run. It would be a different matter if someone puts dough to buy a minimum lot for getting the production going. Even if that happens, we may need to pay customs to get the lot out of the SEZ.

 

[GeorgeO]

Yes thats also my understanding about Peerless India. In fact Tarun (TCPIP) has had similar issues in the past, so the reality unless Jeetubhai can solve it may be that we may have long term supply issues with some models. Does anyone here know Jeetubhai well enough to ask the questions?

 

[AmitKumar]

May be we can discuss on the peerless drivers with Bibin/Bijin. I thought they may have idea on this as they are also marketing peerless products.

 

[manniraj]

May be we can discuss on the peerless drivers with Bibin/Bijin. I thought they may have idea on this as they are also marketing peerless products.

I think what Bijin/Bibin are selling on their site are actually from Jeetubhai rather than getting it from overseas (Partsexpress.com) if I am not wrong.

 

[t.antony]

Wavecor drivers have good specs but are much more expensive than the the Peerless India drivers. Hobby-Hifi and Klang+Ton magazines have multiple diy designs using wavecor drivers. It is possible to get these from Norge but availability of a particular model in India would depend on what they stock.

Peerless drivers are the vfm option and AFAIK Varsha Electronics(Jeethubhai) is the prime source in India. The problem is that he stocks only fast moving items(cheaper models). Getting better models from Peerless should be possible if we could come up with sufficient numbers. IIRC from my previous exchanges with Varsha, this number could be between 100 to 250 depending on the size of the driver.

 

[reignofchaos]

Definitely interested in this. I'd love to have a pair of good sounding bookshelves and a center speaker for an HT application.

 

[kapvin]

Wavecor drivers have good specs but are much more expensive than the the Peerless India drivers. Hobby-Hifi and Klang+Ton magazines have multiple diy designs using wavecor drivers. It is possible to get these from Norge but availability of a particular model in India would depend on what they stock.

Peerless drivers are the vfm option and AFAIK Varsha Electronics(Jeethubhai) is the prime source in India. The problem is that he stocks only fast moving items(cheaper models). Getting better models from Peerless should be possible if we could come up with sufficient numbers. IIRC from my previous exchanges with Varsha, this number could be between 100 to 250 depending on the size of the driver.

Hi,

Permit my 2 pennies worth.

the way i understood the OP was to create a good sounding speaker using the existing peerless india drivers.

Why peerless india - available in rupees, cheap (in landed cost terms) and accessible.
Getting other driver variables (wavecor etc) would increase the cost and bring it into the domain of parts express product line (for which many outstanding existing designs exist)

George, my POV is while the offer is very nice, the spirit of DIY has always been FOC on design. HTguide and techtalk is filled with really talented designers who share their designs totally FOC for non-commercial use. maybe we could speak to some of them?

finally if we are looking beyond peerless india and still looking and "sourceable in India" and "payable in India"; have we considered SEAS? last heard; gunbir of BBW was the dealer, and when I last interacted, his landed price at my doorstep was significantly cheaper the Forex+shipping+duty. that made the Seas Prestige line quite accessible for a bit more than Peerless India prices.(okay a bit more than a bit more.. )

thanks

 

[indialogue]

Very interested to see how this progresses. My personal interest would be in an efficient bookshelf design for polite listening levels - something like the Amphion Helion series would be perfect

 

[GeorgeO]

I've invited Phil Bamberg to join this thread by email, will call him one of these days and ask him if he has the time now to join.

 

[Philip Bamberg]

I am here lurking.