It’s that time of year to start planning for Decfest 2008! It is the first weekend in October, Friday Saturday & Sunday.

This is just a reminder to schedule it in your calendar now.

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We had to rewrite our entire web site (750 pages of content not including the forums) to keep up with the times!  Be sure if you visit it and have been there before that you refresh your browser a lot so it loads in the new pages!  Writing a new site certainly wasn’t by choice, but because search engines and frames are like oil and water now and we weren’t getting indexed properly anymore. (more…)

Hi Steve.

I just recently build a WO (Scaled up EXACTLY from the 36×24..) with 2 Cerwin 15’s in it. I chose the v-max because of price and differences in latency, etc… with other drivers. The really high end Cerwin’s and other comp drivers seemed to have more latency and boominess (To my ear..) than the v-max and I wasn’t just looking for pure volume. Anyways, I slapped a cheap 4000 watt Lanzar amp on it, lit it up and blew the roof off the garage.. All I can say is HOLY MOTHER OF GOD!! I haven’t even had the need to actually turn in up. I’m estimating a good clean gut pounding 100 decibels without the need to push the amp in the slightest.. The WO scaled to this size is a little heavy to cart around (Even with casters and handles installed..) but very well worth it.

I was recently asked to play at a friends wedding (I owed him a favour..) and used the WO along with 2 monitors (Sealed boxes that I built w 12’s, horns, and a couple of 1000 watt amps..) that I quickly slapped together 8 months ago. The venue was a medium sized older bare concrete movie theatre converted to a party hall with the worst accoustics I’ve ever experienced. I got 4 business cards of people actually DEMANDING that I call them to play at parties and other outdoor events with my system.

I’ve been asked (Actually begged would be a more accurate term..) to use my system as a front end for my brother’s band now in small to large and outdoor venues. I’ll be building another WO of the same dimensions and purchasing your plans for the Pro 12’s shortly to rebuild my existing monitors and an additional set. Already ordered the horns and compression drivers that you recommended for them along with a couple of 2000 watt amps with active crossovers. I’m probably going overkill on the amp power but I like lots of headroom to play with..

Thanks for all your hard work on these designs. I’ve been asked to build a WO for a friend who heard mine but I’m going to send them to you for that.

Let me know if you’re interested in pics..

Thanks,
Ian.

More info on our cabinet designs

Written over 10 years ago, the book remains pertinent as ever  and just proves  that car audio has not advanced in any way shape or form since the early 90’s despite what manufacturers would like you to believe!

Offered as an online book, it has been read over 90,000 times.  Recently another car audio enthusiast  discovered our web site and has this to say:

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If you’ve purchased the new iTouch from Apple you’ll find tons of impressive features however, output level is not one of them! Perhaps the lowest output level of any MP3 player made?

You’ll be pleased to know that using it with a ZenHead portable headphone amplifier turns it’s very unimpressive sonics into a dynamic and textured performance that is of good enough quality to be enjoyed by any audiophile!

The iTouch has such a low max volume that even most headphone amps can’t get it loud enough to enjoy and if you find one that did, it would be too loud to use safely on everything else. The ZenHead has been evolving internally to now have adjustable gain, adjustable input impedance, and the cross-feed can be turned on or off via some high quality internal switches. This makes it easy to set up for the wide range of sources it can be used with!

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The ZEN HEAD personal battery operated headphone amplifier from Decware is has just been reviewed on Head-fi.org!

Take this and a good set of audiophile headphones and catapult the sound quality of your MP3 player through the roof!

More info

A link to the review!

When ones finds himself in the middle of the hi-fi pond the obvious question never changes; “From this huge selection, what is the best sounding piece that I can afford?”

They all claim greatness, many look like audio jewelry, and you can usually find reviews of some sort that say it’s good so how does one weed out all the imposter’s?

We live in a world of mass production.  The overwhelming majority of audio gear in this world is mass produced.

It’s a lot like the fast food franchise known as McDonnalds.   They hire food engineers and tasters as well as some top chefs to design their food.  However, when you walk away from McDonnalds there is nothing more than fast food in your bag, and it’s certainly nothing to get excited about.  When you actually want a satisfying meal you don’t purchase fast food.  When you want to experience a meal to remember you find a chef who hand selects fresh ingredients and hand prepares the meal for you.

Can anyone explain to me how hi-fi is any different?   Fast food is like mass produced mid fi gear.  Fancy and more expensive fast food is like mass produced hi-fi gear.  Real food is like hand made gear prepared to order by a seasoned chef with years of experience and a well placed reputation.

People just don’t realize how rare it is to still be able to purchase hand made audio gear that is not mass produced and or sub contracted from China.  There are really only a hand full of good restaurants left!  Who’s hungry?

Steve Deckert

In part III of the Zen Open Baffle project we complete the original design concept with the broadcast system and I have a couple epiphanies as a result of raising my personal benchmark for best sound I’ve heard to date. I knew it would work, I hoped it would be good, and had no idea it would redefine what good is!

You can read the article here.

I’ve been asked more than once what I think are the some of the best recordings on CD available by my customers and frankly one of the first that always comes to mind is MA Recordings.   One of the closest to analogue sounding labels I know of anyway.   Why am I plugging MA recordings - A) they fully deserve it and B) the recordings make a wonderful demo of our gear.

-Steve Deckert

Ever wonder what it would be like to have too much money? You can read posts like this at Audiophiletalk.com and post your comments. Apparently this gear is so good it does not require power or cables!