Greetings .....

Well, I'm six days away from retiring from the IT industry .....

The plans to open my little audio storefront are nearing completion and the doors should be open by mid January, 2016.

Here are a few photos of the space as it nears completion .....











And I will even have a kitchenette on site .....



In addition, I just received my custom license plate that reflects my interest in open baffle loudspeakers .....



I'm extending a warm invitation to all members of the Decware forum family to visit if you find yourself in Caintuck (Alexandria, Kentucky).
Refreshments will be on hand and a nice relaxed atmosphere where music is the order of the day.

Of course, Decware amplifiers will be part of the lineup and digital and analog front ends will be at the service of visitors who wish to bring their own music and loudspeakers.

In addition to the main 35' x 17' listening space (10' ceiling) .... there will be a secondary 12' x 12' listening room to accommodate folks who don't have a large listening room in their homes.

More info on the store as it becomes available on my website.

My very best wishes to the Decware Audio family and all of the forum readers for a happy and prosperous 2016,

Randy

Best of luck Randy. I wish I lived closer so I could visit your store. I'm really happy with the baffles I bought from you.
Rich

OK Randy...you're killing me!!!  I'm not that far away in Clarksville, IN, and now I have to visit.  Can I bring my monoblock? I would love to here them with your speakers.

Dan

With the vinyl resurgence and affordable hifi in a similar renaissance, I think you could pull in quite a crowd of young folks. Will you be doing anything vinyl related?

Hello hifitubes,

I fully agree with your thoughts .....

One of the items that will be featured in the storefront will be the U-Turn Orbit turntable along with the Pluto phono preamp. Nice components for a very reasonable price.

I will also be offering the Stockfisch Audio CDs and vinyl which sound very good to my ears ..... as well as some other new vinyl as I find out what my visitors like.

One of my audio buddies suggested a used vinyl bin, so I am looking at that as well.

There is a college less than 10 miles down the road from my storefront (NKU in Highland Heights, KY), so I'm hoping to draw some visitors from there as the word gets out about the storefront.

Best wishes,

Randy

Good add on the U turn spinner Randy.  I have followed them since their Kickstarter campaign.  

Somebody could put together a great system for not much $$ based on your current offering.

that's exciting, making great sound affordable  sounds like fun   wish I was in your town to see it and hang out     maybe I will see you next Decfest.  I live in wa. state   But I grew up in Indiana so I'll make it a duel purpose visit.

I think the hardest thing about HiFi is that it is so hard to find a great sound not just at an affordable price, but at all.  most areas don't have much to choose from and what they do have is priced to be sold to lottery winners!  I have spent more on HiFi in the last few years than I thought I ever would but am very happy  I have a Music Hall 7.1 tt a ZP3 and ZEN UFO2  and BIB with 6.5 in fostex speakers a frend made.  still a few little tweaks but nothing major  I'm buying records now. Darrell

Congrats Randy!

Best of luck to you Randy! Always enjoy your posts and audio insights!

Thanks guys .....

I spent most of today moving things into the storefront, as there were some friends who offered their vehicles and strong backs .....

As of 10:00 PM, I was just finishing up ..... long day.

I will be at it again tomorrow and should have just about everything moved into the location.

While I was moving things around today, I set up a basic system and it didn't sound as good as I had expected.  It could be that I'm just spoiled by my heavily treated listening room at home ..... or it could be that I just need to play around with the setup and speaker placement.  After I get everything else moved in tomorrow I will be doing some serious system fine tuning.

There is no reason that I won't be able to get sound as least as good as what I had in the "hotel room" at the Capital Audio Fest.

Oh well ..... no one said that this was going to be easy .....

I will snap a couple of photos tomorrow of the inside and post them when I get home ..... if I can stay awake that long.

Happy listening,

Randy

Looking good. Are there plans to add a way to protect the speakers from kids or pets?

Having worked in two retail audio stores in the early 1990's I can first remind you that dust caps are like black holes for children's fingers.  My sincere advise is a simple self defense mechanism.  Equip the floor models with a hidden motion sensor wired to a squirt gun located behind a small pin hole at the top.  Keep it full.  :)

A less entertaining option would be to connect the speaker wires to a pair of diodes feeding a voltage sensor that triggers a silent alarm. That way when the dust cap is moved even the smallest amount by a finger, a voltage will be created by the voice coil and trigger the alarm.

If you're having issues with sound quality you may have a drop ceiling causing it. My listening room at the old shop originally had that issue and you were there to hear it  

Keep up posted!  It's a thrill to watch your progress!

Hi Jorgen,

Actually, it's just a box that supports the 5 way binding post on this speaker. This model uses an 8" "full range" driver.

On some other models I make that are two way designs, the box houses the crossover components.

Best wishes,

Randy

PS ..... thanks for the nice photo, Steve.
You are obviously a much better photographer than I am .....

Very interested in any other thoughts on the Rachael with your Betsy based OBs.  Also did you have a helper woofer going?

Finally and thoughts on the uturn?  Always thought of picking one of their tables up.  I listen to vinyl infrequently so I don't want to spend a lot. Liked them since their Kickstarter days.

have you ever tried to put a set of Betsys in series? The UFO can work with 4 ohms

Thursday was a very good day .....

My outdoor signs were delivered and installed .....





I also ordered some magnetic signs for the sides of my chariot .....





And here is a photo of the secondary listening room for visitors who do not have a 35' x 17' man cave at home .....



Happy listening,

Randy

Hi Stone,

Good to hear from you .....

I don't remember Dave having a remote volume control on his amplifier.
He uses a Camelot Uther DAC that has remote volume in the analog domain.

He did rig up a remote volume control for me from a motorized pot that we took from an old receiver, but I don't know the details.

I haven't seen Dave in a while.  I think he has taken a serious interest in photography which keeps him pretty busy.

Best wishes,

Randy

I had the pleasure of stopping by Caintuck Audio yesterday.  Randy was a great host.  We talked about speaker designs, drivers, amps, and most importantly listened to some great music:

Melody Gardot: My One and Only Thrill
Branford Marsalis: Trio Jeepy
Kings of Convenience: Riot on an Empty Street
Ryan Adams: Live at Carnegie Hall
Stevie Ray Vaughn: The Sky is Crying
Yo-Yo-Ma: Inspired by Bach

The open baffles with the Betsy’s make great music and are a perfect companion for the SuperZen.  Without crossovers, the amp never ran out of steam, even in the big open room.  The speed of the SZ was there in spades and the sound was detailed, coherent and open.  The speakers disappeared and you could hear deep into the soundstage.  

I could have sat there all afternoon and listened.  

Thanks again Randy.

Randy, how is your store progressing now that it's spring?

Hi DB2,

Store traffic is still pretty light.
I'm in the process of doing a little local advertising to see if I can coax the music lovers out of the woodwork .....

I'm hoping that some word of mouth and time at this location will eventually bring some steady traffic.
So far, many of the folks who poke their head in the door are looking for car audio, which I am just not into. If this adventure was about the money, I would convert to car audio and probably be making a killing.

The good news is that my website / internet sales are pretty steady.
In the past couple of weeks I shipped speakers to California and Singapore and will be shipping a pair a flat pack baffles next week.

If you find yourself in Caintuck, please make the storefront one of your stops .....

Best wishes,

Randy

We are pleased to announce that Decware will be adding Randy's entry level open baffle speaker to the web site.  So far the page has been completed, and a notice has been sent out to everyone on the customer appreciation list.  Soon, we will have the page linked through the speaker section of the site.  

The reason we have chosen this speaker, is because of the price vs performance.  At $350 a pair, mated with an SE84UFO amplifier, it is possible to have a Decware Zen experience for less than $1500.00!  

This I hope encourages people who are new to Decware or tubes in general to take the plunge.  

Since it is impossible to imagine what the speakers might sound like, I have made a 20 minute demonstration video of the speakers and placed it on the page.  While it took awhile to make, I believe no amount of web page copy would communicate how the speakers can sound and I hope to do the same thing for all of our speakers.

Here is the link to The Betsy Baffle Loudspeaker page:  https://www.decware.com/newsite/Caintuck.html

Steve  

Wow .....

Thanks to everyone for the positive comments ... and especially to Steve for taking the time to put together the amazing audio / video presentation .....

I would like to extend a warm welcome to all of the forum readers to visit my storefront in Alexandria, KY to hear the speakers paired with either the SE84UFO or the Rachael amplifiers.

There are two listening areas, one 35' x 17' and the other 12' x 12'.

By all means, if you already own a pair of speakers and would like to hear how they sound with one of the Decware amplifiers ... you will receive a warm welcome. Bring your favorite music and plan to spend as much time as you would like. There are facilities to spin vinyl, play CDs and computer based audio files as well.

Coffee, tea and bottled water are available for visitors .....

Happy listening,

Randy

Hi Stone,

The only AN Classic speakers I have had in house were the 10"ers.
Here are my thoughts on this .....
I tried the Classic 10s and the 12s with the ferrous magnets in several of my open baffle speakers.
At first, I was very much impressed with both drivers.
The top end is amazingly extended and open and I gushed about the sound on my personal website.

However ..... as with many other things, after extended listening I found the tonal balance to be a bit unnerving. Too much detail on the top end.

Having said that, David Dicks STRONGLY suggests mounting his drivers in his big ported box enclosures.  He says that they will work in an open baffle, but thinks it's not the best option.
Based on what I heard, I would say that the man knows his product well.

It has been my experience that surface area has a great deal to do with the tonal balance of open baffler speakers.  I have heard a pair of 8" Betsy drivers in 4'x 4' baffles that rattled the walls with bass.

The fact that I much prefer smaller baffles (for an assortment of reasons) pretty much rules out the AN drivers in my designs.
If my baffles were larger, they would probably sound much better.

The AN drivers are amazingly detailed and extended on the top end and I can certainly see why they have many fans ..... but I cannot recommend them in my small baffles.

I would presume that the 15" drivers would sound better than the 10" and 12" versions and I might try a pair of them in the future ..... but right now I am up to my rear end building Betsy baffles after Steve generously added them to his website store .....

I hope this helps .....

Best wishes,

Randy