Music Maker of the Month - in Munich!

It is fitting that I have let Music Maker of the Month slide for so long. With the work Dietmar has done in building his system, he deserves a Music Maker of the Year award....

Dietmar has built nearly every component in his system. It is very evenly balanced with no excesses in any one area.. ok.. well, that sentence is probably best written as even excesses in all areas... but what I mean is that his front end is not in a different class than his amplifiers or speakers... every area has received careful, well planned attention... he built his amplifiers... his horns... modified his drivers.. treated the room... worked up the crossovers..

and the sound? he nailed it... natural is the only word you can use... and that is the perfect word... from the first words out of Elvis's mouth, you knew he had it... absolutely stunning...

(so, how about we proceed to a bunch of bad cell phone pictures? classic hifi heroin from my side... I spend my money on junk, not camera equipment... more horns! more tubes! more drivers!)


Basshorns were built into the wall.. this is his attic... see the slope on the top right? the horns are actually on hinges to act as doors... so this one is open so JC and I could climb back there and look around...

which reminds me.. in the first picture, you can see how he has filled the peak of the attic with sound absorbers of differing density and then covered it to look like a flat ceiling.. genius!


JC for scale... note behind the mid horn you can see the floor to ceiling and wall to wall basshorns... which use the room as natural extension... eat your heart out PW Klipsch!


Have you tried a few drivers, Dietmar?


here is the control center... EMT... (check out the cabinet he built for it!).. phono and line stage.. digital crossover and delay... all right in front of the listening position.. why get up when you do not have to?


horn front shot... on rollers for easy movement left and right... why? you ask..


because of the well known dispersion characteristics of snail horns... check out those graphs....


amplifiers in use...


yeah, he made this himself.. of course he did...


ever built a transmitting tube amp with mercury rectifiers? yep... done that as well...


more Dietmar and more scale....


and you know a humble, soft spoken guy like Dietnar measures.. it is the proper engineering way.. you have to listen *and* measure.. you just have to.... one of the rules... yeah.. and how many of you have a flux probe? (yes, dave, I know you have Sid Smith's old flux probe.. I was not including you)...

Astounding work, Dietmar...


Me