Glossary and details page: (new info will be added constantly)

What is a full-range speaker? :

A full range speaker is the one can reproduce the full spectum of audible noises which are begin

from 20 hz to 20.000hz (or 20khz). Most of the common speakers tell you that they are full all around, but

when measured you will see this not the case most of the time. Speaker business is a mystery to most of

the people especially non DIY (Do It Yourself) users. When this is the case incredible false information

is given to the common customer. Say , you cant produce an 20 hz frequency with an 8 inch woofer. Our

speaker technology is not that advanced yet. Most of the 8 inchers will start to move (and start making

sound via pushing air waves to your ears) around 35-50 hz area. The Fs symbol at raw driver`s specifications

marks the frequency of this movement`s beginning. It is very important when designing a full range system.

How Hand Made Hi-Fi makes it`s cabinets? Are they all made out of wood? :

We make our cabinets with different material combinations. The inner core-box is made with using medium density fiber

board (mdf) , the outer shell is made with high density fiber board (hdf), and final aesthetic implementations made over these

materials. Reason for this technique is simple, it absorbs the vibrations gradually, some other materials all applied to inner

core for first hand combat with vibrations. Hdf layer supplies the needed sturdy ground for mounted drivers. Hdf layer

at its most thick region can be 4cm. Thats why the cabinets are unusually heavy for most of the time. Some of our

inner-box materials are not explained here as you can see, those materials are only mentioned and explained in

the photo album which given to the user with final product.

We dont use only wood to make our cabinets, because wood always tends to vibrate with incoming sound. The human made

materials like mdf and hdf are all equal in density, and too rough when compared with natural wood. Using cabinets for

getting louder output is a technique left out in the 80`s , today the air in the cabinet is used for all needs, not a vibrating

wood panel. The cabinets are made considering these , and are totally dead to touching , listening with stethescope tests.

Is it important to connect the speakers with their negative and positive polarities correctly?:

Yes, it is very important. The right connector is always red and shows the + (positive) polarity to you. You should be connecting

your speaker wire likewise, otherwise the movement of your speakers will be different than the other speaker , or you will simply

make the all calculations and connections of your crossover obsolete. When electrical signal applied to a speaker it will be

moved forward if its connected correctly, if connection is wrong the movement will occur in other way. You will get a lower

output in terms of sound level and it is the result of reversed phase connection. The sound waves are in reality moves just like

water waves, and each bump when meets the negative bump (or shall I say hollow point) it is very much canceled.

What the hell is a luthier anyway?:

Well , I wish I can explain with his pictures, it would be so much more easy. Luthier is an artisan making musical

instruments and their repairs. All kinds of glues (our luthier uses a glue imported from Italy, which we have to wait in the line

to Italians make for a 2 month period) , all kinds of lacquers, and weird finishes are things these people are crazy about.

They tend to work very slow and sometimes make eccentric request like `please dont put my picture on web``.

Can I play any kind of music with my HMH made system?:

Yes, if you have one of our speakers in your listening or viewing space, you will be able to listen any kind of music/soundtracks

with it. The reason is simple, we dont try to get a 30hz sound with multiple small drivers or dont use excessively ports to get the

lowest octave out of the depths from the cabinets. For the realistic reproduction sealed cabinets and needed simple schematics

, parts used always as a design statement. Nothing fancy.

Can I use test cds or frequency generators to break-in / burn-in my system?:

Please dont. These kind of materials are always push the limits for your system at accelerated periods of time, without much control

over it. You can damage your coils. Instead, use large orchestrated music at loud levels for long periods, or medium levels at night, keep

your system working when youre away , the progress in this period will surprise you. When a system reaches it`s peak performance

after 100-120 hours , you wil realize its lesser need of power to be driven and details revealed you cant able to hear before.

Can I implement other kind of components to my crossovers?:

You will be getting schematic diagram of your system with delivery, but the crossover itself will be lying in a box,

surrounded with an epoxy/resin chemical (it`s not liquid, very hard). This has been made to prevent any Rmf/Emi distortion,

vibration , and other unwanted microphonic effects. You cant get your crossover out of this chemical. It is simply sealed there.

You have to re-design a new one and connect it to your needed driver, which we cant see any reason to do so. All of the

elements used when making your crossover are top notch , best in the world.

Can you recommend any equipment to use with your speakers?:

Maybe, but personally I want my speakers to used with best equipment possible , because they are produced with

incredible care and attention to details. You can find the same work at best but not non-sense equipment such as

Krell, Chord, Emm, Linn or such good companies. If you go cheap on the source, you get low fidelity at the end of the chain.

How will my speakers will look like? :

As you can see from our finishes pages, options are unique to us. Most of the time, gomalak and Iznik tiles are applied on combination with

piano gloss black non-synthetic lacquer. The final looks mostly depends on you , the user. What you can imagine is what you`ll get.

With 3m option maybe your relatives pictures will be on your speakers, or one good slide of a touristic travel memory be your speakers

main theme. Gomalak is far more superior than any fake wooden imitation , old recordings` vinyl is not our choice of wood looks.

Wood veneer has a see through quality,sadly. Just a little contact with any sharp object will make it look very ugly, revealing the

mdf under it. Talking about finishes, if I wasn`t building these beauties, I`ll be looking to buy some B&Ws or Rockports.

My personal dislike of Wilsons maybe wont get to you. But as they say `` If you want it right , do it yourself!``

A little photo examination . Take a look.

Why all of the equalizers set to a V shape ? :

This is the case all around the world, not something specific to where you live. Cheap/low quality

euipment is always having very hard time to produce good midrange sound. When the ears are sensitive most

to these frequencies, our ears are, you will be making good/bad choice very easily. Afterwards this low

quality sound will make you set your equalizer to famous V shape to cut these mids lower and lower. In

case of hi-fi, equalizers are should be not needed. A good design , a good mid-range driver (raw speaker)

should be giving you the real information in your cd or other media. So if you have an good designed speaker

you will get what you give to your speakers without the need of ``smiley curve``. They call this V shape

as smiley curve, if you are a designer in a famous but mid-fi quality products company (there are millions

of these guys) , you will probably adjusting your crossover to this V shape without the knowledge of user.

This the most common case (sorry). If a designer is not doing this cheap trick , most of them calling

their products as ``revealing``, ``informative`` and all other names; but they should be calling them

``not modified to trick you``.

What is a Servo circuit? Do I need one? :

Servo circuits are can be found in quality products such as Genesis and Velodynes. They tend to

use them in bass and subwoofer drivers. Servo serves as a motion controlling water faucet. It adjust the

incoming electric signals response at the speakers cone and decides to whether push it more or less. This

gives servo drivers a very clean, bottoming free (bottoming occurs when driver is pushed beyond its limit

and starts to give you some bloat noises) superb reproduction. They simply faster, more accurate in all

terms. HMH uses this as technology as only subwoofer option in making these custom low frequency beasts.

When you have the servo experience, there is no turning back.

What is a coil? Why should I keep my speakers at a distance from my CRT tv? :

The coil is the magnetic ring inside your speakers magnetic gap, inside the magnet actually.When

electrical signal from the amplifier reaches this area it creates motion and this motion is; through coil,

sent to cone of the speaker. When motion is at the cone it starts to vibrate and produces sound. None of

current technologies aren`t able to give all the spectrum of sound only from one driver. There are all

sorts of products claiming able to making this possible. No need to argue or long paragraphs to explain,

they can`t, maybe just for now. All of them have shortcomings at here and there.

Magnets permanent magnetic field pushed away the photons of your CRT tv`s from the direct line which they

have to go through to produce an image. Shielded drivers dont do this. The image stays the same.

Why Hi-Fi is so expensive and powerful equipment is affordable?

Power is an totally other thing in terms of hi-fidelity. As the name implies fidelity is can be

reached only by realistic levels of listening and most of the time hand made drivers of superb quality.

You can play with your crossover as you want, but at the final link of the chain lies the driver.

You cant make it able to good reproduction you can only hide it`s anomalies and again you will be doing

tricks of designers so much love to do. When saying realistic levels I mean a violin at your side, playing

for real, a drum , non amplified. When amplification added beyond realistic levels there are no limits to

this. You can make a violin sound 120 decibels loud but will it be realistic? People of hi-fi mostly have

the pleasure of a symphonic experience in their systems. This type of music is not amplified, just recorded

via minimalistic equipment and microphones of quality with special care and ofcourse experience(most of time).

It`s possible four any listener to go to a classical music concert and after at home making a comparison

with his systems. This is the ultimate experience of comparison, with human voices or string instruments,

or the best when dynamics and range, the piano. An hi-fi speaker of good quality will also give you many

hours of superb enjoyment from your other amplified recordings, a good speaker can be understood playing at

high levels and giving you detail ; or simply without any tricks whole the spectrum. You can easily make a

mistake when listening at low levels of volume. When you pump the volume up , if the crossover is designed

badly or with cheap parts, or speakers are limited in movement and accuracy , these will be revealed.

You can make a cd or couple of cds for your testing experiences. Listen them on your system, try to remember

the differences while making comparisons, this is the best technique to do it. Dont trust any given recording

by a dealer or friend. Trust your own ears. When you really like a cd, it is possibly the best that can

represent your preferences in other equipment, not just only for speakers.

And as Americans say there is no such thing as free lunch, if you want good quality equipment the

price will also be higher than common equipments. Hand work and human ears, blind tests of listening, and

prototyping costs very very high for the manufacturers of high quality components. Nothing goes by the

book most of the time when you try to reach something like %2 or say %5 variability for your product

specifications. When you buy the best, you get what you paid for (most of the time, always beware and

maeause if possible) in terms of specifications and demanding work.

If I go back to issue of power and price relation, I must say you can make a 1000 watts handling

speaker simply winding the coil`s wire for this specific job. Maybe a higher gauge wire, or different

material will give the result, but the cone/magnet/physical properties/electrical properties are also

important. You cant simply choose the most powerful speaker and put it to your design to reach a realistic

reproduction, if your concern is fidelity. But if you are a DJ going on stage pump the crowds heart faster

and the only thing important is the rooms vibration you should be looking to on stage euqipments, not

the hi-fi. There are categories for them also , choose if you can, millions of them around, I must say JBL

will be a good choice always for a price/quality consideration.

What is a subwoofer and do I need one? :

Subwoofer is considered by many as only .1 part of the surround systems. Actually it servers much more

than that. Most of subwoofers are using amplifiers on one of their box sides. These amplifiers include

filters-crossovers of variable filters to get them in right balance to other elements of system; such as

satellite speakers of surround formats (DTS, Dolby Digital (all) Pro Logics). If your satellites are

small in woofer`s size, you should be considering adjusting the filter to a higher point, something like

100-140 hz. As woofer`s size gets smaller, the produced bass frequency amount is lowered too. Sound waves

tend to behave just like water ripples and as frequency gets lower these waves are bigger in size. To produce

big waves accurately you need some big cones, sorry but there is no alternative for this, unlike said by

small-wonder speaker manufacturers. Loudness of subwoofer itself is also controlled by its volume pot on the

amplifier, there are some inputs and outputs on this amplifiers you will see. High level inputs are very

handy when you connect your stereo amplifier to the subwoofer. These inputs accept all the signals coming

from your left and right speaker cables and turn them into sub sonic frequencies after filtering via built

in crossover. Low level inputs are simply for connecting your subwoofer to receivers of subwoofer output

option capability.

Subwoofers can add depth and perceived space reality to your listening experience other than

shaking your rooms boundaries.

Where should I put my subwoofer? :

Lower frequencies tend to bounce off and sometimes go directly through room walls. No other than

sound isolation cant stop these large and loud frequencies. Neighbors maybe cant hear your highs but in

the case of sub-sonics they`ll simply feel the vibration caused by your subwoofer. Placing is not that

much important in terms of neighborhood, but if you put your subwoofer in the corner of your room, adjent to

both walls, you will probably end up with a 3-5 decibels of gain in volume. Sometime when the filter of

subwoofer set to higher frequencies, you may say where the subwoofer`s coming from exactly. This might not

be in case of lower frequencies. Because our hearing cannot tell you where the sound is coming from at

low octaves. Subwoofers are larger than most other speakers, and placement is always a problem. Set it low

and use it as a table if you like.

How much bass is needed to experience the real-thing? :

Our perception is always tend to consider full spectrum of sounds reproduced as real (20hz to 20khz).

When this is the case, you should be using all same full range speakers at all points of surround room.

This is the best choice but ofcourse not the most pocket friendly option.Using one powerful sub maybe your

solution for the issue, but as of my experience I find two ( one at the front side , and one at the back)

the best option. This setup somewhat balanced to my ears always. Some people are bass crazy for reasons

unkown to me, for them maybe the solution is 5 subs at all times!

What is a super-tweeter and do I need one? :

When topic is Hi-Fi things start to blur in front of your eyes, all of those options, modifications,

and other weird stuff gets most of the people confused. You have to eliminate the reasonable from the

non-sense version, this is an ability comes with experience (sorry) , people around the world are in

constant search of improving stereo or surround reproducing by doing something wonderous, or never thought

before; and sometimes this lead to a production of gadgets for the insane. You may find your self checking

the multi colored pebbles to place around your components, weird crystals hanging from ceiling or even

oils, chemicals and the list goes on. I wonder what is now in production while I am writing these words.

Super-Tweeters are created for the frequencies above that cannot be reproduced by an ordinary tweeter unit.

You may wonder , why listen to something above my listening ability? I dont know. Really. Most of the

studios around the world are producing cds of 20-20khz range and again most of the preamps and integrated

amps cannot even turn electric signals into this kind of super high frequencies. It can maybe explained

easily trying to hear a dog whistle. It is as simple as this I`m afraid. But not in the case of subsonics,

our ears cannot hear the sub 20 hz category maybe, but you can feel all of those below in your chest,

the air is moved and the actual signals are felt for real.