Hi I Know we've been doing speakers quite a lot lately, but I like speakers and thank you very much to Simon Ashton for sending in these little British monitors. They're actually a kick starter kit that's finishing it in like a couple of days. So by the time I edit and upload this video, there could only be one or two days left. So get into it if you're interested in kids speakers.

Not many people doing kit speakers these days. it used to be, you know, quite a thing. Back in the 70s and 80s all the electronics magazines had a kit speaker. you know, systems in them and stuff like this.

but these are little tiny little things. They called the little British monitors. and yes, they are tiny and they come on these cool little springy stands. They start from 300 pounds which sounds like a lot, but they look pretty high-quality So I Thought: let's check them out.

Hmm. the little British monitor. Cool. not made in China or anything like that.

Actually designed and engineered and manufactured in Simon's own workshop. so in the old dart of course it's the night little British water, let's check them out. By the way, if you're interested in the t-shirts I've got my teespring store I've always had it, but it's kind of like back up and running though. still having a few issues with it, but it's linked in to my YouTube account now.

So below this video you might actually see like an integrated ad thing, not in the usual ad location, but below it just above the comments. You should see that for links to the merch store, so check it out. So check these out, Aren't they cute tiny little things? How tiny? Wow Let me show you well, check them out compared to my 6 inch I rotate 6 is here and my our Focal CMS 4000 near-field studio monitors here. these are the ones that will actually compare it with really, even though they're not in the same price category by any stretch.

But there are similarities with the Focal Zin terms of using an inverted dome tweeter, so let's check that out. so both of them use an inverted dome tweeter there. I'm not gonna say that these little British monitors are going to be in the same class as the very well-regarded focal inverted dome tweeters, but you know still. I don't know where Simon actually get these Frank gets these from source from.

you know I presume they're from some sort of some Chinese manufacturer, but you know he would have carefully selected the Simon's actually worked for years on the design of these things and this is actually his second. Kickstarter It all has already met its goals, but he's also done one previously. This is like a Mark Two version of the little British monitor in the cute and as you can see, it actually uses our plywood, but it uses birch plywood and Simon claims that will. There's research out there that says that birch wood sounds better in speakers.

Well, you know. Okay, we've got a three inch woofer here and it seems to have a decently long throw on it. I'm not sure what the actual material is Madoff would have liked your seen like just some color hex screws on there. that would have been nice splash like a red or something.

Make it go faster. Anyway, here's our transmission line port Now Simon claims that these are one of her. well I think the only low-cost speakers on the market with what's called a transmission line port in quote marks and these are. It's supposed to be superior to a standard ported enclosure, but I'm not sure how much you know truth there is in that.

But anyway yeah, Simon's I'm very proud of the fact that he got a transmission line port into such a small monitor. Usually you can only do it on the larger ones and we've got some little fake livery thing on the front. Yeah, not a fan of the just the the foam in there looks a bit how you doing. it's just a close-up of the inverted dome tweeter for you tweeter aficionados knock yourself out.

the faceplate is glued on now. I'm a bit symmetry triggered by these speakers because the phase plugs are pointing in the same direction on by the same angle on both of them. I would like to have seen that one like symmetry. Oh and the back here we actually these aren't area mininum, these are actually asked endless steal and backs on them I Would have preferred to actually see them with their individual amplifiers.

Not a huge fan of having like the speaker cable going over. They use a a 4-way dim connector here, supplied with the the interconnecting speaker cable of course. but all the amplify or an amplification happens in one. Once again, it's just a it's just a symmetry thing and potentially you've got extra loss along the lines and the internal acoustic space might be different, but we'll have a look inside anyway.

Nice big-ass heatsink on the back. We've got volume control on the back here. we've got on/off switch on the back. Would have liked to of like I Love the on/off switch on the front on my vocals.

Absolutely fantastic. But anyway, we've got an Aux in. These aren't really designed for the professional monitoring market. I Mean there's no balanced input.

unfortunately they are yes grown a bluetooth speaker, but you can actually physically disable the Bluetooth I Wonder if that like turns off the power to the Bluetooth That'd be nice I just wanted to, you know, completely bypass that. But it would have been nice to actually get a you know a balanced input and for the DC input uses like a little like a three pin Lemo type connector here. so it you know that's pretty high quality. but yeah, I don't know if it's the best choice, but anyway, it is what it is now.

although these are called the little British monitors, there's no mention that these are specifically near-field What's got near-field monitor speakers ie. listening very close to them on a desk with editing. but obviously that's what these things are. Simon actually publishes a response graph of these things and it looks reasonably flat.

So that was a goal for these things was to provide a flat monitor like response. You know these stands that come optional with it? they don't come ordinarily provided for the lowest cost kit what's called a constrained layer dampening system and you might be able to see inside there. There's actually a little acrylic film layer wedged in the top and that got some neoprene rubber down the other end and it really is quite nice for vibration isolation of he speakers. The only issue with that? if I rock my table, these speakers are going to rock anyway.

I Do like them. They are pretty jazzy, so yeah, well worth getting the stands if you're going to get these things. Definitely okay, so let's open up. See what the ceilings like on the back? Oh, there's a little bit of ceiling.

Oh yeah, it's around the bottom so it looks like we've got. By the way, yeah, these are fully assembled. but as I said, they do come in a kit so you can assemble yourself. Although you don't solder, all the boards come up preassembled and everything else, but all the like these, but the boxes come as a flat packing.

You've got to glue them together and that would be really satisfying. I'm actually glad he said I mean as made up, but sort of half of me once. Yeah. I want to be able to assemble I Love assembling like you know, flat pack stuff with wood, blue and all that sort of stuff.

Real satisfying job. Anyway, it's got the sealing tape around there like that, so that's that's important and let's get this out. So we got: Green solder mask. black rubbish.

Oh, there are silicone leads - very nice. So there's our Bluetooth module Bluetooth antenna just flapping around in the breeze there. but yeah, you can actually disable it as it looked like that looks. Is that a MOSFET to disable the power? Sort of the oh no, that'll be a regulator.

sorry local regulator powering that separate because you don't want that bluetooth rubbish. Seriously? I mean you know if you want bluetooth just gone by Qi fast pair of Bluetooth speakers where I'd Oh yeah, everyone's got different requirements. Okay, everyone wants to see the main capacitor brand of course. BC BC capacitors.

They're actually vishay. They're actually a beautiful brand. it's you. Just don't see him that often.

really. come here last time I seen a BC cap. Anyway, they are reputable so no worries there whatsoever. Got a couple of other ones just flapping around in the breeze here.

A couple of vertical power resistors. didn't you run out of space on the board or something? It's a bit. how are you doing all the right angles on the traces here? No, it almost looks like it's almost looks like it's Auto routed or something. but it's actually rather interesting.

Look, we've got sort of like goes out there and then right angle like that I haven't seen that too many times. That's an interesting layout. Let's put it that way. Don't know why we have a whole bunch of unpopulated our USB five volts.

Okay, so it looks like it had optional USB power. By the looks of it, that's interesting. yeah and looks like we have a genuine budge here. Look at this.

Got some that's held down with hot snot. Wire goes from this. their over here around here. is that connected to something in there? Sarah Yeah, it's a resistor in there cuz otherwise I don't know why it's take it like that.

Anyway, yeah it goes over to here. so I'm not sure that what is, but these are pre I think these are probably pre-production units. So yeah, give him a pass on that. Anyway, these are like, you know, hand-built Do it yourself.

So like a mod is just. it's almost mandatory. Isn't it? You should actually read the solder Mar shouldn't I lm317 There you go. So that is the regulator for the low end, but I'm sure if they actually disabled the power to that Bluetooth module because look over here.

I Just I Love this solution here. This is very nice. Let me get that out of the way and it's just a a connecting board that joins all the connections together and completing the motorway rotary switch. So there's a very nice solution rather than you know just having the wires just running off like directly over a nice integrated board.

solution with the right angle traces all the electrons fly off the corner and just going over via and night. Nice and neat ribbon cable I Really like that they've done the same thing down here even though it is on an angle like that. I Still like the solution Oh Cheater pants though with a couple of extend tin copper wires going up to the main board at the top. Oh Took all the elegance out of it.

so I'd love to get the rest of the board out, but unfortunately things like these switches are like, you know, they're all glued in and they're all soldered right angle like that. and the power amp of course is under here. You can see the two screws. they're actually doing that down.

so that dual inline. sort of like you know, dual row single inline package like that bolted down. it's a Class A B none of this modern Class D Rubbish. Don't want any of that.

so I okay you the part number on that, but I'll endeavor to find out. I'm this it will be open source hardware. it's not at the moment. as in though Simon will release the schematic eventually, is just tidying it up and things like that cuz he's seen my video on my critiquing schematics and he he wants to tidy it up before release.

So I'll include the datasheet. I'll find the info on that part for you. So as for the cases, here are: nine millimeter birch plywood as I said. and and here's the thing.

I don't you know I don't like about the non symmetry ones. Got all this amplification stuff and everything else and the other doesn't so that's you can't help. But you know. think and it will.

It's it's going to change the acoustic properties even with this foam here. that's the idea of this foam so that it's you know it should be fairly similar. but yeah, I did. Ultimately there.

There are probably going to be minor acoustical differences between the two like this. So yeah, and this is the they've got two walls in here and you can see there. Yeah, so there's a top one and a bottom one down here. and as I said, you got to assemble all these so I can't take it apart for you to show you.

But maybe oh, maybe there's some photos I can include or something like that. or somebody's maybe done a kit assembly video. Perhaps the transmission line port is this. see that gap in between there like that the the acoustic energy comes out of here and gets trapped in there so it's like a waveguide.

So a Ie8 an acoustic transmission line that comes out and I think it just goes right angle like that and goes out like they you probably saw something similar in my focal speaker tear down. although that's more of your traditional like tuned port. and I won't pretend to understand the real differences between a transmission line port and a tuned port. I Like to me, I think they're You know it's probably a bit of just a terminology difference perhaps.

but I you know Simon reckons that there's a difference in these things and is quite proud of getting a transmission line design inside such a small enclosure like this. And the whole idea with the transmission line of course is that you get no reflections back so that you know the the length of this and the width and the diameter and everything. and it's tuned so that at the specific resonant frequency that you want, all the acoustic energy goes out and nothing gets reflected back into colour, the sound, and all that sort of jazz. There you go.

Sorry. I've got a overexposed the crap out of this to see it. There's our as our tweeter that is fully enclosed down there. It's got silicon sealing around the base of it.

Of course everything's got to be sealed and looks like the wiring sealed on top. Got some more silicon or hot snot in there sealing that down. Sorry, can't show you the water because I'd literally have to destroy these things in order to show you whoo that's overexposed. Expose yourself.

take the other one off and it's got the same exactly the same foam arrangement in there. But as I said, it's going to be stuffed full of circuit boards and stuff like that. It's got to change the acoustic properties slightly. This is why I think you know he in the serious monitoring speaker business.

you know they really have to be absolutely identical or as designs in all all respects of like the internal you know volume and and like the interference from the foam and the other components and the wiring and all that sort of stuff. Anyway, these of course employ an active cross over so they cross over and feed into the separate channels of the power amplifier here. So this is a dual stereo power amplifier package because it's gotta go over the Joule War II and one for the high frequency, one for the low frequency over to the second speaker which of course comes over here like this. So this goes to the internal speaker as you can see low frequency and high frequency for the different for the tweeter and the wolf respectively.

and that goes over these second speaker and we can actually see the bodger's down in there. These points here are actually soldered to SMD capacitors or resistors going down to a point in there. And yes, that is silicon. That's not.

That's not. So there is a component here. component here. component here.

So they're using this as like a trace like snaking its way over like that. There's guy. I Think there's another one in there. There's another one in there.

There's another bodge over here. There's a couple of caps and down in there in the time-honored tradition of you know, do-it-yourself kit designed. Yep, there's mods everywhere that's in bore. Hilarious.

And yes, these are all Dl O 7 for genuine TI jobbies. None of that, you know, Shenzhen Market rubbish and yet there adequate for the job. In something like this, you know it would have been nice to see some 55:34 which are like five times lower noise. and these these are you know typically like 18 nanobots per route.

Hertz whereas you get about three nano volts per. it hurts for the audio. the more audio class. I Here's one of the applications for the TL O7 for is audio preamps so don't get me wrong, it's a it's no problem and there's the bluetooth chip for those playing log at home.

Yes, it's upside down so all the electrons are going to fall out. Now it does use the PTX standard so which is like a psycho acoustic army like compression algorithm thing over about standard Bluetooth and it's I'm not sure if it's like the HD version or low latency version or whatever they're you know, incorporating there, but it is a regular better than your regular bluetooth. it's designed for you know, proper streaming audio and stuff like that. but there are various are flavors of aptX so it's good that it includes that, but you know it's still bluetooth I Don't know there's just something about bluetooth that just like.

but if you in the market for some Bluetooth speakers I mean these ones would be pretty nice and that's inside the woofer section of it. just got some foam surrounding that. nothing special but you know that's a trapped fairly well in there I'm not sure and then the you know it's got to escape over here and you know it goes through the phone. Low frequency stuff.

This phone's not, you know, Huge. I'm not going to stop much at the low frequencies, so yeah anyway it's got to get over there. it goes there and then it's got a you know effectively split down the wave guide, right down the acoustic wave guide, the transmission line. but also some of it sneaks over the back as well into the electronics section.

So yeah, and here's the woofer for those playing along at home and it is actually a like a pretty decent one. It's a Dayton audio nd 91 for and in before Ohms impedance made in China but it is actually quite a decent respect driver. It's like designed for like you know like sound or sound bars where they have like an array of these speakers and stuff like that. You'll notice the nice big roll on there gives it a really high excursion so that is that is quite nice.

and I don't know why they've got looks like a grill in the back of that so I'm not sure what the deal is there I'm It's magnetically shielded so no, it's actually a full-range driver. so it does the full frequency range. So in theory you didn't need the crossover and the tweeter here. but of course Simon's decided to you know make this a two-way speaker design.

so it really is quite neat. and it it sounds pretty good too. So yeah, it would be interesting to see what this at like as a full-range speaker would actually do in its own right because a lot of you know people who care about their audio will actually play back their mixed material on a single full range driver like this. So it's sort of like you know, simulates sort of like a like the crappier full range non two-way speakers that you know people might actually listen to your music or your you know your video or whatever it is you're mixing through so you know.

But there is a decent driver, no problems. and that cone down in there is supposed to be a black anodized aluminium it. It doesn't feel like it. but okay.

I guess it is. That's what the datasheet says. So I'll roll with that roll. Get it? yeah? I'm here all week and of course it comes with a 100 app.

Doh with thee I Didn't don't actually know if it's a limo, but I'll just call it like a leaping limo connector here. Yeah, and we got the cable as well to join the two speakers. So it's a pair this sucker up. see what's what? Shame.

It doesn't have a balanced input. otherwise. I could've just hooked up to my existing amp. but okay.

I've got my Rode Ntg-3 set up 50 centimeters pointed directly at the tweeter there. We'll give it a go, let's play some. MC Frontalot Shall we? After doing a teardown of this, we discovered that it has no primary side mains fuse and this is insanity. After doing a teardown of this, we discovered that it has no primary side mains fuse and this is insanity.

So I know it's hard to get like comparisons with studio monitors like these and hopefully you can hear the difference there. I Won't know until I like actually listen to them a be on my turn. ironically on my Focal Studio monitors. although yeah, I'm no, the Focal is are definitely better than these things.

like they're no match like you can hear you wouldn't expect it to be for the price, but these are actually surprisingly good. Um, and the low end capability was actually it was much more capable than I was expecting. and but I could you know you could hear the distortion in it as they were like as you tried to drive it hard? So you really can't drive these things hard nor would you are expected at this sort of you know, size and power level for something like this. But yeah, I think they actually work quite well.

So I'm actually very quite impressed by these based on their you know, their just their physical small size and the yes I haven't seen so done a decent job acoustically if these thing. So I'm not blown away by them of course, but but the very decent performance. so then well worth checking out if you, especially if we want to build itself. I probably wouldn't buy him made up like there's much more satisfaction be had in in building these yourself.

I Think so in terms of like voicing for video at any work, they're not too shabby at all and they they do compare reasonably favorably with say, my old Alesis studio monitors Once again, not quite up with the performance of those ones and of course no match to the focus. you can just hear much more detail in them. It's how probably hard to come across in a video like this actually doing a testing. You've got to listen to them yourself in your own environment stuff like that.

but because their front ported you can actually use them as an airfield studio monitor near walls and things like that. and they should actually sound pretty decent, especially for the size. So I Simon's done a pretty good job actually a design engineer in these. He's been working on these for years and you know you may not be able to get much better in the you know, the size sort of.

You know construct, size, and power constraints of these things. I think they're quite jazzy, so well worth checking out. Thank you very much Simon for sending those in. If you liked the video, please give it a big thumbs up! As always discussed down below, catch you next time.