About a year ago, I had to make some hard decisions about what I was going to work on and what I was going to turn away. Speaker building is a hobby and it competes for time with my wife and three little kids, it always ends up last on the priority list. The flood of e-mails arriving every week inquiring if I had TL designs for specific drivers and even some people wanting all of the design work done for them so they could decide later if they wanted to actually build the design became overwhelming. People wanted simulations run for them right away so they could decide if they even wanted to buy the specific drivers they were considering. It was too much, there were not enough hours in the day to keep everybody happy.

So I had to form a set of guidelines to decide what projects I wanted to take on. Here is what evolved :

1. I only work on what I am interested in doing, at the present time this is full range drivers and in particular Lowther drivers. Sometimes if somebody has something really interesting, I can be distracted to look at it for a while. But for right now, Lowther drivers and horn design theory has me completely fascinated.

2. I will only work with a driver if I own it and can see that the design work leads me to something even more interesting in the future, no more discontinued drivers or loaners. Twice in the past year I have turned down the loan of pairs of AER drivers. Even though these drivers are very interesting to me, I don't want to be responsible for somebody else's expensive drivers (> $1400 a pair) and in the end I was going to be left with nothing when they were returned.

3. No deadlines or time schedules, I don't need any stress from my hobby. This also means no collaborations because I always feel an obligation to complete my part quickly and not leave somebody waiting. No more pressure, I want to enjoy my hobby since I already have a job with enough pressures.

4. No more free work for people in the business, I have been burned a couple of times in the past couple of years. I am always interested in commercial projects but there has to be someting in it for me and it has to be up front. Any opportunity also has to meet guidelines 1 throught 3.

So while I appreciate the offer of a loaner pair of Fostex FE-206E drivers, I really cannot accept. I hope you understand.

Martin