[jrebman]

Horns, pipes, TLs, BR, aperiodic, sealed? Others?  What's your favorite, and in what situation -- meaning preferred listening style, room, amplification, etc.?

Right now my personal leaning is to modded Voigt pipes, at least for my small office system.  Music selection varies but is often acoustic, vocal, jazz, small scale ensembles, not a lot of heavy rock or full scalle orchestral, and no movies.  Amplification will be low power (probably 5 watts max) and either SET or SEP and sources will be a highly modified SB2 by Bolder Cable, and a yet to be determined CD player, plus a USB dac from my computer.  The room is small -- 10.5' x 16' x 8' with a 3' x 6' closet taken out of one corner.  Speakers will be firing across the short distance and can be no further than 18" - 24" from front wall and about 7 feet apart, which will put them no more than 7 feet from the listening position.

Currently in house are a pair of semi-custom Tekton modified TQWTs designed for the FE-127, and will probably eventually be augmented with a Horn Shoppe Cube.  This is basically going to be my little SD playpen, and eventually other types of speakers, and a variety of amps and drivers will rotate through the system, but this is a starting point.  This will be as much for listening as experimenting.  If I end up hitting the motherlode with a particular setup, then I may consider migrating it upstairs into the main system and going back to an all SD/SET/P system again.

-- Jim

[TerryO]

For "small" music; that is, acoustic and vocals, I believe that the "Aiko" double horn design with the Fostex FE 108 Sigma has no peer. I've never heard a speaker that did acoustic music and female vocals better.
 Dave (Planet 10), or one of the participants, had a pair of these at last July's Vancouver Island DIY Meet. These are really special, as I and several Ultra-Fi types can attest. No low bass and they probably won't go real loud, but the rest is absolutely superb
They are a DIY design, so if you're not a woodworker you might want to see if a local cabinetmaker, etc., would want to construct a pair of cabinets.

Here's the URL from Dave's Frugal-horn.com site:

http://homepage.mac.com/tlinespeakers/FH/download/Aiko-LY401F-NDH-map-010407.pdf

Best Regards,
TerryO (the Non-Vivaldi Guy)
(The above text was modified in order to change *Fugal-horn* to the correct spelling: Frugal-horn.

[rajacat]

I have four broken in FE-127's that were pulled from my Omega Dipoles. What cabinet design would make the best use of their potential?

-Raj

[TerryO]

I have four broken in FE-127's that were pulled from my Omega Dipoles. What cabinet design would make the best use of their potential?

-Raj

Depends on what you want. I'd send those drivers to Planet 10 for modification and choose a cabinet design from the seemingly endless choices shown at: www.frugal-horn.com.
I have my favorites, having heard many of them, but it wouldn't be fair to you if I tried to influence your choice. (Maybe Louis could chime in?)

TerryO

[JLM]

My favorite enclosure type is transmission line.

I first heard them in 1976.  A local very large music store that sold mostly musical instruments and sheet music had a small audio department where the guys worked salary and could sell whatever as long as they made money.  So they brought in I. M. Fried speakers, including the somewhat famous Model H with the "coffin" stereo bass cabinet (roughly 2 ft x 2 ft x 5 ft).

I was in college and eager to overspend (compared to my income) on audio equipment.  I was moving from what we call big box sound to the hi end.  I went in to hear JBL L-300s (shaped like an undercounter refrigerator, but bigger).  They had an impressive "hi-fi" sound, but the sales staff then asked me to listen to the Fried's.  The sound confused me.  Bass was full, but not boomy.  And I couldn't locate the speakers until I walked right up to them (the 2-way satellites, similar to LS-3/5A).  The bass cabinet could not be located by ear.  I left with information and strangely vexed.

The next year I returned repeatedly to hear the Model H again and again.  The deep, musical bass with amazing imaging kept haunting me.  I bought the satellites (while still in college) and built separate bass cabinets a couple of years later.  BTW the satellites started life as sealed boxes, but a factory endorsed upgrade replaced drivers and took them to an aperiodic design.  They were good before, better after the upgrade, but the aperiodic appeared to make very little change as I recall.  The "coffins" were rated to 17 Hz at 114 dB, but were meant for serious listeners of "real" (live, acoustical) music.  Unfortunately they were also meant for very large rooms, bigger than I would ever want to live in or could afford.  So one day I loaded them up, took them to a 20,000 cu. ft (35 ft x 45 ft x 17 ft) chapel.  With a 20 wpc NAD 3020 they made glorious, marvelous, spine tingling music.  I donated them to the church on the spot.  I've never heard better bass.

For various reasons I stepped away from audio for the next 10 - 15 years.  The internet revealed fasinating new worlds of audio and I became most interested in SETs and single driver designs.  I gave up on tubes but finally MJK, Bob Brines, and the Fostex F200A driver came to my rescue.  So I commissioned Bob to combine Martin's MathCad application with the mighty F200A driver and have been very happy with the result.  My taste runs mostly light jazz and the boroque.  I listen in a audio dedicated 13 ft x 21 ft x 8 ft insulated man cave.

[jrebman]

Terry (or Dave),

What are the overall dimensions of the "Aiko"?  I can't see the PDF drawings, and see no other descriptive text on them.  Is the Aiko substantially different from the Mikasa?

What are the materials?

Looks really interesting.

-- Jim

[TerryO]

Terry (or Dave),

What are the overall dimensions of the "Aiko"?  I can't see the PDF drawings, and see no other descriptive text on them.  Is the Aiko substantially different from the Mikasa?

What are the materials?

Looks really interesting.

-- Jim

Jim,

The "Aiko" has outside measurements of 52 1/16 inches high, 11 13/16 inches deep and 6 3/16 inches wide. As for similarities, I don't know as it was designed for the Lyco (sp?) driver or the Fostex FE 108e Sigma. The Lyco didn't live up to the Hype that accompanied it's introduction and isn't recommended. The Fostex Sigma, OTOH, sound glorious. As I mentioned somewhere else, it may not make sense to have a special speaker just for female vocals...but just the same...
As for materials, Dave and his band of Audio Fanatics generally prefer Baltic Birch plywood, although marine plywood would probably work as well. I built a pair of Speakerlab K-Horns from plans back in 1975, and these would be *much* easier to construct as it's all 90 degree cuts.

Best Regards,
TerryO

[jrebman]

Terry,

That does sound pretty doable -- and I too would be inclined to use baltic birch, but I'd have to get with somebody to translate the drawings fo I could make notes, but overall it doesn't seem to terribly daunting.

By marine ply do you mean the standard voidless fir with waterproof glue, or you talking about the more exotic mahogany and Regina marine ply -- like Bruynzeel or something like that?  I never considered that for speaker building, but it would probably be an excellent material to work with.

I too bought a set of the Speakerlab K plans, but shortly after changed jobs and moved to a series of places where I no longer had access to a shop, so gave them to a friend -- who also never built them .

-- Jim

[TerryO]

Terry,

That does sound pretty doable -- and I too would be inclined to use Baltic birch, but I'd have to get with somebody to translate the drawings fo I could make notes, but overall it doesn't seem to terribly daunting.

By marine ply do you mean the standard voidless fir with waterproof glue, or you talking about the more exotic mahogany and Regina marine ply -- like Bruynzeel or something like that?  I never considered that for speaker building, but it would probably be an excellent material to work with.

I too bought a set of the Speakerlab K plans, but shortly after changed jobs and moved to a series of places where I no longer had access to a shop, so gave them to a friend -- who also never built them .

-- Jim

I think that you'd want to use something other than Fir. My experience with Fir marine ply is for marine use. For marine use, it's lousy unless you apply epoxy and 'glas over it as the grain will lift over time. For speakers, I'd avoid it as well, probably out of prejudice but also because if you have to sand it, the difference between the soft summer wood and the much harder winter "rings" will cause valleys and really make it nearly impossible to get a decent painted surface. With all the extra problems that Fir causes, with the time spent fixing it, etc., you'd be money ahead to use a hardwood marine ply. Baltic Birch is just about the best stuff that's available, it's not cheap but it produces a superior cabinet.

Best Regards,
TerryO

[planet10]

Aiko is the smallest member of the Nagoka-style Spawn double horns (Mikasa, Saburo, Hiro, & Sachiko being the others). Originally designed for the Lyeco 4" it turns out to provide the best load i've heard for the FE108eS.

dave

[planet10]

I have four broken in FE-127's that were pulled from my Omega Dipoles. What cabinet design would make the best use of their potential?

-Raj

Raj,

The 127 is one of my favorite speakers... the best box. IMO, we've had them in is the regular Fonken... and we have tried quite a few... some of these have other attributes that outdo the Fonken (for instance Mileva has more bottom, in many cases their asset is that they are just easier to build), but none make music and disappear like the Fonken.

If you want to use all 4 in a pair of boxes you might want to try the BiFonken (i only have preliminary drawings of 2 variations). Mail me if you want to have a look...

dave

[jrebman]

BTW Raj, Eddie Vaughn says these are some incredible speakers, and one of these days when the flat packs are available, I definitely intend to build a set for myself.

They seem to go low enough so that integration with a single, fast sub, crossed over fairly low, should be pretty straightforward.

-- Jim