[hobbyhands]

I've built a pair of smaller speakers using the fostex 127e. I was pleased with how they sounded, but was wondering if anyone had tried the plans that come with the speaker. The double bass reflex cabinet? You know just to get a little more bass out of them.

[planet10]

After a number of dissapointments with Fostex factory designs we don't pay much attention to them any more, but this build of the double reflex caught my attention... the builder really liked them.



Some more designs can be found here:
http://www.planet10-hifi.com/boxes-fostex.html
http://www.frugal-horn.com/spawn.html

dave

[dadod]

Try open buffle, it sounds very nice. You need subwoofer of cource.

[JLM]

Dave (planet10) is the FE127E man!

Dave, is there a concise comparison between all your cabinet posted options?  It'd also be nice if it included recommended room size, what music each works best with, and estimated material/finished speaker cost.

And while I'm asking for the moon, could you compare stock and EnABLE'd versions and indicate cost?

I think it'd help the new comers to get a handle on all this.

TIA

[rjbond3rd]

Here is Dave's list of the various FE127e boxes:

http://www.planet10-hifi.com/boxes-fostex.html#diyRef

[planet10]

The link Robert has posted is fairly comprehensive as far as FE127 boxes go... not a complete list thou.

Opinions on FE127 boxes are spread all over the place. You'll find a lot of it on diyAudio.

There are many boxes for the 127 both because it is versatile, and each person has a set of compromises they can more readily accept.

We have built many boxes for the FE127, but not near all of them. Of the boxes we have built, the Fonken -- independent of the room -- is my favorite. It has gotten to the point where the phrase "that box is good, but it isn't a Fonken" is almost engraved in stone. In my big room (~9000 ft^3) having a pair of active woofers really helps with the dynamics. and it doesn't hurt to have solid bottom down into the 30s.

Stock drivers vrs my FE127eN (one can expect me to be a bit biased, but field reports tend to back these opinions up)

The FE127 (and FE126) suffer from a significant resonance about 7k, Being fairly hiQ it hides itself fairly well on a lot of music. That and the inherent cone self-noise can cause listening fatigue.

My drivers go thru 2 distinct steps as far as the cone goes. The 1st is aimed at taming the peak (largely successful) and reducing cone noise. Then EnABL is put on top of this.

The end result is a driver with flatter FR, and much greater downward dynamic range. In a blind test it is pretty easy to tell them apart -- with the treated drivers, the boxes tend to dissappear to a much greater extent, and the image becomes much more 3-D (as opposed to the image painted on a curtain stretched between the speakers).

For what it is worth, here is an anechoic FR done by Mark Fenlon of Mark Audio. Without the other 69 required measures it tells us little about how the driver sounds in a room, but does offer some comparison to stock. Also on the plot are some other measures of stock & treated drivers (given different measurement conditions cannot be directly compared)



FE127eN are $240 USD/pr for existing stock, i will be changing my offering to a $200 version without the basket stiffening with the option of having it done for $50 extra. We have decided that this step offers to little improvement for the effort/$$$ it costs. I will be offering a sufficient quantity of SR500 for people to diy that step if they wish (probably about $5 but depends on what bottles end up costing)

dave

[doorman]

Let me just add my (of course subjective!) opinion re: the above driver treatment: "JUST DO IT!"
The fatigue level drops by a significant factor. It's worth every penny, or the effort involved, as the case may be!
Don

[JLM]

Thanks Dave,

Previously found your web page showing different cabinets, but how is a customer to choose between them all?  I assume each design has it's application/purpose/advantages.

[planet10]

Previously found your web page showing different cabinets, but how is a customer to choose between them all?  I assume each design has it's application/purpose/advantages.

Indeed.

When i started out with FR drivers there were very few well documented designs. So we had to start with our own. Those, and the growing enthusiasm for FR designs world-wide has led us to a world where there the hard part is now choosing one of the myriad of documented boxes. There are lots of good ones.

What are your needs, skills, ancilliary gear? WAF? Room? Subs?

dave

[JLM]

I currently have no needs for more speakers, I was asking a generic question for your (hopefully) future customers.  Those considerations you listed would be a good basis for a comparison chart (I'd also throw in in-room bass roll off frequency.)  The mildly curious might look more seriously if a succinct comparo was available.

[jrebman]

I'll just throw in my 2 cents here regarding the P10 modified drivers:  They are most definitely worth it.  I recently completed a number of tweaks/modifications to my horn shoppe Horns, including adding the FE-127en drivers.  Understand that I did quite a few things, including the drivers, solid, unplated copper binding posts, Chimera Labs internal speaker wire, felt treatment of the horn mouth and partial felt treatment of the compression chamber, and ballasting each speaker with 24,000 BBs, so it is hard to tell exactly what tweak did wat (except for the BBs, which I did after they were playing for a few days) and they are now far more suitable to my mostly acoustic music listening tastes, with no shout, no backwave reflection issues, a super smooth response, and no listening fatigue whatsoever.  The bass is tighter, the upper mids and high end are nicely defined and very natural sounding, and all in all, I have a pair of speakers that are very much to my liking.  I suppose others might find my treatments too "mellowing", but there is no apparent loss of dynamics or detail, just cleaner from bottom to top, with perhaps a very slight loss in sensitivity, but that's really not an issue for me.  I'm using my Carina in UL mode (approx 3 watts) and between 12: and 2:30 on the dial is plenty for most source materials -- a touch more for discs with low recording levels, and a bit less for discs that are recorded hot, and that's playing quite loud.  Which is to say, there's plenty of room left to drive the levels beyond what would be enjoyable to listen to.  They also seem to play much nicer at lower levels.

HTH,

Jim

[chrisby]

I'll just throw in my 2 cents here regarding the P10 modified drivers:  They are most definitely worth it.  I recently completed a number of tweaks/modifications to my horn shoppe Horns, including adding the FE-127en drivers.  Understand that I did quite a few things, including the drivers, solid, unplated copper binding posts, Chimera Labs internal speaker wire, felt treatment of the horn mouth and partial felt treatment of the compression chamber, and ballasting each speaker with 24,000 BBs, so it is hard to tell exactly what tweak did wat (except for the BBs, which I did after they were playing for a few days) and they are now far more suitable to my mostly acoustic music listening tastes, with no shout, no backwave reflection issues, a super smooth response, and no listening fatigue whatsoever.  The bass is tighter, the upper mids and high end are nicely defined and very natural sounding, and all in all, I have a pair of speakers that are very much to my liking.  I suppose others might find my treatments too "mellowing", but there is no apparent loss of dynamics or detail, just cleaner from bottom to top, with perhaps a very slight loss in sensitivity, but that's really not an issue for me.  I'm using my Carina in UL mode (approx 3 watts) and between 12: and 2:30 on the dial is plenty for most source materials -- a touch more for discs with low recording levels, and a bit less for discs that are recorded hot, and that's playing quite loud.  Which is to say, there's plenty of room left to drive the levels beyond what would be enjoyable to listen to.  They also seem to play much nicer at lower levels.

HTH,

Jim

Jim - I think you mean FE126 in the Horns?  and for a lot of listeners to this speaker,  lower SP levels might not be their normal  operating condition

[jrebman]

Chris,  Yes, my bad, I mean the FE-126.  No, probably not the norm, but the ability for a speaker to play with a full sound at lower levels is always a good test, in my book at least.

-- Jim