[jrebman]

Mike J -- everything clear now?  Good, I'll muddy the waters a bit then...  You also may want to consider the Tone Tubby hempcone drivers.  The Hemptone 5 is a near direct replacement for the FE-126/127 types, and would probably be great in a small ported box similar to the ones that Tekton designs makes, as well as a lot of others (as they are very close to the Fostex recommended enclosures.  If your woodworking skills are up to it you might also want to consider building one of the Fonken family speakers.  The already exist for many fostex drivers, a couple more are coming, and there is at least one guy who is going to try the Hemptone 5 in one.

I myself am putting a good deal of faith and money into one of these projects, which I hope to be reporting on here before too much longer.

Last time I corresponded with David Dix about frequency response and why it was so uneven with his drivers, he basically said that a flat frequency response is "flat and boring", so take that for what it's worth.

-- Jim

[mike j]

Well...clear enough, I think. I'm leaning toward the FE127E in the Fonken tuned floor-stander. I think it fits my budget, woodwrking skills, and WAF pretty well. I'll be driving it with either a Hewlet-Packard tube stereo amp or a chip-amp that I've yet to order and build (probably one from chip-amp.com).
I appreciate all the input and am still open to more.
Thanks again.
Mike

[ghpicard]

I'll be driving it with either a Hewlet-Packard tube stereo amp

???
Are there HP tube amps ? In the tube era HP was devoid to their first core business (one that IMO they should haven't get out of): instrumentation.
Or are you planning to use an amp ripped out from an instrument to drive your speakers ?

Gastón

[mike j]

The HP amp came out of an old console stereo I found at a thrift store for $20. It's pretty nice actually, and sounds nice too. It has the usual from a console: AM/FM, TT, Aux. The speakers rotate out from the main body of the console and are removable as well; they're in their own boxes. I tried to find some info on it, but there's not much out there. Pretty interesting though.

[mike j]

  Oops...My bad. Not HP, but Packard Bell.    

[ghpicard]

Oops...My bad. Not HP, but Packard Bell.    

It's OK. I once had to put a production line instrument to work. It used a big 21" picture tube and a 6L6PP amp (Williamson) to drive the vertical deflection coils of the yoke, with a beautiful OTC OPT.  I just wondered whether HP had that kind of custom equipment lying around.

Gastón