I think I'm drifting to the Dark Side...

Bemopti123 · « **Reply #20 on:** 18 Jul 2009, 07:29 pm »

Mike, before ANY tweaks are added make sure you break them Fostex drivers in for about 100-500 hours MINIMUM. Many times that shout that people speak so much about has to do with "virgin paper cone" artifacts.

After the break has been done, then you can go on dopping, hacking, puttying the drivers at your heart's delight.

The worst thing to do is to amply all these tweaks without knowing what the drivers truly sound like on their own.

Anyway, congrats on your new set up. SETs are magical in their presentation.

PS: I never doubted the effects of proper breaking in as I noticed with Setman's speakers. I heard it first back in February 2005? and each time I went back to his place, I had noticed that the sound was changing. In the time that I had been in Buddy's place for the first time, he told me that he had been breaking the drivers in for a good 3 years.

PS2: Believe it or not, even tubes sound different when they have been "run" fully as I noticed with Buddy's 300Bs on testerones. I much preferred the sonics of the run in tubes rather than the presentation of the newer tubes.

topround · « **Reply #21 on:** 18 Jul 2009, 08:18 pm »

Thanks everyone for your help.
These Abby's are well broken in, they are several years old, I am the 3rd owner.
I would like to try those tweaks, the phase plug sounds interesting as well as the doping of the baskets, the shiny glue on the cones, that scares me a bit, but what do I know?

Mike

Mariusz · « **Reply #22 on:** 18 Jul 2009, 08:40 pm »

Quote from: topround on 18 Jul 2009, 08:18 pm

Thanks everyone for your help.
These Abby's are well broken in, they are several years old, I am the 3rd owner.
I would like to try those tweaks, the phase plug sounds interesting as well as the doping of the baskets, the shiny glue on the cones, that scares me a bit, but what do I know?

Mike

Using ModPodge is irreversible so you might put that tweak on hold. (you can also use regular yellow glue diluted lets say 50/50 with water) Basket dumping is and you can remove it if it doesn't work. Phase plug is a worthy upgrade, so no worries there. Fostex drivers are usually inexpensive if something goes wrong. But the biggest upset would be the time they would need to break-in......again.

jrebman · « **Reply #23 on:** 18 Jul 2009, 08:41 pm »

Mike, As a guy who both owned the Abbys -- for well over 1000 hours of play time, and who has tried nearly every single single-driver speaker tweak, always try the reversible ones first, live with the speaker for a while and then try something else. Realize that they will never be perfect and with the wrong tweak applied in the wrong way, you could completely ruin everything. Coating scares me too, and for some drivers it works well, and others I'm not sure if the cost/benefit tradeoffs were worth it, and in some cases, other tweaks were miserable failures.

It generally won't hurt to damp the baskets and countour around the magnet somewhat, and a little pad of felt on the back -- the compressed industrial type, not the fluffy stuff can also help. Some of this same felt applied to the back and side walls -- approx 6" above and below the center of the driver can also help, and if done with double sided tape is easily reversible.

Another thing TC suggested if you had excess bass boom was to stuff about a pound of acoustistuff in the bottom, but without letting it interfere with the port.

And don't forget the room...

And, mounting the speakers with brass screws is another cheap but effective SD tweak that can only make things better or do nothing.

The cone should be about the last thing you touch, IMO.

-- Jim

Bemopti123 · « **Reply #24 on:** 18 Jul 2009, 08:47 pm »

The drivers used on the Abbies might not be the most expensive of them all, therefore in the case of modding, you might not much $$$$ if you have to replace them, but the one thing that you would loose the most is the breaking in time which maybe years.

Some people do doping of the cones, some other people are adamant against doping because it changes the structure of the paper cone in unintended ways, people who do so will say it is positive while others say it destroys the drivers. Doping is irreversible, that needs to be considered if one needs to undertake it.

I believe Buddy had very, very thinly doped his driver and did not go overboard.

Check this guy in Germany, asides from doping, he glued thin sheets of foil on all his paper drivers....

http://mitglied.lycos.de/Freedom4All/speaker666.html

Having the same drivers, I do not know whether this aluminum thing was something for me but as you can read his writing, he does seem to be quite impressed that he was gone overboard will this concept.

I like the piece meal approach better in improving the speakers, the added tweeters etc...

Mariusz · « **Reply #25 on:** 18 Jul 2009, 09:00 pm »

Speaking of super tweeters - my personal preference is to use it in the rear of the speaker or on top with help of woodturn diffusing cone & scattering the sound in 360 degrees.
Treating the paper cone will need additional break-in time. If you must know.

There are some drivers which suppose to be optimized and need no farther tweaks (like exotic Seas full range drivers) but I haven't heard those yet.

Mariusz

planet10 · « **Reply #26 on:** 19 Jul 2009, 07:06 am »

Quote from: Scott F. on 18 Jul 2009, 01:41 pm

Hey, now I know you may not want to hack up your Fostex drivers right away but there is a tweak you can do that will help (dramatically) with that midrange megaphonish sound they can sometimes take on. One of the guys out there (I think he is at DIY Audio) sells a phase plug for the Fostex. It works pretty darned well. One of the local guys down here uses it on his. All you do is take a razor knife and cut off the dust cap (not the whizzer). The phase plug has a magnet in it and it sticks to the motor of the driver. The tweak takes a steady hand and about ten minutes. The phase plug sells for like $50-$75 bucks (I could be wrong on the price).

That would be me. Assumming your Abbys have FE166e (the pair local to here have FF165k), phase plugs are $35 USD/pr. The magnet is in the speaker, some magnetic screws on the bottom use that to stick (but not so much as to make it next to impossible to remove).

Doing phase plugs got us our start, now you can also get a heavily modified FE166eN (by special order -- Mariusz might comment on his FE206eN)

dave

planet10 · « **Reply #27 on:** 19 Jul 2009, 07:09 am »

Quote from: Mariusz on 18 Jul 2009, 08:40 pm

[(you can also use regular yellow glue diluted lets say 50/50 with water)

White glue, not yellow.

dave

Scott F. · « **Reply #28 on:** 19 Jul 2009, 01:18 pm »

Quote from: planet10 on 19 Jul 2009, 07:06 am

That would be me.
dave

Well, there you have it

Great tweak BTW Dave

skite30 · « **Reply #29 on:** 19 Jul 2009, 09:45 pm »

Well as long as we are talking about Abby driver tweaks etc. I have a pair of 166 drivers that I sent into decware for the dfr6.5 mod. I am very pleased with the results, check out the decware site for details of this mod. The mod that really made a huge difference in the 400hz. and below range is the adjustable passive eq unit that Roger Modjeski of Music Reference sells. Lowers the overall sensitivity a bit but reall gives you a lot of options for tailoring the sound to your room and amplifier. The dfr6.5 mod smoothed the top end on the drivers considerably the passive eq really helps balance the sound in the 400hz. and below area that is so troublesome for SD. I am very happy with both the tweaks and can't imagine doing without either of them.

jrebman · « **Reply #30 on:** 20 Jul 2009, 04:46 pm »

Are those modified drivers and EQ being used on an Abby? Reason I ask is because the Abby's top-to-bottom tonal balance is really quite good without any EQ in the lower mid region.

The Abby was a designed and refined speaker, not just a matter of plugging some numbers into a formula to come up with some dimensions -- only a good starting point, IMO.

-- Jim

skite30 · « **Reply #31 on:** 20 Jul 2009, 06:07 pm »

Yes they are being used on my abby's. The tonal balance on them in my small 10x11 room and with my electronics was a bit thin sounding so I tried the eq in a box. You can choose to bring it in at 1 of 3 steps I think it's 380hz, 260 or 180 I may be a bit off on those numbers but close. It has a volume control and is inserted between the preamp and the amp. Gives you lots of options and versatility it has a maximum of 9db. of gain I believe. The mod on the 166's smoothed out the top end a bit. I had listened to the abbys for over 2 years before I started tweaking them. I had tried a pair of small subs up to that point but was never happy with them. I don't use a sub at all now, I would like a bit more below 60 hz or so but they are sounding really good now.

jrebman · « **Reply #32 on:** 20 Jul 2009, 06:20 pm »

Only goes to show how much the room matters. If anything I needed to tame this range down a bit in my room. Like you, I never had any luck with subs and the Abbys, but if I had them now I'd like to try my Cube with them, or maybe even a pair of Cubes. I had a TBI before.

Do you know what the input impedance of Roger's EQ is?

-- Jim

skite30 · « **Reply #33 on:** 20 Jul 2009, 06:39 pm »

I don't know what the impedence is I think most of the specs are on his website. He generally answers the phone himself if you wish to call him, just make sure it's after 4 eastern standard time. You are right about the room I could never open the amp up enough to balance the sound out hence the search for tweaks. I use the music referency em7-5 amp so I was familiar with Roger's products. These tweaks have really made a difference in my experience and just wanted to share them since that seemed to be where this discussion was heading.

jrebman · « **Reply #34 on:** 20 Jul 2009, 06:43 pm »

No problem, I just wanted to keep the tweaks mentioned here directly related to the Abbys as I believe, that in general, it is best to discuss SD tweaks in the context of a given speaker as some that work fine on one can be horrible on another.

-- Jim

chrisby · « **Reply #35 on:** 21 Jul 2009, 05:16 pm »

After spending the money on Steve's modded FE166s, you may not want to hear this (or perhaps you already knew), but a more suitable driver for the Abby in very small room/ nearfield would probably be the FF165K. I've heard both versions of this speaker in different venues, and rather prefer the 165.

Some owners even have sets of both drivers - not quite a quick as rolling tubes in your electronics, but certainly another effective "tone-control".

There are of course certain mods for the FF series as well, but removing the metal dust cap and adding phase plugs are not among them. (hint - basket damping and polka-dots)

skite30 · « **Reply #36 on:** 22 Jul 2009, 04:35 pm »

I do have both drivers and I agree with you before the mod I liked the 165 better. Since the decware mod I prefer the 166. Once again my room my system.

system- pre-wright sounds wla12a -amp is a music reference em7 5 watt version- cd eastern electric mini max- turntable systemdek IIX.

chrisby · « **Reply #37 on:** 22 Jul 2009, 04:55 pm »

Quote from: skite30 on 22 Jul 2009, 04:35 pm

I do have both drivers and I agree with you before the mod I liked the 165 better. Since the decware mod I prefer the 166. Once again my room my system.

well, if you liked the modded FE166s, you might want to consider adding EnABLed 165's to your stable (or is is harem?)

in any case, there'll be no shortage of opinions and advice offered whatever way you decide to go, just enjoy the journey

skite30 · « **Reply #38 on:** 22 Jul 2009, 07:03 pm »

I can't afford either a stable or a harem but might be able to squeeze a mod on the 165's. I will visit your website and check it out. I have read very good things about the enable process. BTW I had both drivers and was listening to the 165's and since the 166's were just laying around gathering dust I thought I would try steve's mod.

skite30 · « **Reply #39 on:** 22 Jul 2009, 07:06 pm »

Did I mention the hemptone fr8's or the coral fe103a's. I would bet most the people who hang out here have multiple different driver's hanging around.