Scottmoose said:
Hey thanks Scott. I have several 4 foot pieces of 5/8 dowel to wedge in. I was thinking of 2-3 horizontal in driver box, and a couple more horzontal in horn. Then filling bottom chamber under horn with sand packed tightly against horn. Then maybe some 1" cotton absorption inside the box to taste. Any thoughts?
Another idea is to remake the speaker in 2 layers of 3/4" MDF (or ply) with greenglue between the layers, and pour cement into the base cavity. Take that you pesky resonances.
Thanks for any advice on this.
Rich
If you are in the U.K., the person to ask about Feastrex drivers is Stephen of Select Audio:
http://www.selectaudio.co.uk/00000098510a58c44.html
The website is new and doesn't have much in the way of content yet. For that matter, I don't believe Stephen has any of the 9-inch drivers in stock. (Feastrex is just starting to make deliveries of them now.) The D9 monster alnico is a WONDERFUL driver but you might also seriously consider one of the field coil drivers which are about the same price or perhaps cheaper ("cheap" being a very relative term where Feastrex drivers are concerned). The field coil drivers are very versatile and at the same price point I would be inclined to go with field coil over permanent magnet . . . for example, if you get a magnetic particle stuck in the voice coil gap of your field coil driver, what do you do? You bite your fingernails, say OMG! and then turn off the power to the driver and blow out the particle -- end of problem. With a permanent magnet driver, you might be looking at a return to the factory if you're unlucky. Not that such problems occur often with the permanent magnet drivers, by any means. But I like the added peace of mind, in addition to the versatility of the field coils. Just my two cents . . .
http://www.selectaudio.co.uk/00000098510a58c44.html
The website is new and doesn't have much in the way of content yet. For that matter, I don't believe Stephen has any of the 9-inch drivers in stock. (Feastrex is just starting to make deliveries of them now.) The D9 monster alnico is a WONDERFUL driver but you might also seriously consider one of the field coil drivers which are about the same price or perhaps cheaper ("cheap" being a very relative term where Feastrex drivers are concerned). The field coil drivers are very versatile and at the same price point I would be inclined to go with field coil over permanent magnet . . . for example, if you get a magnetic particle stuck in the voice coil gap of your field coil driver, what do you do? You bite your fingernails, say OMG! and then turn off the power to the driver and blow out the particle -- end of problem. With a permanent magnet driver, you might be looking at a return to the factory if you're unlucky. Not that such problems occur often with the permanent magnet drivers, by any means. But I like the added peace of mind, in addition to the versatility of the field coils. Just my two cents . . .
Well, all the drivers are knock-your-socks-off good to listen too, and they all have a basically similar character. If I had to summarize the difference between the D9 monster alnico drivers and the field coil drivers, I would say the the field coil drivers are more "analytical" sounding than the permanent magnet drivers. The flip side of that, I guess, would be to say that the permanent magnet drivers have a "warmer" sound than the field coils. I'm afraid that's not a very eloquent way of describing things . . .
SunRa, I can't speak with ANY authority for Feastrex, but I think there may eventually be a decision to limit DIY sales to the D5nf and the D9nf. On the other hand, the pricing structure already tends to limit DIY sales to the less expensive drivers in any case. The entry-level D5nf and the D9nf are already more expensive than other fullrange drivers, and the cost of the most expensive models using the most exotic materials can be three times what the entry-level drivers cost. (Not all the higher-end drivers are that expensive, but some of them are.) This seems to suggest that the only marketing strategy for that will work for the more expensive drivers will be to package them as finished loudspeaker systems aimed at the extreme high end of the market. I don't know whether Feastrex will eventually formally end DIY sales of certain drivers, but in any case the pricing structure alone is enough to effectively restrict sales as a practical matter.
Those are just my specualtions as an outsider . . .
At present there is NOT a whizzerless version of the drivers. I think it might be interesting for Feastrex to do a comparison of whizzerless + supertweeter versus the same version of the driver with a whizzer. I think Feastrex would never make a supertweeter of their own so it would have to be a third-party tweeter, but it might be interesting to try. I suspect the end result would be one where you couldn't clearly call one superior to the other, but you might appeal to different groups of people.
Those are just my specualtions as an outsider . . .
At present there is NOT a whizzerless version of the drivers. I think it might be interesting for Feastrex to do a comparison of whizzerless + supertweeter versus the same version of the driver with a whizzer. I think Feastrex would never make a supertweeter of their own so it would have to be a third-party tweeter, but it might be interesting to try. I suspect the end result would be one where you couldn't clearly call one superior to the other, but you might appeal to different groups of people.
The D5nf drivers arrived... they are certainly special.... I snapped some pics while opening one up and did the same with a new Fostex F120A... nice comparison, and I really like the F120A. The D5nf is built like a tank however and the attention to detail is excellent. Now I have to build some enclosures....
http://community.webshots.com/album/561454797HMqgje
Regards, KM
http://community.webshots.com/album/561454797HMqgje
Regards, KM
I'm leaning towards a floor-standing TL... did an initial design so far but nothing beyond the drawing. I'm thinking about the Scottmoose BVR that Richidoo is using for something quick and proven. I get to fire them up quickly and break them in... then try a prototype TL.
The D5nf drivers look so wonderful I'm now getting antsy to try them out.... but patience is key.
Regards, KM
The D5nf drivers look so wonderful I'm now getting antsy to try them out.... but patience is key.
Regards, KM
Feastrex & DIY
This is my first post here. I am very happy that this thread exists, and am very grateful for the early adopters, Phil, Rich, Kevin and Paul. It is a leap of faith to jump into a project like this without any official factory generated specs or cabinet designs.
We are in the early days of Feastrex lore. We do know that we have a tiger by the tail and probably none of us (perhaps even Mr. Teramoto himself) has yet heard the full potential. Those who have heard the drivers know without a shadow of a doubt that there's something very extraordinary going on here. Those who have proposed cabinet designs are doing a great service.
I have probably been remiss in not participating here sooner, but I am gun shy about posting anything anywhere. I would rather bend over backwards and not post than give the appearance that I am trying to self-promote. On the other hand, I feel that anyone involved with any of these projects deserves to know that I will do what I can to support them and to have a sense that I am here and accessible.
Pricing is an issue that I struggle with. Feastrex's export pricing is in the range of and beyond some of the very expensive cables that I import. The formula that one uses to determine retail prices does not really vary from a single spade lug to a kilo buck speaker cable. For better or worse we started out by offering the D5nf at a wholesale price to attract talented and confident people to take the plunge. The purpose of reverting to a full retail model is not with the intent of leaving DIYers in the dust - far from it. However, ultimately the DIY market alone is probably not what will keep Feastrex afloat. To flourish, Feastrex will need many allies, including dealers and manufacturers alike and this is the rationale for a retail price. When I sell direct wholesale I am the dealer for the entire country and the potential for sales is much less, and dealers and manufacturers are much less likely to come on board. And what Feastrex needs now more than anything is to sell as many drivers as they can to justify and recoup the huge outlay it has taken to move things to where they are today. So it is in the spirit of supporting Feastrex and Mr. Teramoto (they are really synonymous) (who are) cultural treasures. Is this the absolute right approach? Time will tell. I seriously doubt that Feastrex would ever cut off DIYers. Mr. Teramoto is himself a glorified DIYer and has great sympathy and empathy with all who have great passion for and are struggling trying to achieve great sound – especially those doing it on a shoestring as Mr. Teramoto and Feastrex are trying to do, high prices notwithstanding.
If Feastrex also specialized in enclosures we would in all likelihood not be having this dialogue. There would be finished speakers offered period, but with the wide range of drivers offered, the field is wide open.
I hope in the coming days that more cabinet designs will surface. Mr. Teramoto has Woofer Tester Pro and spent several hours with the makers of it in Denver. Up to that time he was not able to use the software as the instructions are all in English. I’m hoping that he will soon be able to publish accurate specs on all of the drivers.
Joe Cohen
The Lotus Group
This is my first post here. I am very happy that this thread exists, and am very grateful for the early adopters, Phil, Rich, Kevin and Paul. It is a leap of faith to jump into a project like this without any official factory generated specs or cabinet designs.
We are in the early days of Feastrex lore. We do know that we have a tiger by the tail and probably none of us (perhaps even Mr. Teramoto himself) has yet heard the full potential. Those who have heard the drivers know without a shadow of a doubt that there's something very extraordinary going on here. Those who have proposed cabinet designs are doing a great service.
I have probably been remiss in not participating here sooner, but I am gun shy about posting anything anywhere. I would rather bend over backwards and not post than give the appearance that I am trying to self-promote. On the other hand, I feel that anyone involved with any of these projects deserves to know that I will do what I can to support them and to have a sense that I am here and accessible.
Pricing is an issue that I struggle with. Feastrex's export pricing is in the range of and beyond some of the very expensive cables that I import. The formula that one uses to determine retail prices does not really vary from a single spade lug to a kilo buck speaker cable. For better or worse we started out by offering the D5nf at a wholesale price to attract talented and confident people to take the plunge. The purpose of reverting to a full retail model is not with the intent of leaving DIYers in the dust - far from it. However, ultimately the DIY market alone is probably not what will keep Feastrex afloat. To flourish, Feastrex will need many allies, including dealers and manufacturers alike and this is the rationale for a retail price. When I sell direct wholesale I am the dealer for the entire country and the potential for sales is much less, and dealers and manufacturers are much less likely to come on board. And what Feastrex needs now more than anything is to sell as many drivers as they can to justify and recoup the huge outlay it has taken to move things to where they are today. So it is in the spirit of supporting Feastrex and Mr. Teramoto (they are really synonymous) (who are) cultural treasures. Is this the absolute right approach? Time will tell. I seriously doubt that Feastrex would ever cut off DIYers. Mr. Teramoto is himself a glorified DIYer and has great sympathy and empathy with all who have great passion for and are struggling trying to achieve great sound – especially those doing it on a shoestring as Mr. Teramoto and Feastrex are trying to do, high prices notwithstanding.
If Feastrex also specialized in enclosures we would in all likelihood not be having this dialogue. There would be finished speakers offered period, but with the wide range of drivers offered, the field is wide open.
I hope in the coming days that more cabinet designs will surface. Mr. Teramoto has Woofer Tester Pro and spent several hours with the makers of it in Denver. Up to that time he was not able to use the software as the instructions are all in English. I’m hoping that he will soon be able to publish accurate specs on all of the drivers.
Joe Cohen
The Lotus Group
Mr. Teramoto's Woofer Tester Pro is now in my hands. That combination of hardware and software is extremely powerful and far from intuitive to a non-native speaker of English. There have been some posts over at Audiocircle really coming down hard on Feastrex for the lack of published measurements. If you have not seen those comments there's no need to go there just for the purpose of reading them, but you can probably imagine the sorts of things that people would say. I passed the gist of those comments on to Feastrex's Mr. Teramoto and he winced, hard. "Ouch!" But he admitted that those critics have very valid criticisms re: the lack of published measurements. That has not been due to a lack of desire on Mr. Teramoto's part to provide such measurements. The only choices available to someone in his position are either to spend a lot of money having someone else do measurements or to do it on his own. Since he does not have that kind of money he must do the measurements on his own, but there is surprisingly little available in the Japanese language to bring someone who is a novice in such matters up to speed. (Actually, even if he had the money to hire someone to do measurements, he would still need to get set up for in-house measurements, since the real purpose of taking measurements is not so much to have data that you can show to a prospective buyer, but rather having data that you can use to better analyze what you are doing.)
A lot of people may be amazed that the Feastrex drivers could be as good as they are in spite of the lack of reliance on measurements. The lack has not been total; very early in their development they had measurements taken by a measurement specialist in Japan (big $$$) and also taken by Klippel at CES in 2006 as part of a free demonstration, and from both those measurement sessions they were able to glean some important insights that did ultimately make the drivers much better. However most of the advances have been made by Mr. Teramoto using just his ears. The fact that the drivers sound as good as they do is even more amazing when you consider that Mr. Teramoto suffers from tinnitus, which he has learned to "hear around." (I think it is a testimony to what someone with total dedication can do using very limited resources.) Recently Mr. Teramoto, who is primarily a fan of jazz, has been regularly attending live classical music performances by an excellent symphony orchestra, and those have all been excellent learning experiences for him. He is struck by the difference between live performances and recordings of classical music, and has concluded that the goal of home listening is not to re-create the live listening experience per se, but rather to get into the music in a different but equally enjoyable way. Even so he feels that regular attendance at live performances is now essential to his work as a speaker builder.
In the meantime, he has been struggling with Woofer Tester Pro, and most of the struggle has been due to his lack of English ability, although it must be said that the Woofer Tester Pro interface and the sheer range of capabilities of Woofer Tester Pro make it somewhat daunting for anyone who is not already somewhat familiar with the world of speaker measurement. Mr. Teramoto brought the program over to my house and we spent nearly six hours using it together. We did not make a lot of headway. Basically, it is necessary to ask the creators of Woofer Tester Pro a few questions in order to be sure we are doing everything properly, but it is not feasible for me to be asking questions from my computer when the Woofer Tester Pro hardware and software are a few hours away in the next prefecture. So I decided to tell Mr. Teramoto to leave Woofer Tester Pro with me, and I'll figure out how to use it and then give him the necessary instruction. It may take me a while but the tech support people at Woofer Tester Pro are very helpful and I'm sure that with their help I'll be able to help Mr. Teramoto finally get up to speed. Eventually Mr. Teramoto plans to build a good test bench and to be able to provide detailed measurements of all the Feastrex drivers, along with an adequate explanation of the conditions under which the measurements were taken.
One person told me that a company like Feastrex ought to have a "proper Klippel system" for taking measurements. While I can certainly sympathize with that perspective, such a Klippel system would cost the equivalent of about US$30,000 in Japan, and Feastrex does not have that kind of money right now. When used properly, I'm sure that the Woofer Tester Pro can more than meet Feastrex's needs. At the very least, simply learning to make use of its many features is going to take quite some time. Maybe someday they will spring for a Klippel system, but in the meantime this will take them very far, I'm sure.
Eventually Mr. Teramoto hopes to get to know his products anew from a totally different perspective -- through the "ears" and "eyes" of his new measurement tools. He expects that he'll probably learn things about his drivers that he never knew before, and he expects that ultimately that will result in various improvements in the drivers. In the meantime, he is EXTREMELY grateful to both his international business partners and also to the people in the DIY community who have been generally very enthusiastically supportive, and also very, very patient with his shortcomings. He says it is the existence of such fine people that makes the whole endeavor worthwhile. So . . . even though folks have had to wait too long already, I hope we can indulge your patience a little longer in this department. Mr. Teramoto is determined to fulfill his responsibilities as a maker in this regard.
-- Chris Witmer
(friend of Mr. Teramoto)
A lot of people may be amazed that the Feastrex drivers could be as good as they are in spite of the lack of reliance on measurements. The lack has not been total; very early in their development they had measurements taken by a measurement specialist in Japan (big $$$) and also taken by Klippel at CES in 2006 as part of a free demonstration, and from both those measurement sessions they were able to glean some important insights that did ultimately make the drivers much better. However most of the advances have been made by Mr. Teramoto using just his ears. The fact that the drivers sound as good as they do is even more amazing when you consider that Mr. Teramoto suffers from tinnitus, which he has learned to "hear around." (I think it is a testimony to what someone with total dedication can do using very limited resources.) Recently Mr. Teramoto, who is primarily a fan of jazz, has been regularly attending live classical music performances by an excellent symphony orchestra, and those have all been excellent learning experiences for him. He is struck by the difference between live performances and recordings of classical music, and has concluded that the goal of home listening is not to re-create the live listening experience per se, but rather to get into the music in a different but equally enjoyable way. Even so he feels that regular attendance at live performances is now essential to his work as a speaker builder.
In the meantime, he has been struggling with Woofer Tester Pro, and most of the struggle has been due to his lack of English ability, although it must be said that the Woofer Tester Pro interface and the sheer range of capabilities of Woofer Tester Pro make it somewhat daunting for anyone who is not already somewhat familiar with the world of speaker measurement. Mr. Teramoto brought the program over to my house and we spent nearly six hours using it together. We did not make a lot of headway. Basically, it is necessary to ask the creators of Woofer Tester Pro a few questions in order to be sure we are doing everything properly, but it is not feasible for me to be asking questions from my computer when the Woofer Tester Pro hardware and software are a few hours away in the next prefecture. So I decided to tell Mr. Teramoto to leave Woofer Tester Pro with me, and I'll figure out how to use it and then give him the necessary instruction. It may take me a while but the tech support people at Woofer Tester Pro are very helpful and I'm sure that with their help I'll be able to help Mr. Teramoto finally get up to speed. Eventually Mr. Teramoto plans to build a good test bench and to be able to provide detailed measurements of all the Feastrex drivers, along with an adequate explanation of the conditions under which the measurements were taken.
One person told me that a company like Feastrex ought to have a "proper Klippel system" for taking measurements. While I can certainly sympathize with that perspective, such a Klippel system would cost the equivalent of about US$30,000 in Japan, and Feastrex does not have that kind of money right now. When used properly, I'm sure that the Woofer Tester Pro can more than meet Feastrex's needs. At the very least, simply learning to make use of its many features is going to take quite some time. Maybe someday they will spring for a Klippel system, but in the meantime this will take them very far, I'm sure.
Eventually Mr. Teramoto hopes to get to know his products anew from a totally different perspective -- through the "ears" and "eyes" of his new measurement tools. He expects that he'll probably learn things about his drivers that he never knew before, and he expects that ultimately that will result in various improvements in the drivers. In the meantime, he is EXTREMELY grateful to both his international business partners and also to the people in the DIY community who have been generally very enthusiastically supportive, and also very, very patient with his shortcomings. He says it is the existence of such fine people that makes the whole endeavor worthwhile. So . . . even though folks have had to wait too long already, I hope we can indulge your patience a little longer in this department. Mr. Teramoto is determined to fulfill his responsibilities as a maker in this regard.
-- Chris Witmer
(friend of Mr. Teramoto)
Not exactly an unbiased source 
, but even if you discounted these reviews of the new loudspeaker from Pure Music Group by half, it still comes across as pretty impressive:
http://puremusicgroup.com/yabb/YaBB.pl?num=1195350675
, but even if you discounted these reviews of the new loudspeaker from Pure Music Group by half, it still comes across as pretty impressive:http://puremusicgroup.com/yabb/YaBB.pl?num=1195350675
![dsc_0028[2].jpg](/community/data/attachments/90/90824-95267593d53083374086114083ec8bc4.jpg)
![dsc_0030[1].jpg](/community/data/attachments/90/90830-70be1ded6a39a6529c36a51c3812fcfe.jpg)
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