nina said:
IMHO, quite possibly so - by the time you add acoustic treatment to tame potential bass issues in this size a space, the room could be even smaller. You didn't indicate if "domestic acceptance factor" is an important factor, but even if not, it's nice to have room to accommodate at least 2 listeners. (how cozy you want to get on the listening couch is a subject for an entirely different type of forum)
You might want to consider going the other direction - i.e. the required enclosure volumes for FE166/167 based systems can be much smaller, and the FE126/127 even more so.
Dave at Planet10 has a fairly extensive enclosure design catalog, many of which have been tailored to the smaller drivers with great success. Of the numerous ones I've built, my personal favorites are the Ron Clark A126 & Frugalhorn BLHs, and the Fonken, Mileva, PAWO, more or less in that order. Unfortunately my private listening room is too small (<200ft^2) for even the A126 or Frugelhorn - but with a pair of fully EnAbled and phase plugged FE127E, the Fonken and Bottlehead 2A3 SET combo is "just right"
Yes, I can overdrive the speakers with selected program material at volumes higher than my normal listening levels (i.e well over 96dB), so of course YMMV.
I can see merits in both approaches. In a room that size, I'd personally be inclined for one of the 4 1/2in drivers -Frugel-horns or A126s if you've the corners / rear wall loading, Fonkens if not (or possibly Harvey if you could cope with the height).
That said, as GM pointed out to me, a big driver just gives you more latitude for tuning. Too much LF? Damp it down, or slacken the seal around the driver to bleed away the extra pressure. It does work, though it takes a bit of juggling to get it right. I've heard Ed's Vofos in a room a little larger & they work fine. My 167 MLTLs are also in a similar space -about 14ft x 12ft. However, the large units don't have the midrange & treble quality of the smaller drivers though, so as Chris says, YMMV.
That said, as GM pointed out to me, a big driver just gives you more latitude for tuning. Too much LF? Damp it down, or slacken the seal around the driver to bleed away the extra pressure. It does work, though it takes a bit of juggling to get it right. I've heard Ed's Vofos in a room a little larger & they work fine. My 167 MLTLs are also in a similar space -about 14ft x 12ft. However, the large units don't have the midrange & treble quality of the smaller drivers though, so as Chris says, YMMV.
nina said:
Forgive me sounding like a shill, but in a smallish room the FE127E works very nicely in any of the Fonken series of boxes.
The original monopole design with the chamfered front baffle and fully EnAbled driver sacrifices very little at either end of the range, unless driven very hard, or very dense symphonic / operatic is your bent *, and is quite magical in the midrange
*2 of my current favorite test tracks are Bela Fleck, "Flight of the Cosmic Hippo" for bass extension and articulation, and virtually anything from the "Nights at Alhambra" live concert set.
Something like the latter is a very interesting test - having seen LM perform virtually the same musical set live earlier this year, and watching the concert DVD in a larger room than my audio only "closet", the brain maintains a template of the remembered / anticipated sonic event. Through this "filter" all future auditions of the same material is compared. Once the visual image of the soundstage spacing of the musicians is stored in your memory, it becomes difficult not to listen for it.
To paraphrase Harvey R (Dr Gizmo) and Daniel Levitin *, our individual "aural matrix" is an accrual of a lifetime's personally unique listening events - what we've experiences in the past influences in no small part how our mind interprets the sensory input that our brain processes today
* http://www.yourbrainonmusic.com/
Yep, that DVD / CD set has a similar effect on me Chris. Perfect reference. Similar experience for me too, having been on the front row at her London Barbican concert, so I've got that locked away in the brain too as well as the visual / audio off the DVD. Lets face it; that sort of experience is burned in. You don't forget it.
That performance / recording is a the sweetest torture for most speakers. Anything with an XO even remotely near the telephone-band, let alone in it hasn't a hope in hell of getting the beauty of the phrasing & musicianship across. I can picture big Wilsons running for cover.
That performance / recording is a the sweetest torture for most speakers. Anything with an XO even remotely near the telephone-band, let alone in it hasn't a hope in hell of getting the beauty of the phrasing & musicianship across. I can picture big Wilsons running for cover.
this design looks interesting considering it's increased LF over smaller full range driver designs. One question though; in the interests of simplicity (I'm not much of a builder/designer) would it be possible to omit the correction circuit from the design? or would the sonic trade off be too much?
Zene Gillette said:
http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/showthread.php?postid=1313563#post1313563
Shae said:
Not advisable. See my reply in your thread.
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