Thanks for the warning. As I recall, the plans only specify "1/2" cotton or wool felt." Has this ever been clarified? Felt comes in lots of densities and stiffnesses. Am I looking for something more like carpet pad, or more like furniture feet? It occurs to me, since the box is open, has anyone had problems with bugs eating the wool?
Does anyone else here run series resistors with their 10ps in the FHXLs? I added a 2ohm resistor inline as a sort of ersatz baffle step correction. Because of the impedance curve of the speaker, it should attenuate from 100hz to about 5khz while having minimal effect on the lows and highs because resistance of the speaker in these frequencies approaches 50ohms. In my opinion, this balances the sound better and calms some of the stridency of this speaker. Lows are almost too much now, but I’m a bit of a bass head so all good there. As far as stuffing, if anybody else likes bass, 30g in the point, 20g below the speaker in front and an additional 10g occupying the area behind the speaker, just in the rear half above the point. Genuine Acousta-Stuff. All of it teased out extravagantly before installation.
All right. My FHXLs (MA Alpair 11MS) are clamped, not glued, and have at least a few hundred hours on them. I'm underwhelmed. I hear and understand lyrics I never could before, but I can't shake this feeling they're lacking clarity. It doesn't make sense, and I can't put it to words, but maybe it will ring a red flag for someone as to what I should try. They have a sound sort of like they're inside a cardboard box or maybe like I need to pop my ears. It's possible I need some bigger amps on them. Currently they're in my classroom running off a little chip amp. I don't listen loud, but it is on the high end of the volume knob. Thanks for any suggestions.
If you are running a chip amp at full volume, it is most likely being driven to clipping. I would start there. Bigger amp or more voltage to it. My experience is you don’t want to have to turn them up over half way. If that isn’t it, I sort of ran into the same issue when building mine, no bass when testing/tuning. Then I researched and came across an article of how an air leak affects a flute, which is pretty much analogous to how a Frugel horn works. Try gasketing the side of your speaker with closed cell foam shipping padding before clamping. If this really makes a difference, I would also check your assembly with a straight edge or laying it down on a flat surface looking for high/low points before final glue up. I had also tried Dacron batting as one builder raved about how great it sounded and how easy it was. No, it sounded terrible. Just saying, if you have tried something different.
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Frugel Horn XL are fairly truthful speakers. Finish them properly and do so with an amp you love so they are dampened/tuned the best they can be. Remember placement of them in the room is critical and that they are not meant for large rooms and too, break in is a long, long process. I can run mine with a 2W tube amp and they are delightful, rhythmic and deep 
Are most of you running them with small tube SE amps with few Watts?
I'm planning to use it with an EL84 PP amp capable of 25 Wrms (with a future upgrade it will reach 30Wrms with a DF of 9).
As an alternative, I will give it a try with a class D amp with triodish preamp as well.
Same when the Silbury will be ready.
Is it a personal choice to keep the wattage low, or a objective preference?
I'm planning to use it with an EL84 PP amp capable of 25 Wrms (with a future upgrade it will reach 30Wrms with a DF of 9).
As an alternative, I will give it a try with a class D amp with triodish preamp as well.
Same when the Silbury will be ready.
Is it a personal choice to keep the wattage low, or a objective preference?
Thanks. I don't know that it's clippling. It's currently running around 85%. I don't hear issues with the same amp with other speakers in the past. It's quiet, but not bad. And I think I hear the same thing at even lower volumes. The leaks are a definite possibility. It's glued on one side, and I have a lot of clamps on it, but some of those joints are quite a ways from the edge and difficult to clamp. I taped them, but a gasket is a good idea. Maybe should just put in some screws. I've been avoiding that because they will eventually telegraph through the finish. What batting did you prefer, and how much did you use?
I've wondered if the room is too big. It's probably 32 feet squarish with a ten foot suspended ceiling and the real ceiling is another 4-6 feet above that. This isn't their long term home, but it's a good place to break them in, and they sound way better than my Smartboard speakers.Frugel Horn XL are fairly truthful speakers. Finish them properly and do so with an amp you love so they are dampened/tuned the best they can be. Remember placement of them in the room is critical and that they are not meant for large rooms and too, break in is a long, long process. I can run mine with a 2W tube amp and they are delightful, rhythmic and deep
Yeah, communication without clearly defined vocabulary is tough. For damping, I've got felt glued in as per the plans. For stuffing, if I recall, it's currently about 30 grams of polyfill in the back and another 15 in the front. I'll make sure it's sealed up good and pull some stuffing and report back.
See post #1725 for my current damping. As far as the amp, one thing that these speakers WILL do is reveal any weakness in your system. I can now hear a difference in sound as the result of upsampling, something that never seemed to have any effect with any other speaker. Of course the DAC itself has a lot to do with that.
It sort of sounds like you may be driving them with some underwhelming equipment/sources. I have found that I can plainly hear if Spotify is streaming at low or high quality, if a low quality mp3 or flac is playing, and I would describe the result similarly to what you are describing. Veiled, muddy, blurred.
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Is this not XL? The amount of damping you are using is that specified for FH3. FHXL uses about 2x as much.
dave