Hi all,
I wonder if any of you can help please. We're selling our house and the new room where the hi-fi will go is pretty small.... 9x10ft to be exact, tiny! So up until recently I used a pair of FH3's with Mark Audio CHP-70 MKI. I added the 'supertweeter' as well. This was used with an Art Audio Quintet. Now I've owned literally dozens of speakers over the years, including Snell E/III's and Living Voice OBX-R2's, but I have to say the FH3 speakers blew me away. I don't know if it's because it's 'full range' and so nothing between the amp and speakers? I recently got chance to own another pair of Snell E/III speakers, but in comparison there was little emotion, which astounded me!
The dilemma is, which speakers should I look at to work in this room? I have a clean sheet, so to speak, as I had to sell the Art Audio which I loved. I've been thinking about Harbeth P3ESR, or some such, but it'll be tight, space wise, whatever I go for, also will they be as engaging as my FH3?
Apologies for the ramble, but I'm a bit lost. Are there any DIY speakers that work in such small spaces? Also what amp should I be looking at?
Anyway, that's an overview, any help or pointers would be very much appreciated.
Thank you
I wonder if any of you can help please. We're selling our house and the new room where the hi-fi will go is pretty small.... 9x10ft to be exact, tiny! So up until recently I used a pair of FH3's with Mark Audio CHP-70 MKI. I added the 'supertweeter' as well. This was used with an Art Audio Quintet. Now I've owned literally dozens of speakers over the years, including Snell E/III's and Living Voice OBX-R2's, but I have to say the FH3 speakers blew me away. I don't know if it's because it's 'full range' and so nothing between the amp and speakers? I recently got chance to own another pair of Snell E/III speakers, but in comparison there was little emotion, which astounded me!
The dilemma is, which speakers should I look at to work in this room? I have a clean sheet, so to speak, as I had to sell the Art Audio which I loved. I've been thinking about Harbeth P3ESR, or some such, but it'll be tight, space wise, whatever I go for, also will they be as engaging as my FH3?
Apologies for the ramble, but I'm a bit lost. Are there any DIY speakers that work in such small spaces? Also what amp should I be looking at?
Anyway, that's an overview, any help or pointers would be very much appreciated.
Thank you
well, I think a big part of the excitement that the FH3 can deliver with virtually any driver I've yet heard in them is a result of the output from rear mouth. The required clearance from proximate boundaries for this work well and the enclosure's footprint can certainly present some problems in small rooms.
Yes, 90 sq ft is pretty tiny, if you have room for a floorstander, you could consider an MLTL by the same designer ( Scott Lindgren) - his Pensil series has enclosures for all drivers in the Mark Audio CH and Alpair series. As well he has a series of compact bookshelf enclosures for most of those as well as several Fostex FF series. I've built and heard at least a dozen of his enclosures for single driver systems, and if your experience with the FH3 / CHP70s has piqued your curiosity to follow the path further down the rabbit-hole, I think you could do far worse than any from his catalog.
The main questions would be how much space do you have available in that small room, and budget - anything more than 5 watts would likely be sufficient power.
edit" Pensil for CHP70 - I think this is the one for your drivers
http://http://frugal-phile.com/boxlib/pensils/PensilP70-map-180710.pdf
No doubt there's a Baby Lab or Mini-Onken style by Planet10 that would suffice - just don't ask me to remember or decypher the name of any of the latter
Yes, 90 sq ft is pretty tiny, if you have room for a floorstander, you could consider an MLTL by the same designer ( Scott Lindgren) - his Pensil series has enclosures for all drivers in the Mark Audio CH and Alpair series. As well he has a series of compact bookshelf enclosures for most of those as well as several Fostex FF series. I've built and heard at least a dozen of his enclosures for single driver systems, and if your experience with the FH3 / CHP70s has piqued your curiosity to follow the path further down the rabbit-hole, I think you could do far worse than any from his catalog.
The main questions would be how much space do you have available in that small room, and budget - anything more than 5 watts would likely be sufficient power.
edit" Pensil for CHP70 - I think this is the one for your drivers
http://http://frugal-phile.com/boxlib/pensils/PensilP70-map-180710.pdf
No doubt there's a Baby Lab or Mini-Onken style by Planet10 that would suffice - just don't ask me to remember or decypher the name of any of the latter
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It is… named by a member, it is superman's real name.
If i were you i would try the FH3 in your new room. Bang them right back againt the wall (probably prefer a bit of an angle); You might need a bit more damping if you have too much bass.
If they don't work out then you can look to put the drivers in a smaller box, they are serious performers for little money (and rumoh may still have more).
IIRC i haveonly drawn a rectangular miniOnken (Kal-El70) for this driver, but it wouldn't be hard to do a Classic Golden Ratio, a Compact Floorstander or even a trapezoid Kal-El.
dave
Hi,
For a small room where walls are too near, it is best to use the walls to reflect the sound. It will result an expanded size of the stereo presentation not possible by conventional direct from speaker to listener pathway.
See here:
http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/multi-way/200040-stereophonic-sound-single-loudspeaker.html
.
Just as a thought. Would a pair of Pensils work in the room? Either the P70, with the Chp70, or the ones for use with Alpair 7.3, which are supposed to be better?
I don't think the FH3 will work, but can the Pensils be used a little closer to the wall? Again, any thoughts and comments would be much appreciated.
Thank you
I don't think the FH3 will work, but can the Pensils be used a little closer to the wall? Again, any thoughts and comments would be much appreciated.
Thank you
Interesting. If you have shelves in one end of the room, I have a small music room similar that was set-up by me and works with Focal 3-way floorstanders, use curtains on the other side from 3/4 hight if high ceiling or full hight if low ceiling to the floor on the other end and part of one side wall. I have a corner (2x) windows. Medium heavy curtain and is perfect with books in front of it (other side) doesn't matter where you place the speakers. In my case on the side of the window/curtains, but has worked the other way also. (Bookshelves and door.) I have two seats instead of one and 2 big fluffy carpets on the floor, both side by side.
Which may well suit the specific application here - or not, and keep in mind that my comment was based on recent experience with the exact enclosure mentioned by Sideways - i.e. Little baby FH- lite with FF85WK
An addendum to my post that failed to catch on edit noted that coolerking may still have drivers that he'd like to repurpose to the quite small space - not all of us want or can afford to buy new drivers when circumstances change - or on the whim of "just wanted to see if it would actually work"
An addendum to my post that failed to catch on edit noted that coolerking may still have drivers that he'd like to repurpose to the quite small space - not all of us want or can afford to buy new drivers when circumstances change - or on the whim of "just wanted to see if it would actually work"
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Of course this has nothing to do with my post (?!) ...when using amps from between 1-4K$.
Some of us can others don't.
Thanks for all the comments. I can and probably will buy a new pair of 7.3eN drive units for this build. I'm looking at a rather nice Art Audio amp at the moment, well two actually to drive them. Either the Concerto MKII or the Jota! I had a 15watt Quintet with the FH3's and it was lovely..
Anyway, I think it's going to be either a Pensil 7.3, which my wife prefers the look of tbh, or a stand mount, either the dMar-Ken7.3 or the simple Golden Ratio box...
The Art Audio amps are about 40 watts for the Concerto and 20 to 24 for the Jota.. any thoughts on this as well please? Do you all agree that I'll get better performance building, than with any commercial designs?
Thanks again everyone
Anyway, I think it's going to be either a Pensil 7.3, which my wife prefers the look of tbh, or a stand mount, either the dMar-Ken7.3 or the simple Golden Ratio box...
The Art Audio amps are about 40 watts for the Concerto and 20 to 24 for the Jota.. any thoughts on this as well please? Do you all agree that I'll get better performance building, than with any commercial designs?
Thanks again everyone
Well I think most of us frequenting and bloviating on a DIY forum would maintain that "yes, we can" build something that outperforms a commercial design for a given budget range, as well as find a design that suits and can be customized to our specific acoustic and aesthetic goals.
Spoiler alert - I'm a fan of the Mark Audio driver line in general, and the A7.3 particularly - and while my favorite of the numerous enclosures in which I've heard that model would be FH3, the Pensil is a great performer with less than half the footprint and far more placement flexibility. In a room the size under discussion I think a sub would be unnecessary.
Spoiler alert - I'm a fan of the Mark Audio driver line in general, and the A7.3 particularly - and while my favorite of the numerous enclosures in which I've heard that model would be FH3, the Pensil is a great performer with less than half the footprint and far more placement flexibility. In a room the size under discussion I think a sub would be unnecessary.
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