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Update on my own journey with Feastrex.

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Apprentice's journey with Feastrex.

Its Clark chiming in from Blumenstein Audio,

That I am still greatly enjoying my Feastrex speakers that I built during the time I was in Japan, brought back to the U.S., and then reconed twice after I blew them out (essentially deliberately, years apart) during ultra high volume testing. Foolish volumes, but on an engineering level I felt I needed to know the failure point, and this failure point was consistent years apart with two different sets of cones...and it is at way too high of a volume to be listening to long term, imo. Recones were easy enough to access directly from Feastrex Japan, and were reasonable in terms of turn around time considering the substantial amount of detail that goes into them.

I was an apprentice at Feastrex in the summer of 2009 (have chimed in in many places in the old Feastrex thread during and after my time there).

I am a biased opinion, for all these and other reasons (that I am a single driver nut in the first place!). So even though sales for my Feastrex cabinets didn't take off big time over the years, I did still make several, and I do still now use both the Teramoto-san cones and the new Alpha cones in self made cabinets. I have a 15 volt PS and the new 4.5 volt PS. The new 4.5 volt PS took numerous system and cable related tweaks to get it to work right, but it is a revelation compared to the old 15 volt PS. Highly recommended as a cheap upgrade. (It did need really good PS wire for the field coil circuit in order for it to sound right).

I feel that while in several ways the Alphas are improved Feastrexes in terms of the clarity of sound in the magnetics, my Teramoto-san cones are still my personal favorites as they do not need a super tweeter. I found that the sound of the Alphas was so accurate that it was essentially impossible to chase (within my budget) with a supertweeter. However, I did set up a nice sounding system with Feastrex Alphas and Fostex T96h super tweeters two years ago, but eventually decided to go back to a single cone Feastrex for my listening like it seems that some other Feastrex users did the same.

Soon, however, I will be sending in my Alpha cones (directly to Japan) to be reconed to Yukihito Akiyama's new Beta cone type with the new elliptical whizzer cone. I want only to surround myself with the most developed, and even the most personal forms of audio art from my friends from Feastrex, and the community of people that the company has influenced, and continues to influence, are a rare treat in this grey world of same-same-but-a-little-different.

Feastrex design philosophy is waay different. The magnetics are huge, pure, and brutally effective. After my apprenticeship in Japan with Feastrex, Feastrex sound has heavily influenced the sound of my product line as blumensteinaudio.com. It has been an incredibly valuable tool of study (reference microscope) for me as a loudspeaker and cable designer.

So I, at least, am still a huge fan of Feastrex speakers, am an occasional custom Feastrex cabinet builder, and diyer with them, and plan to keep building ever improved Feastrex enclosures and slowly, patiently develop better and better cabinets for them because its fun and I have learned alot from them. Simply extraordinary sounding music speakers. Feastrex drivers are still worth every dime, and have given enjoyment to many people because of the significant effort put into them. YMMV, and I am of course an agknowledged, and biased commercial opinion. But it is a good opinion. I have not tired of the sound. If anything, I feel like it has matured like wine. Who knows, these cones might take like 4-5 years to totally break in?

I really like all cutting edge fullrange designs out there especially from the diy scene and over time have come to find deep respect for everyone's else's efforts in the fullrange community to overcome the many compromises to single driver full range design. Feastrex is one of the most outrageously awesome in certain important ways in terms of ambition in design and materials quality. Naturally, some of the experience is lost in translation, not only from Japanese, but from the foreign-ness of the naturalness of the sound of the cones. This paradox persists when I watch my Feastrex cones play music. they are almost un real. But so connected to earth via materials used and that they are made by some humans out there in the world. And play on, the drivers do. And they sound captivating if you take care of them and chase after their best abilities in presentation.

Have fun!

Clark Blumenstein

Blumenstein Audio
 
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Hi Clark,

Thanks for sharing.. It mirrors my journey with Feastrex as well.... I've lost count of the number of times the Feastrex spks were able to show me a short comming in my system and at the same time allow my system to reach another level when I did something right.. I'm still improving my overall system and enjoying great music at the same time.
 
Feastrex disappeared into nothingness

Hello everyone.

No more talk of Feastrex for some years now. The last post on this forum is 2 years old.
Does anyone know if Feastrex is still in business? It would be a real shame and a huge loss for all true music lovers and passionate if the company had closed the doors.

Please, if someone were to have the email of Hal Teramoto or someone else at Feastrex, please notify here.

Thanks to who will respond.

GP
 
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