I'm thinking about putting some fostex FE206s in some old Bose 301 boxes, and using them for studio monitors, possibly with a subwoofer. Any comments or suggestions welcome. Or if you know of a driver that would work better. The boxes look to be about .3 cu ft and are vented. For the time being I'll just be powering them with an old technics integrated amp till I can afford something better.
I don't think that will work well. The 206e needs a larger box designed to bring up its bass response in line with its mids and highs. You may not like the sound you get because it will produce very little bass.
Maybe a Pioneer B20 would work better? Or a woofer designed to work in a small ported box would be better still. There should be plenty to choose from but they will require a tweeter. If the tweeter works on your 301 you can use it.
Personally, i would leave the 301 as is and not modify it with the Fostex driver.
Maybe a Pioneer B20 would work better? Or a woofer designed to work in a small ported box would be better still. There should be plenty to choose from but they will require a tweeter. If the tweeter works on your 301 you can use it.
Personally, i would leave the 301 as is and not modify it with the Fostex driver.
Try a different driver
Some drivers won't be as responsive in that small of a cabinet, some will. Even though you don't require any deep bass from a satellite speaker, you still want midbass, which gives you your punch. If a driver that is designed for a large cabinet is put into too small of a cabinet, its midrange will be exaggerated, but the midbass will be muted.
You'll end up with a satellite that has a poor bass rolloff, say around 200hz. Many powered subs employ electronic crossovers, the cut off on a powered sub is usually no higher than 100hz with a slope of -24db. You end up with a 'hole' in the bass region between where ever your sub's crossover is set and the lower limits of your satellites (in other words, it'll sound like a Bose Acoustimass setup).
Try a driver with a low Vas and low Qts for that small of a cabinet, or you'll wind up with a sonic gap twix your sub and your satellites.
Some drivers won't be as responsive in that small of a cabinet, some will. Even though you don't require any deep bass from a satellite speaker, you still want midbass, which gives you your punch. If a driver that is designed for a large cabinet is put into too small of a cabinet, its midrange will be exaggerated, but the midbass will be muted.
You'll end up with a satellite that has a poor bass rolloff, say around 200hz. Many powered subs employ electronic crossovers, the cut off on a powered sub is usually no higher than 100hz with a slope of -24db. You end up with a 'hole' in the bass region between where ever your sub's crossover is set and the lower limits of your satellites (in other words, it'll sound like a Bose Acoustimass setup).
Try a driver with a low Vas and low Qts for that small of a cabinet, or you'll wind up with a sonic gap twix your sub and your satellites.
I don't have any of the original drivers for the 301s but I currently have dlk 8" woofers in the boxes and they sound pretty good but I don't have any Idea what the specs are for the woofers or how acurate their response is in these boxes. the tweeters I have are junk so they definitly need to be replaced. So I'm tring to figure out what the best driver compement would be for the boxes and whether or not I would have to mess with the crossovers.
brsanko said:
Go to Parts Express...look up the size driver you want...check out their specs...find a driver that has the lowest Vas cuz yer talkin about a small cabinet, and hopefully its got a low Qts as well.
Or you could use the one you have and try extra stuffing in the cabinet to tune, especially if you like the way they sound already. I'd be shocked really if there was an 8" woofer that would play very low in that small of a cab, but I could be wrong. There are some car subs that don't require very large boxes, but often they have very poor mids (well, because they're not designed to have good mids).
There's been a lot of talk about this tweeter lately:
http://www.partsexpress.com/pe/showdetl.cfm?&Partnumber=275-030 - you liiiike?
While you're at it, replace the cheap electrolytic capacitors with better poly caps (for the tweeter - I'd be shocked if its more than just a cap).
Try e-bay too, as they always have 301 parts for sale.
I'm not looking for low bass 100hz is fine I just want flat response I'll most likely add a subwoofer. BTW it looks like it already has poly caps in it. I think Bose actually cared a little about quality back in the '70 when these boxes were made. Actually what you suggested is what I'm Doing right now. Once again these are for recording so flat ferequency response is crucial.
brsanko said:
No they built junk in those days too...
1st, in terms of a Fostex driver that will work in that size box, you could fit an FE167, but an FE127 would be better.
2nd. The quality of construction of those boxes is poor. The same driver as above in a properly built box will wring a lot more of the driver's potential from it. I would burn the 301 boxes and just start from scratch.
dave
The only set of 301's I had were a well built box.
Now that was hard to say. True, but still hard to say
Don't know if there were different generations of them. These had a couple goofy little cone tweeters mounted at strange angles in the top, angled portion.
EDIT: Kinda like these only the port was round, not a slot
http://www.randallareed.com/photogallery/Bose_301_1.JPG
EDIT2: I see there are many variations of these. Who knew?
Now that was hard to say. True, but still hard to say
Don't know if there were different generations of them. These had a couple goofy little cone tweeters mounted at strange angles in the top, angled portion.
EDIT: Kinda like these only the port was round, not a slot
http://www.randallareed.com/photogallery/Bose_301_1.JPG
EDIT2: I see there are many variations of these. Who knew?
brsanko said:
If you're capable of building a cabinet that's more suited to the driver you own or the driver you want, then that'd be the best thing, especially if a "flat response is crucial". If you're not sure you could do better than that cabinet, then go ahead and use it, but double check the seams, make sure they are secure, make sure there's no moisture damage, etc.
Is the crossover just the cap for the tweeter? Can you see the entire crossover circuit? I'm actually surprised its a poly cap...
What series is this 301 anyway? What wrong with the tweeters? (besides being Bose of course)
You'll have to take the anti-Bose commentary with a grain of salt. It is unavoidable on the web.
I'm not a Bose fan either as I never could understand how they charged as much money as they did, let alone why people would pay that much for them (retail). Usually, the terms "crucial listening" and "Bose" do not go hand in hand.
the cabinets look to be decently built. The tag on the back says they were built in 1977. I don't actually have the tweeters for the speakers I'm using some cheap 3" fullranges for tweeters now and they sound bad. I would just be using these cabs until I could get some better ones built. I've come up with a plan it doesn't involve the fostex anymore so it sould probably go on a different forum but I'm already here so let me run it by you. I looked through the parts express web site and the 8" woofer I found with the flatest response and most suitable specs was the HI VI f8, and I like what I read about the HI VI RT2C planar tweeter. These speakers should work ok in the Bose cabs if I seal up the port and should give me bass down to about 60Hz. Now the cabinets I want to build would be 16"wx10"dx24"h outside dementions. Giving me an internal volume of 1.64 cu ft, and bass down to 32Hz so I wouldn't even need a sub. These sould fit nicely on my studio table and just by coincidence fit the golden ratio almost perfectly. I would need some help designing the crossovers but I think I want to do first order around 2000hz. please let me know what you think.
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