Cabinet flavors?

[RockysDad]

I love ice cream. The problem is which flavor do I choose?

The same is true with all the cabinet designs that are being designed to this day. Which one do I want to build? One thing I do want to know is what does each cabinet design sound like? I'm glad that I don't have a FE126/7 or else I'll really go nuts. But I do have the FE167E which is not far behind but none the less have many designs to choose from.

What are the acoustic qualities for each type of cabinet? I see BIBs, BVRs, Demitries, MLTLs. Does each cabinet have its own stregnths and weaknesses? I hope each one of us who built a certain cabinet will be able describe what ours sounds like in order to help others decided what to build. Hopefully this thread will have a collection of reviews to each design.

I'll start... I have the Bob Brines MLTL Fostex FE-16E7E. I like the pretty wide BW that goes down maybe to the mid 30Hz or so. I can hear them but its not quite enough hefty enough for my room. I also feel that it is somewhat "lumpy" in the low end also. It does image nicely and do disappear when listening nearfield. Quite nice but I wish I had more of everything.

So, what do these new Chang BVRs sound like? Chili Change in my case. Or the Hiros, Metronomes etc...

Could these who built other cabinets please chime in? Any driver is fine, I just looking to find out about the flavor of each cabinet style.

Thanks for sharing...

[loninappleton]

Rockysdad,


What means hefty?

I've always understood that Bob Brines has some of the cadillac product.

Hefty is usually a ephemism for "fat." I'll try to interpret that as 'full room filling sound. ' There will be those that disagree with me but I think it's the wrong goal. Room fulling sound is going to take you down that 'concert hall' road which I've found is actually a monophonic
experience. It's like those stupid settings on an SS receiver.


If you like that concert hall effect go with a big box. The biggest box around right now is the Curvy Chang.


But all of these designs are so new, there's not a good user base to report on them.

I'm making a Harvey (yes, one) and even getting that together will take a while.

Also getting your feet wet with some lumber will allow you to tailor the sound. An example: I look at builds chock full of cotton batting and just sit and wonder. My builds have virtually nothing inside and sound great. At a certain point you have to take control of the process.

[RockysDad]

What means hefty?

Well, by hefty I mean more of a solid sound in the lower frequencies, especially in the lower vocal and standup bass area. Imagine hearing Jame Earl Jones's voice coming out of a transistor radio. Wouldn't it sound a whole lot more mellow coming from a BR speaker? This is a little exagerated but this is the idea of what I am trying to say. It could be that my room is attenuating a few lower frequencies thus what I about a lumpy low end. I don't know.

Imaging is also pretty good on the speakers but I wish I had more...

[Piek]

Hi, I was in the same dilemma.

Would suggest around 10 to 15l closed box for Fe167e and a nice PA 12" per side tuned to 40Hz actively crossed over at 200Hz or higher is probably even better...
Had this for about 1 year with 10", very nice for music and not as big as a horn

regards, Micha

[planet10]

Originally posted by Piek
10 to 15l closed box for Fe167e and a nice PA 12" per side tuned to 40Hz actively crossed over at 200Hz or higher is probably even better...

On the sealed 2-way FE167 i did, the f3 of the 167 was 106 Hz and we used that 2nd order HP as part of the XO transfer function adding a single pole via input cap to the amps for the 167

dave

[Piek]

Elegant way of course!

But at high SPL cone excursion is already above maximum at ~130Hz.
Thats why i suggested 200Hz.

kind regards, Micha

[Scottmoose]

There's two viable options IMO WRT a setup like this. Depends on how good your bass driver is. 200Hz is an excellent point, because this is the start of what Bell Labs defined as the telephone band (midband). And unlike most of the hifi hacks who've been mucking about with definitions ever since, Bell knew what they were doing. Pity it's been mostly forgotten. Ah well. Anyway, ideally, an XO is best kept out of this region, which stretches from 200Hz up to 4KHz, and even relatively simple ones should be pretty innocuous if pushed above and below these points.

However, 30 - 40 years back it was often noted (something else that seems to have been mostly forgotten or ignored) that if you do an analysis of typical power distribution of, say an orchestra, you'll find the majority occurs below 500Hz. So from this POV, it's a good alternative XO point, as the larger woofer is better able to handle such power requirements, and there will be less chance of running into dynamic compression issues. The price is that the XO point, being within the midband, will be more obvious than the lower frequency. YMMV. But one of these two options would be my choice.