Fostex full range

[Jamesuk1]

Hi Guys,
Ive been using smallish stand mount speakers in my 5m by 3.5m room.Ive been reading lots and lots of posts on this great forum about Fostex full range speakers.Have any of you gone from stand mounts to full range floor standing designs and what can i expect?
I realy love imaging and a realistic soundstage and realistic dynamics ,hense my desire for either the Fostex FE168E Sigma
or the smaller FE108E sigma .What do you think of Fostex's own cabinate designs.They have unusual steppped horns! Would it be an improvement to use a smooth piece instead of these steps.
My main question is which box to build for my room , the 108 or the 168 sigma.I dont want to have an over big unfocused sound,as i said i like a nice stereo image.Bass, i like well defined too....many thanks ...james

[graaf]

Originally posted by Jamesuk1
Hi Guys,
Ive been using smallish stand mount speakers in my 5m by 3.5m room.Ive been reading lots and lots of posts on this great forum about Fostex full range speakers.Have any of you gone from stand mounts to full range floor standing designs and what can i expect?
I realy love imaging and a realistic soundstage and realistic dynamics ,hense my desire for either the Fostex FE168E Sigma
or the smaller FE108E sigma .What do you think of Fostex's own cabinate designs.They have unusual steppped horns! Would it be an improvement to use a smooth piece instead of these steps.
My main question is which box to build for my room , the 108 or the 168 sigma.I dont want to have an over big unfocused sound,as i said i like a nice stereo image.Bass, i like well defined too....many thanks ...james

perhaps You might find this of interest:
positioning of omnidirectional fullrange speaker
the picture of the cabinets I use with FE206E is here:
Loudspeakers and room as a system

best,
graaf

[Jamesuk1]

Thanks Graaf, My room is quite small but i cant position speakers like yours due to my hifi racks .I realy would like to try a BLH around 2 to 3 feet from the corners or closer...James

[Scottmoose]

I've been using smallish stand mount speakers in my 5m by 3.5m room. I've been reading lots and lots of posts on this great forum about Fostex full range speakers. Have any of you gone from stand mounts to full range floor standing designs and what canI expect?

Yes. No crossover in the midrange = good idea generally & improved transparency. For the rest it depends on the cabinet as to what you're going to get. A floorstander can mean sealed, BR, TL, MLTL, horn / hybrid horn... all sound different in just about every possible area, so it depends what you value sonically, what the rest of your room & system are like, and what kind of material you play most often.

I realy love imaging and a realistic soundstage and realistic dynamics ,hense my desire for either the Fostex FE168ESigma
or the smaller FE108ESigma.

Imaging is something FR units do well. Soundstaging -well, it depends on the enclosure you use, and how you define 'realistic.' Dynamics... in the midrange, certainly. Huge bass transients in heavy rock, large scale classical pieces where you get large dynamic swings = no chance. Especially not with the 108. There's a limit to how much air a small cone can shift, even with horn loading. There's no subsitiute for multiple 15in woofers when it comes to that side of things.

What do you think of Fostex's own cabinate designs. They have unusual steppped horns!

They're usually OK and sometimes worse. The ESigma enclosures aren't bad, but you can do better generally. Depends on how big a cabinet you can stomach really. Series manifold expansion isn't particularly unusual; Olson first suggested it in the 1930s & that style of design has been very popular in Japan for a long time, primarily thanks to the late Tetuso Nagaoka. I've designed quite a few myself, some of which are on the frugal-horn site at www.frugal-horn.com

Would it be an improvement to use a smooth piece instead of these steps.

No. What I call a staight series-manifold cabinet is (or should be) designed somewhat differently to a more regular continuous expansion enclosure. Smoothing it out will loose some of its advantages without gaining you anything worth having.

My main question is which box to build for my room, the 108 or the 168ESigma. I dont want to have an over big unfocused sound,as i said i like a nice stereo image. Bass, I like well defined too...

Well, I wouldn't build either, but if you must, I'd go with the 168. The 108 struggles when you get near 100Hz. I wouldn't personally use it without supporting woofers.

[hm]

Hello Jamesuk1

it seems you looking for a double horn like the Posaune
or Kornett, look on my homepage:

[gurley123]

HM,

I have heard bad things about running the speaker wire through the horn path. Seems like it would be easy to run it up the back and just through the top section for the forward facing driver and just a direct conection to the rear one. Have you tried it this way? If so, was there an audible or measurable difference?

BTW, I do like the rear wave shaping on that one driver.

[Jamesuk1]

Thanks guys ,if the fostex enclosures arent very good,what are?
i think i will go with the FE168e sigma for a bigger sound and .......some bass....James

[DaveCan]

Originally posted by Jamesuk1
Thanks guys ,if the fostex enclosures arent very good,what are?
i think i will go with the FE168e sigma for a bigger sound and .......some bass....James

Hi James,
For a simple build the BIB's are really nice and provide the lows better than most of the others. Don't let the simplicity fool you ,they work really well and should be in, or close to your room corners.. Look to Godzilla's site zillaspeak.com.

Also for some more refinement but harder build than the BIB, look to Planet10's site for the BVR's and such.. Dave

Added: http://www.zillaspeak.com/bib.asp click on Fostex
http://www.frugal-horn.com/ look to see what works for your driver choice etc..

[hm]

Hello, gurley123

always glue a wire along walls, corners, the foto is not finished.

"was there an audible or measurable difference?"
no really, a double blind test shows wire is not listenable,
not measurable, but for example i prefer no binding posts.

less is more

[pebbles]

Hi James, I was in a similar situation to you, similar room and existing speakers were standmounts(Dynaudio 1.3se) I liked what I read on this forum about fullrangers and built a pair of BIBs for the 168es a few months ago. I think they are slowly pushing the Dyns out the door. They dont do everything better but they do alot right. They have a big sound stage and image well but not quite as three dimensionally although this may be due to higher frequency leakage out the mouth which can be corrected. The soundstage they have does'nt distract you with its 'hifiness'. They dont have the weight in the bass and midbass (may be an amp/cable issue?)but they do go very low (28-30 hz)and very cleanly, avoiding boomyness pretty well completely. And depending on what you speakers do in that area they may well be an improvement. They often make instruments sound very beatiful with rich tonality(more a full range than a BIB thing I guess) and are coherent across the spectrum giving a very easy and live sound. And they are incredibly dynamic, putting life back into even the most dreary CD's.
So they image not quite as specifically as my standmounts but probably more appealingly; bass....dont worry!, and there are big plusses in other areas.
As others have noted the BIB is an easy build and great bang for your buck but big: I'm interested in the BVR designs for this driver as well; they may be more refined and sizewise I may be able to live with them longer. Hope this helps, regards, Andrew