Help! Cabinets for the Feastrex D9nf please

[dpaws]

Good evening one and all, in particular to fellow Yorkshire men!

I am soon to be the proud owner of a pre-loved pair of D9nf's (thanks Helmut!)... I've scoured the net and the various forums for cabinets and found an understandable bias towards the 5" drivers. However, I'd appreciate some guidance with the options available to me... Monies / bribes for plans not a problem Scott, Ron... help!

My room: 4.9m x 3.9m x 2.9m ceiling - ceramic tiled floor (it is Italy after all), speaker to fire across rather than along. No domestic / WAF compromises to consider

Conditions: Sensible daytime to low late night listening volumes (can't disturb the whole building)

Music: Coldplay / A.Bocelli / Dire Straits / Snow Patrol / Pink Floyd / Bowie / Marillion / Eva Cassidy / Jack Johnson / Kenny G etc etc -

Wanted: Hairs to stand, tears to flow, feet to tap, hips to sway, to drift away...

Openminded but.... in the past the bass quanitity and quality of floor vented/loaded designs (aka Maxxhorns / Impulse H6&Lali) has impressed before. If the Guru and Vivace can hit 30Hz from a 4".... Curves are nice... too much to ask?

My first venture into extended range drivers so I'm happy to lose (in ignorance) the last bit of imtimate detail at the expense of a quality bass extension (I don't want to miss a pair of subs, mid 30's would be nice) Also prepared to consider a supertweeter, maybe Elac 4Pi for ambience? Wish to avoid the typical BR boxes as the volume required to excite the enclosure is often beyond the nighttime limit

Cabinet complexity not an issue, a local skilled carpenter has a pile of Euros at his disposal and a saw poised....

Much obliged....



Other gear: G98DH / Transporter / Weiss Medea / Graaf GM20 OTL mono's / Nordost Valkjra / Sigmas

[Scottmoose]

Ah! Another Yorkshire lad! Clearly a man of taste & decency. And with D9nfs...

Tell you what -give me a shout at my FH email address (you'll find it here http://www.frugal-horn.com/contact.html ) & we can take it from there, if you want.

Cheers
Scott

[dpaws]

Scott - you're a wonderful guy, much obliged and can't wait ....

With over 100 viewers and only one response I suppose this highlights the issues with the Feastrex 9" to date... I can't believe that no one else is playing with cabs for these drivers in the DIY community - I'm only aware the Lovecraft chappie who is preparing something commercial.

Maybe it's best to attack from a different angle - are any of the existing full range drivers compatible ie Lowther PM5's etc If so, existing cabinet designs maybe 90% there and require only tweaking?

I do appreciate the cost excludes many in the DIY sector, but is there anything about this drivers specs that has caused people to stay clear? Fs low 60's for example? 9 inches can't be that intimidating can it?

[Scottmoose]

Not particularly WRT 'intimidating'. Most DIYers, me included, simply can't afford Feastrex units, & probably never will be able to.

As for compatability, again, you'll be struggling. Most high-priced FR units have a much lower Q (i.e. much better electrical damping / more motor power) than the Feastrex units. As always, you design a cabinet for a specific driver if you want to get the best out of it.

[cdwitmer]

Purely anecdotal, but one D9nf owner in the USA has been quite happy with his D9nf drivers in Hedlund horns -- he said greatly prefers them to the Lowther drivers that were in there previously. He did have the enclosures modified, however. (I have this person's contact information.)

-- Chris

[Scottmoose]

I bet he had fun fitting that Feastrex motor into the filter-chamber...

[planet10]

Originally posted by dpaws
If the Guru and Vivace can hit 30Hz from a 4".... Curves are nice... too much to ask?

Measures of the Guru -- positioned correctly in a room with sufficiemt gain -- can get into the high 30s, similar for the vivace indicated the claims are optimistic.

As Scott mentions, the 9" Feastrex, althou an object of great desire, are made of unobtainium for most diyers. It will take time to build up a catalog of designs for them.

Scott & i have discussed these drivers and some groundwork has been done.

dave

[planet10]

Originally posted by cdwitmer
Purely anecdotal, but one D9nf owner in the USA has been quite happy with his D9nf drivers in Hedlund horns -- he said greatly prefers them to the Lowther drivers that were in there previously.

To add context to that, it has been said that the Feastrex do alarmingly well in any box you put them in ... Horn design has come a ways since the Hedlund.

dave

[dpaws]

Originally posted by planet10
It will take time to build up a catalog of designs for them.

Scott & i have discussed these drivers and some groundwork has been done.

dave

Many thanks, you may have gathered that Scott has kindly been involved behind the scenes already.

I'm not sure how many man hours goes into each design but it would be nice to comission a catalogue of plans for the community to aspire to - but first things first lol

I do like the aesthetics of the Troels Acepella PMS...

[blumenco]

Hi there,

I could personally recommend that you first start with a build of the 9" recommended single port enclosures. (I am pretty sure that Mr. Teramoto could be emailed to obtain the plans). These will respond down to the mid 30s as needed and if you are somehow not fond of them (which will be unlikely) then you can be certain to use them as a benchmark for comparison of your horn design or for modifications of the original plans.. It is my personal feeling that it would be foolish to try to shoot in the dark by building an original design first without seeing what the drivers do in a known entity.

In regards to tastes of the drivers, let's just say that the 9" ers are anything but the redheaded stepchild of the line. Most people who naysay have not heard them properly set up. The 9" drivers in general are indeed harder to "perfect" a system around, and everything has tradeoffs but the 9" sound has immense communicative ability, impact, yet subtlety. Good catch! Ziggy stardust will raise hairs indeed! At Feastrex this summer I definitely elicited some puzzled stares from a few of my music choices...

Btw, I am Blumenstein-ultra-fi.com. Lovecraftdesigns.com (Jason Flanary) is a close friend and oem manufacturer of some of my speaker designs. (At least that is the formal arrangement for now.)

Enjoy and good luck!
-Clark