The Fountek Five for FR88ex
 

This is the public release of a number of enclosure designs for the Fountek FR88ex. The original plot was a low budget, decent quality multi-media speaker for your 'puter (sponsered by Byte Computers in Victoria).

Scott from Woden, lent me a hand, and boyz being boyz, a couple bigger boxes came into being.

We have built 4 of the 5, and the fifth (the Fencepost) may be completed by a regular beta tester.

http://p10hifi.net/FAL/downloads/Fou...set-030412.pdf

These are free for non-commercal use, have at it.

dave

http://p10hifi.net/FAL/images/fountek-four.jpg

http://p10hifi.net/FAL/images/FountekFiveCover.png

Nice stuff Dave. Hopefully I can get a chance to hear one of those.

Owen-son has already scooped up the folded fencepost, the other 2 small ones are at Byte. The Voigt are here and ready to be loaned out -- the protos are available cheap, cheap, (one of the small ones at Byte won't be available till a properly finished production pair replaces them) they have served their purpose.

dave

"should all work with the...FR88" w00t! :D Thanks. :up:

Regardless of the shipping/duty cost to Canada from France, I'm still intrigued by the Fountek FR88 (which is a shielded model).

I hope 17.46mm birch plywood will be OK.

I used 15mm 'cause we have lots on hand, and frankly I think even 12mm would be fine for these drivers - keep in mind they will not be shaking the rafters.

If you do decide on thicker material, ensure that internal dimensions are retained, and that even if driver is countersunk / flush mounted, an 18mm thick baffle will need some serious relieving of rear side of driver cutout to avoid choking - most particularly so with the shielded 88 .

Also note there is very little margin for error on the mounting flanges, and our drivers (FR88EX) came without screws or gaskets

Anybody have any word on the baffle cutout service by MeniscusAudio? Baffle Cutouts
[Maybe it would be cheaper to have them do the cutout for the FR88(not EX) rather than buying a router, lol.]

By the way, Planet10, how did this deal work? Did Byte Computers pay for the design and allowed you to make the designs public? Are they going to sell those as computer speakers or were they made to show off the capabilities of sound cards? :spin:

I worked there full-time for years and part-time for even longer (still do). I was asked to put together an affordable system (<$250) for people wanting a decent multi-media system for not a whole lot of money -- a wholelot less than the systems i've had there in the past.

For my purposes it is an opportunity to clear out the 20 FR88ex i have. It will be a limited run of 6 finished sets (+ the 4 prototypes)

dave

for drivers this size, all you need is a decent drill ( something like Makita or Milwakee 1/2" with handle) and an assortment of hole saws (73mm or 2 7/8" for the FR88EX)


while their prices are reasonable for labour involved with single lot handling in a production environment, at $19 plus shipping for them to machine a single size in 2 baffles, the arbor and hole saw for each size would likely pay for itself on the first set of baffles. I usually try to get my baffles machined by CNC, but for a lark did the set of 4 pairs shown above entirely by hand (and they show it ;)) - built all 4 pairs, including lining / fibre fill stuffing, etc in less than 8hrs total shop time. (OK I cheated and use a brad nail gun) - If I was getting paid by the hour for this, it would probably have been cheaper to break into new sheet of material - 'cause it took at least an hour to short through all the offcuts to find enough scrap parts - but hey, I had nothing else to do

Keep in mind that these are Macs we're talking about, - in many cases a MBP, so the "systems" will use the standard sound card, and include usually a class T USB input amp, of which there is no shortage of stupidly cheap offerings. Such combinations easily outperform the built-ins and lots of similarly priced prepackaged computer speaker packages in terms of musicality.

while a bit chunky for a desk-top , the folded Voigt is surprising powerful

6 finished sets? Are you willing to say which design you used since you say you had 4 prototypes?

"We" haven't built any yet beyond the 4 prototypes shown - the rest would be "market driven"

For a compact and very simple build, the 'Ken Lite is a variation on a size and format of which many pairs beyond my own several dozen have been built for a wide range of drivers - it would be my recommendation for a first build.

That said the largest of the group (Folded Voigt) is by far my favorite sounding of the bunch - surprising good for what they are.