Fostex's new Fe103 Sol 8 50th anniversary Drivers?

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That's good. :) Judging from the pictures, the box cut-out will need one heck of a chamfer for decent air-flow.

Yeah, for most of the times I had this situation I was fortunate to have a comprehensive metal fabricating shop at my disposal, so had 10 ga CRS mounting plates made to mount over a way over-sized, chamfered hole in the baffle.

Later, I cut my own plates from 1/4" Spauldite or Benelex J high voltage insulation, though imagine there's cheaper options today or at least DIY a composite of thin alum. & honeycomb plastic sheeting or similar. Really, for small drivers, a plate made from epoxy saturated corrugated cardboard like used to make cheap/portable filing cabinets should be more than rigid enough.

GM
 
I have compared the fe103sol and the fe108z in a Alerion BLH. The fe108z was better in bass and is sounded a little more extended, it sounded tighter while the fe103sol sounded a little bloated not as tight, I think someone had mention that already. The top end and upper midrange, I liked the fe103sol better, it imaged better and more live than the fe108z and Top end fe103sol sounded more extended than the fe108z. I wonder if the fe108sol will have the bass of the fe108z and the top and midrange of the fe103sol. I really like the fe103sol it sounded more realistic when it comes to voice and acoustic music.

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Hi !

Tiverson, i share your impressions about the 108ez and 103sol.
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I have the 103sol mounted in Suzy Chang enclosures (bass reflex with deflector BVR) and the 108ez in bibs (pipe-horn). The 108ez have some amazing bass/sub capabilities (in bibs) that the 103sol haven't. I tried the 103sols in bibs, the result was bad . I think the 103sol are not well suited for horns. I like the "air" sound that the sol's provide and the 3d imaging is very good. They just sound "right" and natural especially with acoustic guitar, voices and piano.Percussion like afro/cuban are tasty too. I've listen the 108ez in bibs for 9 months but i'm tired now of their lack of definition and precision in medium /low medium. I 've just removed them to put some new old stock FF125 that have a better definition than the 108ez. But despite their larger diameter (125 vs 100) and their lowest resonant frequency, the ff125 doesn't beat the 108ez in the low region but we shall talk again of them when they will have hundred hours of functioning, speakers need running-in.
 
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I managed to find some used 16 ohm fe103-SOL drivers at a pretty good price. I'd like to build an enclosure to bring out their maximum potential. Anyone know what would work for these drivers? I was thinking of a transmission line like the Zigmahornet or TABAQ, but I'd be willing to go all out and do a large BLH.

Also I noticed some fe83-sol at madisound

https://www.madisoundspeakerstore.c...tex-fe83-sol-limited-production-3-full-range/
 
There are certainly better enclosure than a simple bass reflex. It's just my bad experience with the 103sol : i have had some bad results in bibs. As Planet 10 says, you can try the Frugel horn . If you want a compact enclosure better than a bass reflex, you can try the Wooden baby labs Shrike labyrinth enclosure.
 
frugal-phile™
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Does it matter that the 16 ohm version has a higher QTS(0.55) for the frugal-horn?

Higher Q usually just requires more damping to bring bass down.

Are they a drop in replacement for the ff105wk?

In my miniOnkens the FE103SOL fits the same size box. I haven’t checked the tuning yet.

Would they work on the Woden Vampyr-V?

They should work well.

dave
 
Making some favourble assumptions, the horn action might reach down to 300 Hz, in the region above where you would like the horn to act, so it is really a poorly designed TL. That isn't necessarily going to make it sound bad, but it does mean that more can be extracted from the driver with a better enclosure.

The best enclosure we have tried for FE108eS is Aiko, which still takes some liberties in terms of size.

Aiko-FE108eS.jpg


dave

Please forgive me Dave for asking this question? I was wondering if you had the plans for the front ported box next to the double mouth horn? It looks like a fostex fe126en drivers if I am correct? I would like to build this one for my dad as a gift. I know your not a big fan of the ported box but, it seems just right and is so clean looking. Thanks Dave. Jeff
 
frugal-phile™
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It is a Fostex FE127e (from before we discovered EnABL). The box is the 1st (rejected) prototype for the milliSize enclosure. Took 2 more tries. It turned out they were too narrow which really coloured the midrange (early internal resonances).

quartet-mFonken.jpg


The FE126En does not work all that well in a reflex box (i have released a 4 litre intended to act as a centre for those with FE126 FH3)… it does not go near as low as FF85wk or Alpair 5.2 (3” drivers in a smaller box of the same kind of alignment).

dave
 
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