Which modest $ FR setups play drumkit really well?

[freddi]

what combos of driver and cabinet sounds really nice, 3D, vibrant and clean on full drumkit, tabla , zarb , odaiko, cymbals, hithat, etc? - am looking at cheaper Fostex

[Scottmoose]

Full drum kit? With realistic dynamics? Cheap Fostex? How cheap is 'cheap'? If you're thinking something like the FE126E, forget it. No chance in hell. Even in my Harvey double horns, which are good to 40Hz, a realistic drum-kit is too much for them. Remember too that no FR driver will ever do dynamics like a multi-way. The cone can move quickly, but huge swings is beyond them. Which of the normal Fostex range can get closest? FE166E in a BIB. If you want a larger driver, the FE206E in the FE208ESigma cabinet, Ron's DallasII or a large BIB will manage it. Horn loading is just about mandatory.

Wild card. I heard a pair of folded TQWTs with the FE206E yesterday that impressed my greatly. They weren't mass-loaded, but were closer to being a hybrid. With a baffle-step circuit in place, and powered by a rather special valve amp, they kicked you in the upper chest across the midbass in a decently sized room. Lovely throaty roar. I stuck some PJ Harvey on them and they lapped it up. A live Metallica CD worked nicely too -the bottom octave was missing (this CD has full 25Hz energy on it) but unless you've heard it on a monster steup, you wouldn't know. Bit more ripple than an optimised ML design too, but the in-room Clio response chart was acceptable enough. Be interesting to see a proper anechoic or 1/2 space plot.

[freddi]

are you able to give any details on those TWQT? highest subjective drum dynamics I've gotten in modest size room with smaller cabinets are with Karlson - won't go "deep" but shockwave effect is good - a K12 is more fun than my k-horn in that regard. Regular K15 and 18" stuffed into couplers K15 size do F10 around 47-50Hz outdoors and do drum dynamics reasonably well with inputs of 60-400 W peaks. Thers no real gain above coupled cavity so Karlson type should be built within certain bulk constraints to be effective. distortion at 50Hz/30vrms was about 2% for a simple K outdoors with low Q 18" and weak motor Beta15CX showed ~10dB reduction in modulation distortion vs a reflex equal to K15's rar chamber size and tuning using two tone sine mixed 1:1 in amplitude.