German on a Fullrange Quest

[Tea42]

Hi all,

eighteen years ago, a friend of mine helped me build my first set of speakers. I asked him about a small set that would fit onto my desk. I was thinking something around 2-3 Liters, but he insisted that he had a great Driver for a 12,5l BR cabinet. So he handed me a number (Fostex FE83) and sent me to a loudspeaker dealer who handed me two unbelievably small boxes.

So I went home and put them into a few sqare ft of chipboard. Hoooked them up to my small Denon amp, which already had turned out to be quite a good recommendation by the aforementioned friend. I could not believe my ears, what amount of bass came out of these two small drivers. The stereo imaging was out of this world (at least for me). They kept my company for several years and never disappointed me.

Many years later I "upgraded" to a Pair of B&W CDM7, which were nice (and still are used in my basement home theatre) but never really satisfied me. Something was just not right.

When I had to do something about living room speakers, I bought a kit for a Tangband coax driver and really liked it, even though the recommended folded TQWT. While reading about speakers on the net, I also came across several web sites dealing with fullrange speakers. Remembering my olf FE83s, which sadly did not survive a move some years ago, I started thinking about the possibilities of building a decent fullrange speaker that would fit into the living room bookshelf. So I put a pair of FE167E into a 9l BR cabinet and started to experiment. I have not had so much fun listening to all my old CDs for years. Still tweaking and plannnig to build a few alternative cabinets.

I live in Karlsruhe in the southwest of Germany, majored in Computer Science, currently working as database guru and consultant.

Other interest include Yo-yos, playing Go and collecting pinball machines, the latter probably being the reason, why my wife is not inclined to grant me another space consuming hobby. :-)

All the best,
Hans

[BWRX]

Hi Hans. Be very careful if you venture into the Full Range section of this site - there are tons of designs for full range drivers just waiting to be built! Particularly, the ever-growing family of Frugal Horns.

[BudP]

Hans

I disagree, venture forth, most especially to Planet 10's phenomenal products (frugal horn and more) and then really get set for some fun by visiting this thread

EnABL Processes

You can find the Planet 10 limks in this thread, especially toward the end of the thread.

And welcome, we are all mad for music around here, along with being polite.

Bud

[planet10]

Originally posted by Tea42
(Fostex FE83)....So I put a pair of FE167E into a 9l BR cabinet

There are at least a few of us here seduced by the magic of full range drivers... the 167 will really benefit from a bigger box (and can be tweaked quite far),

dave

[Cal Weldon]

Welcome to the forums Hans. Good luck in your ventures.

[Bootstrapper]

Willkommen, Hans!

[Tea42]

Thanks for the warm welcome.

@dave: Having read so many rave reviews, I got Martins Mathcad sheets yesterday and spent a very enjoyable evening playing around with them. Being a person that only believes what he sees the diagrams are extremely helpful. I see now, why a larger cabinet is preferrable to a smaller one even if both are tuned to the same frequencytuned to the same frequency.

Cheers,
Hans