| DavidLewis2 |
My friend wants me to help him build a pair of bass reflex speakers (he will not have his arm twisted to have BLHs or BIBs !). His driver choice is FE206E or FE207E. Can anybody help with the following questions please ? Thanks -
1. FE207E seems to be the preferred choice for BRs. Is that because it produces lower bass ?
2. Does the FE206E have any advantages over the FE207E in the BR configuration ?
3. I've read that 20l is a better bet than 45l. Is that true for both FE206E and FE207E ? What port diameter/length would be optimal ?
4. I've read that non-parallel internal sides help reduce standing waves. Is this worth doing ?
5. Is the Fostex recommended FE207E double bass reflex a good thing to try ?
He listens to general rock and pop, very little classical/jazz. He has an SS amp. Thanks in advance for any advice proffered. |
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| Scottmoose |
| FE207E would be my choice. It's a higher Q driver so it'll need less correction in a resonant enclosure. The 206 has a whisker more detail perhaps, but there's plenty to spare, and the 207 does indeed go a touch lower. Go to the Projects section here: www.quarter-wave.com -virtual project for both these drivers. Streets ahead of any BR box, fully documented & CAD plans. My top choice if you want a simple to build box. |
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| vitalstates |
Hi David
Get out more!..meet some new friends!
lol
Ed |
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| larkinrulez |
I have the 207E in a 35l BR.
I tried the Martin King-MLTL but it dosen't work for me...theres a biiiig hole in the mid-base!
I tried the DBR...don't know why, but I didn't like it.
I tried a 20l BR...maybe the best choice, but I prefere the 35l BR because of a little deeper base.
BUT!!!
If rock and pop would be "my" music, I never would buy a Fostex...or any other fullrangedriver ;) |
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| DavidLewis2 |
Thanks Scottmoose, I'm now reading up on the Quarter Wavelength design stuff. A lot better final sound than BRs ?
Vitalstates, Thanks for the advice but I can't get out much because I keep wanting to listen to music on my new speakers ! New friends means new people saying "....can you make me a pair of those ?" !!! From his point of view, he came round my house and listened to my FE206E loaded BRs and my FE206ES-R loaded BLHs. The cheap/easy BRs were still streets ahead of anything he'd heard before. It was a "I want some, I want some ...." situation. Us full range chaps sometimes forget how great these speakers (even in a BR) sound on first hearing. Bye for now. |
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| vitalstates |
Hi David
Thanks for taking my post in the humourous way it was intended. I'm so glad you're not closed to the possibility of 1/4 wave,as in my experience its a world of improvement....There is always an alternative to SS as well, can we lure you to have a look at the dark side.....check out my website, it details my voyage away from BR and SS.
Regards
Ed |
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| Scottmoose |
Ah yes... Ed's Vofos are well worth looking into as well. How did I forget those? They certainly beat the MLTLs on dynamics, although they aren't as easy to build. Not that difficult either of course.
Big hole in the midbass? That's exactly what Martin's MLTLs shouldn't have! Sounds like something went pear-shaped with your build (no offense or reflection intended, but they shouldn't have that). None of my five pairs did.
Rock / pop & FR drivers. Thorny one. No FR unit will ever do dynamics as well as a good multi-way, even horn-loaded but then, there aren't many good multi-ways. The problem isn't extension (if I see one more drivelling remark saying that FR drivers can't do bass... I'm sure we've all seen plenty of those comments, usually from people who haven't heard one loaded right, or stuck in a simple BR box or duff horn design) but excursion. Max excursion occurs an octave above Fc, and in most 8in resonant cabinets like the MLTLs this is about 35-40Hz. Which puts max excursion right in the 70-80Hz zone, where most of the energy in rock etc. music occurs. The 206/7 aren't as bad as some in this respect as they've got a decent amount of travel (for FR units) but less than most midbass drivers. They can still do it pretty well though and they can kick like mules in the right cabinet. Ed's Vofos in particular seem to enjoy belting a few things out, probably because they're tuned slightly higher, which pushes the max. excursion point out of the hot-zone. |
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| lovechild |
Hi
Fostex' do work for Rock Music if releaved from the lower 2 octaves. Put the FE206E in a small (ca 10 liter) closed box and add somthing like a Eminence 12 LF in BR, playing from 180Hz down. The easy way is using two poweramps and a active xo, but passive xo will also work.
F.A.S.T. -- Fostex And Sub Technology ;)
Result will be a 80 - 100 L floorstander that can look like this.
:devilr: |
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| Scottmoose |
Ah yes. Nothing beats a goodly sized woofer for when you need that juicy hit of bass.
I'd prefer to horn load it though, if that's OK? ;) |
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| larkinrulez |
Ed's Vofos???
The midbass:
I have a sampler of th jazzlable dmp with a great version of "chain of fools"...there is a tom-kick, that really kicks a....
With the MLTL it was almost not listenable :( |
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| vitalstates |
| quote: | Originally posted by larkinrulez
Ed's Vofos???
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www.vitalstates.co.uk
follow the vofo link
Regards
Ed |
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| Scottmoose |
| quote: | Originally posted by larkinrulez
Ed's Vofos???
The midbass:
I have a sampler of th jazzlable dmp with a great version of "chain of fools"...there is a tom-kick, that really kicks a....
With the MLTL it was almost not listenable :( |
That's compression, rather than a hole. Methinks you might have been expecting too much for an FR unit in a resonant cabinet. The reflex box is tuned substantially higher (although if it's the Fostex design, the 'controlled peak' at Fc is anything but controlled, albeit probably milder with the 207 than the 206), so the maximum excursion point will occur ~120 - 140Hz, where it will be less noticable.
To get strong LF + decent dynamics out of an unsupported FR driver, you need to [quasi]horn load them. Ron's DallasII or the Fostex FE208ESigma cabinet should do the job nicely for the 206. But they're a lot larger and harder build of course. The other way is Ed's -the same thing I suspect Terry Cain used with his Abby: accept slightly reduced extension, tune a touch higher and push the maximum excursion point out of the most critical zone and into a place where it'll be less noticable, if at all. Surprise surprise: TC's speakers were always complimented, and rightly so, on their impressive dynamic capabilities, and Ed's Vofos share very similar sonic traits. They are very 'fast' sounding speakers as a result. |
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| larkinrulez |
So you think a TQWT would be the best for a FE207E?
Besides the BIB of course :D |
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| Scottmoose |
| If a simple cabinet is demanded, I'd probably go down the mildly mass-loaded TQWT route, tuned a little higher than usual, a la Ed's Vofo. Otherwise, you need a BLH of some kind. Whatever you do, they won't beat a VOTT or big Tannoy for full-on rock, even in monster horns, but they'll image like electrostatics and certainly make as good or better a job of it than anything else for the price. |
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| DavidLewis2 |
Lots of interesting contributions for me to mull over. Thanks everybody. The speaker with 12” woofer looks good but to be honest it’s too big for his room (and neighbours !). He has seen/heard my 45ltr FE206E BRs and it's this type of speaker (i.e. a single FE206E/FE207E in a plain easy-build cabinet) that appeals to him. He may have subwoofer support for the final setup. He tells me he values clarity and separation over outright 'wallop'.
Vitalstates, I already have a ‘dark side’ amp – Audio Note Kit 1 Signature (used with a modified Sony CD player and FE206ES-R Fostex recommended horns). My FE206E BRs are now attached to my AV system (Yamaha AV Package 59 comprising RX-V359 amp + NS-P110 speakers) and a Marantz CD-63SE. It gives a great AV sound and a great rock music sound (treble/midrange clarity, dynamicism, separation, imaging courtesy of the FE206s, deep rich bass courtesy of the little Yamaha subwoofer). The 'dark side' system is for my mellow 'high quality' listening.
I'm offline now until Tuesday. Thanks again. |
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| DavidLewis2 |
| I should of course add that my idea of a 'great' sound is only what I, with my ears, tastes, and experiences of hi-fi to date think. In other words, my opinion. For the money spent I couldn't be happier with my two systems. |
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| OzMikeH |
Don't forget the Singulars,
A hybrid enclosure. mass loaded transmission line / backhorn. (I think, I don't understand most of it)
I have heard these, albeit with the AER Mk1 driver and associated notch filter. and They were good for rock, perfect for female vocals, very unforgiving though.
a lot of rock is overcompressed and these will show up any bad recording.
Bass was good enough, easily increased by moving them closer to the wall. Personal taste will determine if you need a sub to help them out, in a small apartment these usually lead to disputes with neighbours anyway. Listen to them for at least 2 weeks before deciding if they need any help in the low end.
These cabinets were actually designed for the FE206 and 207.
I'm building my own set at the moment, waiting for drivers to come.
they are 1200 high and 600mm deep but under 300mm wide, the long narrow front makes them relatively unobtrusive in a small room.
They are heavy though, a full sheet of MDF for each one!
Cabinets arent too hard, 6 small pieces have 45 degree chamfers, other than that it's all rectagles, but be super accurate with your cuts and clamp everything square while the glue cures, they go pear shaped rapidly if you dont get the centre part square.
Larkinrulez: those look interesting. Would be quite pretty too. |
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| OzMikeH |
I have build the box mentioned above and listened to them for a little bit
I have a track with a bassline that is a sweep from 60Hz down to 30Hz, only the very last bit is truncated.
I haven't hit them with Metallica yet, I'll let you know how they go with that.
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| Scottmoose |
| I reckon they'll struggle a bit, as they'll likely run out of excursion right where most rock / metal has all it's energy. Probably do a passable job though. |
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| DavidLewis2 |
| I think I'll be going for FE207E in an MLTL. People have commented on the MLTL sounding a lot better than bass reflex, in which performance areas is the benefit evident ? Is it just that there is more bass or is there more to it than that ? Does the correction circuit cause any (signal) losses or can these be negated by using good quality components in the correction circuit ? Thinking about the F.A.S.T. presented by Lovechild - will a passive crossover degrade the FE206E performance much ? Again, is it a case of negating losses by using high quality crossover components ? The reason I'm asking is I've never heard FE206Es with correction/crossover in the signal path, I'm wondering about how much (if at all) it degrades the FE206E performance. Many thanks. |
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| Scottmoose |
If you don't use baffle step correction in either a BR or an MLTL, it will sound thin and out of balance due to the 3-6db drop off below the baffle-step point. Personally, I'd call a huge drop-off in the SPLs more of a sonic degredation than any ~mythical problems caused by passive componenets. Buy decent components, obviously, but don't fall into the audiophile component trap of spending ~£50 on a single capacitor. Somebody's having a laugh with those things. Frankly, I've never heard any sonic degredation of any kind via a properly designed BSC circuit.
You can occasionally compenste without components by ramming the cabinets into corners or against a wall, but that then has it's own issues.
Yep, the MLTLs usually sound better than BR speakers. They often have a bit more extension, and definition in the LF is usually better. |
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| Puffin |
I have a 206E in the 208 horn cab. At the weekend I mocked up a BSC with a 1.0mh indcutor, 10ohm, 10 watt wirewound resistor and 2.24uf caps (2.2 +0.22) taken from humblehomemade hifi site.
I could see what the cicuit aims to achieve as I was getting more bass, but less treble and "air". It sounded very shut in and I did not like it. I suspect it was the quality of the components (especially the resistor) at fault.
I took it out fairly quickly, but am curious now if these things can work or is it best to leave the "crossover less" 206 well alone ? |
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| Scottmoose |
That's nothing to do with the components. The factory 208 horn cabinet doesn't need BSC. Very few horns do. That's one of their major advantages.
Especially with the 206 mounted, the FR of this enclosure is boosted over the nominal driver sensitivity which at a stroke compensates for the drop-off caused by step response. With room-gain factored in, it becomes a non-issue.
As an aside, remember that a circuit is matched to a driver / cabinet combination. You can't take something designed for one speaker design and expect it to work in another. That circuilt was developed for a heavily modified version of the old Fostex BK201, which had a completely different frequency response below 1KHz. Those values for this enclosure make no sense at all. You've already effectively got a flat response, so all you're doing is arbitarily selecting an (irrelevant) frequency, and cutting everything above that by a massive amount. That's where the loss of 'air' you mention has gone. |
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| OzMikeH |
Well I gave my speakers a try with some hard Rock.
Singular cabinet with no filter with Fostex FE207E is fairly balanced, high frequency somewhat truncated. It does need a super tweeter to help out with the highest highs. Still quite listenable without the tweeter though. (I will be adding a super tweeter to help above 12kHz)
Give them full tilt with a stout 50 watt amp and they really come to life. Lower volumes the high end is a little flat.
I bought S&M, Metallica with the San francisco symphony orchestra.
Gave it close to full volume on the first half of disk 2. Wherever I may roam (track 5) really went well with these.
snare drums sounded very, very real, but that after-ring was a little flat. Really big drums were heard well but you didn't feel it in your guts.
So I fired up my equalised big sub amp and alloy housing 10 inch sub (see subwoofer thread) The sub was flat out, I had to back it's amp off a little because the driver was starting to freak out a bit.
The sealed 10 incher did help a little bit, but was really a waste of time. If you do assist these with subwoofers you need something that runs from about 40Hz down. This is not a trivial sub for a 10 incher, it has a preamp filter that effectively adds 18dB of gain at 30hz to counteract the rolloff of such a little speaker, the amplifier is currently running at about 300 watts. and it really wasn't helping out all that much. I was thinking at the time "i need to build a much bigger one for these" So we're talking a pair of 12s or a single 15 inch to offer meaningful bass assistance to these speakers (if you want it). Don't bother with your basic department store one note boomer sub with these, it's a step backwards.
If your mate's high frequency hearing is very good then you could consider these but budget for some high end assistance. If he's over 40, in a band or works in aviation then these should be good enough for him (or her). Cost to build a pair in Australia: $500 for materials. Allow another $200-$500 for super tweeters. I haven't included paint, I have included fancy connectors and reasonable cable.
They arent for everyone, you have to sit in front of them and point them at your head. Not really a "party" speaker, they sound funny if you stand next to them. I was watching a live satellite Tv thing with Tony Bennet singing today, they are extremely good for his sort of voice.
The Thors with SEAS drivers look very good, I dont know what those cost. |
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| Scottmoose |
Metallic's S&M is one of the most fearsome tests of a speaker's LF response that I know of. 'Nothing Else Matters' is a torture track a friend of mine uses & it's become one of mine as well. Subwoofers the world over tremble at the very mention of it. The only speakers I've heard to date that can pull it off effectively are big Tannoys. I haven't yet heard it through a VOTT, but I suspect they too, are one of the few setups that can do it justice. The best FR speaker I've heard on this to date was the 208ESigma in the factory cabinet + T90 supertweeters.
The Thors aren't to my taste, but for what they are, the drivers & XO are very well engineered. For the love of heaven though, don't build the original cabinet. Dave & I have done 3 variations -2 mass-loaded, one tapered, all of which comprehensively blow it away according to builders. |
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| OzMikeH |
I'm glad I bought the CD Scottmoose.
My sub which I thought was pretty good just can't do it.
As a revhead mate said to me: There is no replacement for displacement.
I need a bigger sub. This one did me fine from 65Hz to 30Hz but I now need something that does 45-20. |
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| Puffin |
Scottmoose. You are so knowledgable, thanks for that. I just try things I read about without knowing why !
I have nearly finished modifying a Rega cabinet into the 108 horn cabinet (basically a scaled down 208), using the 126E driver. I hope you're not going to tell me that it is a horrible mis-match ! |
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| larkinrulez |
Ok....I have a biiiig problem!
I hate everything, Metallica did after the "Master Of Puppets" :xeye:
So....whatelse can I try...my reference for LF is the last track of the "Big Notes" record by "Flim the BBs" |
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| Scottmoose |
I know what you mean. I like S&M though, as it has something the later studio recordings lack.
108ESigma cabinet with 126s? Should do OK, I remember modelling this combination in an idle moment a while back. FWIW, I'd probably look at adding a suprabaffle to space the driver out a bit from the back-chamber & regain some volume in it.
Cheers
Scott |
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| Puffin |
Scott. Thanks for that. I did in fact make the first chamber slightly bigger as it seemed incredibly small. I added 10mm to the depth.
I'll post some pics, hopeful by the weekend. |
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| Scottmoose |
| Good plan. I'll look worward to seeing them / hearing your impressions. |
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| DavidLewis2 |
OzMikeH, Thanks for all the Singular info. My mate is (well) over 40, has roadied for bands, and used to work in the aviation industry ..............oh dear ! The subwoofer will be too much for his house (which is small by UK standards). I'm making him FE207E/MLTLs but I'll keep your notes as I'm sure I'll make some Singulars in the not too distant future.
OzMikeH/Scottmoose, Thanks for the S&M / Metallica CD tip .... I'll get it. Have you ever heard "HyperBallad" by Bjork ? .... the lowest LF in my CD collection.
Scottmoose, Thanks for MLTL advice. |
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| G |
| quote: | Originally posted by larkinrulez
Ok....I have a biiiig problem!
I hate everything, Metallica did after the "Master Of Puppets" :xeye:
So....whatelse can I try...my reference for LF is the last track of the "Big Notes" record by "Flim the BBs" |
1812 overture. |
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| OzMikeH |
Singular with 207 sounds good for him then. But do some more reading, there might be something better out there, I'm by no means an expert.
My friend with his singulars in a 2 room flat, neighbours above and below. floors are concrete though, and he has separated them from the floor. |
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| larkinrulez |
If he dosen't need so much bass...I would try a small ported enclosure.
I used to have a 18l that went down to 60Hz (-3 dB).
They look and sound good...would be my first choice for a small Flat. |
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| larkinrulez |
| Another question...did anyone ever do something against this peak at 2700 Hz? |
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| DavidLewis2 |
| An 18l BR that sounds worth a try. I believe that people are going as small as 10l with an FE206E. Anybody any experiences with that ? |
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