Up for sale are my recently built pair of the much acclaimed fonkens. read about them here.
Meet the Fonkens
they were built with the newer 3/4" wood plans. the design is identical to the 1/2" plan. the drivers were enabled by dave at planet10 and have roughly 100 hours on them at most. all construction was done with 3/4" baltic birch plywood and the spacers are solid cherry. the veneer is stained with a dark cherry stain. the back panel is screwed in using 6 screws to give access to the inside of the cabinet in case any changes are to be made to the wiring or padding. the padding used is dacron padding. i used 1/2" padding lightly on all vertical parallel sides. i wanted to start with a certain amount of padding and then add more as needed after listening. however, after using them for a while i have felt no need to change anything at all. i can include the remaining dacron i have lying around in case the buyer wants to adjust anything further. the wire used was the following.
http://www.madisound.com/catalog/product_info.php?cPath=404_122&products_id=1248
the binding posts used are the following.
Posts: BG-POSTB Binding Post Black from Madisound
i can take more pictures if needed on monday. also i wont be able to ship them out until dec 9th (final exams end then)
the fonkens cost me $487 to build them in parts and labor. Creations Unlimited in Boca Raton, FL put everything together for me. i would like to get $400 + shipping for them. i will accept money orders and paypal however the buy is responsible for the fees. for now i would like to restrict it to conus buyers only.
i have plenty of feedback on head fi (headphone enthusiast forum) that can be seen here.
crappyjones123 - Head-Fi: Covering Headphones, Earphones and Portable Audio
please pm me if you have any questions.
thanks,
cj.
Meet the Fonkens
they were built with the newer 3/4" wood plans. the design is identical to the 1/2" plan. the drivers were enabled by dave at planet10 and have roughly 100 hours on them at most. all construction was done with 3/4" baltic birch plywood and the spacers are solid cherry. the veneer is stained with a dark cherry stain. the back panel is screwed in using 6 screws to give access to the inside of the cabinet in case any changes are to be made to the wiring or padding. the padding used is dacron padding. i used 1/2" padding lightly on all vertical parallel sides. i wanted to start with a certain amount of padding and then add more as needed after listening. however, after using them for a while i have felt no need to change anything at all. i can include the remaining dacron i have lying around in case the buyer wants to adjust anything further. the wire used was the following.
http://www.madisound.com/catalog/product_info.php?cPath=404_122&products_id=1248
the binding posts used are the following.
Posts: BG-POSTB Binding Post Black from Madisound
i can take more pictures if needed on monday. also i wont be able to ship them out until dec 9th (final exams end then)
the fonkens cost me $487 to build them in parts and labor. Creations Unlimited in Boca Raton, FL put everything together for me. i would like to get $400 + shipping for them. i will accept money orders and paypal however the buy is responsible for the fees. for now i would like to restrict it to conus buyers only.
i have plenty of feedback on head fi (headphone enthusiast forum) that can be seen here.
crappyjones123 - Head-Fi: Covering Headphones, Earphones and Portable Audio
please pm me if you have any questions.
thanks,
cj.
Attachments
That is a bargin! Drivers alone are now $250.
For whoever gets them, I would suggest replacing those binding posts with something that can be removed after the back is securely glued on. The holey brace needs to be firmly afixed to the back, and the back to the rest of the box. No amount of screws will do the job.
These posts would be a step up (some think they look cheesy, but they sound better)
Parts-Express.com: Gold Plated Banana 5-Way Speaker Terminal | SPEAKER TERMINALS speaker terminal speaker plate speaker gasket plates plate gauge gasket binding banana
The small cup that we use has similar posts, and is available only from McBride AFAIK (i get them there, you can get them from me too)
May i ask why you are selling them?
dave
For whoever gets them, I would suggest replacing those binding posts with something that can be removed after the back is securely glued on. The holey brace needs to be firmly afixed to the back, and the back to the rest of the box. No amount of screws will do the job.
These posts would be a step up (some think they look cheesy, but they sound better)
An externally hosted image should be here but it was not working when we last tested it.
Parts-Express.com: Gold Plated Banana 5-Way Speaker Terminal | SPEAKER TERMINALS speaker terminal speaker plate speaker gasket plates plate gauge gasket binding banana
The small cup that we use has similar posts, and is available only from McBride AFAIK (i get them there, you can get them from me too)
May i ask why you are selling them?
dave
hey dave,
thanks for the remarks.
i have the speakers in my office right now. i am a math grad student and share the office with a few other grad students and have to spend roughly 13 hours every day in that room. while i have never heard a better set of speakers yet...(im a midrange junkie and female vocals just make me want to curl up and take a nap) i cant turn them up to even reasonable volumes as i feel guilty about it bothering the office mates. i can only turn them up after 10pm roughly and even then i have to leave at 11pm so i cant enjoy them as i would have hoped to when i was starting out.
the build process was a great learning experience and when i finally am in a position to have another speaker rig (have an apartment closer to school) i shall certainly be going to another set of fonkens and the fonken woofs again. for now, its back to headphones again
i shall certainly miss my little beauties.
thanks for the remarks.
i have the speakers in my office right now. i am a math grad student and share the office with a few other grad students and have to spend roughly 13 hours every day in that room. while i have never heard a better set of speakers yet...(im a midrange junkie and female vocals just make me want to curl up and take a nap) i cant turn them up to even reasonable volumes as i feel guilty about it bothering the office mates. i can only turn them up after 10pm roughly and even then i have to leave at 11pm so i cant enjoy them as i would have hoped to when i was starting out.
the build process was a great learning experience and when i finally am in a position to have another speaker rig (have an apartment closer to school) i shall certainly be going to another set of fonkens and the fonken woofs again. for now, its back to headphones again
i shall certainly miss my little beauties.
I never made it as far as grad school, but all those in honours math had our own room. We also got to do some of the stuff grad students get to do (grading tests for instance). We would have liked a hifi... we spent an inordinant amount of time playing bridge -- sometimes as many as 3 hands simultaneously
What is your specialty?
dave
grip, as far as i know tekton audio uses untreated drivers and the cabinet/box is a very simple bass reflex box which takes all of roughly 25 minutes to put together. the amount of time spent on putting together a fonken box alone is far more than that. that said, feel free to go with the tekton audio stuff. eric is a nice guy and makes good speakers. $250 is far too low of an offer for me.
i was trying to be polite dave. no offense was taken by me on the offer. however it was distasteful to compare the fonkens and the tekton audio 127e boxes. they are in entirely different leagues.
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A lot is covered here: Meet the Fonkens
I'd like to add to this some more on the reason that the onken-style ports on these work so well.
When one makes a bass reflex one tunes the ports using the T/S parameters. These are typically presented to us as a set of (scalar) numbers. In actual fact T/S parameters are a function of voltage input (ie a curve). Actually, since TS vary with the weather, one could say they are a 4-dimensional manifold in 5-space.
With a typical bass reflex, the tuning is very specific. Turn up the wick and the tuning goes off... actually given the dynamics in music, you get the tuning going off with the music's dynamics. The long, very high aspect ratio of the Fonken ports makes them much more tolerent of these changes in the T/S parameters, giving the music more finese and more consistency with level.
CJ touched on the box construction. A properly built Fonken vrs a typical MDF cabinet is like comparing the structural rigidity of a Mercedes to a Pontiac Sunfire (i use that analogy because my parents have a Sunfire).
I may be more radical than many, but to me a good MDF box is one that i've tossed in the bonfire (after rescuing the drivers of course).
More: http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/cons...ussion-what-materials-build-speakers-out.html
dave
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