Fostex FE166 ES-R; reviews, cabinets, & notch filters

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AFAIK, the only pair has been in Terry Cain's hands (the *******!)


My only regret was not passing them on to you :xeye: Knowing what these are and how they need to be implelemented meant it would take me some time. And then the holiday/CES rush blah blah blah set in :xeye:

At any rate, several people have asked about enclosures, so here's my take.

Abby cabinet? No, this driver (fe166esr) will benefit from hornloading in a properly sized horn. Not only that, the massive magnet won't fit through Abby's cutout. BTW the magnet/cutout only clears the frame dimension by 3/16", making backcutting and beveling mandatory for enrgy transfer in to the cabinet. Also the magnet itself will benefit form some damping between the cone and face as it will reflect midrange back through the diaphram somewhat.

BK10 cabinet? No, horn is too short. Driver has massive motor stength to drive longer horn. BK10 is a compromise.

Factory designed cabinet for the driver? YES!!! A couple people have told me they think the parralell walls are because of simplicity needed for assembly, cutting etc..

In fact Fostex designed backhorns are highly evolved horn (yes) enclosures that do justice to the drivers (all Fostex drivers designed for fullrange BH). The reason for the parralel pathways are to increase pathlength for a given box size. This lowers the cutoff freq and also takes into account room gain (think small Japanese room) in the bass. Balanced sound is the result with the efficiency the drivers designer had intended.

Plain ole box with a hole and comp network? Compromise.

Kleinhorn? Heck yeah :spin:

Me, I am playing them with a double 8ft symmetrical horn. The chamber and throat of which I am working on.

TC
 
So the BLH is the optimal solution? Ive had thoughts about a sealed box with a pro 15" BR below, but I havent seen anyone mention this as a viable option. Not FR but easily constructed. But the recommended BLH is fine with me. Any mods to the cabinet that might help? I will no doubt double the back panel to lose the braces, unless physics, unbenounced to me, makes them a better choice. (although ugly)

UPS should have mine here today!

amt
 
I just opened my box and the first thing that struck me is the weight / size of the motor assy. While the moment between the front mounting flange and the motor assy is not (to my mind) excessive, the motor is so heavy that I cannot help but think that this speaker would be best mounted by its magnet or at least it should have some support.
The frame is a simple stamping and there are no methods of extra strengthening of it to my eyes, perhaps like Lowthers of yore it would be good to rotate it every year or so if not supported.

Maybe I worry too much?

Andrew
 
Could you please elaborate on what you mean by backcutting and beveling? I am having a tough time visualizing what you mean.

In the drivers cutout hole, the magnet is so large that clearance between the cabinet cutout and driver's rear structure leaves little clearance. Especially with baffles thicker than 3/4". Some beveling or cutting out between mounting bolts on the backside would be needed to maintain clearance. This is a problem with most all the Fostex drivers especially the Esigma's and now this driver.
 
Would an isolation ring be of any help with this driver? Im thinking of machining something similar, but larger in diameter or rectangular with rounded corners. They would serve two functions. One, that the thinner material will help with the rear clearance problem and two, I'd weld on an arm that supports the magnet assembly from below.

I would use aluminum or steel rather than brass.

amt
 
Re: Re: FE166ES_R pics

planet10 said:


I'm waiting for the fieldcoils :)

dave


Have Fostex done a fieldcoil fullrange in the last 25 years?

In otherwords what fieldcoils are you waiting for? (It could be a V E R Y long wait if from Fostex..) Or are you privy to something "in-the-works" from them?

btw, I believe they are still available from Solen.ca in North America.
 
frugal-phile™
Joined 2001
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Re: Re: Re: FE166ES_R pics

ScottG said:
Have Fostex done a fieldcoil fullrange in the last 25 years?

No -- complete speculation on my part. It is more of an allusion to the fact that Fostex keeps bringing out one special edition after another and every time the run quickly sells out, it encourages them to do something else.

Foster (parent of Fostex) is quite a large OEM manufacturer and they are certainly capable... maybe they are watching these threads and somewhere someone has ticked off field-coil as one of the possibilities :^)

And you never know -- as they get the logistics of small SE runs down, someone may just say -- i'd like to order a 1,000 special units for myself (this is how the ACR FE103 happened)

For now, i just have to live with my alnico variants...

dave
 
Re: Re: Re: Re: FE166ES_R pics

planet10 said:


..maybe they are watching these threads and somewhere someone has ticked off field-coil as one of the possibilities

Oooh,

I'd like a 2 inch diameter pure BE diaphram driver (less than .5 grams) with a flat damped surround (excursion >.5mm's) capable of a linear (+/- 1.5 db) 45 deg. OFF-AXIS response between 300 Hz and 25kHz with a rising (proportional) ON-AXIS response of almost 6 db's at 20kHz. Eff. at 1watt/1 meter needs to be >95db's. No compression. An Amorphous Electromagnet. Amorphous highly conductive VC wire without termination "tabs" (i.e. just the wire "leads"). A chassis with very little resonance behaviour (and not "in-band" or even reactive to "in-band"). Chassis spokes that are "thin" and have little impact as a relection point. And finally, a laminar air-flow "coupler" with extremely low resistance that routes the driver's rear wave around the magnet in a uniform manner.

Hey, I'm even willing to compromise - they can use the "bannana paper" instead of the BE. (Youngs Modules is still good, and a LOT less costly).
 
RE: Field Coil

Why wait for fostex to do it? Would it really be such an impossible task to buy a standard driver, then remove the magnet and build a field coil for it? Of course, I've never tried removing a magnet assembly before... maybe it is more difficult than it looks.
 
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