This site is a promotional site for Fostex, so it says only good things.
The SS-HP series uses new technology, but it is not reflected in the sound.
In Japan, it has a bad reputation and many of them are left unsold.
On their own website, in the 'innovation' section.
As for Klippel, while nice to see, you'll find a lot of companies either don't use it or don't publish for various reasons (in the latter case one quite literally being that a large number of buyers haven't a clue what any of it means and aren't all that interested either). I don't generally see the publication of Kilppel test results being a synonym for 'a more scientific approach of designing drivers' however. It's simply a test system. A [very] good one, but that doesn't necessarily mean those who do not publish said data (or employ that particular hardware system) are unaware of the characteristics it analyses, or that their units are necessarily inferior to those who do. Personally I'd like to see more HD and IMD measurements published across the industry, although similar arguments raise their heads there too. The latter would probably be more easily achieved however, since it doesn't lock everybody into a given product.
Since it's just a subjective feelings to a company's design philosophy towards a particular product, it's perfectly fine for you to have a different opinion. I'm curious whether you checked Fostex's designer's interview (in Japanese), there's much more to nitpick there. Could be fault of google translate though.
As an engineer my self, I'll keep my assessment. Fostex used to be more evidence-based engineering, as seen in the excellent NF-1A white paper.
As an engineer my self, I'll keep my assessment. Fostex used to be more evidence-based engineering, as seen in the excellent NF-1A white paper.
Thank you, I know it's perfectly fine for me to have an opinion. 😉
Humour aside -no, I've no interest in that Fostex unit, and while I can see what they're trying to do with it, it's self-evidently not especially well optimised. You may have noticed I made no reference to it at all, still less any attempt to 'defend' it, since I don't think it's a particularly good offering. The Fostex unit is irrelevant to the point I was making though, which was simply that you said Kartesian have a 'scientific approach to designing drivers', but that doesn't appear to sack up particularly well when examined, as they appear to be writing plenty of nonsense themselves -the above for example didn't require any searching on my part -I simply went to their site, opened a single page at random, and made a factual statement based on what's there in black and white. As noted, not singling them out / knocking them per se -I've seen [far] worse, and they appear to be better than some -but they're still basically providing infomercials, like pretty much every other company, so I'd be a bit wary about over-stating the 'science' bit.
Humour aside -no, I've no interest in that Fostex unit, and while I can see what they're trying to do with it, it's self-evidently not especially well optimised. You may have noticed I made no reference to it at all, still less any attempt to 'defend' it, since I don't think it's a particularly good offering. The Fostex unit is irrelevant to the point I was making though, which was simply that you said Kartesian have a 'scientific approach to designing drivers', but that doesn't appear to sack up particularly well when examined, as they appear to be writing plenty of nonsense themselves -the above for example didn't require any searching on my part -I simply went to their site, opened a single page at random, and made a factual statement based on what's there in black and white. As noted, not singling them out / knocking them per se -I've seen [far] worse, and they appear to be better than some -but they're still basically providing infomercials, like pretty much every other company, so I'd be a bit wary about over-stating the 'science' bit.
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Yes, I really like the FE108NS. It has a nice treble sound. I’m using it with a 300Hz high pass using the Xkitz 2-way analogue active filter. It sounds noticeably cleaner this way. I’ll be testing the FF85WK, FE83NV, and Alpair5.3 soon. These will be on a shallow 40cm x 40cm waveguide playing 300Hz and above. Bass will be the CHR-120 in a 1cu ft reflex. Should be fun.