Seems Chris W is caught behind a net nanny and can't post at the moment... i did get this transmission from him. dave
and he pointed this in from RMAF which is posted here, but i am copying to here:
http://www.audioasylum.com/forums/hug/messages/12/127682.html
and he pointed this in from RMAF which is posted here, but i am copying to here:
http://www.audioasylum.com/forums/hug/messages/12/127682.html
Posted by Christopher Witmer (A) on October 12, 2007 at 03:35:20
From our spy on location:
PART 1:
Dear Natasha, I'm sitting here in a room at the Marriot, where RMAF will be held tomorrow. I've listened to the ******** prototypes, which have the **** drivers in them, and also those 50-liter speakers that Mr. ******** built, which have the ** drivers in them. All I can say is "wow" about both of them.
First of all, let me say that I now have no concerns about bass with those tiny drivers. No problem whatsoever in that department. Actually, the ******** prototypes have too much bass for me. I really mean it, there is too much bass coming out of them -- a TON of bass. Anyone who thinks these tiny drivers can't possibly deliver bass will be surprised. It's all there, all right. HOWEVER, it sounds muddy to me, and I don't know if it is a problem of the prototype's design, or the matching with the amp and the driver, or what.
However, I am extremely pleased with the speakers that Mr. ******** built. They're a lot more clear and there's still plenty of bass, and it is very pretty bass, too. I'm impressed. I think people will be pleasantly surprised at what these things sound like. Nice! And I can't wait until tomorrow when we set up the larger speakers.
PART 2 (written several hours later):
Natasha, hold the presses! I take it all back. It turns out that those ******** prototypes were not at fault after all. It looks like the culprit was the very expensive tube amp they were using with it. We tried them again with Mr. ********'s prototype solid state amp and the results were much crisper, tighter, cleaner, nicer. It was a surprise that the supposedly highest-end tube amp muddied things up that badly with those ******** prototypes. Mr. ******** said the amp should be thrown out the window. [Note: it sounds to me like an OPT output impedance issue, rather than an amplifier worthy of being chucked out the window -- Chris]
We hooked up Mr. ********'s 50-liter loudspeakers and listened to them with various amps and cabling, etc. It sounds amazingly good. Very, very good. I love it. In the end we hooked it up to the best audiophile equipment I've ever seen: an $8,000 CD player, power cables as thick as my leg (literally probably five inches thick).
An externally hosted image should be here but it was not working when we last tested it.
The speakers were being powered by two humongous Lamm M2.1 monoblock amps, etc.
I think that's about the best system I've ever heard. It sure was great. But we only got everything connected about half an hour before we had to come back so I haven't listened to it much yet.
Tomorrow the larger speakers are coming and we'll get them hooked up. I expect they will the center of attention connected to all this super high-end equipment. Ought to be quite a show-stopper.
There were more exhibitors setting up in the hotel than you could shake a stick at. There was a ton of excitement and happiness flowing everywhere. Everyone was having such a good time, and music was blasting out of many rooms on many floors of the hotel. Something to see everywhere. What a show! My first RMAF is getting off to a wonderful start.
-- Boris
I'm quite sure that the new drivers can go down to 20Hz, but I'm not sure they can do it in a way that would meet anyone's practical requirements.
To put it in some perspective, I know someone who built a horn that went down to 16Hz using Lowther drivers. (He had to reinforce the cones to keep them from self-destructing.) And the Feastrex drivers have a much easier time producing bass than Lowther drivers do, so I'm sure you could get down to 20Hz with them. Especially when room reinforcement is taken into account.
BUT I strongly doubt that it would be advisable to try to go flat all the way down to 20Hz with these drivers. Here are a few reasons:
1) The power handling capability of the driver falls off as frequency decreases.
2) Potentially, at least, intermodulation distortion becomes more of an issue for a fullrange driver as the bottom is extended deeper.
3) The most obvious way to get such extreme extension of the bottom end is through backloading on a horn, but the horn would be so large and so long that timing issues between the front wave and the rear wave would start to become a real serious problem.
4) The deepest bass in a manageable package would probably come from a "4th order Extended Bass Shelf" enclosure. That could probably be tuned to below 30Hz.
5) To date, nobody has tried to get such extreme bass extension with the drivers. People like what they hear around 30Hz and they say, "For now, let's leave well enough alone."
-- Chris
To put it in some perspective, I know someone who built a horn that went down to 16Hz using Lowther drivers. (He had to reinforce the cones to keep them from self-destructing.) And the Feastrex drivers have a much easier time producing bass than Lowther drivers do, so I'm sure you could get down to 20Hz with them. Especially when room reinforcement is taken into account.
BUT I strongly doubt that it would be advisable to try to go flat all the way down to 20Hz with these drivers. Here are a few reasons:
1) The power handling capability of the driver falls off as frequency decreases.
2) Potentially, at least, intermodulation distortion becomes more of an issue for a fullrange driver as the bottom is extended deeper.
3) The most obvious way to get such extreme extension of the bottom end is through backloading on a horn, but the horn would be so large and so long that timing issues between the front wave and the rear wave would start to become a real serious problem.
4) The deepest bass in a manageable package would probably come from a "4th order Extended Bass Shelf" enclosure. That could probably be tuned to below 30Hz.
5) To date, nobody has tried to get such extreme bass extension with the drivers. People like what they hear around 30Hz and they say, "For now, let's leave well enough alone."
-- Chris
I hope she's worth it. 
Re 16Hz out of a Lowther, it's not especially difficult to achieve in theory -the PM6C driver is on Xmax at 16Hz in this hyperbolic for example, & there's some travel left before Xmech. It's fairly efficient too, so distortion should be low.
In practice it's another matter. This thing makes the Kleinhorn look like a Frugel-horn. 400ft^2 mouth area & ~41ft long. Each. In a hybrid QW / horn design it would need some very good protection indeed to keep the driver safe if tuned that low & the response would be all over the shop. Not a good idea. FR drivers do many things well, but sub-bass isn't one of them. That's what Tom Danley-style tapped horns with 15 - 18in woofers are for.
Re 16Hz out of a Lowther, it's not especially difficult to achieve in theory -the PM6C driver is on Xmax at 16Hz in this hyperbolic for example, & there's some travel left before Xmech. It's fairly efficient too, so distortion should be low.
In practice it's another matter. This thing makes the Kleinhorn look like a Frugel-horn. 400ft^2 mouth area & ~41ft long. Each. In a hybrid QW / horn design it would need some very good protection indeed to keep the driver safe if tuned that low & the response would be all over the shop. Not a good idea. FR drivers do many things well, but sub-bass isn't one of them. That's what Tom Danley-style tapped horns with 15 - 18in woofers are for.
Attachments
I am burning my measuring gear now!
And I am making a cone of endangered eagle feathers, moved by ancient Maya gold wire voice coil, wound on a zebra cartilage former, hung by antelope leather surround, hold by tarantula woven spider, powered by a field coil designed on a last secret schematic carried by Tesla's favorite dove to his homeland and delivered to me by orthodox monks for safety during the 1999 raid over Serbia. Now calculate its cost!
Dreaming, dreaming....
And I am making a cone of endangered eagle feathers, moved by ancient Maya gold wire voice coil, wound on a zebra cartilage former, hung by antelope leather surround, hold by tarantula woven spider, powered by a field coil designed on a last secret schematic carried by Tesla's favorite dove to his homeland and delivered to me by orthodox monks for safety during the 1999 raid over Serbia. Now calculate its cost! Dreaming, dreaming....
Hello Mike in Oz!
About the high prices being reasonable -- yes and no.
One really does have to bear in mind that it is impossible to make these drivers cheaply, since they must be made entirely by hand. I have some experience reconing loudspeakers, including coming up with new diaphragms from scratch for various drivers, and after seeing what goes into the building of the Feastrex drivers I know that we are talking about apples and oranges. If Mr. Teramoto was to give me a large supply of pre-manufactured cone assemblies, I am sure I could get the hang of attaching the cone assemblies to the frame properly -- after about 100 failed attempts. I mean that in all seriousness. Contrast that with a standard recone of a conventional speaker, which I might be able to do with my eyes closed.
And that is just one stage of the construction. At every other stage of construction as well, building these drivers is a real pain in the backside.
In theory, Feastrex could have attempted to adopt a different business model entirely, one that was more direct-to-user, but the prices would still have been sufficiently high that market penetration would have been extremely slow. On the other hand, there is a very different market where Feastrex's drivers are more likely to gain wide acceptance, but accessing that market means creating finished, ready-to-play loudspeakers of extremely high quality that are sold through local bricks-and-mortar audio shops where people can actually go and listen, or arrange with local dealers for auditions in their homes. And so up goes the price.
Apparently Feastrex wants to keep the D9nf and especially the D5nf as affordable as possible for DIYers, but "affordable" is a very relative term.
If Feastrex becomes permanently established as a maker with a great reputation for quality -- and I think it it has a good chance of achieving that -- perhaps more DIYers will start to accept the idea of plunking down that kind of money for a DIY project. The early adopters of the drivers, buying sight unseen from a new company in a foreign land, were very brave indeed. To the best of my knowledge, none of them have regretted their purchase.
And for those who can't justify such a hefty outlay, there are any number of less expensive alternatives available, ranging from the cheapest mass market drivers to other high grade boutique drivers that still manage to cost less than Feastrex. But a small percentage of DIYers will be able to justify the purchase of these drivers. Are they getting good value for their money? That's something only they can answer. As for me, if I want to use the best fullrange driver, Feastrex is it.
-- Chris
About the high prices being reasonable -- yes and no.
One really does have to bear in mind that it is impossible to make these drivers cheaply, since they must be made entirely by hand. I have some experience reconing loudspeakers, including coming up with new diaphragms from scratch for various drivers, and after seeing what goes into the building of the Feastrex drivers I know that we are talking about apples and oranges. If Mr. Teramoto was to give me a large supply of pre-manufactured cone assemblies, I am sure I could get the hang of attaching the cone assemblies to the frame properly -- after about 100 failed attempts. I mean that in all seriousness. Contrast that with a standard recone of a conventional speaker, which I might be able to do with my eyes closed.
And that is just one stage of the construction. At every other stage of construction as well, building these drivers is a real pain in the backside.
In theory, Feastrex could have attempted to adopt a different business model entirely, one that was more direct-to-user, but the prices would still have been sufficiently high that market penetration would have been extremely slow. On the other hand, there is a very different market where Feastrex's drivers are more likely to gain wide acceptance, but accessing that market means creating finished, ready-to-play loudspeakers of extremely high quality that are sold through local bricks-and-mortar audio shops where people can actually go and listen, or arrange with local dealers for auditions in their homes. And so up goes the price.
Apparently Feastrex wants to keep the D9nf and especially the D5nf as affordable as possible for DIYers, but "affordable" is a very relative term.
If Feastrex becomes permanently established as a maker with a great reputation for quality -- and I think it it has a good chance of achieving that -- perhaps more DIYers will start to accept the idea of plunking down that kind of money for a DIY project. The early adopters of the drivers, buying sight unseen from a new company in a foreign land, were very brave indeed. To the best of my knowledge, none of them have regretted their purchase.
And for those who can't justify such a hefty outlay, there are any number of less expensive alternatives available, ranging from the cheapest mass market drivers to other high grade boutique drivers that still manage to cost less than Feastrex. But a small percentage of DIYers will be able to justify the purchase of these drivers. Are they getting good value for their money? That's something only they can answer. As for me, if I want to use the best fullrange driver, Feastrex is it.
-- Chris
An externally hosted image should be here but it was not working when we last tested it.
That's the business end of one of the D5nf drivers on display at The Lotus Group's room at RMAF, photo courtesy of:
http://www.enjoythemusic.com/rmaf_2007/friday/page2.htm
(The actual image you are seeing above has been copied to Imageshack.)
On most computer screens, you can see the two different kinds of paper used in the main cone and whizzer cone very clearly.
The black leather surround is visible, but the felt ring around that has been cropped . . . a very tasteful editing job for such a "real time" report.
-- Chris
OzMikeH said:I got a price for the D9Nf
Shocked at first but when I though about it and considered what it is and how it's made it is a reasonable price.
Of course it varies according to exchange rate,
About $3500 for the D9nf and $6700 for the D9e.
Hey OzMikeH, is that price for one or two drivers? I got a quote in aus for around $3500 each for the D9nf. If that price is for both, that would be a pretty good deal!
Feastrex's US representative also has (or had, perhaps), a limited number of units that are/were being sold at a special introductory price, but if that offer has not already expired, it will soon. (Earlier this year Feastrex was moving those drivers at their break-even price to encourage penetration in the market.) I suspect the situation in the USA probably also applies elsewhere . . . so don't assume you'll always be able to find them at that price, whcih indeed strikes me as quite cheap (for those drivers).
And my understanding is that the various representatives have an understanding not to compete directly in each other's markets, so shipping to Oz is likely out of the question. But if you're traveling overseas, it's a local sale and nobody should have cause to complain . . .
And my understanding is that the various representatives have an understanding not to compete directly in each other's markets, so shipping to Oz is likely out of the question. But if you're traveling overseas, it's a local sale and nobody should have cause to complain . . .
Here is a report on Feastrex's first day at RMAF:
http://www.audioasylum.com/forums/hug/messages/12/127714.html
http://www.audioasylum.com/forums/hug/messages/12/127714.html
This looks like a great way to see what's showing at RMAF, starting with the Feastrex speakers, of course:
http://www.audioxsell.com/community/events/7/1206/Rocky-Mountain-Audio-Fest-2007/Feastrex-1.htm
http://www.audioxsell.com/community/events/7/1206/Rocky-Mountain-Audio-Fest-2007/Feastrex-1.htm
Boy, was I dumb, or what? Without really thinking about what I was doing I posted an image of the wrong Lamm amplifier for The Lotus Group's (Feastrex's) room at RMAF 2007. They were using the ML2, a totally different beast --
SORRY ABOUT THAT
An externally hosted image should be here but it was not working when we last tested it.
SORRY ABOUT THAT
I visited the Feastrex website and looked what they had to say about the Naturflux design.
Anybody notice anything strange in the
drawing on this page ?
Hint: It's the one with the intersecting field lines.
Anybody notice anything strange in the
drawing on this page ?
Hint: It's the one with the intersecting field lines.
feastrex...
I heard the drivers. was duely impressed.
They are the highest speed full rangers out there. even more than my 208es-r.
thing is though, and alot of things get called into question by such an extreme product, is whether or not that level of speed is necessary to listen to music?
I thought that the bass was NOT sufficient on the five inchers. with the "audiophile" recordings they were throwing around, sure. but the low bass was not there with any of the music that I made them (reluctantly) put on. there was too much midrange out of the horn for my taste. I basically felt that it was the cabinet's fault. It was quite audible. the drivers were mind blowingly good. probably some of the best full rangers on the planet with prices to match. the hypnotic clarity, no grossness in the response.
the dynamicism from the 5. unbeleivable. my fe108esII is nice and all. arguably an equal driver, all things considered, but in the "jump" dept. the feastrex is got er beat.
the resemblance to front loaded horns (and a little beyond) out of the 9 inch field coil is remarkable. compared to the 208es-r again, there is more detail, but a less chill and studio like presentation. its all tradeoffs here. the bass out of the field coil, as one would expect, is typical of a tunable q driver. extremely high speed and detailed, but not there in large quantities. I enjoy this aesthetic though. it did not bother me.
the field coil was my favourite. very "japanese" sonic aesthetic, things are out in the room as much as possible but not in your face. detail, refinement, paperyness, organicness.
it was all very nice. and again, I will reiterate: it is all tradeoffs. these drivers definitely operate within their own paradigm. bending other paradigms in the process. but like all full rangers, they are simply not perfect, and certainly not cheap. in several years, they will have the designs further refined, as is the case with anny "musical instrument" speaker. but also, as is the case with the musical instrument approach to component manufacture, it is hard to be let down with them in the end. they are their own works of art. I only compare them to other drivers to attempt to give a baseline, but in this realm, and also of the realm of the drivers I compare with, a baseline simply does not exist. only madjik.
while it might seem like I am in the end a fostex fan boy, and that I am certainly not completely taken with these drivers, lookey here: I only take the time to criticize what is worth my time to do so. these drivers definitely blew my mind. the most organic sounding components I have ever heard, and for good reason: they are!
It is funny because in my own product, I focus on "organicness" of ingredients (within my relatively low price constraints) and I acheive a similar result in the end sound. ingredients matter, folks. feastrex has taken all this to the nth degree, and acheived the nth degree of musical hyperspace as a result.
I met the engineer, and though we had to use a translator to talk about his design goals, etc. he had a certain look in his eye. a VERY smart and experienced fellow. good people. I am glad to see full range technology being taken this far.
Clark
I heard the drivers. was duely impressed.
They are the highest speed full rangers out there. even more than my 208es-r.
thing is though, and alot of things get called into question by such an extreme product, is whether or not that level of speed is necessary to listen to music?
I thought that the bass was NOT sufficient on the five inchers. with the "audiophile" recordings they were throwing around, sure. but the low bass was not there with any of the music that I made them (reluctantly) put on. there was too much midrange out of the horn for my taste. I basically felt that it was the cabinet's fault. It was quite audible. the drivers were mind blowingly good. probably some of the best full rangers on the planet with prices to match. the hypnotic clarity, no grossness in the response.
the dynamicism from the 5. unbeleivable. my fe108esII is nice and all. arguably an equal driver, all things considered, but in the "jump" dept. the feastrex is got er beat.
the resemblance to front loaded horns (and a little beyond) out of the 9 inch field coil is remarkable. compared to the 208es-r again, there is more detail, but a less chill and studio like presentation. its all tradeoffs here. the bass out of the field coil, as one would expect, is typical of a tunable q driver. extremely high speed and detailed, but not there in large quantities. I enjoy this aesthetic though. it did not bother me.
the field coil was my favourite. very "japanese" sonic aesthetic, things are out in the room as much as possible but not in your face. detail, refinement, paperyness, organicness.
it was all very nice. and again, I will reiterate: it is all tradeoffs. these drivers definitely operate within their own paradigm. bending other paradigms in the process. but like all full rangers, they are simply not perfect, and certainly not cheap. in several years, they will have the designs further refined, as is the case with anny "musical instrument" speaker. but also, as is the case with the musical instrument approach to component manufacture, it is hard to be let down with them in the end. they are their own works of art. I only compare them to other drivers to attempt to give a baseline, but in this realm, and also of the realm of the drivers I compare with, a baseline simply does not exist. only madjik.
while it might seem like I am in the end a fostex fan boy, and that I am certainly not completely taken with these drivers, lookey here: I only take the time to criticize what is worth my time to do so. these drivers definitely blew my mind. the most organic sounding components I have ever heard, and for good reason: they are!
It is funny because in my own product, I focus on "organicness" of ingredients (within my relatively low price constraints) and I acheive a similar result in the end sound. ingredients matter, folks. feastrex has taken all this to the nth degree, and acheived the nth degree of musical hyperspace as a result.
I met the engineer, and though we had to use a translator to talk about his design goals, etc. he had a certain look in his eye. a VERY smart and experienced fellow. good people. I am glad to see full range technology being taken this far.
Clark
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