Hello
Im in the midst of thinking about what speaker i should couple with my Autocostruire T100 Amp, which is 60Watt into 8ohms.
My listening room is 16ft X10ft. I have £600 to spend in total for a Speaker kit, and came across the "Labyrinth" Would it work within the limitations of my room size?, is it the best value, per pound?, would i be better off making a transmission line,ported, etc model, for a bit more.
Im drawn to it because of its SPL at 94DB, and also im not sure about my previous thought the IPL Acoustics S5TL Kevlar They might need more power than 60Watts.
I have toyed with buying some Klipsch Ref 82 speakers but i doubt i would get the quality per pound i might get with speaker kits.
Its also been a long slog to save up the cash, as i have been very ill, long term with heart probs, i dont say that for Sympathy, its just when i was working I amassed a small recording studio, and im selling 2/3rds of it off, because im not making any music as such now, but love listening to it.
So, I really want to get the most satisfying sound my pounds can get, and maybe a few thrills. With the coupling of my T amp, the Ah Njoe tjoeb, it would be nice to escape to a bit of heaven, with a great pair of speakers
Any ideas would be gratefully appreciated
Im in the midst of thinking about what speaker i should couple with my Autocostruire T100 Amp, which is 60Watt into 8ohms.
My listening room is 16ft X10ft. I have £600 to spend in total for a Speaker kit, and came across the "Labyrinth" Would it work within the limitations of my room size?, is it the best value, per pound?, would i be better off making a transmission line,ported, etc model, for a bit more.
Im drawn to it because of its SPL at 94DB, and also im not sure about my previous thought the IPL Acoustics S5TL Kevlar They might need more power than 60Watts.
I have toyed with buying some Klipsch Ref 82 speakers but i doubt i would get the quality per pound i might get with speaker kits.
Its also been a long slog to save up the cash, as i have been very ill, long term with heart probs, i dont say that for Sympathy, its just when i was working I amassed a small recording studio, and im selling 2/3rds of it off, because im not making any music as such now, but love listening to it.
So, I really want to get the most satisfying sound my pounds can get, and maybe a few thrills. With the coupling of my T amp, the Ah Njoe tjoeb, it would be nice to escape to a bit of heaven, with a great pair of speakers
Any ideas would be gratefully appreciated
The labyrinth is the Fostex recommended enclosure for the FE206e. I've not heard it, but the concensus is that the 206e does much better in the 208 horn (and you could also consider other horns like Ron's Dallas II, or Bruce (check the frugal horn site -- link below).
Also, at least to me, it is sacrilege to build any of these things out of MDF. Plywood is specified for a reason. The number of times i've seen people that have posted that they built them with MDF but wish they had used ply, or those that torched the MDF cabs & redid them in ply ....
The 206e is an excellent driver (although my preference leans towards the smaller ones), and i heartily recommend a good horn for their effortlessness & startling dynamics, but i wouldn't recommend this route ....
60 W is plenty power... unless you like to listen to ear bleed levels 4-10 W is sufficient -- especially considering your small room.... and given its size, you might well consider one of the smaller horns, the big horns have a tendency to overload the room with bass (in my buddy Chris' room, not much smaller than yours (~8x14 with an alcove) the Auston A126 with the FE126e driver overloads the room in the bottom. A smaller driver also tends to do mids & top better.
You are spending a lot of money (even if it doesn't go as far in the UK) and if you are into diying a fullrange the good choices are many (and what to do can be a confusing because of that)
dave
Also, at least to me, it is sacrilege to build any of these things out of MDF. Plywood is specified for a reason. The number of times i've seen people that have posted that they built them with MDF but wish they had used ply, or those that torched the MDF cabs & redid them in ply ....
The 206e is an excellent driver (although my preference leans towards the smaller ones), and i heartily recommend a good horn for their effortlessness & startling dynamics, but i wouldn't recommend this route ....
60 W is plenty power... unless you like to listen to ear bleed levels 4-10 W is sufficient -- especially considering your small room.... and given its size, you might well consider one of the smaller horns, the big horns have a tendency to overload the room with bass (in my buddy Chris' room, not much smaller than yours (~8x14 with an alcove) the Auston A126 with the FE126e driver overloads the room in the bottom. A smaller driver also tends to do mids & top better.
You are spending a lot of money (even if it doesn't go as far in the UK) and if you are into diying a fullrange the good choices are many (and what to do can be a confusing because of that)
dave
thanks planet10, Im still wondering though, what does the horn speaker give you in quality, that other speakers dont.What i do know , is that because of lack of other drivers, its a more integral sound, but does that quantify in a large spacious natural soundstage?. Also i listen to all types of music, so would the deal with electronica, trance, Techno, hard rock, as well as my Bill Frisell, Hols, Mahler.
Im also at a loss, that if i did buy the basic kit from wilmslow for the labyrinth , i dont know of anyone in the UK, (and ive been searching for hours trust me), to make the flatpack kit in plywood.
Would anyone be so kind as to make some In the UK, or put me in touch with a company, that could make the exact same kit, in Ply?
thanks for any help
A horn's job is to couple an air volume to the driver. The larger the air volume the lower the range of coupling. The horn is shaped so that it produces this coupling evenly over a broad range of frequencies unlike a simple ported loudspeaker which couples at only the port frequency. When the driver is well coupled to the air, which is the point of sound reproduction, the energy transferred to the cone from the voice coil is transferred to the air much more efficiently. This in turn means that the cone must move a shorter distance, use less power, produce less distortion, etc.
The wide variety of horn shapes are all designed to minimize resonances which affect the lower end response, and to minimize diffraction within the horn which affects the high frequency response.
At the two extremes:
Plane Wave Tube-
maximum loading but with resonances and plummeting high frequency response.
Flat Baffle-
Minimum loading but with the smoothest frequency response.
The wide variety of horn shapes are all designed to minimize resonances which affect the lower end response, and to minimize diffraction within the horn which affects the high frequency response.
At the two extremes:
Plane Wave Tube-
maximum loading but with resonances and plummeting high frequency response.
Flat Baffle-
Minimum loading but with the smoothest frequency response.
With 60 million people stuffed into such a small place there must be someone that would be happy to take your money instead of Wilmslow. Finding a local craftsman also gets you much more flexibility in terms of what horn to build (because the 206 recommended horn, along with the 126 & 103 ones are not all that great -- i have had personal experience with the last 2... if we don't find a use for them, they will likely feed the Halloween bonfire).
dave
dave
Why not contact Wilmslow and ask if they can get the Labyrinth cabs made in ply for you. I know they sub contract their cabinets out to a Cabinet makers who did a fine job of my Prestige. Its only a matter of working in a different material. I would be surprised if they could not get it done.
Yes Kreekinteeth i think i will do that . they are not too expensive so i will have some fun making them, and If i dont like them, which i doubt that will be the case, I havent lost much.
I will however still look into different avenues and kits, before making my mind up.
thanks for your help guys.
. they are not too expensive so i will have some fun making them, and If i dont like them, which i doubt that will be the case, I havent lost much.I will however still look into different avenues and kits, before making my mind up.
thanks for your help guys.
Before you decide to go ahead with the 206 recommended horn, read this
http://www.world-designs.co.uk/forum/showthread.php?t=2049
dave
http://www.world-designs.co.uk/forum/showthread.php?t=2049
dave
The regular 206 enclosure isn't too bad -I've been a bit harsh on it in the past, and there are worse boxes out there. But there are also better ones too. If you want a flat pack kit, then I would suggest dropping the 206 into the FE208ESigma horn. It's a bit more compact, and goes lower, smoother than the 206 cabinet. It also looks a heck of a lot better too IMO. But as Dave says, MDF is not the stuff to build them from. On the up-side, the panels are all pretty much doubled in one way or the other, which will help kill the resonance problems, but ply will still be better.
Hi Scott and also thankyou to you planet for the links to Scotts post on the 206 , going into the 208's enclosure on the worlds design forum .
Sadly Scott, I joined the forum but they wont show me the pics because im a newbie, anychance you could put them on here please?.
Also I have looked on the wilsmslow audio site and seen the 208 sigma horn enclosures. I take it the name given by WA, "labyrinth", is purely a name put to the 206 enclosure?
What im saying is, the cabinet designs for all the Fostex Drivers on there are unversally designed for each fostex Driver. Its the same as the ones you speak of ?
I notice that the 208,s are round 230mm diameter and the 206's are square 207mm diameter. so does this mean I ask wilmslow to account for a square apeture, in the cabinet kit front, Baffle?? for the 206, or a modification on there part or mine?.
Forgive my naivety i havent constructed any speakers at all.
thanks for your help:
Sadly Scott, I joined the forum but they wont show me the pics because im a newbie, anychance you could put them on here please?.
Also I have looked on the wilsmslow audio site and seen the 208 sigma horn enclosures. I take it the name given by WA, "labyrinth", is purely a name put to the 206 enclosure?
What im saying is, the cabinet designs for all the Fostex Drivers on there are unversally designed for each fostex Driver. Its the same as the ones you speak of ?
I notice that the 208,s are round 230mm diameter and the 206's are square 207mm diameter. so does this mean I ask wilmslow to account for a square apeture, in the cabinet kit front, Baffle?? for the 206, or a modification on there part or mine?.
Forgive my naivety i havent constructed any speakers at all.
thanks for your help
:
emperor said:
Yes
https://secure.wilmslow-audio.co.uk...th=25&osCsid=e36319001d998f2381d9b87fcee17b36
FE208eS cab (i don't know where the Z got started being ised, the greek symbol Sigma is an S) is the same price as the 206 cab. It will no doubt be more in ply. You should also ask why they are making them out of MDF when Fostex is very specific (and if you talk with them in person, pretty vocal -- with reason in my experience) about using plywood.
If you go here you can download the Fostex plans & you will see that -- except for the use of MDF -- it is what wilmslow is flogging.
The outside of the drivers are different, but the required cut-out is the same 185 mm.
So, except for the challenge of talking them into using void free plywood, it is just a case of ordering 208eS flatpaks with 206 drivers.
The 208 cab is also more sensibly specified with 18 mm material.
dave
thanks for the update planet!
Right some serious issues, i have had with the design is, My music styles vary immensely, the biggest test will be , do they do trance music and Techno, rock?
i can forgive thunderous transmission like bass clout for musicality, but i would like it if they could rise to the occasion, as apart from the Classical guitar playing of Narcisso Yepes, i also like prodigys "Fat of the land".
I did realise that i would have to make a little compromise with this design, Well at one point i considered getting some Quad ESL63's, and you cant drive them too loud neither.
Right some serious issues, i have had with the design is, My music styles vary immensely, the biggest test will be , do they do trance music and Techno, rock?
i can forgive thunderous transmission like bass clout for musicality, but i would like it if they could rise to the occasion, as apart from the Classical guitar playing of Narcisso Yepes, i also like prodigys "Fat of the land".
I did realise that i would have to make a little compromise with this design, Well at one point i considered getting some Quad ESL63's, and you cant drive them too loud neither.
MathCad generated FR plot for the FE206E in the FE208ESigma cabinet attached. The 206 cabinet's not bad at all but I prefer this one. Looks better, more grunt in the LF, and there's the added potential to upgrade to the Sigma at a later date.
No full-range driver is ever going to beat a multi-way for big dynamic swings in music. That said, a good FR setup will often beat a mediocre x-way in this respect, so it's back to ye olde swings & roundabouts again.
What I can tell you is that the 208 horn, with the 208 driver (or the 206 mounted in it for that matter) is seriosly impressive in the LF -you'll be flat to the mid 30Hz regions. More significantly, scale and weight are staggering. First time I heard these cabs a mutual friend whipped out his torture album: Metallica's S&M. If you've never heard this before, trust me -it's a killer at the low end. They lapped it up. The phrase is used too often, but in this case it was literally true: the floor shook. That bottom E on the bass guitar and the synth bass got you in the chest, and I don't mean a light prod. The first time you hear a hybrid horn variation with this kind of grunt, you'll feel like your chest is being crushed due to the amount of air they couple to.
No full-range driver is ever going to beat a multi-way for big dynamic swings in music. That said, a good FR setup will often beat a mediocre x-way in this respect, so it's back to ye olde swings & roundabouts again.
What I can tell you is that the 208 horn, with the 208 driver (or the 206 mounted in it for that matter) is seriosly impressive in the LF -you'll be flat to the mid 30Hz regions. More significantly, scale and weight are staggering. First time I heard these cabs a mutual friend whipped out his torture album: Metallica's S&M. If you've never heard this before, trust me -it's a killer at the low end. They lapped it up. The phrase is used too often, but in this case it was literally true: the floor shook. That bottom E on the bass guitar and the synth bass got you in the chest, and I don't mean a light prod. The first time you hear a hybrid horn variation with this kind of grunt, you'll feel like your chest is being crushed due to the amount of air they couple to.
Attachments
Its funny that the Fostex driver (alone) on the wilmslow audio website says, that the specs for the 206 are as follows
Overall Size - 208mm square
Sensitivity (2.83v/1m) - 96dB
Impedance - 8 ohm
Nominal power handling - 90w
Free air resonance - 39Hz
Frequency range - 40Hz-20kHz !!!
Surely that cant mean that the horn cuts the Bass?, hmmmm
i think this is a mistake on the website for the labyrinth, not that i would know, it just dont add up, and i trust Scott, in what he says, that the roll off, from a horn enclosure would pronounce the lower regions, surely?
Overall Size - 208mm square
Sensitivity (2.83v/1m) - 96dB
Impedance - 8 ohm
Nominal power handling - 90w
Free air resonance - 39Hz
Frequency range - 40Hz-20kHz !!!
Surely that cant mean that the horn cuts the Bass?, hmmmm
i think this is a mistake on the website for the labyrinth, not that i would know, it just dont add up, and i trust Scott, in what he says, that the roll off, from a horn enclosure would pronounce the lower regions, surely?
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