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I finally finished this pair up last night. They're a small, floorstanding, back-loaded horn design. The tops of the cabinet are 28" from the floor. The bottom end is remarkably rich for such a tiny (80mm) driver. The mids and top are really smooth and detailed, perfect for jazz or girls with guitars.

Ummm ... wait a minute Ty ... we've seen your woodwork -



Where did you buy those beautiful speaker cabinets? lol

TomMcNally wrote:Ummm ... wait a minute Ty ... we've seen your woodwork -

I've been practicing.

Feel free to flip through the whole album if you want to see all the gory construction details. If it makes any difference, I started last June. What can I say? It takes me as long to build a speaker as it does an amplifier!
http://s69.photobucket.com/albums/i43/T ... Buschhorn/

Very nice indeed. You might inspire me to try something.

Those aren't the little Fostex speakers you got from me are they?
I though they were smaller. I was going to make a wooden
tube boombox, but chickened out.

... tom

TomMcNally wrote:Those aren't the little Fostex speakers you got from me are they?

Close, but not quite. I got the Fostex FE87e from you. The FF85K is the similarly sized but slightly more refined cousin. Piston area is the same but it's got a bigger magnet, an aluminum dustcap, and the fancy UDR (up/down roll) surround usually reserved for their Sigma series.

The FE87e are still happily living in a set of Makizou clones I made a year (or two?) ago. I will admit the success of that project was no small part of the inspiration to tackle the Buschhorns.

You are creative, very good and slick design. Congrats!
RK

ramkumar wrote:You are creative, very good and slick design. Congrats!
RK

Thank you. I'll take credit for the carpentry, though the design belongs to Dr. Buschhorn. If you have a table saw and you haven't yet built these cabinets, I'd suggest you do. They perform far beyond their means, especially when equipped with the recently and regrettably discontinued FF85K drivers from Fostex.

I'm listening to them tonight through a Stereo 35, and the imaging simply hangs in the air. The overall extension belies the fact that these are mere single coil 72mm drivers.

Ty, you have inspired me.
Thanks for sharing your photo album it helps to see more of what is involved in the process. This will be a challenge for me but I want to build a pair of the Buschhorns of my own.
Tell me though, if the FF85K is no longer available, is there a good sounding substitute driver for this box? What should I be looking at or for, in the specs, when shopping for drivers? How can I guesstimate that one driver may work but another wont? What do I need to know or look for?
Thanks, Tim

Awesome looking work - Im sure they sound as good as they look !

Tim Yanasak wrote:This will be a challenge for me but I want to build a pair of the Buschhorns of my own.
Tell me though, if the FF85K is no longer available, is there a good sounding substitute driver for this box? What should I be looking at or for, in the specs, when shopping for drivers?

Just take your time, measure exactly, and cut carefully. Check each angle with a square or a measuring tape before the glue fully sets, and don't expect to glue more than a piece or two each evening. At least that's my strategy - I don't really have much in the way of woodworking skills. The real carpenters bang these things out in a afternoon because they actually know how to use their table saw, and they drive a couple finish nails into each piece to hold it while the glue sets.

The new Fostex FF85WK is the replacement for the discontinued FF85K, and from all reports it works equally well. I believe this cabinet was originally designed for a Visaton driver that is popular in Europe. You can probably use any small full range driver. Look for something that has a low Qts. The FF85K claimed a Qts of 0.47, so aim for something close to that. I understand the Mark Audio full range drivers are also supposed to perform well.

You can also "stretch" the top chamber of the cabinet by an inch or so, and you would be able to fit a 4" full range driver. The Fostex FE126En is a popular choice.

Oh, and welcome to DIYtube!