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Fostex driver for Madisound BK-20

PostPosted: Sat Mar 14, 2015 9:39 pm
by Ludwig
Which driver would y'all choose for the BK-20 cabinet to be driven by the 1626 Clementine?

Re: Fostex driver for Madisound BK-20

PostPosted: Sun Mar 15, 2015 2:48 pm
by jwhitmor
I built my own back loaded horns with Fostex drivers. Mine work great in a 14' x 20' room. Yours will be larger., so I would reccomend using the Fostex FE206En.
If you are putting in a super tweeter, then the Fostex FE208EZ will have more bass (at almost twice the cost). and with less midrange beaming.
You should dry fit the parts before you start gluing because sometimes they interfere with each other if they are not installed in the correct order.

Re: Fostex driver for Madisound BK-20

PostPosted: Sun Mar 15, 2015 6:54 pm
by Ludwig
That looks fantastic!!
What cabinet and driver did you use?

Re: Fostex driver for Madisound BK-20

PostPosted: Sun Mar 15, 2015 8:30 pm
by jwhitmor
My wife wanted something not too obtrusive so these cabinets are only 32" tall. I cut all the cabinet parts myself from one 4'x8' sheet of 3/4" oak veneer plywood. Many internal parts too, that form the folded horn (Fostex has plans you can download). The corners are 3/4" square walnut strips, so no plywood laminations are showing. The drivers are Fostex FE126En. The drivers are 8 ohm, direct wired, with no compensation network. There is enough bass for me, tight and accurate, but no subsonics. The midrange is very dynamic, and the sound stage is detailed if you sit six or so feet back, and in front of the drivers. (Deffinately different from my Ohm Model F speakers, which disperse direct and reflected music in all 360 degrees). The highs do not quite have the champagne glass sparkle that a super tweeter would give them, but my old ears have lost some of that sparkle too. Never-the-less, a picolo still sounds like a picolo should. Everything is a trade-off, and what full range drivers do right, they do very, very, well. Dead on coherence, precise sound stage positioning that does not wander about (assuming the source recording was done well). They often have a few frequency "bumps" but so do "perfect speakers" when you take them out of the anachoic chamber and put them in your listening room. Tubes should not sound better than a well made solid state amplifier, but I think they do. A full range driver should not sound as good as a 36 driver transmission line speaker, but still some people like them.

I think the BK-20 (pre-cut) is Baltic Birch, which is good stuff. You can get birch veneer tape online to finish your plywood edges if you want to. The veneer tape comes in three forms, sticky adhesive backed, heat activated adhesive (iron on), or bare (glue on with wood glue). I think glue on is the only way to go, tedious to clamp, but does not come loose six months later.

Re: Fostex driver for Madisound BK-20

PostPosted: Mon Sep 07, 2015 8:14 pm
by djonesii
Just to ask.... have you ever played and blues through the Foxtex's in the horn enclosure with a 6L6 Clementine?