Wide-banders, Fostex, and Back Loaded Horn Enclosure Designs

Found some bk16 plans if madisound doesn't restock

http://www.single-ended.com/Lagarto/backload.htm

and you want the ultimate crazy cabinets, find plans for the Nagaoka d-168 Super Rhea. They are a scaled up version of the d-101 Swans shown here

 

Unless you are willing to high pass the wideband driver to a pair of subs, i would go the simple A26 way.

Theres no way anyone can complain about the SQ for the $. Truly outstanding bargain

 

Because the initial goal was to use the Studio B as the amp, I've purchased the 168EZ drivers from @tommytakis and am going to build one of the BLH boxes. If I can't get acceptable performance out of that, then I'll probably build a set of A26's and find another amp to use... (really hoping to avoid another amp and have the Studio B pull both 2 channel and headphone duty in the living room).

At least building these will be an interesting project to get me thru the rest of this long winter (upwards of another 2' of snow expected late this week)

 

If you guys without space or tools want to build wide-bander speakers there is foam-core.:
https://www.diyaudio.com/community/threads/foam-core-board-speaker-enclosures.223313/

There are also dml projects.:
https://www.diyaudio.com/community/threads/a-study-of-dmls-as-a-full-range-speaker.272576/

I tried a few of each. Doesn't require any soldering since you can use stuff like this.

 

Just installed the double magnet sigmas. Had to use a jigsaw to widen the hole a bit to give clearance

 

I'm currently burning in the new drivers, but it seems like even right from the get-go, I can pick up more ambient and spatial cues with better attack. They sound slightly more lean than the standard sigma, but hopefully, it's just a burn-in thing. I'll try to post a more thorough impression once I live with them for a while but I think these are a solid upgrade from the standard sigma drivers.

 

this, the single driver sound is really worth it. and imo everyone needs a single driver system to understand what multi driver box cannot do
the 6.5" fostex might not need HPF and might be able to push near 100db before real distortion, while the smaller 4" or 5" models definitely do need a HPF.

add a REL sub and your in business with very little money.

 

I’ve always been curious about using 4” drivers with huge cabinets. For western designers I tend to see this as compromise for high WAF speakers with a small footprint. Like the Arro Totem. But in Japan they have a lot of back loaded horns with small drivers that take up as much space as a 3-way BWC.

At first I thought that the cabinet is useless if you have a HPF, However there are quite a few 3-way horns that have a small driver with a rather large front loaded horn. Leads me to believe that the big cabinet has benefits beyond just bass extension.

 

In case anyone is interested in Voxativ: I was looking into DIY speaker options a few years back and corresponded with Holger at Voxativ to ask if they had any plans for enclosures to go with their full range drivers. He sent these:





He also sent the expected FR for this enclosure using their 1.6 driver:

 

Yes!!

If possible compare a bookshelf(Kanspea?) with the same driver to see what the differences are. Bass extension is a given but what about the vocal range?

 

ive been rocking a pair of fostex fe27en in fonkens enclosure in my kitchen powered with a topping tp20 and a ipad for near a decade now. Coltrane is utterly joyful on that ridiculously budget systemby literal hi-end. save for bass, those fostex sings. and the 4" surprisingly measure down to 50hz! Never heard the higher end sigma. I hated the 8'' fostex, love the smaller 3 or 4'' unit. I do feel 6.5" wideband is probably the best size/trade-off.

def this. let us know how much the bigger cabs adds to such a small driver

looking at Voxativ, the first thing, well dats not true, after the price the first thing that strikes me is the lack of measurements.
this is a red-flag for me. the stereophile measurement of some of their voxativ 30k speakers are literally shameful. Field-coil supravox strikes me as true hi-end in the wideband world

 

I keep seeing Lii Audio pop up in the groups I’m in. I haven’t seen too much here but anyone familiar with these?