Spider27 Posted November 3, 2024 Posted November 3, 2024 Hello. Has anyone experienced with Fostex 4 or 5 inch single full range driver (FE126 series) in back loaded horn cabinet such as Frugal Horn or similar type of cabinet? Based on your experience, What amps would goes well with this type of speakers in small room set up? Popular Fostex FE126 drivers usually 92db at 8ohm so easy to drive and low watt Class A solid state or SET tube amp may be ideal match. Looking for something not too expensive to experiment. Thank you. 1
mwhouston Posted November 3, 2024 Posted November 3, 2024 (edited) 1 hour ago, Spider27 said: Hello. Has anyone experienced with Fostex 4 or 5 inch single full range driver (FE126 series) in back loaded horn cabinet such as Frugal Horn or similar type of cabinet? Based on your experience, What amps would goes well with this type of speakers in small room set up? Popular Fostex FE126 drivers usually 92db at 8ohm so easy to drive and low watt Class A solid state or SET tube amp may be ideal match. Looking for something not too expensive to experiment. Thank you. Yes definitely one of my tube power amps would work well here depending on music listen to and at what volume. Im advertising an triode power amp with attenuator at the mo. for sale on SNA. And we are both in Vic. PM me. Edited November 3, 2024 by mwhouston 1
Ihearmusic Posted January 10 Posted January 10 Impressive sound from this set up. Solid state single transistor class A amplifier. Tube amp not necessary unless you want to go down the rabbit whole. 2
Spider27 Posted January 10 Author Posted January 10 19 minutes ago, Ihearmusic said: Impressive sound from this set up. Solid state single transistor class A amplifier. Tube amp not necessary unless you want to go down the rabbit whole. Awesome looking speaker. Bet that it sounds good. May I know what SS amp that you are pairing with the speakers? 1
aussievintage Posted January 10 Posted January 10 (edited) Smaller drivers have the shortcoming of lack of bass. With a small SET amplifier, you will want to tweak the bass a bit (boost it via a tone control or eq), so you will need just a bit more power than the stated efficiency might suggest. That, or sit close to the speakers. I like 6" or 8" drivers, and us 8" Fostex myself in a TQWT design. My experience with small drivers back loaded this way was with a couple of different models of Akai "Jet Stream" speakers. They had a folded rear firing horn/tube internally. The 4" ones were OK, with the bass tweaked. Edited January 10 by aussievintage 1
Spider27 Posted January 11 Author Posted January 11 4 minutes ago, aussievintage said: Smaller drivers have the shortcoming of lack of bass. With a small SET amplifier, you will want to tweak the bass a bit (boost it via a tone control or eq), so you will need just a bit more power than the stated efficiency might suggest. That, or sit close to the speakers. My experience with small drivers back loaded this way was with a couple of different models of Akai "Jet Stream" speakers. The 4" ones were OK, with the bass tweaked. Great to know. I believe that @Ihearmusic's amp has tone control with knobs I presume from the photo so suit well with Pyramid Tapered Quarter Wave Pipe speakers (?) with small full range driver
Ihearmusic Posted January 11 Posted January 11 19 hours ago, Spider27 said: Awesome looking speaker. Bet that it sounds good. May I know what SS amp that you are pairing with the speakers? The amp in the photo is a Simple DIY class A amp. I build this years ago just to see how simple and amp can be made. This set up has such a big sound stage, it is hard to believe. The Amp has got no tone control. The 3 knobs are: Input selector; volume and on/off. 1 1
aussievintage Posted January 11 Posted January 11 (edited) 12 minutes ago, Ihearmusic said: The amp in the photo is a Simple DIY class A amp. I build this years ago just to see how simple and amp can be made. This set up has such a big sound stage, it is hard to believe. It's something that's hard to put across. Hard to convince people that those big complicated amplifiers are just not necessary. Simple amps can be very very good. I mostly listen to a two stage amp, an input gain stage, and an output stage. Less than a dozen support components, some iron, and a rectifier and some filter caps. Mine are valve, but as you are showing, it can be done with SS as well. Maybe that would be a nice project for me (not that I need another amp). I do have a class A headphone amp using FETs that is very similar. When I want complicated, I buy a class D board from aliexpress, these days - less than $10. Edited January 11 by aussievintage 2
mwhouston Posted January 11 Posted January 11 (edited) 17 minutes ago, Ihearmusic said: The amp in the photo is a Simple DIY class A amp. I build this years ago just to see how simple and amp can be made. This set up has such a big sound stage, it is hard to believe. The Amp has got no tone control. The 3 knobs are: Input selector; volume and on/off. What is the amp name, not the ZCA? Got a schematic? Edited January 11 by mwhouston
Ihearmusic Posted January 12 Posted January 12 23 hours ago, aussievintage said: It's something that's hard to put across. Hard to convince people that those big complicated amplifiers are just not necessary. Simple amps can be very very good. I mostly listen to a two stage amp, an input gain stage, and an output stage. Less than a dozen support components, some iron, and a rectifier and some filter caps. Mine are valve, but as you are showing, it can be done with SS as well. Maybe that would be a nice project for me (not that I need another amp). I do have a class A headphone amp using FETs that is very similar. When I want complicated, I buy a class D board from aliexpress, these days - less than $10. I agree. I am the same with valve. I prefer simple over complicated. My builds are usually on the simple side as well. 2
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